Moral ideals

Moral ideals are the shining lighthouse or polar light in the age of the consciousness soul, guiding mankind to its future of transformation and spiritualization of the lower bodies (see Schema FMC00.431). In this age of the developing consciousness soul, Man becomes 'ripe' to become a citizen of the spiritual moral cosmos by becoming aware of and influenced by the moral cosmos, and making the conscious choice out of full freedom and inner strength to do the good, to choose for love. (see Schema FMC00.428A on Human character - the I and threefold soul).

This is how the human being becomes Free Man Creator and participates to creation though his thoughts, feelings and actions creates elementals that will develop as Seeds for future worlds.

The future of humanity after individuation of soul and spirit from common group souls through the process of incarnation into physically separate bodies, is a spiritual unification: to cluster again into new group souls based based on moral ideals (1908-06-07-GA098, and Schema FMC00.607), with as convergence point the Christ as the future group soul of humanity - as illustrated with Schema FMC00.594

Aspects

Cosmic perspective - contributing to creation and future worlds

• "what lives in Man as morality shines out into the cosmos solar, spiritual radiance .. even if only a dozen people possess moral and spiritual enthusiasm" (1920-12-18-GA202) and this is the creation of a new center (see Schema FMC00.188 on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension). This is how the Earth will become a new sun for a new cosmos, with the center being the Second Adam group soul of the Christ and spiritualized humanity. This process is further discussed on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension).
• moral and ethical ideals are the 'seeds of future worlds' and basis for a new creation on Future Jupiter (1921-09-24-GA207)

Ennobling morality

• humanity is in process of a long-term development (see also The great journey of humanity) that includes a free choice between good and evil, a choice for love and selflessness and ennobling one's moral character (or egoistic selfishness and through evil races, eventually being thrown off the course of regular evolution with the Eighth sphere).
  • the individual ennobling of one's soul and astral body is to eliminate the differences of race and nation. If morals are not ennobled, this will lead to brutality in every possible form in human culture and society (1904-12-23-GA093)
  • for each human being individually, improving human character and soul is part of each path of initiation, see eg Initiation exercises#Elemental balance - transformation of soul mirrors
• Just as there must be morality in men’s actions in the world of practical affairs, so too, morality must pervade the life of thought ...by no means every thought is permissible (1922-09-23-GA216)

The moral and karma - and journey between death and a new birth

• the universe is moral: between death and a new birth, Man experiences orientation amongst the beings of the higher hierarchies as moral orientation. Cosmic thoughts light up as bearers of morality. The ether is permeated with moral impulses (1922-11-26-GA219)
• The 'moralizing' mission of Man in the cosmos: the astral body constantly judges the moral value of our deeds. After death this totality of moral judgements is inserted into the soul which introduces it into the cosmos. (1922-09-14-GA215)
• In the Sun sphere everything that human beings had begun to feel as good .. even in the smallest way .. becomes a reality that is beheld by the second hierarchy .. we are seen by the beings of the Sun sphere in the light of goodness in us. (1924-05-29-GA239, see Passage through the planetary spheres after death#1924-05-24-GA239)

Various

• connection of the moral world-order with the physical world-order.
  • in the spirit world moral laws and the physical laws of nature coincide, see Spirit world#1912-02-25-GA143
• moral action is gathered by the seraphim, and is the source of warmth for the whole cosmic order .. when you act and unfold the will, you are the source of warmth or fire of the seraphim ... (just as when Man thinks, imagines, he is the kindled light of the cherubim) (1914-12-19-GA156)
• moral ideals (1920-12-18-GA202, 1921-07-24-GA206, 1921-08-07-GA206, 1921-09-24-GA207, 1921-10-02-GA207)
• effect on children:
  • the child’s organism is a sense organ, a delicate structure where every impression permeates all of it. The first impression a child receives from any moral manifestation is a soul impression .. and the soul always works down into the bodily nature .. all this passes—not crudely but in a subtle and delicate way—into the processes of growth, circulation, and digestion (1924-04-13-GA309)

• working as formative forces and higher ethers
  • moral ideals stimulate the warmth-organism, producing sources of light in the air organism, sources of tone in the fluid organism, and seeds of life in the solid organism (1920-12-18-GA202)
• the increasing affinity of Man and mankind with moral values in the Current Postatlantean epoch has to do with the Development of the I.
  • Rudolf Steiner describes how empathy, compassion, conscience (only) arose (as late as) in the fourth cultural age.
  • The current fifth and next sixth cultural ages will bring an ongoing increase in spirituality and selfless love (which will be more characteristic of and in the next great Sixth epoch). For some pointers, see ao Sixth cultural age#1915-06-15-GA159 for moral quality of brotherly love, and faculty number 4 (karmic foresight) on Schema FMC00.081 on Christ in the etheric.
  • For further study and understanding, see also Human character - the I and threefold soul and the nature and impact of the consciousness soul (Schema FMC00.428A below), as well the important 1910-09-11-GA123 (links below) that goes along with this, and Schema FMC00.190.
• morality maps to the Good in Truth, Beauty, Good (TBG), it is linked to 'power' or 'inner strength' (everything that lives itself out in the will)

In art

• german idealism - focusing on concepts of the self, freedom, and morality
  • Goethe, in 'Faust' explores profound moral questions about human striving, freedom, and redemption
  • Schiller, in works like 'On the Aesthetic Education of Man', argues that humans can only be truly moral when they achieve inner freedom
  • Novalis, in 'Heinrich von Ofterdingen' presents a moral ideal that transcends everyday reality and the pursuit of a higher, spiritual truth, where morality is not bound by conventional rules but is connected to a higher, divine order. For Novalis love is the ultimate moral force through which individuals transcend their egoism and reach a higher form of moral and spiritual unity.
• moral ambiguity and dilemmas
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821-1881) work include philosophical debates, inner monologues, and moral dilemmas and are about the fundamental problems of existence - faith, free will, suffering, and redemption. In his novels the 'philosopher of the soul' explores psychological conflicts, the tension between good and evil. Characters like Raskolnikov in 'Crime and Punishment' or Ivan in 'The Brothers Karamazov' struggle with profound moral questions.
  • Shakespeare: portrays (eg in Hamlet, Macbeth) the moral ambiguity and moral complexity of life, where good and evil are intertwined, justice is sometimes elusive, and characters face ethical dilemmas and have to make difficult, morally ambiguous decisions. His plays invite to reflect on own moral beliefs and consequences of actions in an imperfect world.

Inspirational quotes

1788 - Friedrich Schiller

Serious, good will is the greatest, most beautiful quality of the spirit. Success lies in a higher, invisible hand. Only intention gives value to our efforts.

quote from a letter by Schiller o his friend, Christian Gottfried Körner, dated December 20, 1788. This statement reflects Schiller's deep ethical and philosophical views on the importance of moral intention and virtue over worldly success, a recurrent theme in his writings and works.

Note: good will is an inner quality, very different from good intentions at the level of and based on thought forms.

1908-01-26-GA266

We know that the flow of humanity is already splitting in two parts, the one that passes into the good, the moral, and the other that ends into the chilling evil. This is already happening, the germs are already present.

1910-11-12-GAXXX

Moral qualities produce results: they bring about karmic effects. They may change during one incarnation .. but in the next incarnation they must descend right down into the physical organism.

1911-03-06-GA127

Immorality exists only because people have no knowledge. Only the darkness of untruth makes immoral actions possible.

1913-04-03-GA062

.. moral impulses speak from inner depths .. even to the simplest and most uneducated human souls .. many highly educated people, even philosophers or scientists, can be shamed in the presence of a simple personality who may not be knowledgeable, and yet from the depths of his soul can fulfill sacrificial acts of true human love in the most difficult situations.

1918-09-07-GA184

All that we see round us with our eyes, or that we hear with our ears all that we perceive around us with all our senses, will, when the Earth reaches the Future Venus stage, be non-existent; but out of that nothingness the possibility will be given for the Ideals of modern humanity to become the external Ordering of Nature. ... It is of immense significance that Man should at the present time, have this illumination: that the Ideals of the present constitute the Nature of the future.

1920-12-18-GA202

How greatly is our sense of responsibility enhanced if we know that without people on the Earth, who can kindle authentic morality or glowing spiritual ideals in their soul, the human race would not aid our world's further evolution. Rather than working towards a new creation, they would help the world to die away.

This power of radiance present upon Earth works out into the universe, so that what lives as morality in us shines out - invisibly initially for ordinary human perception.

If a sad age dawned across the globe when millions and millions of people passed their days devoid of spirituality - in which I included morality, which is indeed part of it - the Earth would however still shine out in solar, spiritual radiance if only a dozen people still possessed lucid moral and spiritual enthusiasm.

1922-12-15-GA219

In the spiritual realm the whole reality is moral, whereas on Earth there is only a reflection of that reality. But Man, we must remember, belongs to both worlds.

1927 - Hermann Hesse in 'Steppenwolf'

To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do.

1966-06-06 - Robert F. Kennedy

.

'Ripple of Hope' speech in South Africa, about the importance of individuals standing up against injustice and the collective impact of their actions.

Each time a Man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

See also 1904-11-09-GA089 and Schema FMC00.188 that explain the creation of a new center, exactly as is captured in this image by Robert F. Kennedy. More on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension#A new center gets created

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.607: provides an overview of how the law of evolution applies to the development and spiritual guidance of mankind, with a focus on the evolution between the previous Atlantean epoch towards the next Sixth epoch. As development is only possible through differentiation, different segments at various stages of karmic development or spiritual maturity must be separated in order to develop further. Examples of this separation were the different Mysteries and Oracles in the Atlantean epoch, and the castes in India and other areas incl. Egypt. In the future, moral castes will develop based on spiritual maturity as part of the separation of mankind into good and evil segments or sub-races (190X-XX-XX-GA097, 1908-06-21-GA104, 1910-GA013)

The Current Postatlantean epoch is a gradual training to independence for humanity. This is depicted below with a transfer of the guidance of mankind by leaders not part of humanity, that developed on other planets (see also Three Classes of Buddhas) .. to - in the Sixth epoch - the leadership of mankind by the most advanced humans who developed on Eart . The schema shows the gradual evolution of these trends across the cultural ages, and how the sixth cultural age will seed the sixth epoch with the appearance of these moral castes and the fact that the Masters of the White Lodge will become publicly known as leaders of humanity.

Notes for Schema commentary page:

• regarding boxes on the lower left:
  • examples of priests and priest-kings: Zarathustra in the Ancient Persian cultural age, the Egyptian Pharaohs
  • further coverage of these stages in 1919-10-27-GA193 (and 1919-10-19-GA191) - see Contemporary worldview war#1919-10-27-GA193
    • first: Egyptian Pharaohs, Babylonian rulers, Asiatic rulers .. were initiates
    • then : "the priest-type emerged as ruler and was really the ruler right up to the Reformation and the Renaissance"
    • since that time: the economist has been in command, rulers are merely the handymen,of the economists.
      • has become an impersonal ahrimanic force/entity as in the 19th century due to evolution of banking

• regarding castes in India
  • the castes in India should not be related to the first Ancient Indian cultural age .. they appeared later and lasted at least until the fourth cultural age
  • the lecture references given for the castes in India couples karma-based segmentation to the number of incarnations, hence the term 'spiritual maturity'
• the Southern stream of development consisted of the four most advanced segments or castes from the Atlantean epoch
• 1912-05-29-GA155 describes the Two streams of development as an excellent illustration of the two arms of the spiral of development, the need for two concurrent streams of development whereby a second one first stays behind, in order to be able to fructify and merge and grow further beyond the development of the first.
• for the development of moral castes, see also Moral idea'"`UNIQ--nowiki-0000029E-QINU`"'ls and Schema FMC00.188 and variants (on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension) that depicts how 'a new center is created' through this.
• compare this Schema also with
  • Schema FMC00.594 and the process of Individuation as central to the development of mankind in the Earth planetary stage of evolution; see narrative Unification#Individuation and differentiation
  • Schema FMC00.591 showing a more high-level view on why the period between the third and sixth epochs is thé crucial phase for the development of mankind, whereby Schema FMC00.052 zooms in to state the fifth and sixth cultural ages are the decisive ones, and Schema FMC00.422A on how only one third reaches the goal at the end of the fifth epoch
• physiognomy will become more important again in the next cultural ages and Sixth epoch, as a reflection of the soul and spiritual maturity: the outer physiognomy will directly mirror one's karma (1904-11-11-GA093) .. the physical body will become a 'stamp' of one's morality (1915-10-31-GA254, 1915-11-07-GA254) and "in the sixth epoch men will show good and evil on their faces" (1908-06-25-GA104)

Schema FMC00.431 provides and overview on how the I 'plays on the instrument of the soul and the different strings of human soul life', what comes out as music and the expression of individual soul life, is what we know as and call human character.

• how the I pulses through, works on, and develops the human soul
• the human I works itself up sentient -> intellectual ->  consciousness soul and can express itself in each of the three areas of soul life
• the I works order & harmony in the soul life, so a mutual fructification of sentient, intellectual, consciousness souls

Note: the schema was assembled mainly on the basis of the original german lecture versions of 1909-10-29-GA068B and 1910-03-12-GA068B. Purpose was to present a foundation. It can most probably be enrichted by including contents from the other five lectures.

See lowest row in the table, illustrating how moral ideals come from from the spiritual world through the consciousness soul and influence 'down' the intellectual and sentient soul and work in the lower bodies.

Schema FMC00.266 shows (see 1920-12-18-GA202 below and on Threefold Sun) how the spiritual Sun [1] works on Earth and Man [2], but that Man radiates this morality out into the cosmos [3], and after a certain distance is reflected: "the physical sun is only the seemingly physical appearance of a spiritual mirroring" [4].

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

1912-05-29-GA155 and 1912-05-30-GA155 provide an introduction in context spiritual foundation of morality - essential and suggestion to read in full

Reference extracts

1904-12-23-GA093

The essential secret, therefore, is this: The human being must know how to keep silence about the paths along which his I unfolds, and to regard his deeds, not his personal I, as the criterion.

The real heart of the secret lies in his deeds and in the overcoming of the I through deed. The I must remain concealed within the deed! Elimination of the interests of the personal I from the onstreaming flow of human karma, this belongs to the First Degree. Whatever individual karma the I incurs in the process is thereby wiped out. Nation, race, sex, position, religion ... all these work upon human egoism. Only when man has overcome them will he be free of egoism.

The astral body of every nation, every race, every epoch, has a definite color ... You will always find a color which is fundamental in the astral body of a human being who is a member of one of these classifications. This specific color must be eliminated.

Anthroposophical spiritual science works to level out the colors of the astral bodies of its adherents. They must be of like color — alike, that is to say, in respect of the basic color. This basic color gives rise to a certain substance called Kundalini, which holds together, within the human being, the forces which lead eventually to the spirit.

This leveling-out process will bring war and bloodshed in its train — war in the shape of economic strife among nations, pressure for expansion, suppression in every form, strife in the sphere of investment and profit, industrial undertakings, and so forth. And by adopting certain measures it will increasingly be possible to handle vast masses of people by sheer force; the individual will acquire greater and greater power over certain masses of the people. For the course of evolution is leading not towards greater democracy but towards oligarchy of the brutal kind, in that the power of the single individual will immeasurably increase.

If morals are not ennobled, this will lead to brutality in every possible form. This state of things will come, just as the great water catastrophe came to the Atlanteans.

1905-10-26-GA093A

Just as now human circumstances conform to fundamental laws of nature, so in the future will they conform to what is moral.

They will be graded in accordance with the stages of karma, seven degrees of morality (ethical human categories).

The caste system is a precursor of this later moral gradation. Categories of karma will be indicated in this way.

1906-05-26-GA094

[Importance of ideal]

To understand the development of humanity, it must be viewed in its whole range, only so can we see its high ideal. To believe that an ideal is not necessary for action is a great error. A Man without ideals is a Man without power.

The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine. Steam comprises in a small area a vast expanse of ‘condensed space’ — hence its tremendous power of expansion. The magic power of thought is of the same nature.

Let us then rise to the thought of the ideal of humanity as a whole, guided by the thread of its evolution through the epochs of time.

1907-12-27-GA101

for full lecture, see: Group souls of humanity#1907-12-27-GA101

.. there is a sentence in occultism:

the knowledge of the White Lodge, which is called the secret of life-generation, is not handed over to mankind before Man has learned the secret of sacramentalism.

'Sacramentalism' is an expression of the fact that human action must be imbued with moral perfection, with holiness.

...

You see the consciousness of Man being elevated from mineral consciousness to plant consciousness. Again it is an occult statement:

Man will only attain the state of plant consciousness when he will no longer be able to separate his own well-being from the well-being of all other people. As long as the individual seeks his well-being at the expense of other people, the situation has not arisen in which consciousness could be raised a step higher.

1908-06-07-GA098

Comment on this extract and systematic study process

Study comment: this quote/extract is what can be called a connecting or linchpin quote/extract. What is meant is that it connects to and is relevant for a number of related topics, and it is crucial in how it connects these. By bringing these perspectives together, a click or insight can be had, like the last piece of the puzzle that falls into place. Not every quote or extract has this quality.

This is therefore a good example that can be seen like 'a more central' quote, because it interconnects so clearly. Certain quotes by Rudolf Steiner have this particular property, that makes them stand out from the whole. One can imagine them to be 'a bit higher' in the sea or strata of ten thousands of pages of the GA. Such statements are dense (or 'densely written'), in that they interconnect threads (that each carry much meaning themselves), in other words they are important puzzle pieces if one has the underlying insights of the perspectives that it interconnects.

What we tried to explain here relates to the gaining of insight, the 'aha' feeling, and the building of imaginative insight pictures. See also the related Schema FMC00.395 and Study process and developing imaginations.

• One step back to provide some context. This site, and any knowledge representation, will segment information and knowledge based on some kind of logical outline of scope or taxonomy. This division is unavoidable if we want to use current technology, such as digital information mgmt systems on computers that allow us to easily structure and share large amounts of information but still be granular and specific. Note such division is not a characteristic of how Rudolf Steiner's lectured with thousands of lectures, as he deliberately mixed and combined subjects and perspectives etc. The latter makes for organic learning, and our soul work can indeed naturally 'connect all the dots'. For the human mind to grow and develop this is obvious. However this approach is not something that easily allows people to focus on one topic and zoom into this, for example, from any place across the world, as is what is happening with information on this FMC wiki. Therefore what the FMC wiki attempts is to offer a support tool for structured study, complementary to the organic learning and individual soul process which remains key.

Now to the example: this particular extract below touches on a number of topics, presented on this wiki on different topic pages:

• Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension, see especially Schema FMC00.188
• Pentecost - as the Holy Spirit and 'flame above the apostles head' is a symbol for the future of humanity, as described below
• Development of the I#Note 1 - Narrative to the Development of the Human I .. as the extract is key to the process of Individuation
• Group souls of humanity - as related to the previous point, but this extract is essential in the transformation of group souls of the past (Jehovah, blood impulse, etc) and the future (based on ideals)
• this clustering into communities based on ideals is also something that appears across the further development of humanity, eg on Seventh cultural age#Aspects: quote: castes or communities will be formed voluntarily by those who have grasped spiritual life (1908-08-16-GA105, 1909-06-11). It is an obvious 'explanation' for the division into good and evil also, there is the forming of new crumbles, clusters. Rudolf Steiner also gives this example in context of the secret societies and lodges.
• and then the extract also contains the element: what if Man disconnects from group soul as part of individuation, but cannot make its way to connect to the future ideal-based groupings? .. oa 'Man would transition into an elemental being' .. this connects to Sixteen paths of perdition and the symbol of Ahasver or Ahasueris, or the Wandering Jew.

Hence, just like Schemas are and appear 'across topics', also certain quotes need to appear 'across topics'. Technically in terms of implementation, on this site they are usually stored in one place/page, and the other pages point to that full extract. Sometimes just a few key sentences are added to the placeholder on the other pages to show the essence of the relevance of the extract/quote. Because it's not because the full extract is not on a topic page, that is is less relevant or important.

Quote

This is how it is in the realms that lie below the human being. Now, it could also happen that a human being excises himself off from his group-soul, and as an individual does not find a possibility to develop himself further. Because, whilst being a “limb” of his group-soul, he was guided and led by higher beings, but now he is left to his own guidance. If the human being does not acquire appropriate spiritual knowledge, then he is in danger to excise himself. This is the question that arises.

What is it now, that prevents human beings from excision, from wandering around without direction and aim, whilst earlier the spiritual group-soul has provided directions?

We have to become clear that Man more and more individualises himself and that in the future he has to voluntarily seek to unite with other humans.

In the past, a link existed based on blood relations, tribes and races. But this type of “union” comes more and more to an end.

Everything in a human being leads more and more to him becoming an individual being.

The only avenue possible is a reversal. Imagine there are a number of people on Earth who say to themselves, “We are going our own way. We want to find inside of us the direction and the goal of the path ourselves. We are all on the way to becoming more and more individualised human beings.” There is a danger of fragmentation. Already people are no longer able to endure spiritual unions. Today we are going as far as everyone having their own religion and presenting their own opinion as the highest ideal.

But when human beings internalise ideals, then this leads to agreement, to a common opinion. For example, we recognise internally that 3 x 3 = 9, or that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. This is an inner knowledge. One doesn’t need to cast a vote about such inner knowledge. No misunderstandings will arise about such inner recognitions, they lead to agreement. All spiritual truths are of this kind. What is taught by the science of the spirit, the human being finds through his inner forces. These lead him to an absolute unity, to peace and harmony. There are no two different opinions about a truth without one of them being wrong. The ideal is maximum possible internalisation—it leads to unity, to peace.

First there existed a human group-soul.

Then mankind was released from this group-soul in the past.

But in the future of evolution, people must set themselves a sure goal to strive towards. When they unite themselves in a higher wisdom, then from the higher worlds a group-soul will descend again—when free communities arise out of the bound natural communities.

What the leaders of the science of the spirit movement hope is that we will find in it a community where the hearts stream towards wisdom, as the plants stream towards sunlight. Where a common truth binds together the different I's, there we create an opportunity for a higher group-soul to descend. By turning our hearts together towards a higher wisdom, we embed the group-soul. We are building, so to speak, the bed, the environment, in which the group-soul is able to incarnate. Humans will enrich life on Earth by developing something that allows spiritual beings to descend from the higher worlds. This is the aim of the science of the spirit movement.

This was now once presented in a grand, magnificent form to mankind to show that the human being without such living spiritual ideal would transition into a different situation. This is a “symbol” that can illustrate to Man with overwhelming power how humanity can find the way through a spiritual union, to provide a site to incarnate for the common spirit. This symbol is put in front of us in the Whitsun community in which a number of people, glowing from a common feeling of fervent love and devotion, had assembled for common action. There were a number of people whose souls were still reverberating after the shattering event, so that in all of them the same was alive. In the convergence of this one same feeling they provided that in which a higher, a common soul could incarnate. This is expressed by the words that say the Holy Spirit—the group-soul—descended and separated itself into fiery tongues. This is the great symbol for the humanity of the future.

If the human being would not have found this connection, then Man would transition into an elemental being. Now humanity must search for a site for the beings from the higher worlds that bend downwards. With the Easter festival, Man was given the power to absorb into themselves such mighty imaginations and to strive towards oneness of the spirit. The Whitsun Festival is the fruit of the unfolding of this power.

Through the souls’ striving together towards the common wisdom, a lively relationship must be established forever with the forces and beings of the higher worlds, and with something that currently has as little meaning for humanity as the Whitsun Festival. Through the science of the spirit, it will once again become meaningful to Man. Once people understand the significance of the descent of the Holy Spirit for them in the future, then the Whitsun Festival will come to life again. It will then not only be a memory of that event in Jerusalem, but the everlasting Whitsun Festival of the united soul endeavour will manifest for humanity. It will become a symbol for the great future Whitsun community when mankind will unite in a common truth to allow higher beings the possibility to incarnate.

It will depend on human beings themselves, how valuable this will make the Earth for the future and how effective such ideals can be for mankind. Once humanity will strive towards wisdom in this right way, then higher spirits will join mankind.

1910-09-11-GA123

reference pointer on the link between consciousness soul and Christ Impulse, for lecture extracts see:

• Man's transformation and spiritualization#1910-09-11-GA123
• Christ Module 12 - the cosmic 'I'#1910-09-11-GA123

1911-01-07-GA127

lecture title: Consequential Moral Qualities from the Working of Karma

synopsis:

Realization of the doctrine of karma in everyday life. Envy goes back to luciferic influence, lies are due to ahrimanic influence. Suppressed envy becomes censoriousness in the same incarnation, suppressed mendacity becomes timidity to shyness. In the next life on Earth, physical defects are the result.

Amazement - a function of the astral body. The right mood of mind of the educator. Causes of long youthfulness and early senility old age. The fairy tale of the stork is a picture of a reality

1911-03-06-GA127

lecture title: The Significance of Spiritual Research For Moral Action

synopsis:

By acting immorally, people not only harm themselves, but humanity as a whole. The realization that Man belongs to the to the Earth organism is a tremendous moral impulse. With the prevalence of materialistic consciousness, the antipathy to mere morality grows against mere moral preaching. Christ as the archetype of man. Physical consequences of immorality and rebellion against the Christ on Future Jupiter. Christ on Future Jupiter. Morality radiates from true wisdom

1911-09-21-GA130

It is the Christ Impulse and is connected with the future ascent of humanity to Morality. Although Buddha's teaching is in a particular sense moral teaching, the Christ Impulse is not teaching but actual power which works as such and to an increasing degree imbues mankind with moral strength. (I Corinthians IV, 20)

1911-10-01-GA130

The Etherization of the Blood

[Man asleep]

It is different now, however, in the sleeping human being. When a human being sleeps, the occult observer is able to see a continual streaming from outside into the brain and also in the reverse direction, from the brain to the heart.

These streams, however, which in sleeping man come from outside, from cosmic space, from the macrocosm, and flow into the inner constitution of the physical and etheric bodies lying in the bed, reveal something remarkable when they are investigated. These rays vary greatly in different individuals. Sleeping human beings differ greatly from one another, and if those who are a little vain only knew how badly they betray themselves to esoteric observation when they go to sleep during public gatherings, they would try their best not to let this happen!

Moral qualities are revealed distinctly in the particular coloring of the streams that flow into human beings during sleep; in a person of lower moral principles the streams are quite different from what is observable in a person of higher principles. Endeavors to disguise one's nature by day are useless. In the face of the higher cosmic powers, no disguise is possible. In the case of a man who has only a slight inclination toward moral principles the rays streaming into him are a brownish red in color — various shades tending toward brownish red. In a man of high moral ideals the rays are lilac-violet. At the moment of waking or of going to sleep, a kind of struggle takes place in the region of the pineal gland between what streams down from above and what streams upward from below. When a man is awake, the intellectual element streams upward from below in the form of currents of light, and what is of moral-aesthetic nature streams downward from above. At the moment of waking or of going to sleep, these two currents meet, and in the man of low morality a violent struggle between the two streams takes place in the region of the pineal gland. In the man of high morality and an outstreaming intellectuality, a peaceful expansion of glimmering light appears in the region of the pineal gland. This gland is almost surrounded by a small sea of light in the moment between waking and sleeping. Moral nobility is revealed when a calm glow surrounds the pineal gland at these moments. In this way a man's moral character is reflected in him, and this calm glow of light often extends as far as the region of the heart. Two streams can therefore be perceived in man — one from the macrocosm, the other from the microcosm.

1912-01-15-GA143

Most people are not amoral out of ignorance, but because they harbour tendencies, impulses, desires and passions, which are at odds with what they know to be moral.

1912-05-30-GA155

both lectures from 1912-05-GA155 on spiritual foundation of morality, essential and suggestion to read in full

quote A

Even sympathy is awakened in the right manner if we take an interest in a being; and if, as anthroposophists, we set ourselves the task of extending our interests more and more and of widening our mental horizon, this will promote the universal brotherhood of mankind. Progress is not gained by the mere preaching of universal love, but by the extension of our interests further and further, so that we come to interest ourselves increasingly in souls with widely different characters, racial and national peculiarities, with widely different temperaments, and holding widely differing religious and philosophical views, and approach them with understanding. Right interest, right understanding, calls forth from the soul the right moral action.

Here also we must hold the balance between two extremes. One extreme is apathy which passes everything by and occasions immense moral mischief in the world. An apathetic person only lives in himself; obstinately, insisting on his own principles, and saying: This is my standpoint. In a moral sense this insistence upon a standpoint is always bad. The essential thing is for us to have an open mind for all that surrounds us. Apathy separates us from the world, while interest unites us with it. The world loses us through our apathy: in this direction we become unmoral. Thus, we see that apathy and lack of interest in the world are morally evil in the highest degree.

Anthroposophy is something which makes the mind ever more active, helps us to think with greater readiness of what is spiritual and to take it into ourselves. Just as it is true that warmth comes from the fire when we light a stove, so it is true that interest in humanity and the world comes when we study spiritual science. Wisdom is the fuel for interest.

1913-04-03-GA062

In ordinary everyday life in the physical world, moral impulses speak with great certainty from inner depths, even to the simplest human souls, the most uneducated.

And many highly educated people, even those who are philosophers or scientists, can be shamed in the presence of a simple personality who may not be knowledgeable, and yet from the depths of his soul can fulfill sacrificial acts of true human love in the most difficult situations.

The usual common knowledge, outer physical knowledge, certainly does not have to go to the depths from which moral impulses originate, those impulses from which morality must be established.

1914-12-19-GA156

It is not just what happens externally in the world through us, but, insofar as it is moral action, this moral action is gathered by the seraphim, and this moral action is the source of warmth for the whole cosmic order.

Under the influence of people who act immorally, the seraphim freeze, that is, they receive no warmth with which they can heat the whole cosmic world.

Under the influence of moral action, the seraphim acquire the powers by which the cosmic world order is maintained, just as physical warmth maintains the physical world order.

You see, the worldview that spiritual science gives us becomes very real:

• It brings us to the realization: When you think, when you imagine, you are the kindled light of the cherubim.
• When you act, when you do something, when you unfold the will, then you are the source of warmth, the source of fire of the seraphim.

We stride through the world, conscious that we are not useless good-for-nothings in it, but stand in the world order for the benefit of the whole world order, and conscious that it is also in our power to be a source of darkness in the world.

For,

• if we want to be dull and stupid and not think, then we increase the darkness, and the consequence of this is that the cherubim have no light.
• If we are bad and immoral, we increase the coldness in the whole world order, and the seraphim have no warmth.

With this practical goal in mind, one would like to bring spiritual science into the world so that it can take hold of hearts.

1915-03-14-GA159

is titled: 'Moral Impulses and Their Results'

These are the moral impulses of the human being. A really moral action, a really moral impulse arises from the same abilities of the soul which lead to clairvoyant abilities by means of a corresponding development. Indeed, for the everyday life the matter is different because everything that the human being is doing comes from his physical nature or from that which he has acquired for and by means of his physical nature in the course of life. If the human being develops desires if the human being does this or that what he is determined by his education or his other conditions of life, then it is the body from which the impulse comes. But there are real impulses in the human life which do not come from the body with which only the soul deals if the human being grasps these impulses: these are the moral impulses. A really moral action is that to which the body is called for help, indeed, so that one gets a mental picture of the moral action, but the impulse of the moral action is in the psycho-spiritual which is really independent of the bodily. One will never be able to define moral with the help of mere philosophy, and it is just the typical of philosophy, provided that it wants to be moral philosophy, that it does not come to a correct, satisfying definition of moral if it does not position itself on the ground that the human being is able to experience his psycho-spiritual in himself independently of his body.

[during sleep]

We know that human life is composed of moral, less moral and immoral actions and impulses. The difference which exists between moral and immoral actions appears only to the esoteric consideration in the true light. The human being goes in his smallest life cycle, in that time of twenty-four hours, into the sleeping state. This sleeping state means that the I and the astral body go out basically from the physical and etheric bodies and live then beyond this physical and etheric bodies. Not yet everything is said with it if I say that the I and the astral body leave the physical and etheric bodies. But you have also to realise that the I and the astral body, while they leave the etheric and the physical bodies, are taken up in the spiritual worlds which prevail in the supersensible around us. We go into the supersensible worlds with our I and astral body.

• If we have had a moral impulse during the day, during our waking state and have accomplished a moral action, then the following is true: we must be taken up with our I and astral body by the spirits of the next higher hierarchies, by the spirits, which we count to the hierarchy of the angels, of the archangels et cetera. These take us up; we go into them as it were in the sleeping state. As well as we live in the body during the day, we live inside the beings of the higher hierarchies during sleep. If we have accomplished a moral action, if we have had a moral impulse, then it is possible for the beings of the next higher hierarchies — according to the spiritual cosmic laws — to take up our I and our astral body with our moral impulses or that which of our moral impulses has remained in our soul.
• If we have committed an immoral action or have had an immoral impulse, we cannot come with this rest, with that which was formed by the immoral impulse in us into the beings of the higher hierarchies during sleep. That really remains behind, is pushed back which is immoral in us, it is pushed down again into the physical nature. The result of the fact is that everything that we bring as an after-effect of morality into the spiritual worlds during sleep does not have an effect on our physical and etheric bodies, because it is taken away from them. An immoral idea, an immoral impulse, an immoral action, however, becomes something that is pushed back into the etheric and physical bodies and this has an effect on them. That is why the results of immoral actions can work in the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, from falling asleep up to waking. In this regard, it is really easy to recognise what I have often emphasised in my talks that language has a miraculous genius that it works ingeniously. If we speak of guilt, there just this German word “Schuld” (also meaning debts) signifies infinitely exactly this what it concerns.

We pay what we owe to the spiritual world with our moral actions, but we remain guilty to the spiritual world of that which we must leave behind in our bodies, our immoral thoughts, our immoral impulses, our immoral actions.

[parenthesis: remembering]

Take now the following into account: if we spent our life in such a way that we would only perceive the things of the outside world and think about them, the processes even in our physical body would be quite different than they are. Because we not only think and perceive, but we also remember the thoughts, perceptions and experiences.

• What we think, imagine, feel goes down into our etheric body, but the etheric body imprints it again into the physical body. And that what the etheric body creates like impressions in the physical body this is memory. If we remember something of former experiences in the later life, this means: we bump our astral body, which is connected then with the etheric body, on that what like an impression, as a seal impression has remained in our physical body.
• The materialistic idea is childish: as if a recollection sits in the brain here, another there, as if it is tinned thus. This is not true, but any recollection has an impression which corresponds basically to the whole head and still some other parts of the human figure, and the recollections are in each other, not side by side as a childish materialistic idea supposes it.
• This activity of remembering is based on the fact that our astral and etheric bodies can cause impressions in our physical bodies.
  • It is really the same activity which takes place externally when we write down something. If we look at the notes, then that what we have in our soul, of course, does not have the slightest resemblance to the signs we have on the paper. On the paper are signs of any form, but by that what we do then from it, while we are induced to bring back to life again that in the soul which we have written down, a spiritual process takes place. It is the same also with memory. What remains in us does not have more resemblance in principle with that which appears in the soul while remembering, than that which stands on the paper, with that what appears in the soul if we read it again.
• Clairvoyantly beheld, the matter is like that: let us suppose that somebody remembers something that he has gone through once. What lights up then in his physical body, is a mark which is a copy of the human figure from the head and a piece below in any way. These are marks. Every mark is different which appears in the memory, but these are marks. The soul only makes with the help of the marks what we experience, while we remember. This is really a subconscious reading what appears as memory. If natural sciences progress a little further and investigate the physical processes, they will be a help to spiritual science, while they will show that that what remains in the body must really be submitted by the soul to a process which is similar to the reading in the soul in principle. Memory is a real subconscious reading. This is a regular activity of the human soul, this remembering.

[pangs of conscience]

However, if we send down results of immoral impulses, thoughts or actions into our body while falling asleep, we do not remove immoral impulses from our physical body. Something similar thereby happens as it happens usually regularly in memory. The work on the physical body imprints itself there. If now the human being wants to fall asleep and his I and astral body want to go out from his physical and etheric bodies, this process begins. What he must leave behind there imprints itself like memories imprint themselves, and then there come the pangs of conscience which appear there. This is the real process of the pangs of conscience. Thus they are reflected from that what the matters cause as impressions in our physical body and also in the etheric body. This remains then.

Because these pangs of conscience remain as the regular memories do and attain strength, they appear then as self reproaches in the further life. This is the important matter that we really succeed in seeing that the moral action is a real process that it is not only something abstract, but that this moral action is handing up that into the spiritual worlds what we here act on earth. Because we hand over the results of our moral behaviour to the higher hierarchies, they also remain in certain respect in these higher hierarchies. What we cannot take with us what works then in the physical and etheric bodies remains here on earth; this is in the earth process. If the human being has gone through the gate of death, he must always look back at it, and while he always looks back at it, the impulse must originate in him to put it away from the earth process. The working out of karma between death and a new birth is based on that.

[third hierarchy]

We take the results of our moral impulses in our karma with us, but while we bring them into spiritual worlds during sleep, they also make impressions there. We can say that the angels, the archangels, also the archai then have the moral impulses.

What do they do with them?

These moral impulses, which are now in the spiritual world, are the real fertilising germs for the later earth periods. Not only that we keep these results in our karma, but we bring the impressions up, and in the coming earth epochs the spirits of higher hierarchies bring them down again. These results of the moral impulses are the fertilising germs for the human inventive thinking, for the human thinking generally in later earth epochs. Imagine that an epoch of the earth evolution is quite immoral, so that no impressions of moral impulses are brought to the spiritual worlds. Then an epoch would follow in the earth evolution when the human beings would think of little for the life on earth when the human beings would have few ideas and concepts when they have no means to imprint and stimulate their soul-lives.

So we stand with our moral impulses in a real process of the universe. Hence, spiritual science which shows us such a matter is suitable to increase our responsibility, to make our responsibility more vigorous, because we thereby notice only what it means to be moral or immoral in human life.

Being immoral means to take its life germs away from the earth, to incorporate them into the physical earth process in which they become then germs of destruction for the next earth epochs, because they are also preserved there, of course, because nothing gets lost. Then they extinguish that what should live vividly as a soul element. Suppose that a bigger crowd of people would decide that they would live immorally in a certain epoch. Then a later epoch poor in thoughts would be thereby caused, and the souls would come down to the earth and find no ideas there, they would have a desolate life.

It is now possible that we take up not only the contents of moral in our knowledge. If we do not take up that in our effective knowledge, we obliterate the earth. But we need and we have the possibility to take up something different in our soul development, and this is the knowledge of the supersensible. Basically, the earth never was completely without supersensible knowledge. We know that humankind received a certain inheritance of clairvoyant capacities, also of clairvoyant knowledge in olden times. It is not long ago that the aftermath of this clairvoyant knowledge was there on earth. We also know that we live in the time when this clairvoyant knowledge is drawing to an end since centuries, but must be replaced by the clairvoyant knowledge gained consciously. We live in this important time. We have yesterday made ourselves aware that the fifth cultural age and those who are its bearers have a vocation to gain clairvoyant knowledge consciously for the souls. The fifth cultural age will not come to an end, before a certain sum of clairvoyant knowledge has grasped a relatively big part of humankind. Herder's saying is true that enlightenment will spread over the earth.

Any knowledge we acquire from the only sensory outside world, all the thoughts we have only as after-images of the sensory outside world cannot be brought directly by us into the spiritual world, while we sleep. It is true, the thoughts, the ideas which we have reach to the beings of the higher hierarchies up to a certain degree — just with the exception of the immoral impulses. However, that rises up which we acquire as pictures of the outside world up to a certain degree into the spiritual world. But it does not rise up very far, not at all to the sphere of the archangels. So that the human being — if he fills himself with ideas only which come from the sensory world — can bring that which he gains as ideas of the sensory world not very far into the spiritual worlds. The supersensible ideas we experience in ourselves are brought far into the spiritual worlds. Just those beings who belong to the hierarchy of the archangels get, as it were, the impressions of them and carry them over into later times. That of supersensible knowledge which the human I's and astral bodies carry up into the spiritual worlds is used later for the earth evolution.

It does not form, like the moral impulses, the fertilising germs, the stimulating element, but the germs for that which we call the earth progress. Refusing supersensible ideas by an age means the condemnation of a coming age to make no progress in the earth evolution. He who refuses the supersensible ideas restrains the progress of coming epochs as far as he is concerned. If any nation became quite materialistic, this materialism of a whole nation would condemn the earth to a standstill in its development — of course up to a certain degree because the other peoples would not have to reject the supersensible ideas. We see again how the acquisition of supersensible ideas is significant in the earth process itself. Causes and effects are connected in the whole earth process that way. Those human beings who are, as it were, consciously materialists in our present are ahrimanically enticed beings, enticed by the ahrimanic spirits, because Ahriman is very interested in restraining the regular progress.

We see again how spiritual science is able to increase the feeling of responsibility of the individual human soul to the world as a whole. We see spiritual science snatching us from our selves and making us members of the whole human process, that spiritual science is basically an unselfish activity of the human soul.

In a certain respect, any living in supersensible ideas is a reproduction of the moral life. Hence, there is nothing more disturbing for the knowledge of the supersensible worlds than filling the human soul with immoral impulses. That is why it is deeply founded to demand a kind of moral thinking in the most eminent sense as a preparation of the esoteric development.

1917-02-27-GA175

is titled: 'Morality, a germinating force'

1918-09-07-GA184

Two lectures of 6 and 7 Sep 1918 with the title: 'The Bridge between the Ideal and the Real', are about the materialistic and spiritual worldviews, and the necessity of balance.

1919-10-17-GA191

illustration, see Schema FMC00.054 on Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha

... we live, as it were, between two poles of our knowledge:

• Everyone feels that, on the one hand, we have the knowledge gained through our senses. A plain, unprejudiced person learns to know the world through his senses, and is even able to sum up what he sees and hears, and, in general, what he perceives through his senses. After all, that which science supplies to us, in the form in which science now exists in the Occident, is merely a summary of that which the senses convey to us.
• But everyone can feel that there is also another kind of knowledge, and that it is not possible to be in the full sense of the word a real human being living in the ordinary world, unless another kind of knowledge is added to the one which has just been characterized. And this kind of knowledge is connected with our moral life. We do not only speak of ideas pertaining to the knowledge of Nature, and explaining this or that thing in Nature, we also speak of ethical ideas, ethical ideals. We feel that they are the motives of our actions, and that we allow them to guide us when we ourselves wish to be active in the ordinary world. And every man will undoubtedly feel that this knowledge of the senses, with the resulting intellectual knowledge (for, the intellectual knowledge is merely a result, an appendix of the knowledge transmitted by the senses) is a pole of our cognitive life which cannot reach as far as the ethical ideas. The ethical ideas are there, but when we pursue, for instance, natural science, we cannot find these ethical ideas by contemplating the plant-world, the mineral world, or by following any other branch of modern natural sciences. The tragic element of our time consists, for instance, in trying to discover, upon a natural-scientific basis, ideas which are to be applied to the social sphere. If sound common sense were adopted, this would never be possible. The ethical ideas exist as if on another side of life.

And our life is indeed under the influence of these two streams: on the one hand, the knowledge of Nature, and on the other hand, the ethical knowledge.

...

[read full lecture cont'd]

lecture in full:, in support of legend for Schema FMC00.054

To-day I wish to speak to you of some fundamental pieces of knowledge of the science of initiation, which will then supply to us a kind of foundation for that which we shall consider tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. To-day we shall first speak of something which lies in the consciousness of every human being, but is not grasped clearly enough in the ordinary course of life. When we speak of such things, we always speak of them from the standpoint of our present time, in the sense and meaning which I have often explained to you: namely, that knowledge is not in any way valid for all time and for every place, but that it is only valid for a certain definite time, indeed, only for a definite region of the earth. Thus, certain standpoints of knowledge would be valid, for instance, for the European civilisation, and other standpoints would be valid—let us say—for the knowledge of the East.

Everybody knows that we live, as it were, between two poles of our knowledge. Everyone feels that, on the one hand, we have the knowledge gained through our senses. A plain, unprejudiced person learns to know the world through his senses, and is even able to sum up what he sees and hears, and, in general, what he perceives through his senses. After all, that which science supplies to us, in the form in which science now exists in the Occident, is merely a summary of that which the senses convey to us.

But everyone can feel that there is also another kind of knowledge, and that it is not possible to be in the full sense of the word a real human being living in the ordinary world, unless another kind of knowledge is added to the one which has just been characterized. And this kind of knowledge is connected with our moral life. We do not only speak of ideas pertaining to the knowledge of Nature, and explaining this or that thing in Nature, we also speak of ethical ideas, ethical ideals. We feel that they are the motives of our actions, and that we allow them to guide us when we ourselves wish to be active in the ordinary world. And every man will undoubtedly feel that this knowledge of the senses, with the resulting intellectual knowledge (for, the intellectual knowledge is merely a result, an appendix of the knowledge transmitted by the senses) is a pole of our cognitive life which cannot reach as far as the ethical ideas. The ethical ideas are there, but when we pursue, for instance, natural science, we cannot find these ethical ideas by contemplating the plant-world, the mineral world, or by following any other branch of modern natural sciences. The tragic element of our time consists, for instance, in trying to discover, upon a natural-scientific basis, ideas which are to be applied to the social sphere. If sound common sense were adopted, this would never be possible. The ethical ideas exist as if on another side of life. And our life is indeed under the influence of these two streams: on the one hand, the knowledge of Nature, and on the other hand, the ethical knowledge.

From my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity you will know that the highest ethical ideas required by us as human beings are given to us when we grasp moral intuitions, and that when we begin to gain possession of these ethical ideas, they are the foundation of our human freedom. On the other hand, you may perhaps also know that for certain thinkers there has always been a kind of abyss between that which is given, on the one hand, by the knowledge of Nature, and on the other hand, by ethical knowledge. The philosophy of Kant is based upon this abyss, which he is unable to bridge completely. For this reason, Kant has written a Critique of Theoretical Reason, of Pure Reason, as he calls it, where he grapples with natural science, and where he says all that he has to say about natural science, or the knowledge of Nature. On the other hand, he has also written a Critique of Practical Reason, where he speaks of ethical ideas. We might say: The whole human life is born for him out of two roots which are completely severed from one another, which he describes in his two chief critical studies.

Of course, it would be unfortunate for the human being if there were no connecting bridge between these two poles of our soul-life. Those who earnestly pursue, on the one hand, spiritual science, and on the other hand, earnestly consider the tasks of our present time, must eagerly ask themselves: Where is the bridge connecting ethical ideas and the ideas of Nature?

To-day we shall adopt the standpoint which I would like to characterize as a historical standpoint, in order to come to a knowledge of this bridge. You already know from the explanations which have recently been given here, that in past times man's soul-constitution was essentially different from that of a later time. The origin of Christianity really forms a deep incision in the whole evolution of humanity. And only if we understand what has really arisen in the evolution of humanity through the birth of Christianity we shall understand human reason.

That which lies behind the rise of Christianity—not to mention Jewish history—is the whole extent of pagan culture. Jewish culture was, after all, a preparation for Christianity. This whole extent of pagan culture is essentially different from our modern Christian culture. The more we go back into time, the more we shall find that this pagan culture had a uniform character. It was principally based upon human wisdom. I know that it is almost offending for a modern man to hear that, as far as wisdom is concerned, the ancients were far more advanced than modern man; nevertheless it was so. In ancient pagan times a wisdom extended over the earth, which was far nearer to the origin of things than our modern knowledge, particularly our modern natural sciences. This ancient, this primeval knowledge, was very concrete, it was a knowledge intensively connected with the spiritual reality of things. Something entered the human soul through man's knowledge of the reality of things. But the special characteristic of this ancient pagan wisdom was the fact that the human beings obtained it in such a way (you know that they obtained it from the Mysteries of the Initiates) that this wisdom contained both a knowledge of Nature, and an ethical knowledge. This extraordinarily significant truth in the history of human evolution, this truth which I have just explained to you, is ignored to-day only because people cannot go back to the truly characteristic times of the ancient pagan wisdom. A historical knowledge does not reach back so far as to enable us to grasp the times when the human beings who looked up to the stars really received from the stars, on the one hand, a wisdom explaining to them in their own way the course of the stars, but on the other hand, it also told them how they were to behave and act here upon the earth. Metaphorically speaking, (yet it is not entirely metaphorical, but quite objective up to a certain degree), we might say, that the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Chaldean civilisations were, for instance, of such a kind that men could read the laws of Nature in the course of the stars, but in the star's course they could also read the rules governing that which they were to do upon the earth.

The codices of the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs contain, for instance, rules concerning that which was to become law. It was so that for centuries ahead that which would later on become law was foretold prophetically. Everything contained in these codices was read from the course of the stars. In those ancient times there was no astronomy such as we have it now, merely containing mathematical laws of the movements of the stars or of the earth, but there was a knowledge of the cosmos which was at the same time moral knowledge, ethics.

The doubtful element of modern astrology, which does not go beyond the stage of dilettantism, is that people no longer feel that its contents can only be a complete whole if the laws discovered in it are at the same time moral laws for the human beings. This is something extraordinarily significant.

In the course of human evolution, the essence of that primeval science was lost. This lies at the foundation of the fact that certain Secret Schools—but the schools of an earnest character have really ceased to exist at the end of the 18th century—and even certain Secret Schools of the Occident, have again and again pointed back to this lost science, to the lost Word. As a rule, those who came later no longer knew what was meant by the expression “Word”. Nevertheless, this conceals a certain fact. In Saint-Martin's books we may still find an echo showing that up to the end of the 18th century it was very clearly felt that in ancient times men possessed a spiritual wisdom which they obtained simultaneously with their knowledge of Nature. Their spiritual wisdom also contained their moral and ethical wisdom; this had already disappeared in the eight centuries preceding the rise of Christianity. We may even say: Ancient Greek history is, essentially, the gradual loss of primeval wisdom.

If we study the philosophers before Socrates, namely Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, the philosophers of the tragic epoch, as Nietzsche called them—I have dealt with them in my book Riddles of Philosophy, and have tried to give as good as possible a picture, from an external standpoint—if we study these philosophers (but the external writings tell us very little about them), we shall find again and again that the passages which have remained like oases in a desert, re-echo a great, encompassing wisdom and knowledge which existed in the remote past of human evolution. The words of Heraclitus, of Thales, Anaxagoras and Anaximenes, appear to us as if humanity had, as it were, forgotten its primeval wisdom and only remembered occasionally some fragmentary passages. The few passages of Thales, Anaxagoras, of the seven Greek sages, etc., which have been handed down to us traditionally, appear to us like fragmentary recollections.

In Plato we still encounter a kind of clear consciousness of this primeval wisdom; in Aristotle everything has been transformed into human wisdom.

And among the Stoics and Epicureans this gradually disappears. The ancient primeval knowledge only remains like an old legend. This is how matters stood with the Greeks.

The Romans—and they were by Nature a prosaic, matter-of-fact nation—even denied that this primeval knowledge had any meaning at all, and they transformed everything into abstractions. The course which I have just described to you in regard to the primeval knowledge, was necessary for the evolution of humanity. Man would never have reached freedom in the course of his development, had the primeval wisdom, which came to him indirectly through atavistic clairvoyance, remained in its original intensity and significance. Nevertheless, this primeval knowledge was connected with everything which could reach man from divine heights in the form, I might say, of moral impulses. This had to be rescued. The moral impulse had to be rescued for man.

Among the many things which we have already explained in regard to the Mystery of Golgotha we have also explained that the divine principle which descended to the earth trough the man, Jesus of Nazareth, contained the moral power which was little by little dispersed and cleft through the waning and gradual dying out of the ancient primeval wisdom. It is indeed so—although this may seem paradoxical to a modern man—that we can say: Once upon a time there was an old primeval wisdom. Man's moral power and moral wisdom were connected with primeval knowledge; this was contained in it as an integrant. The ancient primeval wisdom then lost its power, it could no longer be the bearer of a moral impulse

This moral impulse had, as it were, to be taken under the wing of the Mystery of Golgotha. And for the civilisation of the Occident, the further continuation was the Christ Impulse which has arisen from the Mystery of Golgotha containing that which had remained as a kind of moral extract from the ancient primeval wisdom.

It is very strange to follow, for instance, that which Occidental civilisation contains in the form of true science, true wisdom, up to the 8th or 9th century after Christ. Try to read the description of Occidental wisdom up to the 8th and 9th century, as contained in my book, Riddles of Philosophy, and you will see that, after all, this course of development contains nothing of what may be designated as knowledge, in our modern meaning. For this arises towards the middle of the 15th century, at the time of Galilei. Until that time, knowledge has really been handed down traditionally from the primeval wisdom of the past. It is no longer a wisdom gained through inner intuition, no longer a primeval wisdom experienced inwardly, but an external wisdom handed down traditionally. I have often told you the story of Galilei, the story which is not an anecdote, namely, how Galilei had to make a great effort in order to convince a friend of the truth of his statements. Like all the other people of the Middle Ages who pursued wisdom, this friend was accustomed to accept what was contained in the books of Aristotle, or in the other traditional works. Everything which was taught at that time was traditional. That which was contained in the books of Aristotle was handed down traditionally. And the learned friend of Galilei agreed with Aristotle that the nerves go out from the heart. Galilei endeavoured to explain to him that according to the knowledge he had gained by studying a corpse, he was obliged to say something else: namely, that in the human being the nerves go out from the head, or the brain. This Aristotelian thinker could not believe it. Galilei then led him to the corpse, showed him that the nerves in fact go out from the brain and not from the heart, and felt sure that his friend would now have to believe what he saw with his own eyes. But his friend said: “Indeed, this appears to be true; I can see with my own eyes that the nerves proceed from the brain. But Aristotle says the opposite, namely that the nerves proceed from the heart. If I have to choose between the evidence of the senses in Nature and Aristotle's statements, I prefer to believe in Aristotle, and not in Nature!” This is not an anecdote, but a true occurrence. After all, in our time we simply experience the same thing, only the other way round.

You see, at that time all knowledge was traditional. A new knowledge only began with the time of Galilei, Copernicus, and so forth. But throughout these centuries the moral impulse was borne by the Christian impulse. It was essentially connected with the religious element. This was not the case in pagan times. The pagans realised that when they obtained cosmic wisdom, they obtained at the same time a moral impulse.

A new impulse arose towards the middle of the 15th century, an impulse which completely severed the connection with everything that existed in the form of ancient wisdom, even though this merely existed traditionally. It is very interesting to see the passion with which those who brought to the surface this new science—for instance, Giordano Bruno—abuse everything which existed in the form of old traditional wisdom. Bruno almost begins to rave when he rails against the recollections of ancient wisdom. Something entirely new arises. In fact, we shall be far from understanding human evolution if we are unable to look upon this new element which thus arises, as a beginning.

[see Schema FMC00.054]

We may say (a drawing is made on the blackboard):

If we indicate, here, the Mystery of Golgotha ... the moral impulse will continue from there, but what was that which the Mystery of Golgotha carried from an older into a more recent time? What was it, in reality, while it was being borne in that direction? It was an end. The more we progress, the more the ancient wisdom disappears, even in its traditional form. We may say that it continues to drip like water, in the form of traditional knowledge;

but a new element, a beginning, arises with the 15th century.

Indeed, we have not advanced very far in this new direction. The few centuries which have elapsed since the middle of the 15th century have brought us some natural science, but we have not progressed far since that beginning.

What is this new wisdom? You see, it is a wisdom which, to begin with, in the form in which it has appeared, has this peculiarity: Contrary to the ancient pagan wisdom, it does not contain a moral impulse. You may study as much as possible of this new wisdom, of this Galilei wisdom—mineralogy, geology, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. etc.,—but you will never be able to draw a moral impulse out of this knowledge of Nature.

If modern people think that they can establish sociology upon the foundation of natural sciences, this is a tremendous illusion. For it is impossible to squeeze out of natural science, such as it exists today, that kind of knowledge which can be an ideal for human actions.

For natural science is altogether in an elementary stage, and we can only hope that by developing more and more, it will again come to the point of containing, as natural science, moral impulses.

If the knowledge of nature were to continue only in accordance with its own form, it would not be able to produce moral impulses out of its own nature. A new super-sensible knowledge will have to develop by the side of this knowledge of nature. This super-sensible knowledge will then contain once more the rays of a moral will.

And when the beginning which was made towards the middle of the 15th century will have reached its end at the conclusion of the evolution of the Earth, then super-sensible knowledge will flow together with the knowledge of the senses, and a unity will arise out of this.

When the old pagan sage, or the follower of pagan wisdom received pagan wisdom from his initiate in the Mysteries, he received at one and the same time a knowledge of nature, a cosmic knowledge, an anthropogenesis and a moral science, and this was simultaneously a moral impulse. All this was one.

Today it is necessary to admit that we obtain

• on the one hand, a knowledge of nature,
• and on the other hand, super-sensible knowledge.

This knowledge of nature is, as such, devoid of moral impulses. Moral impulses must be gained through a super-sensible knowledge. Since the social impulses must, after all, be moral impulses, no true social knowledge, and not even a sum of social impulses can be imagined, unless man rises to super-sensible knowledge.

It is important that moderMan should realise that he must strike out a new course in regard to social science; he must tread a different path than that of natural science.

But I am at the same time obliged to draw your attention to a strange paradox: I have often explained to you here that the deepest truths of the science of initiation appear strange to the ordinary every-day consciousness, may even appear crazy to an extreme materialist, but in our time it is necessary to grow acquainted with this wisdom which appears so paradoxical today. For in our time many things which appear foolish to men are wisdom before God. It would be a good thing if this bible passage were to be considered a little by those who brush aside anthroposophy with a supercilious smile, or who criticize it in a vile way. They should consider that what they look upon as foolishness may be “wisdom before the Gods”. It would be a very good thing if several people—and by “several” I mean many—particularly those who go to church with their prayer book and revile anthroposophy, were to insist less upon their proud faith and look more closely into that which is really contained in the Christian faith. In our time it is necessary to become acquainted with several things which appear paradoxical.

You see, two things are possible today. Someone may become acquainted with the natural science of today (I shall now characterize these two things rather sharply), he may, for instance, take up the facts supplied by the science of chemistry, physics, biology, etc. He may study diligently and eagerly the Theory of Evolution which has arisen from the so-called Darwinism. If he studies all this he may become a materialist, as far as his world conception based on knowledge is concerned. Indeed, he will become a materialist; this cannot be denied. Since men, as it were, so quickly arrive at an opinion, they become materialists if they give themselves up wholly to the external knowledge of Nature, according to the intentions of some of their contemporaries. But it is also possible to do something else. In addition to that which physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, geology, biology, offer, in addition to that which these sciences teach, we may also direct our attention to what we do in the physical laboratory, to our behaviour during an experiment; we may watch carefully how we behave in the chemical laboratory and what we do there; we may watch the way in which we investigate plants, animals, and their evolution.

Goethe's knowledge of Nature is chiefly based upon the fact that he has deeply studied the way in which others have come to their knowledge. The greatness of Goethe depends upon this very fact, namely, that he has deeply occupied himself with the way in which others have attained to their knowledge. And it is very, very significant to penetrate really into the essence and spirit of an essay by Goethe, such as “The Experiment as Mediator between Object and Subject”. Here we may see how Goethe carefully follows the way in which phenomena of Nature are handled. What we may call the method of investigation, this is something which he has studied with the greatest attention. If you read my Introduction to Goethe's Natural-Scientific Writings you will find what great results Goethe has reached by thus pursuing the natural-scientific method.

In a certain way, that which Goethe has done can be developed further for the achievements of the 19th century and up to the 20th century ... but Goethe was no longer able to do this.

I therefore state: Two things are possible. Let us keep to this, to begin with. We remain by the results which natural science supplies, or else we investigate the attitude needed in order to arrive at these natural scientific results. Let us keep to what we have said in regard to the knowledge of Nature; let us now observe the human striving after knowledge from another standpoint.

You know that beside natural science there is also a spiritual knowledge; in the form of anthroposophy, the knowledge of man, we may pursue cosmology, anthropology, etc., in such a way that they lead to the kind of results described, for instance, in my Occult Science. There, we may find positive knowledge pointing to the spiritual world. Just as we obtain positive knowledge in natural science, in mineralogy, geology, etc., so we have, here, a positive knowledge referring to the spiritual world. In our anthroposophical movement it was particularly important for me to spread also this kind of positive knowledge concerning the spiritual world in the various books which I have written. Now we may also tackle things in such a way that we observe chiefly the way in which these things are done, and do not merely aim at obtaining knowledge. We observe how a person describes something, how he rises from external observation to inner observation; how he arrives to a higher spiritual conception, not through scientific investigations in the laboratory, in the clinic, in the astronomical observatory, but through his inner soul-development, along a mystical path. This would be parallel to the observation of the natural-scientific method, of the handling, of the way in which things are done. Also here we have this twofold element: to watch the results, and to watch the way in which our soul comes to these results.

Let us take hypothetically something which may seem rather paradoxical. Let us suppose that someone were to pursue the natural-scientific methods, like Goethe: he will certainly not become a materialist, but will undoubtedly accept a spiritual world-conception. An infallible way of overcoming materialism in our modern time is to have in insight into the natural-scientific methods of investigation. In the natural-scientific sphere, men become materialists only because they do not observe, because they insufficiently observe the way in which they carry on their investigations. They are satisfied with results, with what the clinic, the laboratory, the observatory supply. They do not progress as far as Goetheanism, i.e. the observation of their manner of research; for those who allow themselves to be influenced by the natural-scientific manner of contemplating the world and of handling things in order to reach knowledge, will at least become idealists, and probably spiritualists, if they only proceed far enough.

If we now try to avoid reaching the positive results of spiritual science, if we find it boring to enter into the details of spiritual science, and only like to hear again and again how man's soul becomes mystical, if we concentrate our chief attention upon the methods leading to the spiritual sphere, this will be the greatest temptation for really becoming materialists. The greatest temptation for becoming materialists is to ignore the concrete results of spiritual science and to emphasize continually the importance of mystical research, mystical soul-concentration, and the methods of entering the spiritual world.

You see this is a paradox. Those who observe natural science, natural research, become spiritualists; those who disdain to reach a real spiritual knowledge and who always speak of mysticism and of how spiritual knowledge is gained, are exposed to the great temptation of becoming more than ever materialistic. This should be known to-day. We cannot do without the knowledge of such things.

Today we have monistic societies. Those who give themselves the air of leaders in these monistic societies spread a very superficial world-conception. They condense the external materialistic results of natural science to a superficial world-conception. This is so easy for modern men who do not wish to make a great effort, who prefer to go to the “movies” rather than to other places, and consequently prefer to accept a kind of cinema-science—for materialism is nothing else—they prefer this to something which must be worked out inwardly. These leaders of monistic societies therefore supply a superficial materialism. Undoubtedly they are, at least for a time, temporarily noxious creatures, for they spread errors. It is not good if they flourish, for of course they turn the heads of people in a materialistic way. Nevertheless they are the less dangerous elements, for to begin with they are generally honest people, but this honesty does not protect them against this spreading of errors; however, they are for the most part frankly honest and their errors will be overcome. They will only have a temporary significance.

But there are other people who systematically, knowingly, refuse to lead man towards the concrete positive results of spiritual-science. Indeed, they nourish the aversion which exists to-day through a certain love of ease, the aversion of penetrating into the positive concrete results of spiritual science. You know that the things described in my Occult Science must be studied several years if we wish to understand them, they are not comfortable for a modern man, who may indeed send his son to the university, if he is to become a chemical scientist; nevertheless, if he is to recognize and grasp heaven and earth in a spiritual way, he expects him to do this in a twinkle, at least in one evening, and from every lecture on the super-sensible worlds he expects to have the whole sum of cosmic wisdom. Concrete results of a positive spiritual research are uncomfortable for most men, and this aversion is made use of by certain personalities of the present time who persuade men that they do not need these things, that it is not necessary to pursue the positive concrete details of spiritual facts. “What is this talk of the higher hierarchies which must first be known? What is this talk of Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan etc.? All this is unnecessary.” They will tell you: “If you concentrate deeply, if your soul becomes quite mystical, you shall reach the God within you”. They will tell you these things, give general indications on the connection of the material and the super-sensible world. They nourish man's aversion to penetrate into the concrete spiritual world. Why do they do this? Because apparently, apparently they wish to spread a spiritual mentality, but in reality they aim at something else: Along this path, more than ever, they seek to produce materialism. For this reason the leaders of the monistic societies are less harmful. But the others who so often spread mysticism to-day, and who always speak of all kinds of mystical things, they are those who truly foster materialism, who foster it in a most refined way. They put into the heads of men that one or the other way leads into the spiritual world, and they avoid speaking about it concretely. They chiefly speak in general phrases and if they remain victorious they will undoubtedly succeed in making the third generation entirely materialistic. To-day, the more certain and also more refined way leading into materialism is to transmit mysticism traditionally, a mysticism which despises to penetrate into positive spiritual-scientific results. Many things which appear to form part of the spiritual literature of to-day foster materialism far more strongly than, for instance, the books of Ernst Häckel.

You see, these things are uncomfortable to hear, because in setting them before men we strongly appeal to their power of discernment, but men do not wish to listen to this appeal to their power of discernment. They are much more satisfied if every kind of mystical nonsense stimulates an inner lust of the soul. This is why there are so many opponents, particularly of those efforts which to-day honestly pursue spiritual life by disdaining to approach men with a shallow mysticism of a general nature. True spiritual science arouses opposition. In the present time there are numerous people and communities who do not in any way wish that a true spiritual regeneration and elevation should take hold of humanity, and who make use of the fact that materialism is undoubtedly festered if they speak to men of mysticism in general terms. They make use of this fact. For this reason they wage war to the knife where they encounter honest paths which are meant to lead into spiritual science.

I have thus characterized an extensive literature which exists today. In reality everyone who takes up a mystical book, no matter of what kind, should appeal strongly to his own judgment. This is strictly necessary. For this reason we should not be led astray by the fact that the many pseudo-mystical scribbles of our present time seem to be so easily accessible. Of course, people will easily understand us if we tell them, for instance: “You only need to penetrate deeply into your inner being and God will be within you; your God whom you only find by treading your own path; no one can show you this path because every other man speaks of another God”, or similar stuff. To-day you will find this in many books, and it is described in a most tempting and misleading manner.

I would like you to take to heart these things very deeply. For that which is to be reached through our anthroposophical movement can only be reached through the fact that you are at least a small number of people who strive to cultivate the characterized power of discernment; it would be fatal for humanity if no effort were made to develop this power of discernment. To-day we must try to stand firmly on our feet, if we do not wish to lose our foothold in the midst of the confusion and chaos of the present. We may often ask to-day after the cause of so much confusion in humanity. But we can almost touch these causes. We may find them in insignificant facts, but we must be able to judge these little facts on the right way.

It is uncomfortable to see this immediately, in the many forms in which it exists on all sides. Many grotesque paradoxes can be found not only in rather loathsome places, but also in the modern life of humanity. They undoubtedly exist also in the modern life of humanity. And it is necessary to-day to strive to obtain a clear understanding, an understanding as sharp as a blade, if we wish to gain a firm foothold. This is the essential thing.

1920-12-11-GA202

is titled: 'The Bridge between Morality and Nature - Birth and Death as Revelations of Love and Freedom'

1920-12-18-GA202

with subtitle: The moral as the source of world-creative power

synopsis includes;

• Connection of the moral world-order with the physical world-order.
• The moral world-order has no place in the natural scientific thinking of today.
• The positive effect of moral ideals and ideas and the negative effect of theoretical ideas on the four organisms in man.
• Matter and energy die away to nullity; but man's moral thinking imbues life into substance and will.
• The natural world dies away in man; in the realm of the moral a new natural world comes into being; thus are the moral order and the natural order connected.

Note: see also longer extract of 1920-12-18-GA202 below, and schema FMC00.266 on Threefold Sun

quote A

.. moral intuitions are drawn from within the Earth and shimmer forth from human beings—from what can live in us as moral inspiration [2].

How greatly is our sense of responsibility enhanced if we know that without people on the Earth, who can kindle authentic morality or glowing spiritual ideals in their soul, the human race would not aid our world's further evolution. Rather than working towards a new creation,they would help the world to die away.

This power of radiance present upon earth [3] works out into the universe, so that what lives as morality in us shines out - invisibly initially for ordinary human perception.

If a sad age dawned across the globe when millions and millions of people passed their days devoid of spirituality - in which I included morality, which is indeed part of it - the Earth would however still shine out in solar, spiritual radiance if only a dozen people still possessed lucid moral and spiritual enthusiasm.

quote B

Within this picture a moral world-order has no place. It is there on its own. Man receives the moral impulses into himself as impulses of soul. But if the assertions of natural science are true, everything that is astir with life, and finally man himself came out of the primeval nebula and the moral ideals well up in him. And when, as is alleged, the world becomes a slag-heap, this will also be the graveyard of all moral ideals. They will have vanished. — No bridge can possibly be built, and what is worse, modern science cannot, without being inconsistent, admit the existence of morality in the world-order. Only if modern science is inconsistent can it accept the moral world-order as valid. It cannot do so if it is consistent. The root of all this is that the only kind of anatomy in existence is concerned exclusively with the solid organism, and no account is taken of the fact that man also has within him a fluid organism, an aeriform organism, and a warmth-organism. If you picture to yourselves that as well as the solid organism with its configuration into bones, muscles, nerve-fibres and so forth, you also have a fluid organism and an aeriform organism — though these are of course fluctuating and inwardly mobile — and a warmth-organism, if you picture this you will more easily understand what I shall now have to say on the basis of spiritual-scientific observation.

Think of a person whose soul is fired with enthusiasm for a high moral ideal, for the ideal of generosity, of freedom, of goodness, of love, or whatever it may be. He may also feel enthusiasm for examples of the practical expression of these ideals. But nobody can conceive that the enthusiasm which fires the soul penetrates into the bones and muscles as described by modern physiology or anatomy. If you really take counsel with yourself, however, you will find it quite possible to conceive that when one has enthusiasm for a high moral ideal, this enthusiasm has an effect upon the warmth organism. — There, you see, we have come from the realm of soul into the physical!

Taking this as an example, we may say: Moral ideals come to expression in an enhancement of warmth in the warmth-organism. Not only is man warmed in soul through what he experiences in the way of moral ideals, but he becomes organically warmer as well — though this is not so easy to prove with physical instruments. Moral ideals, then, have a stimulating, invigorating effect upon the warmth-organism.

You must think of this as a real and concrete happening: enthusiasm for a moral ideal — stimulation of the warmth-organism. There is more vigorous activity in the warmth-organism when the soul is fired by a moral ideal. Neither does this remain without effect upon the rest of one's constitution. As well as the warmth-organism he also has the air-organism. He inhales and exhales the air; but during the inbreathing and outbreathing process the air is within him. It is of course inwardly in movement, in fluctuation, but equally with the warmth-organism it is an actual air-organism in man. Warmth, quickened by a moral ideal, works in turn upon the air-organism, because warmth pervades the whole human organism, pervades every part of it. The effect upon the air-organism is not that of warming only, for when the warmth, stimulated by the warmth-organism, works upon the air-organism, it imparts to it something that I can only call a source of light. Sources of light, as it were, are imparted to the air-organism, so that moral ideals which have a stimulating effect upon the warmth-organism produce sources of light in the air-organism. To external perception and for ordinary consciousness these sources of light are not in themselves luminous, but they manifest in man's astral body. To begin with, they are curbed — if I may use this expression — through the air that is within man. They are, so to speak, still dark light, in the sense that the seed of a plant is not yet the developed plant. Nevertheless man has a source of light within him through the fact that he can be fired with enthusiasm for moral ideals, for moral impulses.

We also have within us the fluid organism. Warmth, stimulated in the warmth organism by moral ideals, produces in the air-organism what may be called a source of light which remains, to begin with, curbed and hidden. Within the fluid organism — because everything in the human constitution interpenetrates — a process takes place which I said yesterday actually underlies the outer tone conveyed in the air. I said that the air is only the body of the tone, and anyone who regards the essential reality of tone as a matter of vibrations of the air, speaks of tones just as he would speak of a man as having nothing except the outwardly visible physical body. The air with its vibrating waves is nothing but the outer body of the tone. In the human being this tone, this spiritual tone, is not produced in the air-organism through the moral ideal, but in the fluid organism. The sources of tone, therefore, arise in the fluid organism.

We regard the solid organism as the densest of all, as the one that supports and bears all the others. Within it, too, something is produced as in the case of the other organisms. In the solid organism there is produced what we call a seed of life — but it is an etheric, not a physical seed of life such as issues from the female organism at a birth. This etheric seed which lies in the deepest levels of subconsciousness is actually the primal source of tone and, in a certain sense, even the source of light. This is entirely hidden from ordinary consciousness, but it is there within the human being.

Think of all the experiences in your life that came from aspiration for moral ideas — be it that they attracted you merely as ideas, or that you saw them coming to expression in others, or that you felt inwardly satisfied by having put such impulses into practice, by letting your deeds be fired by moral ideals ... all this goes down into the air-organism as a source of light, into the fluid organism as a source of tone, into the solid organism as a source of life.

These processes are withdrawn from the field of man's consciousness but they operate within him nevertheless. They become free when he lays aside his physical body at death. What is thus produced in us through moral ideals, or through the loftiest and purest ideas, does not bear immediate fruit. For during the life between birth and death, moral ideas as such become fruitful only in so far as we remain in the life of ideas, and in so far as we feel a certain satisfaction in moral deeds performed. But this is merely a matter of remembrance, and has nothing to do with what actually penetrates down into the different organisms as the result of enthusiasm for moral ideals.

So we see that our whole constitution, beginning with the warmth-organism, is, in very fact, permeated by moral ideals. And when at death the etheric body, the astral body, and the Ego emerge from the physical body, these higher members of our human nature are filled with all the impressions we have had. Our Ego was living in the warmth-organism when it was quickened by moral ideas. We were living in our air-organism, into which were implanted sources of light which now, after death, go forth into the cosmos together with us. In our fluid organism, tone was kindled which now becomes part of the Music of the Spheres, resounding from us into the cosmos. And we bring life with us when we pass out into the cosmos through the portal of death.

You will now begin to have an inkling of what the life that pervades the universe really is. Where are the sources of life? They lie in that which quickens those moral ideals which fire man with enthusiasm. We come to the point of saying to ourselves that if today we allow ourselves to be inspired by moral ideals, these will carry forth life, tone and light into the universe and will become world-creative. We carry out into the universe world-creative power, and the source of this power is the moral element.

So when we study the whole man we find a bridge between moral ideals and what works as life-giving force in the physical world, even in the chemical sense. For tone works in the chemical sense by assembling substances and dispersing them again. Light in the world has its source in the moral stimuli, in the warmth-organisms of men. Thus we look into the future — new worlds take shape. And as in the case of the plant we must go back to the seed, so in the case of these future worlds that will come into being, we must go back to the seeds which lie in us as moral ideals.

And now think of theoretical ideas in contrast to moral ideals. In the case of theoretical ideas everything is different, no matter how significant these ideas may be, for theoretical ideas produce the very opposite effect to that of stimulus. They cool down the warmth-organism — that is the difference.

Moral ideas, or ideas of a moral-religious character, which fire us with enthusiasm and become impulses for deeds, work as world-creative powers. Theoretical ideas and speculation's have a cooling, subduing effect upon the warmth-organism. Because this is so, they also have a paralyzing effect upon the air-organism and upon the source of light within it; they have a deadening effect upon tone, and an extinguishing effect upon life. In our theoretical ideas the creations of the pre-existing world come to their end. When we formulate theoretical ideas a universe dies in them. Thus do we bear within us the death of a universe and the dawn of a universe.

Here we come to the point where he who is initiated into the secrets of the universe cannot speak, as so many speak today, of the conservation of energy or the conservation of matter. [e.Ed: The law propounded by Julius Robert Mayer (1814-1878)]. It is simply not true that matter is conserved forever. Matter dies to the point of nullity, to a zero-point. In our own organism, energy dies to the point of nullity through the fact that we formulate theoretical thoughts. But if we did not do so, if the universe did not continually die in us, we should not be man in the true sense. Because the universe dies in us, we are endowed with self-consciousness and are able to think about the universe. But these thoughts are the corpse of the universe. We become conscious of the universe as a corpse only, and it is this that makes us Man.

A past world dies within us, down to its very matter and energy. It is only because a new universe at once begins to dawn that we do not notice this dying of matter and its immediate rebirth. Through man's theoretical thinking, matter — substantiality — is brought to its end; through his moral thinking, matter and cosmic energy are imbued with new life. Thus what goes on inside the boundary of the human skin is connected with the dying and birth of worlds. This is how the moral order and the natural order are connected. The natural world dies away in man; in the realm of the moral a new natural world comes to birth.

Moral Ideals

·        stimulate the warmth-organism.

·        producing in the air organism — sources of Light.

·        producing in the fluid organism — sources of Tone.

·        producing in the solid organism — seeds of Life. (etheric)

Theoretical thoughts

·        cool down the warmth organism.

·        paralyze the sources of Light.

·        deaden the sources of Tone.

·        extinguish Life.

Because of unwillingness to consider these things, the ideas of the imperishability of matter and energy were invented. If energy were imperishable and matter were imperishable there would be no moral world-order. But today it is desired to keep this truth concealed and modern thought has every reason to do so, because otherwise it would have to eliminate the moral world-order — which in actual fact it does by speaking of the law of the conservation of matter and energy. If matter is conserved, or energy is conserved, the moral world order is nothing but an illusion, a mirage. We can understand the course of the world's development only if we grasp how out of this ‘illusory’ moral world-order — for so it is when it is grasped in thoughts — new worlds come into being.

1921-07-24-GA206

Above all we must remember that the moral world cannot exist without postulating freedom; the natural world cannot exist without necessity. Indeed, there could be no science if there were not this necessity. If one phenomenon were not of necessity caused by another in natural continuity, everything would be arbitrary, and there could be no science. An effect could arise from a cause that one could not predict! We get science when we try to see how one thing proceeds from another, that one thing proceeds from another. But if this natural causality is universal, then moral freedom is impossible; there can be no such thing. Nevertheless the consciousness of this moral freedom within the realm of soul and spirit, as a fact of direct experience, is present in every man. The contradiction between what the human being experiences in the moral constitution of his soul and the causality of nature is not a logical one, but a contradiction in life. This contradiction is always with us as we go through the world; it is part of our life. The fact is that, if we honestly admit what we are faced with, we shall have to say that there must be natural causality, there must be natural necessity, and we as men are ourselves in the midst of it. But our inner soul-spiritual life contradicts it. We are conscious that we can make resolutions, that we can pursue moral ideals which are not given to us by natural necessity. This is a contradiction which is a contradiction of life, and anyone who cannot admit that there are such contradictions simply fails to grasp life in its universality. But in saying this we are saying something very abstract. It is really only our way of expressing what we encounter in life. We go through life feeling ourselves all the time actually at variance with external nature. It seems as if we are powerless, as if we must feel ourselves at variance with ourselves. To-day we can feel the presence of these contradictions in many men in a truly tragic way.

1921-08-07-GA206

[Morality]

Here you stand before what the human being experiences in religious and moral ideas. This is completely torn away from what lives in the observation of nature. This is why people strive so hard to justify the moral-religious content through mere faith. The moral-religious content has been elevated to a system whose content must stand for itself which to some extent should not be allowed to be ruined by anything else, like how outer nature is described, what a person may feel, how the one influences the other. Our present day nature observation, as it exists in its newest phase, where optics and electrodynamics merge, draws by necessity the imagination of the death of warmth to itself. Then the earth with all its people and animals will die and then no human soul will develop despite all its moral ideals. This earth's demise is ensured by the Law of Conservation of Matter, of the Conservation of Energy: through this Law of the Conservation Of Energy the result is the death of the earth, the death of all human souls just like materialists consider the death of the soul as connected to the death of the human body.

Only when we are absolutely clear in our mind that what lives in us as morality, what permeates us as religious ideas, form a seed within us, a seed containing a reality, just as the seed of a plant unfolds into a plant the following year, only then can we know that the start of this seed is for a future natural existence and that the earth with everything it contains, visible, audible, perceptible to our senses, does not depend on the law of conservation of energy but that it dies, falls away from all human souls who then carry the moral ideals through as new natural events, into the Jupiter-, Venus-, and Vulcan existence; only when we are clear that Heaven and Earth will perish but My word, the Logos, which develops in the human soul, will not perish — when we are clear, literally clear about these words, only then can we speak of moral and religious content of our human souls. Otherwise it is dishonest. Otherwise we put to a certain extent morality in the world and adhere to another certainty than the natural certainty. If we are clear in our minds that the words of Christ are true, that a cosmos originates from morality, wrested free from the death shroud when this cosmos disintegrates, then we have a world view which indicates morality and naturalness in its metamorphosis.

This is essentially what must penetrate present day humanity because with the schooling of natural thinking developed over the last decades, it is impossible to also accomplish the most essential social concepts which we need. Something must live in the social concepts which recognise morality at the same time in its cosmic implications. The human being must once again learn that he or she is a cosmic being. Earlier the social affairs which needed to be organized on the earth round was not understood; before it had been acknowledged that human beings are connected with cosmic intentions, with cosmic entities.

1921-09-24-GA207

see: Future Jupiter#1921-09-24-GA207 or longer extract on Matter is destroyed in the brain#1921-09-24-GA207, as well as Seeds for future worlds

short extract below (SWCC)

The good can arise if (instead of our instincts and impulses, which are bound to work toward the cultivation of egoity) we pour into this source of destruction, by means of a moral inclination of soul, all moral and ethical ideals. Then something new arises. Then in this very source of destruction the seeds of future worlds arise. Then we, as human beings, take part in the coming into being of worlds.

In the Future Jupiter existence there will be only the new creation that already is being formed today in the human being out of moral ideals, within this source of destruction. It is also formed out of his anti-moral impulses, out of what works as evil from his egoity.

Hence the Future Jupiter existence will be a struggle between

• what Man on Earth is already bringing to birth by carrying his moral ideals into his inner chaos,
• and what arises with the cultivation of egoity as the anti-moral.

1921-10-02-GA207

Synopsis includes: the meeting of past and future in the mood of soul; the will as a battlefield of moral ideals with human instincts and drives

1922-08-25-GA305

If I give a child moral precepts I make morality distasteful, disgusting, to him

This is of enormous importance in its application to moral education: if we give the child definite precepts in conceptual form, we oblige him to come to morality in the form of ideas, and then antipathy arises; Man’s inner organism sets itself against abstract moral precepts or commandments, it opposes them.

But I can encourage the child to form his own moral sentiments direct from life, from feeling, from example and subsequently lead him on to the breaking down, to the catabolic stage, and get him to formulate moral principles as a free autonomous being. In this case I am helping him to an activity which benefits his entire being.

Thus, if I give a child moral precepts I make morality distasteful, disgusting, to him, and this fact plays an important part in modern social life.

You have no idea how much disgust human beings have felt for some of the most beautiful, the noblest, the mast majestic of man’s moral impulses because they have been presented to them in the form of precepts, in the form of intellectual ideas.

1922-09-14-GA215

title: 'The event of death, and its relationship with the Christ'

or: 'The continuation of I-consciousness after death in relation to the Christ'

from the synopsis:

the astral body constantly judges the moral value of our deeds. After death this totality of moral judgements is inserted into the soul which introduces it into the cosmos: the cosmos is like the nature surrounding us and is in itself amoral, not immoral. The 'moralizing' mission of Man in the cosmos, his responsibility of which he becomes aware in the soul world.

1922-09-23-GA216

People who hold a certain position in life are often capable of doing a great deal; but the important thing is that they should do what is right at each given opportunity. There are innumerable possibilities for action at this very minute—11:45 a.m., 23rd September, 1922—but it is up to every individual to do what the particular situation demands of him.

This principle must also operate in the life of thought. People must learn that certain thoughts are impermissible, and others permissible. Just as there are things that ought to be done and things that ought to be left undone, so people must learn to realise that by no means every thought is permissible. Such an attitude would bring about many changes in life. If it were universally cultivated, newspapers written in the modern style would be practically impossible, for those who discipline themselves at all would turn their back upon the thoughts voiced in such newspapers.

Just as there must be morality in men’s actions in the world of practical affairs, so, too, morality must pervade the life of thought.

Today we hear from everyone’s lips: This is my point of view, I think so-and-so … Yes, but perhaps it is not at all necessary to think it, or to hold such a point of view! In their life of thought, however, people have not yet begun to adopt moral principles.

1922-11-26-GA219

[The universe is moral, except the ether around Earth]

... But while this is happening, something else of tremendous significance takes place. Passing from the heavenly into the earthly realm, the human being experiences one side only of the etheric world. The etheric world extends through all the spheres of the planets and the stars. But the moment the heavenly faculties are transformed into the earthly, the human being loses the experience of the Cosmic Morality.

• Orientation among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies is ex­perienced not merely as a manifestation of natural laws but as moral orientation.
• Likewise the Logos speaks in the hu­man being not in an a-moral way as do the phenomena of Nature - for although they do not speak in an anti-moral way, they speak 'a-morally.' The Logos speaks morality;
• so too the Cosmic Thoughts light up as bearers of morality.

Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, this must be said despite the horror it will cause to physicists: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars contain, as well as their other forces, forces of moral orienta­tion.

It is only when Man transforms the heavenly faculties that have been characterized into walking, speaking, and thinking that he loses the moral elements. This is of im­mense importance. When here on Earth we speak of the ether (in which we live when we are approaching the Earth in order to be born) we ascribe to the ether all kinds of qualities. But that is only one side, one aspect, of the ether.

The other aspect is that it is a substance working with a moral effect. It is permeated through and through with moral im­pulses. Just as it is permeated with light, so it is permeated with moral impulses. In the earthly ether these impulses are not present.

1922-12-15-GA219

has as subtitle 'Love, Memory, the Moral Life'

Notes:

• Morality, the outcome of experiencing love, as a result of communion with higher hierarchies
• Morality, but also immorality – can only be explained in relation to a spiritual world – the need for Spiritual Science

1924-04-13-GA309

Subconsciously—even unconsciously—children have a delicate and intimate capacity for perceiving what is expressed in every movement and act of those around them. If a choleric person expresses fury in the presence of a child and allows the child to see this in the unconscious way I described, then, believe me, we are very mistaken to believe that the child sees only the outer activity. Children have a clear impression of what is contained within these moral acts, even when it is an unconscious impression. Sense impressions of the eye are also unconscious. Impressions that are not strictly sensory impressions, but expressions of the moral and soul life, flow into a child exactly the way colors flow into the eye, because the child’s organism is a sense organ.

This organism, however, has such a delicate structure that every impression permeates all of it. The first impression a child receives from any moral manifestation is a soul impression. For a child, however, the soul always works down into the bodily nature. Whether it be fear or joy and delight that a child experiences in the environment, all this passes—not crudely but in a subtle and delicate way—into the processes of growth, circulation, and digestion.

Children who live in constant terror of what may come their way as expressions of fury and anger from a choleric person, experience something in the soul that immediately penetrates the breathing, the circulation of the blood, and even the digestive activities. This is tremendously significant.

In childhood we cannot speak only of physical education, because soul education also means educating the body; everything in the soul element is metamorphosed into the body—it becomes body.

Discussion

Note 1 - Case examples of moral values and evil in society

1/ Italy 1950-2000 - Cosa Nostra (sicilian mafia)

Giovanni Falcone (1939-1992) (judge murdered through bombing, see Capaci bombing) and Paolo Borsellino (1940-1992) (judge murdered through bombing, see Via_D'Amelio bombing), with Tommaso Buscetta (1928-2000) (former cosa nostra member who became informant) versus the likes of drug boss Salvatore Riina (1930-2017).

See wikipedia for some first info, also eg the movie The Traitor (2019). The movie shows how violence and murder increased due to to drugs money and completely changed the Cosa Nostra (that initially still had 'a certain' moral code, and ao was into the 'more innocent' smuggling cigarettes, etc).

This is an image of what has been happening in the world at large in the 20th century, the impact of material wealth and large amounts of money related to drugs (heroin, cocaine) that are at the root of and driving violence and murder that have increased worldwide.

Thus this is an illustration of good versus egoism and evil. Drugs bring fellow human beings down, but bring material wealth (and power) for a few.

Notes

1/ Falcone and Borsellino followed into the footsteps of many magistrates previously killed by the Silician maffia, thereby choosing a life mission well aware of their potential fate. Their predecessors were all murdered by the Cosa Nostra, ao (but not limited to): Cesare Terranova (1921-1979), Giorgio Boris Giuliano (1930-1979), Gaetano Costa (1916-1980), Rocco Chinnici (1925-1983).

The war between the representatives of law and order and the mob knew many martyrs, but especially Falcone's death caused an uproar in the country whereby he became a symbol of the greater scheme that was at play and the open war that was taking place in society.

2/ Note: another famous drug baron at the head of an international organization was Pablo Escobar (1949-1993), the 'king of cocaine'. Both Escobar and Riina were heads of powerful empires, personally ordering thousands of murders.

4/ Both Riina and Escobar are key leaders of the establishment and large-scaled worldwide organization and industrialization to what has today become the global drugs industry, and this from the 1970 onwards (compare their life profiles for timing and pattern).

3/ Other movies: the famous trilogy The Godfather (by Francis Ford Coppola, released in 1972, 1974, and 1990 and featuring ao Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro) plays in the same contextual setting.

Spiritual scientific perspective:

1/ Blood ties and blood feuds or vendettas, are long running conflicts, over generations, between families and/or clans. Italy and Sicily were/are renowed for blood feuts and vendettas (stories since the middle ages), and in the context above these flowed into clan or mob wars. Blood based relations are the result of Jehovah blood based love and the process from group souls of humanity to individuation, see Development of the I#Note 1 - Narrative to the Development of the Human I.

One can imagine that karmic impulses carry over between networks of karmic relationships, renewing conflict patterns over generations.

2/ Sicily has a link with evil, see Schema FMC00.115 on Holy Grail (pact of the black magician Klingsor with Iblis)

3/ The above also illustrates how Ahrimanic and Soratic forces are closely linked. The god of money Mammon (Ahriman) is the force driving for materialistic wealth, the Soratic force brings out evil (pure egotism or selfishness - the opposite of love and selflessness) to pull people off from their regular development through drugs (see commentary on Sixteen paths of perdition#Note 3 - The opium war) and atrocities (barbaric killings).

4/ See also Humanity and the Christ Impulse on the topic of people as martyrs, who were killed fighting for a higher humanitarian cause, when the soul strength of moral ideals and compassion rise above an individual's fear of death, and individual people bring a personal sacrifice for moral ideals. Such individuals thereby can become symbols and inspiration for large masses, see eg judge Falcone in Italy.

2/ Humanitarian developments

See: Humanity and the Christ Impulse#19 and 20th century

1/ human rights

• universal declaration of human rights (UDHR) (in 1948)
• Amnesty International (re human rights) (founded 1961)

2/ medical care for the other

• Red cross (founded 1863)
• Doctors without borders (Médecins sans frontières) (founded 1971)

3/ caring for children

• Foster care development in 19th century, hundreds of organizations
• Unicef (United Nations Children's Fund) - humanitarian and developmental aid to children (founded 1946)

3/ 21st century - 'Me too' global conscientization around sexual harassment and abuse

from wikipedia:

The #MeToo movement is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke.The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem.

and

The Weinstein effect is a phenomenon in which sexual harassment allegations of powerful figures get disclosed. The first of a worldwide wave of allegations was made in the United States in October 2017, when media outlets reported on the allegations made against film producer Harvey Weinstein. They were described as a "tipping point" or "watershed moment" and precipitated an "international reckoning" against sexual harassment.

Various movies on the topic, ao

• Bombshell (2019) - explores the story of the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News, focusing on the women who exposed former CEO Roger Ailes
• She Said (2022) - follows New York Times reporters investigation that led to the exposure of Harvey Weinstein's decades-long pattern of abuse
• and many, many more in the last decade (just ask google or chatgpt)

.

Note 2 - The Christ is the sum of all moral fantasies of humanity

For this quote from a book by Swassjan, the exact source was not cited

In cases when a source is either unpublished or word of mouth, Swassjan usually says so. The quotation marks and the special font used in the book indicate that Steiner's words are given verbatim.

1995 - Swassjan

in: 'Urphänomene' Vol.3 (1995)

Der anthroposophische Zufall wollte es nun, daß der Verfasser der «Philosophie der Freiheit» nach dem Christus gefragt wurde, und zwar: Wo denn der Christus in der «Philosophie der Freiheit» zu suchen sei? ... Die Antwort Rudolf Steiners: «Der Christus ist die Summe aller moralischen Phantasien der Menschheit.»

translated:

Anthroposophical coincidence would have it that the author of the Philosophy of Freedom was asked about Christ, namely:

Where is Christ to be found in the Philosophy of Freedom? ...

Rudolf Steiner's answer: "The Christ is the sum of all moral fantasies of humanity."

Related pages

On morality

• Virtues
• Truth Beauty Good
• Philosophy

On the contextual frame and importance in a cosmic dimension for mankind

• Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension
• Seeds for future worlds
• Meaning of Free Man Creator

Furthermore foundational blocks

• Human character - the I and threefold soul
• Enlivened images
• Matter is destroyed in the brain

References and further reading

• Rudolf Steiner: The Spiritual Foundation of Morality - Francis of Assisi and the Christ Impulse (GA 155)
  • Translated by Malcolm Ian Gardner who also added worthwhile notes and commentary

• Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Die Neugeburt der menslichen Ideale : kann der Verfall der Werte in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Moral überwunden werden?' (1975)
• Johannes Denger: 'Ideal und Wirklichkeit : Versuch über den Umgang mit Idealen am Beispiel der helfenden Berufe' (1992)
• Georg Unger: 'Moralität - Weltmacht der Zukunft : Erleben des Übersinnlichen, Erkennen des Untersinnlichen' (1994)

Moral responsibility

see also Meaning of Free Man Creator and Seeds for future worlds

• Hans Jonas '1903-1993): 'The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age' (1979, original in DE as 'Das Prinzip Verantwortung - Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation')