The Michael Mystery
GA 26
XV. Heavenly History, Mythological History, Earthly History. The Mystery of Golgotha
[ 1 ] In the spatial cosmos there stand in opposition to one another: World Expanse, and Earth-Centre. In the World-Expanse, strewn abroad as it were, are the Stars. From the Earth-Centre, forces radiate forth in all directions to the World-Expanse.
[ 2 ] As Man stands to-day in the world, in the present cosmic age, the Stars in their shining, and the Earth-forces in their working, can only appear to him collectively as the accomplished work of the divine spiritual beings, with whom his link is in the inner man.
[ 3 ] But there was once an age of cosmic history when this shining of the stars and these earth-forces were still a direct spiritual revelation of the divine spiritual beings actively at work within his own being.
[ 4 ] Then came another age. The Star-Heaven separated as a corporeal existence out of the divine spiritual tide of activity. There arose what may be called World-Spirit and World-Body. The World-Spirit is a multiplicity of divine Spirit-Beings. They send their influences, in the earlier age, from the places of the stars upon the earth within. What there rained down in light from the regions of the world-expanse, what radiated forth as forces from the earth-centre, was in actuality the Intelligence and the Will of those divine spirit-beings who were shaping Earth and Earth's Manhood.
[ 5 ] In the alter cosmic epoch—after the evolution of Saturn and Sun—this Intelligence and Will of the divine Spirit-Beings became ever more spiritually inward in its workings. What they had actively been present in, present with their very Being, became now the ‘World-Body,’ an harmonious ordering of the stars in cosmic space. Looking back upon these things in spirit, comprehending them in a spiritual world-conception, one may express it thus: Out of the original Spirit-Body of the world-creative Beings there arose World-Spirit and World-Body. The World-Body marks in stellar order the stellar movement the way in which the Gods were working, long long ago in their Intelligence and Will. For the present age of the Cosmos, what once lived in the stars as freely moving, freely shaping divine intelligence and will, is now set fast in them as fixed Law.
[ 6 ] What shines therefore from out of the star-worlds to-day, to Man upon earth within, is not the immediate expression of divine will and divine intelligence, but a sign, left stationary, to mark what this divine will and intelligence were long ago, even in the stars. In the marvelous star-configuration of the heavens, waking wonder in the human soul, we may behold therefore a past manifestation but not the present manifestation of the Gods.
[ 7] But what is thus ‘past’ in the glory of the shining of the stars, is ‘present’ in the world of the spirit. And Man lives with his own being in this ‘present’ world-spirit.
[ 8 ] In the evolving forms of the world, we must look back upon an ancient epoch of cosmic history, when world-spirit and world-body worked together as a unity. We must keep before our eyes the intermediate epoch, during which they develop as a duality. And we must think forward into the future—into the third epoch, when the world-spirit will once more absorb the world-body into its sphere of action.
[ 9 ] For the ancient epoch there could have been no ‘calculating’ the constellations and the courses of the stars, for they were an expression of the free intelligence and the free will of divine spiritual beings. In the future, there will again be no calculating them.
[ 10 ] ‘Calculation’ only has any meaning for the intermediate epoch of the Cosmos.
[ 11 ] This, which is true of the constellations and the courses of the stars, applies also to the action of the forces which radiate from the earth-centre into the world-expanse. What there spring forth ‘from the depths’ also becomes ‘calculable.’
[ 12 ] Everything tends from the earlier cosmic epoch towards the intermediate one, when the worlds of Time and space become ‘calculable,’ and when Divine Spirit, in its manifestations as Intelligence and will, must be sought ‘behind’ the ‘Calculable.’
[ 13 ] This intermediate epoch alone affords the conditions under which Mankind can progress from a dull, dim consciousness to a clear, free consciousness of Self—to free intelligence and free will of his own.
[ 14 ] There had to come the time when Copernicus and Kepler ‘calculated’ the world-body; for the cosmic forces that served to bring about this moment were necessary to that development of human Self-consciousness. The disposition for this Self-consciousness was laid in an older age; then came the time when it was advanced so far as to be able to calculate the distant world-expanses.
[ 15 ] ‘History’ begins to be played out upon earth. There would have been no History, had not the world-expanse with all its stars become set in ‘fixed’ constellations and orbits. In the ‘course of history’ upon earth, we have a reproduction—though a quite transformed one—of what, once on a time, was ‘heavenly history.’
[ 16 ] The peoples of olden time continued to carry this ‘heavenly history’ still in their consciousness, and turned their eyes rather upon this than upon ‘earthly history.’
[ 17 ] In Earthly History there lives the intelligence and will of Man, at first in connection with the cosmic, divine will and divine intelligence, and then independently.
[ 18 ] In Heavenly History there lived the intelligence and will of the divine spirit-beings connected with mankind.
[ 19 ] Looking back over the spiritual life of the various peoples one finds, in the far remote past, such a consciousness amongst men of their being together and willing together with the divine spirit-beings, that their own human history is still a heavenly history. In his narration of first ‘origins,’ man's tale is not of earthly proceedings but of cosmic. Indeed, even for his own times—the times in which he is presently concerned—that which goes on in his earthly surroundings seems to him so insignificant in comparison with what is going on in the Cosmos, that he disregards the former and only pays attention to the latter.
[ 20 ] There was an age when the consciousness of mankind beheld the Heaven's history in mighty impressions, in which the divine spirit-beings themselves stood before Man's soul. The divine Beings spoke, and Man heard their speech in dream-like Inspiration; they revealed their forms, and Man beheld them in dream-like Imagination.
[ 21 ] This Heavenly History, which for a long while filled men's souls, was followed by Mythical History, now for the most part regarded as old poetic fiction. This Mythical History links together heavenly doings and earthly doings. ‘Heroes’ for instance came upon the scene—super-human beings. These are beings who stand higher than men in their evolution. Men at a particular time, for instance, have only developed the different parts of Man's being as far as the Sentient Soul. The Hero however has already evolved what will one day take its place in Man as ‘Spirit-Self.’ The Hero cannot directly incarnate in a physical body under earthly conditions; but he can do so by going down into the physical body of a human being, and thus enabling himself to work as a man amongst men. In the ‘Initiates’ of earlier ages we have beings of this kind.
The actual fact, with regard to all these things which occurred in the course of the world, is not simply that mankind in the successive periods of history ‘pictured’ things in one way or another in their own minds. What actually took place between the more spiritual, ‘incalculable’ world and the corporeal ‘calculable’ one, itself underwent a change. Only this much may be said: long after the actual conditions had changed in the world, human consciousness, in one or another other of the peoples, still clung to a ‘view of the world’ which corresponded to a far earlier reality. At first it was so, that human consciousness—which does not keep pace with the progress of cosmic events—still really saw the things of old. Then came a time when spiritual sight grew dim, and the old things were only maintained by tradition. Thus in the Middle Ages people still traditionally ‘pictured in their minds’ an intervention of the heavenly in the earthly world, which was no longer seen, since the power of pictorial vision no longer existed.
[ 22 ] Moreover, the evolution of the various peoples in the earthly sphere is such that they retain one or other view of the world, with its corresponding picture, for varying lengths of time; so that there are living alongside one another, views of the world which by their essential character should be living after one another.
The different views of the world however, existing amongst the different peoples, did not proceed only from this, but also from the fact that these different peoples, according to their dispositions, saw different things. Thus the Egyptians saw that world in which there are beings who long ago stopped short on the road to human evolution and never became earth-men; and they saw Man, after his earth-life, in all that he had to do with beings of this kind. The Chaldean peoples saw rather, how spiritual beings—both good and evil—from beyond the earthly sphere entered into earth-life to influence its course.
[ 23 ] To the ancient Heavenly History, properly speaking, which extends over quite a long period of time, there then succeeds the Mythological History, which is shorter, but still long in comparison to the subsequent period of ‘history proper.’
[ 24 ] As I described, men in their consciousness leave go but reluctantly of the old views, in which gods and men are pictured as fellow-actors in a common field. Proper, earthly history had long been in existence—ever since the development of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul—whilst men were still ‘thinking’ in the sense of what had been in former times. Only with the first opening flower of the Spiritual Soul did men begin to turn their eyes upon ‘history’ in the proper sense.
[ 25 ] Now in the human spirit working in earthly history, loosed from its tie with the Divine Spirit, men have the possibility to realize within themselves free intelligence and free will.
[ 26 ] So the weaving of the world-process in which Man is interwoven moves on, between the altogether calculable and the workings of free intelligence and free will. Under the joint action of both, the world-process is manifested—in every variety of shade betwixt the two.
[ 27 ] In his life as he leads it between birth and death, Man has ready-laid for him in the Calculable, as a foundation, the bodily groundwork upon which to unfold the free Incalculable of his inner, spiritual soul-life. His life between death and new birth is passed in the Incalculable—yet in such a way that in his inner life of soul and spirit, the Calculable is revealed to him in thought. Thereby—out of this Calculable—he becomes the architect of his next earth-life.
[ 28 ] In ‘history,’ the Incalculable is played out on earth—an Incalculable with which however the Calculable is interwoven, if only in feeble measure.
[ 29 ] Against this order established between Calculable and Incalculable by the divine spiritual beings who have been associated with Man from the beginning of all things, against their harmonizing of the Cosmos through ‘Measure, Number and Weight,’ stands the opposition of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings. Lucifer can combine with his own form of being, as he has made it, nothing calculable. His ideal is the cosmic unconditioned action of intelligence and will.
[ 30 ] This Luciferic tendency is one fitly suited to the world's order in those fields where freedom should rightly rule events. And there Lucifer is justly the spiritual helper of Mankind in their evolution. Without his aid, freedom would never make its way into Man's spiritual and soul life, built as it is upon a calculable, bodily basis. But Lucifer would like to extend this tendency to the whole Cosmos. And here his activity becomes a war against that divine spiritual order to which Man originally belongs.
[ 31 ] Here Michael intervenes. With his own being he stands in the Incalculable; but he dresses the balance between the Incalculable, and that Calculable which he bears within him as a World-thought received from his Gods.
[ 32 ] The Ahrimanic Powers stand otherwise in the world. They are the complete opposite of the divine spirit-beings with whom Man is originally connected. These latter are at the present day purely spiritual beings, who bear within themselves perfectly free intelligence and perfectly free will, but who create, in this their free intelligence and will, a wise insight into the necessity of the Calculable and Unfree, as a World-Thought from whose sheltering lap Man may grow up into a free being. And with all the Calculable, with this World-Thought of the cosmos, they are united in Love. This Love streams from them throughout all the universe.
[ 33 ] In complete opposition to all this is the grasping greed of the Ahrimanic powers, in which lives cold Hate of everything expanding in freedom. Ahriman's aim and endeavour, in all that he pours forth into world-space, is to make a cosmic machine. His ideal is, ‘simply and solely,’ Measure, Number and Weight. He was called into the Cosmos prepared for the service of human evolution, because it was necessary that this, his special department—Measure, Number and Weight—should be developed.
[ 34 ] He who comprehends the world as everywhere Spirit-in-body, he alone really comprehends it. This must be carried down into the world of Nature with regard to the powers at work there, such as the Divine Spiritual Powers who work in Love, and the Ahrimanic Powers who work in hate. In the natural, universal warmth, as it sets in with the spring and tends on into summer, we must behold the natural love of the Divine Spirit-Beings. In the freezing blasts of winter we must recognize the workings of Ahriman.
[ 35 ] In the height of midsummer, Lucifer mingles his power with the Love, the Warmth of Nature. At Christmas-tide, the Divine Spirit-Beings with whom Man is from his origin united turn their power against the frozen Hate of Ahriman. And ever more and more towards the springtime, Natural Divine Love is mildly at work, mitigating Natural Ahrimanic Hate.
[ 36 ] The yearly sign of this Divine Love, new-manifested as it is year by year, is the time of Remembrance, when we recall how with the Christ the free element of God entered into the calculable element of Earth. Christ works in perfect freedom within the Calculable. In so doing, He renders harmless that which craves the Calculable only—Ahriman and his forces.
[ 37 ] The unique Event of Golgotha is the free, cosmic act of Love within Earth's history. It is to be comprehended too only by the Love that Man brings to its comprehension.
Leading Thoughts
[ 38 ] The cosmic process with which the evolution of mankind is interwoven, and which reflects itself in human consciousness as History (in the most comprehensive sense,) may be distinguished into: a lengthy period of Heavenly History; a shorter one of Mythological History; and the comparatively short Earthly History.
[ 39 ] This cosmic process, at the present time, falls apart into: the ‘not-to-be-calculated’ working of divine spirit-beings, who freely create in free Intelligence and Will, and the ‘calculable’ processes or the world-body.
[ 40 ] To the Calculable of the world-body are opposed the Luciferic Powers; to the creating in free intelligence and free will, the Ahrimanic Powers.
[ 41 ] The unique Event of Golgotha is a free cosmic act, which originates in World-Love and can only be comprehended by Man's Love.
Himmelsgeschichte. Mythologische Geschichte. Erdgeschichte Mysterium von Golgatha.
[ 1 ] Im räumlichen Kosmos stehen einander gegenüber: Weltenweite und Erdenzentrum. In der Weltenweite sind die Sterne gewissermaßen «ausgestreut». Vom Erdenzentrum strahlen Kräfte nach allen Richtungen der Weltenweite.
[ 2 ] So wie der Mensch in der gegenwärtigen kosmischen Epoche in der Welt darinnen steht, kann ihm das Sternenscheinen und Erdenkräftewirken nur als das Gesamtwerk der göttlich-geistigen Wesen, mit denen er in seinem Innern verbunden ist, erscheinen.
[ 3 ] Aber es gab eine kosmische Zeit-Epoche, da waren dieses Scheinen und diese Erdenkräfte noch unmittelbare geistige Offenbarung der göttlich-geistigen Wesen. Der Mensch in seinem dumpfen Bewußtsein fühlte die göttlich-geistigen Wesen wirksam in seiner Wesenheit.
[ 4 ] Dann kam eine andere Zeit-Epoche. Der Sternenhimmel löste sich als körperliches Wesen aus dem göttlich-geistigen Wirken heraus. Es entstand das, was man Weltengeist und Weltenleib nennen kann. Der Weltengeist ist eine Vielheit göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten. Sie wirken in der älteren Epoche aus den Sternen-Orten auf die Erde herein. Was da von den Weltenweiten erglänzte, was vom Erdenzentrum als Kräfte erstrahlte, das war in Wirklichkeit Intelligenz und Wille der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die an der Erde und ihrer Menschheit schufen.
[ 5 ] In der späteren kosmischen Epoche — nach der Saturn- und Sonnenentwickelung — wurde das Wirken von Intelligenz und Wille der göttlich-geistigen Wesen immer geistiginnerlicher. Worinnen sie ursprünglich wirksam-anwesend waren, das wurde «Weltenleib», harmonische Anordnung der Sterne im Weltenraume. Man kann, wenn man in geistgemäßer Weltanschauung auf diese Dinge zurückblickt, sagen: aus dem ursprünglichen Geist-Leib der weltschöpferischen Wesen ist Weltengeist und Weltenleib entstanden. Und der Weltenleib zeigt in Sternen-Anordnung und Sternenbewegung, wie einst das intelligente und willensgemäße Götterwirken war. Aber für die kosmische Gegenwart ist, was einst frei bewegliche Götterintelligenz und Götterwille in den Sternen war, in diesen gesetzmäßig-fest geworden.
[ 6 ] Was also heute aus den Sternenwelten zu dem Menschen auf der Erde hereinscheint, ist nicht unmittelbarer Ausdruck von Götterwillen und Götterintelligenz, sondern stehengebliebenes Zeichen für das, was diese in den Sternen einst waren. In der Bewunderung aus der Menschenseele lösenden Himmels-Stern-Gestaltung kann man daher eine vergangene, aber nicht die gegenwärtige Götteroffenbarung sehen.
[ 7 ] Aber dasjenige, was so im Sternenschein «vergangen» ist, in der Geist-Welt ist es «gegenwärtig». Und der Mensch lebt mit seinem Wesen in diesem «gegenwärtigen» Weltengeist.
[ 8 ] Man muß in der Weltgestaltung zurückblicken auf eine alte kosmische Epoche, in der Weltengeist und Weltenleib als eine Einheit wirken. Man muß die mittlere Epoche ins Auge fassen, in der sie als Zweiheit sich entfalten. Und man muß in die Zukunft, die dritte Epoche, denken, in der der Weltengeist den Weltenleib wieder in seine Wirksamkeit übernehmen wird.
[ 9 ] Für die alte Epoche wären Sternenkonstellation und Sternenlauf nicht zu «berechnen» gewesen, denn sie waren Ausdruck der freien Intelligenz und des freien Willens von göttlich-geistigen Wesen. In der Zukunft werden sie wieder nicht zu berechnen sein.
[ 10 ] «Berechnung» hat nur eine Bedeutung für die mittlere kosmische Epoche.
[ 11 ] Und wie für Sternenkonstellation und Sternenlauf, so gilt dieses auch für die Wirksamkeit der vom Erdenzentrum in die Weltenweite strahlenden Kräfte. Da wird das, was «aus der Tiefe» wirkt, «berechenbar».
[ 12 ] Aber alles strebt aus der älteren kosmischen Epoche der mittleren zu, in der das Räumliche und Zeitliche «berechenbar» wird und das Göttlich-Geistige als Intelligenz- und Willens-Offenbarung «hinter» dem «Berechenbaren» gesucht werden muß.
[ 13 ] Nur in dieser mittleren Epoche sind die Bedingungen gegeben, in denen die Menschheit von einem dumpfen Bewußtsein zu einem hellen, freien Selbstbewußtsein, zu eigener freier Intelligenz und eigenem freien Willen fortschreiten kann.
[ 14 ] Es mußte einmal die Zeit kommen, in der Kopernikus und Kepler den Weltenleib «berechneten». Denn aus den kosmischen Kräften, die mit der Herbeiführung dieses Augenblickes zusammenhängen, mußte das menschliche Selbstbewußtsein sich gestalten. In älterer Zeit wurde dieses Selbstbewußtsein veranlagt; dann kam die Zeit, wo es so weit war, die Weltenweite zu «berechnen».
[ 15 ] Auf der Erde spielt sich die «Geschichte» ab. Die wäre nie gekommen, wenn die Weltenweite nicht zu «festen» Sternkonstellationen und Sternenlaufen geworden wäre. In dem «geschichtlichen Werden» auf Erden ist ein Abbild — aber ein durchaus gewandeltes — dessen vorhanden, was einst «Himmelsgeschichte» war.
[ 16 ] Ältere Völker haben in ihrem Bewußtsein noch diese «Himmelsgeschichte», und sie blicken viel mehr auf diese als auf die «Erdengeschichte».
[ 17 ] In der «Erdengeschichte» lebt Intelligenz und Wille der Menschen, erst im Zusammenhange mit dem kosmischen Götterwillen und der Götterintelligenz, dann selbständig.
[ 18 ] In der «Himmelsgeschichte» lebten Intelligenz und Wille der mit der Menschheit zusammenhängenden göttlich-geistigen Wesen.
[ 19 ] Blickt man zurück auf das geistige Leben der Völker, so ist in urferner Vergangenheit ein Bewußtsein des Zusammenseins und Zusammenwollens mit den göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten so bei den Menschen vorhanden, daß deren Geschichte Himmelsgeschichte ist. Der Mensch erzählt, indem er über «Ursprünge» spricht, nicht irdische, sondern kosmische Vorgänge. Ja auch für seine Gegenwart erscheint ihm das, was in seiner Erden-Umgebung vorgeht, so unbedeutend gegenüber den kosmischen Vorgängen, daß er nur diese, nicht jenes beachtet.
[ 20 ] Es gab eine Epoche, in der die Menschheit das Bewußtsein hatte, die Himmelsgeschichte in mächtigen Eindrücken zu schauen, in denen die göttlich-geistigen Wesen selbst vor der Seele des Menschen standen. Sie sprachen; und der Mensch vernahm die Sprache in Traum-Inspiration; sie offenbarten ihre Gestalten; und der Mensch schaute sie in Traum-Imagination.
[ 21 ] Diese «Himmelsgeschichte», die eine lange Zeit die Menschenseelen erfüllte, wurde gefolgt von der mythischen Geschichte, die man heute vielfach für alte Dichtung hält. Sie verbindet Himmelsgeschehen mit Erdgeschehen. Es treten zum Beispiel «Heroen» auf, übermenschliche Wesen. Es sind das Wesen, die in der Entwickelung höher stehen als die Menschen. Diese haben zum Beispiel in einer gewissen Zeit die menschlichen Wesensglieder nur bis zur Empfindungsseele ausgestaltet. Der «Heros» aber hat bereits entwickelt, was im Menschen als Geistselbst einmal auftreten wird. Der «Heros» kann nicht innerhalb der Erdenverhältnisse unmittelbar sich verkörpern; aber er kann es dadurch, daß er in den Körper eines Menschen untertaucht und so sich fähig macht, als Mensch unter Menschen zu wirken. In «Eingeweihten» der älteren Zeit hat man solche Wesen zu sehen. Die Tatsachen im Weltgeschehen liegen bei alle dem so, daß nicht etwa die Menschheit sich in den aufeinanderfolgenden Epochen die Geschehnisse so «vorstellte»; sondern, was sich zwischen der mehr geistigen «unberechenbaren» und der körperlichen «berechenbaren» Welt abspielte, das wandelte sich. Nur das liegt vor, daß lange, nachdem die Weltverhältnisse sich schon gewandelt hatten, das menschliche Bewußtsein dieses oder jenes Volkes noch an einer «Weltanschauung» festhielt, die einer viel früheren Wirklichkeit entsprach. Zuerst geschah das so, daß das menschliche Bewußtsein, das nicht gleichen Schritt hält mit dem kosmischen Geschehen, das Alte wirklich noch schaute. Dann kam eine Zeit, wo das Schauen verblaßte und das Alte nur durch Tradition noch festgehalten wurde. So wird im Mittelalter traditionell ein Hereinspielen der Himmelswelt in die irdische noch vorgestellt, das nicht mehr geschaut wird, weil die Kraft des Bildschauens nicht mehr da ist.
[ 22 ] Und im Erdbereich entwickeln sich die Völker so, daß sie in verschiedener Zeitenlänge den einen oder andern Weltanschauungsinhalt festhalten, so daß nebeneinander Weltanschauungen leben, die ihrem Wesen gemäß nacheinanderliegen. — Nur rühren die verschiedenen Weltanschauungen der Völker nicht allein von dieser Tatsache her, sondern auch davon, daß nach ihren Anlagen die verschiedenen Völker verschiedenes schauten. So sahen die Ägypter die Welt, in der Wesen sind, welche auf dem Wege der Menschwerdung vorzeitig stehen geblieben und nicht Erdenmenschen geworden sind; und sie sahen den Menschen nach seinem Erdenleben in alle dem, was er mit solchen Wesen zu tun hat. Die chaldäischen Völker sahen mehr, wie außerirdische geistige Wesen — gute und böse — in das Erdenleben eintraten, um da zu wirken.
[ 23 ] Auf die alte, einer ganz langen Zeitepoche angehörige eigentliche «Himmelsgeschichte» folgt die «mythologische» Geschichte, die kürzer, aber im Verhältnis zur späteren eigentlichen «Geschichte» doch noch lange ist.
[ 24 ] Die Menschen verlassen — wie ich schon charakterisiert habe — nur schwer in ihrem Bewußtsein die alten Anschauungen, in denen Götter und Menschen zusammenwirkend vorgestellt werden. — So ist «eigentliche Erdgeschichte» längst - seit Entfaltung der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele — vorhanden. Der Mensch «denkt» noch im Sinne dessen, was gewesen ist. Erst da, wo die ersten Keime der Bewußtseinsseele sich entwickeln, beginnt man damit auf die «eigentliche Geschichte» zu blicken.
[ 25 ] Und in dem, was losgelöst vom Göttlich-Geistigen als Menschlich-Geistiges Geschichte wird, kann von den Menschen die freie Intelligenz und der freie Wille erlebt werden.
[ 26 ] So verläuft das Weltgeschehen, in das der Mensch ein-verwoben ist, zwischen dem voll Berechenbaren und dem Wirken der freien Intelligenz und des freien Willens. In allen Zwischennuancen des Zusammenwirkens von beidem offenbart sich das Weltgeschehen.
[ 27 ] Der Mensch vollbringt sein Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod so, daß ihm im Berechenbaren die leibliche Grundlage zur Entfaltung des innerlichen geistig-seelischen freien Unberechenbaren geschaffen wird. Sein Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt durchläuft er im Unberechenbaren, doch so, daß ihm da als in dem «Inneren» des geistig-seelischen Seins das Berechenbare sich gedanklich entfaltet. Er wird dadurch — aus diesem Berechenbaren heraus — der Aufbauer seines kommenden Erdenlebens.
[ 28 ] In der «Geschichte» lebt sich auf Erden das Unberechenbare aus, in das sich aber das Berechenbare, wenn auch im schwachen Maße eingliedert.
[ 29 ] Gegen die Ordnung, die durch die mit dem Menschen seit Urbeginn verbundenen göttlich-geistigen Wesen zwischen Unberechenbarem und Berechenbarem festgelegt ist — gegen deren Harmonisierung des Kosmos durch «Maß, Zahl und Gewicht» —, stellen sich die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Wesen. Luzifer kann mit der Art, die er seinem Wesen gegeben hat, nichts Berechenbares vereinigen. Sein Ideal ist kosmische unbedingte Intelligenz- und Willenswirkung.
[ 30 ] Diese luziferische Tendenz, sie ist angemessen der Weltenordnung in den Gebieten, in denen freies Geschehen herrschen soll. Und da ist Luzifer der berechtigte geistige Helfer der Menschheits-Entfaltung. Ohne seine Hilfe könnte in das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen, das sich auf der Grundlage des berechenbaren Leiblichen aufbaut, Freiheit nicht einziehen- Aber Luzifer möchte diese Tendenz auf den ganzen Kosmos ausdehnen. Und da wird seine Tätigkeit zum Kampfe gegen die göttlich-geistige Ordnung, zu der der Mensch ursprünglich gehört.
[ 31 ] Da tritt Michael ein. Er steht mit dem eigenen Wesen im Unberechenbaren; aber er bewirkt den Ausgleich zwischen dem Unberechenbaren und dem Berechenbaren, das er als Weltgedanke in sich trägt, den er von seinen Göttern empfangen hat.
[ 32 ] Anders stehen die ahrimanischen Mächte in der Welt. Sie sind der völlige Gegensatz der göttlich-geistigen Wesen, mit denen der Mensch ursprünglich verbunden ist. Diese sind gegenwärtig rein geistige Mächte, die in sich vollkommene freie Intelligenz und vollkommen freien Willen tragen, die aber in dieser Intelligenz und diesem Willen die weise Einsicht von der Notwendigkeit des Berechenbaren, Unfreien als Weltgedanken schaffen, aus dessen Schöße der Mensch als freies Wesen sich entfalten soll. Und sie sind mit allem Berechenbaren, mit dem Weltgedanken, im Kosmos in Liebe verbunden. Diese Liebe strömt von ihnen durch das Weltall.
[ 33 ] In vollem Gegensatz dazu lebt in dem gierigen Begehren der ahrimanischen Mächte der kalte Haß auf alles in Freiheit sich Entfaltende. Ahrimans Streben geht dahin, aus dem, was er von der Erde in den Weltenraum strömen läßt, eine kosmische Maschine zu machen. Sein Ideal ist «einzig und allein» «Maß, Zahl und Gewicht». Er wurde in den der Menschenentwickelung dienenden Kosmos hereingerufen, weil «Maß, Zahl und Gewicht», sein Gebiet, entfaltet werden mußte.
[ 34 ] Nur wer die Welt geistig-körperlich überall begreift, der begreift sie wirklich. Das muß bis in die Natur hinein mit Bezug auf solche Mächte wie die göttlich-geistigen in Liebe wirkenden und die in Haß wirkenden ahrimanischen beachtet werden. Man muß in der naturhaften Weltenwärme, die mit dem Frühling einsetzt und gegen den Sommer zu wirkt, die naturhafte Liebe der göttlich-geistigen Wesen wahrnehmen; man muß in dem wehenden Froste des Winters die Wirkung Ahrimans gewahr werden.
[ 35 ] Im Hochsommer webt sich Luzifers Kraft in die naturhafte Liebe, die Wärme, hinein. In der Weihnachtszeit wendet sich die Kraft der göttlich-geistigen Wesen, denen der Mensch ursprünglich verbunden ist, gegen den Frost-Haß Ahrimans. Und gegen den Frühling zu mildert fortdauernd naturhafte göttliche Liebe naturhaften Ahriman-Haß.
[ 36 ] Das Erscheinen dieser alljährlich auftretenden göttlichen Liebe ist die Zeit der Erinnerung, da das freie Gottes-Element in das berechenbare Erd-Element mit dem Christus eingetreten ist. Christus wirkt in völliger Freiheit in dem Berechenbaren; damit macht er unschädlich, was nur das Berechenbare begehrt, das Ahrimanische.
[ 37 ] Das Ereignis von Golgatha ist die freie kosmische Tat der Liebe innerhalb der Erdengeschichte; sie ist auch nur erfaßbar für die Liebe, die der Mensch zu diesem Erfassen aufbringt.
Goetheanum, um Weihnachten 1924 Leitsätze Nr. 140 bis 143
(4. Januar 1925)
(Mit Bezug auf das Vorangehende über: Himmelsgeschichte, mythologische Geschichte, Erdgeschichte, Mysterium von Golgatha)
[ 38 ] 140. Das kosmische Geschehen, in das die Menschheitsentwickelung einverwoben ist, und das sich im Menschenbewußtsein als «Geschichte» — im umfassendsten Sinne spiegelt, gliedert sich: in die langdauernde Himmelsgeschichte, die kürzere mythologische Geschichte und in die verhältnismäßig ganz kurze Erdgeschichte.
[ 39 ] 141. Dieses kosmische Geschehen zerfällt gegenwärtig in das «nicht zu berechnende» Wirken göttlich-geistiger Wesen, die in freier Intelligenz und freiem Willen schaffen, und in das «berechenbare» Geschehen des Weltenleibes.
[ 40 ] 142. Gegen das Berechenbare des Weltenleibes stellen sich die luziferischen, gegen das in freier Intelligenz und freiem Willen Schaffende die ahrimanischen Mächte.
[ 41 ] 143. Das Ereignis von Golgatha ist eine freie kosmische Tat, die der Welten-Liebe entstammt und nur durch Menschen-Liebe erfaßt werden kann.
History of the heavens. Mythological history. Earth history Mystery of Golgotha.
[ 1 ] In the spatial cosmos there are opposites: World's expanse and earth's center. The stars are to a certain extent "scattered" in the universe. Forces radiate from the center of the earth in all directions of the world's expanse.
[ 2 ] As man stands in the world in the present cosmic epoch, the starry shining and earthly forces can only appear to him as the total work of the divine-spiritual beings with whom he is connected in his inner being.
[ 3 ] But there was a cosmic time epoch when this shining and these earth forces were still the direct spiritual revelation of the divine-spiritual beings. Man in his dull consciousness felt the divine-spiritual beings effectively in his being.
[ 4 ] Then came another epoch of time. The starry sky detached itself as a physical being from the divine-spiritual work. What can be called world spirit and world body emerged. The world spirit is a multiplicity of divine-spiritual entities. In the older epoch they work into the earth from the starry places. What shone from the expanses of the worlds, what radiated from the center of the earth as forces, was in reality the intelligence and will of the divine-spiritual beings who created the earth and its humanity.
[ 5 ] In the later cosmic epoch - after the evolution of Saturn and the sun - the work of intelligence and will of the divine-spiritual beings became more and more spiritually internalized. What they were originally active and present in became the "world body", the harmonious arrangement of the stars in world space. If one looks back on these things in a spiritually appropriate world view, one can say: world spirit and world body arose from the original spirit body of the world-creating beings. And the world body shows in the arrangement and movement of the stars how once the intelligent and willful work of the gods was. But for the cosmic present, what was once free-moving divine intelligence and divine will in the stars has become lawful and fixed in them.
[ 6 ] So what shines in today from the starry worlds to man on earth is not a direct expression of the will of the gods and the intelligence of the gods, but a sign that has remained standing of what they once were in the stars. In the celestial star design that releases admiration from the human soul, one can therefore see a past, but not the present revelation of the gods.
[ 7 ] But that which is "past" in the starlight is "present" in the spirit world. And man lives with his being in this "present" world spirit.
[ 8 ] In the shaping of the world, one must look back to an old cosmic epoch in which world spirit and world body function as a unity. We must consider the middle epoch in which they unfold as a duality. And one must think into the future, the third epoch, in which the world spirit will again take over the world body into its activity.
[ 9 ] For the old epoch, the constellation and course of the stars could not have been "calculated" because they were an expression of the free intelligence and free will of divine-spiritual beings. In the future, they will again be impossible to calculate.
[ 10 ] "Calculation" only has a meaning for the middle cosmic epoch.
[ 11 ] And as for the constellation and course of the stars, this also applies to the effectiveness of the forces radiating from the center of the earth into the world. That which works "from the depths" becomes "calculable".
[ 12 ] But everything strives from the older cosmic epoch towards the middle, in which the spatial and temporal becomes "calculable" and the divine-spiritual must be sought "behind" the "calculable" as a revelation of intelligence and will.
[ 13 ] Only in this middle epoch are the conditions given in which humanity can progress from a dull consciousness to a bright, free self-consciousness, to its own free intelligence and its own free will.
[ 14 ] The time had to come when Copernicus and Kepler "calculated" the body of the world. For human self-consciousness had to be formed from the cosmic forces connected with the bringing about of this moment. In older times, this self-consciousness was predisposed; then came the time when it was ready to "calculate" the world.
[ 15 ] The "story" takes place on Earth. It would never have come about if the expanse of the world had not become "fixed" star constellations and star courses. In the "historical becoming" on earth, there is an image - but a thoroughly changed one - of what was once "celestial history".
[ 16 ] Older peoples still have this "heavenly history" in their consciousness, and they look to it much more than to "earthly history".
[ 17 ] In the "history of the earth" lives the intelligence and will of men, first in connection with the cosmic will of the gods and the intelligence of the gods, then independently.
[ 18 ] In the "history of the heavens" lived the intelligence and will of the divine-spiritual beings connected with humanity.
[ 19 ] Looking back at the spiritual life of the peoples, in the distant past there is a consciousness of being together and wanting to be together with the divine-spiritual beings in such a way that their history is the history of heaven. By talking about "origins", man does not recount earthly but cosmic processes. Indeed, even for his present, what goes on in his earthly environment seems so insignificant to him compared to the cosmic processes that he only pays attention to these, not to that.
[ 20 ] There was an epoch in which mankind had the consciousness to see the history of heaven in mighty impressions, in which the divine-spiritual beings themselves stood before the soul of man. They spoke; and man heard the speech in dream-inspiration; they revealed their forms; and man beheld them in dream-imagination.
[ 21 ] This "heavenly story", which filled the souls of men for a long time, was followed by the mythical story, which today is often thought to be ancient poetry. It combines heavenly events with earthly events. For example, "heroes" appear, superhuman beings. These are beings who are higher in development than humans. At a certain time, for example, these beings have only developed the human being limbs to the level of the sentient soul. The "Heros", however, has already developed what will one day appear in the human being as the spirit self. The "Heros" cannot embody itself directly within earthly relationships; but it can do so by immersing itself in the body of a human being and thus making itself capable of working as a human being among human beings. Such beings can be seen in the "initiates" of older times. The facts of world events in all this are such that mankind did not "imagine" events in this way in successive epochs; rather, what took place between the more spiritual "incalculable" and the physical "calculable" world changed. It is only that long after world conditions had already changed, the human consciousness of this or that people still clung to a "world view" that corresponded to a much earlier reality. At first this happened in such a way that human consciousness, which does not keep pace with cosmic events, really still saw the old. Then came a time when vision faded and the old was only held on to through tradition. Thus, in the Middle Ages, traditionally, the heavenly world is still imagined to play into the earthly world, which is no longer seen because the power of seeing is no longer there.
[ 22 ] And in the terrestrial realm the peoples develop in such a way that they hold one or the other worldview content in different lengths of time, so that next to each other worldviews live, which according to their nature lie one after the other. - But the different world-views of the peoples do not stem from this fact alone, but also from the fact that the different peoples saw different things according to their dispositions. Thus the Egyptians saw the world in which there were beings who had stopped prematurely on the way to becoming man and had not become earth-men; and they saw man after his life on earth in all that he had to do with such beings. The Chaldean peoples saw more how extraterrestrial spiritual beings - good and evil - entered earthly life in order to work there.
[ 23 ] The ancient "celestial history" proper, which belongs to a very long epoch, is followed by the "mythological" history, which is shorter, but still long in relation to the later "history" proper.
[ 24 ] As I have already characterized, it is difficult for people to abandon in their consciousness the old views in which gods and humans are presented as interacting. - Thus "actual earth history" has long been present - since the development of the intellectual or emotional soul. Man still "thinks" in terms of what has been. Only when the first germs of the consciousness soul develop does one begin to look at the "actual history".
[ 25 ] And in that which, detached from the divine-spiritual, becomes history as the human-spiritual, free intelligence and free will can be experienced by human beings.
[ 26 ] In this way, world events, in which man is interwoven, run between the fully calculable and the workings of free intelligence and free will. World events are revealed in all the nuances of the interaction between the two.
[ 27 ] Man accomplishes his life between birth and death in such a way that the bodily basis for the unfolding of the inner spiritual-soul free unpredictable is created for him in the calculable. He passes through his life between death and a new birth in the incalculable, but in such a way that the calculable unfolds mentally as in the "inner" of the spiritual-soul being. He thus becomes - out of this calculable - the builder of his coming life on earth.
[ 28 ] In "history" the incalculable lives itself out on earth, into which, however, the calculable integrates itself, albeit to a weak degree.
[ 29 ] The Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings oppose the order that has been established between the incalculable and the calculable by the divine-spiritual beings connected with man since the beginning - against their harmonization of the cosmos through "measure, number and weight". Lucifer cannot unite anything calculable with the nature he has given to his being. His ideal is cosmic unconditional intelligence and will.
[ 30 ] This Luciferian tendency is appropriate to the world order in those areas in which free events are to prevail. And there Lucifer is the legitimate spiritual helper of the unfolding of humanity. Without his help freedom could not enter into the spiritual-soul of man, which is built up on the basis of the calculable physical - but Lucifer wants to extend this tendency to the whole cosmos. And then his activity becomes a battle against the divine-spiritual order to which man originally belongs.
[ 31 ] Then Michael enters. He stands with his own being in the unpredictable; but he brings about the balance between the unpredictable and the predictable, which he carries within himself as a world-thought that he has received from his gods.
[ 32 ] The ahrimanic powers in the world are different. They are the complete opposite of the divine-spiritual beings with whom man is originally connected. These are at present purely spiritual powers, which carry within themselves completely free intelligence and completely free will, but which create in this intelligence and this will the wise insight of the necessity of the calculable, unfree as world thoughts, from whose wings man is to unfold as a free being. And they are connected in love with everything calculable, with the world-thought, in the cosmos. This love flows from them through the universe.
[ 33 ] In complete contrast to this lives in the greedy desire of the Ahrimanic powers the cold hatred of everything that unfolds in freedom. Ahriman strives to make a cosmic machine out of what he lets flow from the earth into the universe. His ideal is "only and solely" "measure, number and weight". He was called into the cosmos, which serves human development, because "measure, number and weight", his field, had to be developed.
[ 34 ] Only he who grasps the world spiritually and physically everywhere truly grasps it. This must be observed right into nature with reference to such powers as the divine-spiritual ones working in love and the ahrimanic ones working in hate. One must perceive the natural love of the divine-spiritual beings in the natural warmth of the world, which begins with spring and works towards summer; one must become aware of the effect of Ahriman in the blowing frost of winter.
[ 35 ] In midsummer, Lucifer's power weaves itself into the natural love, the warmth. At Christmas time, the power of the divine-spiritual beings, to whom man is originally connected, turns against the frost-hatred of Ahriman. And as spring approaches, natural divine love continues to soften the natural hatred of Ahriman.
[ 36 ] The appearance of this annually occurring divine love is the time of remembrance, when the free God-element has entered into the calculable earth-element with the Christ. Christ works in complete freedom in the calculable; thus he renders harmless what only the calculable desires, the ahrimanic.
[ 37 ] The event of Golgotha is the free cosmic act of love within the history of the earth; it is also only comprehensible for the love that man brings to this comprehension.
Goetheanum, around Christmas 1924 (January 4, 1925)
(With reference to the foregoing on: Celestial History, Mythological History, Earth History, Mystery of Golgotha)
[ 38 ] 140. The cosmic event, in which the development of mankind is interwoven, and which is reflected in human consciousness as "history" - in the most comprehensive sense, is divided: into the long-lasting history of heaven, the shorter mythological history and the relatively very short history of the earth.
[ 39 ] 141 This cosmic event currently breaks down into the "incalculable" work of divine-spiritual beings, who create in free intelligence and free will, and into the "calculable" event of the world body.
[ 40 ] 142 The Luciferic powers oppose the calculable of the world body, the Ahrimanic powers oppose that which creates in free intelligence and free will.
[ 41 ] 143. The event of Golgotha is a free cosmic deed that originates from world-love and can only be grasped through human-love.