Psychological Distress and the Birth Pangs of the
Consciousness Soul (1)

By Rudolf Steiner
Translated by Johanna Collis


The truths we seek in spiritual science should become not lifeless knowledge but living wisdom that can play a part in the concerns of real life at every important juncture. Perhaps it is only natural and understandable that people still find spiritual science rather abstract, and that in consequence of this presumed abstractness the wisdom it depicts appears rather stereotyped and of little use in everyday life. Those who have so far paid little attention to it might well ask what difference it makes to know that the human being consists of so and so many bodies, or that humanity has evolved over various cultural epochs and will continue to evolve further, and so on. Spiritual science can often appear rather fruitless to those who think they have to approach life in an entirely practical way in order to cope with the demands our epoch is making on them. Indeed, even many of those who have already developed some sympathy towards it often study it in quite a fruitless manner.

Nevertheless, spiritual science is in itself immensely alive and in the long run it will—in fact, it must—come to play a part even in the most prosaic matters of everyday life. I should like to make this clear by a specific example. Let us look at something I presume we are all familiar with from spiritual science and show how it can come vividly alive if we consider it in a fresh and lively way.

Most of us have quite often dwelt on the fact that our present time was preceded by what is known as the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of culture in which the Greeks and Romans were the outstanding peoples. (2) Subsequent centuries right up to the fourteenth or fifteenth century continued to be influenced by that fourth epoch, but since the fifteenth century we have been living fully in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture. This is the period of our present incarnation, and it will continue for many centuries to come. Most of us have often also dwelt on the fact that during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of culture, the period of the Greeks and Romans, the principal element to be developed in human beings—by means of all external culture and work—was what we call the intellectual or mind soul; and that now it is the task of humanity to develop the consciousness soul. (3)

What do we mean by saying that the consciousness soul has to be developed? To understand this abstract statement correctly we have to realize that in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture it applies to mankind as a whole. All the peoples must work together in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch in order to bring the consciousness soul to expression, and indeed all conditions and circumstances of life point to this being the case. If we look at life with our eyes open we find corroboration everywhere for the fact that the consciousness soul is to come to expression in our time.

The whole of human life was different in the Graeco-Roman epoch. The stage that human beings had reached during that part of the overall post-Atlantean age involved their being given the power of intellect and the power of mind and feeling. Intellect as such has many facets, but this is something that is not seen quite clearly today. The Greeks and Romans depended upon intellect in their soul in a manner that differs from what happens today in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture. The Greeks and Romans received intellect—in so far as they needed it—as part of their natural capacity for development, so their situation was entirely different from ours. As the individual grew up, his natural intellect grew with him as a part of his overall natural potential. There was no need to educate this natural intellect in the way that is necessary today, and as will become increasingly necessary as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch progresses. It developed as a natural capacity, so that if people developed according to natural circumstances in a particular incarnation they either had intellect or they did not. The latter meant that there was something wrong; it was abnormal, not normal.

The situation was similar with the mind or feeling aspect. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch the mind or feeling aspect developed in an appropriate fashion. When one person met another he knew how to adjust to that other person. History tells us little about this, but it was so. This is a particular facet of the difference between people of those earlier centuries, up to the fifteenth, and people of our own time. In those earlier centuries human beings did not pass by one another with as little interest as they so often do nowadays.
When people meet today it often takes them a long time to get to know one another properly. They have to learn all kinds of things about each other before any mutual trust can begin to form. What it takes us a long time to achieve—and even then we frequently fail—was achieved at a stroke when people met one another in former centuries, specifically in the epoch of Graeco-Roman culture. They quickly succeeded in encountering one another by virtue of their individuality, without having to spend a long time exchanging thoughts and feelings first. People got to know one another quickly in so far as this was for the mutual benefit of the two concerned, or even for the benefit of several people who perhaps wanted to form a society together. One person's mind and feeling aspect had a much more spiritual way of working on the mind and feeling aspect of another person. It was similar to the way we can recognize the colors of plants today. (In the seventh post-Atlantean epoch of culture this, too, will no longer be a matter of course; special circumstances will be necessary in order to know nature.) Today we can immediately recognize a plant without having to get to know it first. The first impression is sufficient for an ordinary person to recognize a plant; and in Graeco-Roman times this is what it was like with regard to human beings.

This was adequate for the simpler situations of life in those times. That way of getting to know the other person's mind or feeling aspect was suitable for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Today, however, the world is suffused in quite a different network of feeling relationships. You must take into account that by far the greatest part of people's interrelationships in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch rested on personal encounters. The arrangements people made depended on personal meetings. Today's art of printing which has made our dealings with one another so impersonal—and will go on making them increasingly so—belongs in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Modern communications now bring people together in ways that detract from the benefit of forming mutual relationships at a stroke. These modern means of communication make people encounter one another in the world in a far more impersonal manner.

This is how humanity is developing now. We no longer come with a ready-made mind or feeling aspect that works instantaneously. Nor do we have a ready-made intellect that can penetrate everything. The consciousness soul is giving us something much more separate and individual, with a greater tendency towards egoism and loneliness within our own body, than was the case with the intellectual or mind soul. The consciousness soul is making human beings much more individual; they are becoming more like solitary hermits as they go about in the world than they were when the intellectual or mind soul was the dominant feature. The way human beings turn in upon themselves has already become their most salient characteristic, and they will continue to do this more and more. It is the consciousness soul that gives people this characteristic of being shut up in themselves, locked away from the rest of humanity and living in isolation. Hence it is more difficult to get to know other people, let alone achieve real familiarity or intimacy. You have to go through a complicated rigmarole of becoming acquainted before you can get on intimate terms with someone.

What is the purpose of all this? To gain some insight into it let us consider one specific truth from spiritual science which tells us that there is absolutely no question of the way we meet each other today being a matter of mere chance. The paths of our lives bring us together with certain people and not with others. This results from the effects of our individual karma, for we have entered a period of evolution that in some senses has brought to a culmination the earlier karmic developments undergone by human beings. Think how much less karma people had accumulated in earlier periods of earthly evolution. Every time we incarnate, new karma is formed. Initially people had to encounter one another under conditions that did not entail having met before, so the relationships they developed were entirely new. Having meanwhile incarnated on the earth many, many times, we have now reached a stage in which we hardly ever meet someone with whom we have not experienced one thing or another in earlier incarnations. We are brought together with others through what we experienced in earlier incarnations. Although we may appear to meet people by chance, in fact we do so as the result of meeting them in earlier incarnations, when forces were generated that now lead us to meet them again.

The consciousness soul, enclosed within itself as it should become in our time, can only develop if what takes place today between one human being and another is less important than what is now beginning to work, hermit-like, within us—something, namely, that rises up in us as the result of earlier incarnations. When two people met in Graeco-Roman times they had to make an immediate impression on one another. Now, however, things have to be different so that the more isolated consciousness soul can develop within us. When one person meets another it is what rises up in either of them as the result of earlier incarnations that should begin to work. This takes longer to come about than an instantaneous acquaintance between the two of them based on external appearances. It means that they must allow what they experienced with each other to rise up gradually, in their feelings, in their instincts. This is what is needed today: that in getting to know one another our individualities first have to be pared down. In this kind of getting to know one another through the paring down of individuality, reminiscences and effects of earlier incarnations can rise up, as yet unconsciously and instinctively. The consciousness soul can only form when we enter into relationships with others out of our inner being. The intellectual and mind soul, on the other hand, was formed more through encounters resulting in instantaneous acquaintance.

What I have just described is as yet only in its early stages as far as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is concerned. As this epoch progresses people will find it more and more difficult to achieve appropriate relationships with one another, for this attainment of appropriate relationships now entails the application of inner development, inner activity. This has already begun, but it will become more and more widespread and intense. Even now it is already difficult for people brought together by karma to understand one another directly. One reason is that other karmic connections may be sapping their strength, so that they lack the energy to bring to the fore instinctively everything they have in them from earlier incarnations.
People are brought together and love one another; certain influences from earlier incarnations bring this about. But then other forces work against this when reminiscences of this kind rise up, so they part again. But it is not only those who meet each other during the course of life who will have to try and find out whether what arises within them can provide sufficient basis for an ongoing relationship. Sons and daughters, too, will find it increasingly difficult to understand fathers and mothers, parents will find it harder and harder to understand their children, and the same will be the case for sisters and brothers. Mutual understanding will become increasingly difficult because it will be more and more necessary for people first of all to let what lives in them karmically emerge properly from the depths of their being.

So you see what a negative prospect is opening up for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—the prospect of difficulties in mutual understanding amongst human beings. We are challenged to look this evolutionary necessity squarely in the face instead of remaining dreamily in the dark, for it is, in fact, entirely necessary for our evolution. If humanity in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch were not faced with this prospect of having difficulty in mutual understanding, the consciousness soul would be unable to develop. The consequence of this would be that people would have to live collectively more on the basis of natural instincts. The individual aspects of the consciousness soul would be unable to develop; so it is essential for humanity to undergo this trial.

It is important to face up squarely to the whole situation, for if the negative side of evolution in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch were to develop alone, war and conflict would be unavoidable even in the most petty situations. So we see that certain requirements are beginning to arise instinctually of which we must become increasingly aware, and it is one of the tasks of spiritual science in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to help human beings become more and more conscious of these.

I need only mention a single phrase to show how a remedy can be sought for this one direction that human development must necessarily take, a remedy for the difficulties we encounter in understanding one another. That phrase is: social understanding. Because we are living in the era of the consciousness soul we must generate more and more social understanding in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. This one phrase sums up needs that did not yet exist to anything like the same extent in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Those who have studied the structure of Greek and Roman society know that individualism was not nearly as marked as it is now in European society or indeed in the society of America in the way it has been derived from Europe.

We can reach a clear understanding of this by comparing human beings with animal species. (Using a crass comparison is useful when trying to understand something.) Why do the animals of a species live amongst themselves within set limitations? It is because they are caused to do so by their group soul, by the soul of their species. This is inborn in the species, it is taken for granted by the animals; they remain within its confines and cannot grow beyond it. Human beings, however, must grow beyond their species. Every human being must develop individually. In particular today, in the era of the consciousness soul, this individual development is one of the main aspects of life. A hint of the group soul element still presided over the culture of Greece and Rome. We see there how people were situated within a social order that was quite strict, even though it was formed more by moral forces. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch such orders will increasingly be dismantled. The hint of the group soul element that still existed in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch has become meaningless in the fifth. Its place must be taken by conscious social understanding, which means that whatever arises out of a deeper understanding of proper individual human nature must now be allowed to come to the fore.

It is spiritual science that will develop this proper understanding. When the circles who work with it begin to develop spiritual science away from the abstract and more and more towards real life, then a quite specific kind of knowledge about the human being and interest in the human being will begin to gain ground. There will be those who have a gift for teaching others about the different temperaments human beings have, and the different dispositions, about the way someone with a particular temperament must be treated in a certain way, while someone else, with another temperament combined with such and such a disposition, must be treated in a different way. Those with a talent for this will teach the others who need to learn something, showing them the different types of human being and how to treat one type in this way and another in that. Practical psychology, practical study of the human soul, will be cultivated, and also the practical study of life. These will lead to a real social understanding of human evolution.

What kind of social understanding has appeared on the scene so far? Up to now only abstract ideals have appeared, all kinds of abstract Utopias about how humanity and nations can be made happy—socialisms of one sort or another. If these social ideas were to be introduced in practice, we should soon see how not to do things. The fact is that there is no point in beginning by founding societies or sects with specific programs. What needs to spread first of all is a true understanding of the human being, a practical knowledge of man, and specifically a knowledge that allows us to understand the growing child correctly and shows us how every child develops with his or her own individuality. Such an understanding would teach us how to lead our life in a way that enables us to develop appropriate durable relationships, those relationships that can become the most fruitful for life, when the right karmic effects rise up in us through meeting another person with whom we are to have a closer relationship of whatever kind.

What is needed today is a practical understanding of the human being, a truly practical interest in humanity. So far we have not made much progress in this. How do we judge people we meet today? By liking or disliking them. Look about you and you will see how in most cases this is the only judgment people make. Or if other judgments play a part as well, then these are entirely based on this one aspect of whether a person is likeable or not, or whether one likes this quality in him and dislikes that one. These are nothing but prejudices. We have a preconceived idea of what people ought to be like, and we make judgments about them if they do not fit in with this idea. We shall be unable to make progress in reaching a truly practical understanding of the human being unless we stop this way of liking or disliking on the basis of prejudice, on the basis of pet theories we have about one characteristic or another, and begin to take people for what they are.

When two people meet, whatever the circumstances, it happens so frequently that one of them immediately reacts with antipathy and dislikes the other one. Thereafter everything he or she does with regard to that person is tinged with this dislike. Very often a karmic relationship is completely extinguished by such behavior, or it is sent off on an entirely wrong course and has to be postponed until the next incarnation when these two meet again. Sympathies and antipathies are the greatest enemies of genuine social interest, but very often little account is taken of this. If you know how important genuine social understanding is for the further evolution of humanity, you will be filled with dismay at the way some teachers behave in school when they show their prejudices in favour of one pupil and against another. This is often terrible, for the important thing is to accept the pupils as they are and make the very best of what is there.
Attitudes like this affect our social arrangements, such as our social laws that so frequently blot out the teacher's own individuality in a terrible way, preventing him from developing a real understanding of individuality. A true understanding of spiritual science must have the effect of inspiring a general interest in a practical understanding of the soul and of the human being. This is necessary so that social understanding can come about, social understanding as a counterbalance to the difficulties that are arising in mutual understanding between individuals.

It is this that must come to the fore in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch so that humanity as a whole can fully develop the consciousness soul. Human beings always have to undergo trials when such developments are under way, for they are resisted by the forces of opposition. So feelings of sympathy and antipathy will become widespread, and only in the conscious struggle against superficial likes and dislikes will the consciousness soul be rightly born.

Another obstacle to social understanding between one human being and another will be ever-increasing feelings of nationalism. In their present form these have only really become excessive since the nineteenth century, and they are thoroughly opposed to social understanding and to genuine interest between one human being and another. In the way these nationalistic confrontations, these national feelings of sympathy and antipathy are appearing, they are becoming a terrible trial for humanity, for they can only be healed by being overcome. If nationalistic sympathies and antipathies continue to prevail in the way they have begun, humanity will pass by the development of the consciousness soul in a dream. Nationalistic feelings are its very opposite, for they prevent human beings from becoming independent and turn them instead into nothing but a caricature of one national group or another.

This is the first matter we should take notice of if we want to look at the practical side of the otherwise abstract statement: that the consciousness soul must be particularly developed in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

Something else can also not be avoided during this fifth post-Atlantean epoch if the consciousness soul is to unfold properly. In so far as they become ever more individual, people will find that religious life will grow increasingly barren if it does not adapt to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch but remains in a form that was suitable for the fourth epoch. Since people then tended to be more comfortable in groups, group religions were what was needed. Common dogmas, common religious principles and thoughts had to be imposed, as it were, by authority on groups of people. But since the urge to be individual will grow ever stronger during the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the group religions will no longer touch hearts and the individuality of souls. People will simply not understand what the group religions are trying to tell them.

During the fourth post-Atlantean epoch it was still possible to teach human beings about Christ in a manner suitable for groups, but in the fifth epoch Christ is actually already entering into individual souls. Unconsciously or subconsciously we all bear Christ within us now, and we shall have to learn to understand him once more within ourselves. This cannot happen if fixed, rigid dogmas are imposed on us, but we can work towards it by trying hard to do everything possible to make Christ comprehensible to human beings in every way, and by promoting religious understanding in all its many facets. To this end an ever greater tolerance must be practiced with regard to the thoughts of religious life during this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In the fourth epoch those who worked for religion did so by passing on to their contemporaries a certain number of dogmas and fixed principles, but in the fifth epoch this must change entirely. Something quite different is necessary.

Since people are now growing ever more individual, one must try and extricate oneself from anything dogmatic and describe what one is able to pass on to others out of one's personal inner experience in such a way that their own free life of religious thought can develop within them.

In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the dogmatic religions, the fixed dogmatic confessions will actually kill religious life. Therefore in this fifth epoch the right way to begin is to help people understand how things done in a certain way in the early Christian centuries were appropriate for their time but that subsequent centuries need something different. And there are also other religions. One attempts to make the essence of other religions comprehensible, and one attempts to bring about understanding of the various ways in which Christ can be regarded. In this way we can bring to every soul what that soul needs for its own deepening. We do not try to mold that soul, for we let its own freedom of thought unfold, especially in the realm of religion.

Just as social understanding is necessary on the one hand, as I have described in connection with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, so is freedom of thought in the realm of religion also essential for the development of the consciousness soul, social understanding in the realm of human relationships, and freedom of thought in the realm of religion.

The attempt we are making to enter into religious life with more and more understanding, so that we can comprehend our fellow human beings even when each unfolds his own religious life, must be taken more and more seriously, for it is a fundamental necessity for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Human beings must achieve it consciously through their own effort.

In the era of the consciousness soul, especially, ahrimanic powers are attacking this freedom of thought most violently. (4) An example of this is the way the confessions everywhere are inimical to one of the fundamental aspects of spiritual science—the spread of freedom of thought. We see how often the science of the spirit is slandered simply because it wants to consider the birth of the consciousness soul with full and illumined understanding and does not want to spread the kind of religious life that was appropriate for the intellectual or mind soul in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The forms in which Christianity is cast were created in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch out of the needs of Graeco-Roman culture. As ecclesiastical forms today they are already inappropriate, and they will become increasingly more inappropriate with regard to the growth of freedom of thought, which must more and more come to the fore.

At the very moment when the first seeds of the need for freedom of thought began to quicken, the opposing powers also began to act in what might be called the Jesuitism of the various religions (although this definition includes much that really ought to be described in more detail). This was called into being specifically in order to provide the strongest opposition against the freedom of thought that is essential for the life of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. For the development of this epoch it will become increasingly urgent to eliminate in every field this Jesuitism that has been set against the freedom of thought; for freedom of thought, raying out from religious life, must unfold more and more in every realm. Because freedom of thought has to be acquired independently by every individual, humanity is placed in this situation of having to contend with a trial, and the greatest difficulties are arising everywhere. These difficulties are all the greater the more people find developing clarity of consciousness a nuisance. Instead, they delude themselves about it, although it is the very thing they ought to be developing in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.
We are witnessing a pitched battle between incipient freedom of thought and the power of authority, which has been handed on to us from past times. The desire to delude ourselves about our belief in authority is very strong; our faith in authority has increased enormously, and under its influence we are becoming helpless about making up our own mind. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch people were born with a natural gift of good sense, but now we have to acquire and develop this good sense ourselves. Belief in authority is preventing this, for we are entirely taken over by this blind belief. Look at the animal kingdom and see how helpless we appear in comparison with animals, who have no intellect. Animals have instincts that guide them in ways that are good for them, even leading them back to health when they fall ill. Human beings, on the other hand, are working against an ability to form judgments about what to do in such circumstances. Instead, they defer to authority.

It is not easy, for example, for people to form their own opinions about how to lead a healthy life. There are of course all kinds of groups and societies making praiseworthy attempts at this, but such efforts must become much, much stronger. Above all we must understand that our tendency to have faith in authority is on the increase, and that whole theories are being elaborated to back up convictions that strengthen this faith in authority even more.

In the field of medicine, in the law, but also in all other fields, people are declaring themselves incapable of acquiring their own knowledge and are instead accepting whatever science tells them. This is of course understandable in view of modern life's complicated nature. People are growing ever more helpless in face of authority, and it is the main principle of Jesuitism systematically to strengthen this faith in authority. The Jesuitism of the Catholic religion is only a special application amongst many other applications in other fields that are, however, not so easily noticed.

Jesuitism began with the dogmatic Jesuitism of the Church with its purpose of letting the power of the Pope—which originated in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—continue on into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, in which it is no longer appropriate. But this Jesuitical principle will gradually come to be applied in other realms of life as well. There is already a form of Jesuitism in the medical profession that is barely distinguishable from the Jesuitism in dogmatic religion. We can observe how medical dogmatism is tending to enhance the power of the medical profession. This is the nature of Jesuitism in other fields as well, and it will grow stronger and stronger.

Human beings will become increasingly constrained by whatever higher authorities impose on them, and the salvation of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch will lie in countering the ahrimanic opposition facing us and asserting the rights of the consciousness soul as it strives to develop. But this can only come about if human beings—since they are no longer born with a ready-made common sense in the way they are with two ready-made arms—can truly strive to develop their common sense, their capacity to form sound judgements. The development of the consciousness soul requires freedom of thought, but this freedom of thought can only flourish in a specific kind of atmosphere.

I have been directing your attention to the difficulties that exist in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch which is striving specifically to develop the consciousness soul. But this consciousness soul, precisely because it is the consciousness soul, has to come up against resistance and experience trials. Thus both social understanding and freedom of thought are encountering the strongest obstacles. Yet people do not even realize that these obstacles exist, for in the wisest circles they are regarded as the best thing, to be built up further rather than opposed.

Nonetheless, there are very many people who do have an open heart and a good understanding of the situation facing modern human beings. They understand very well the way karmic relationships are driving people into the crises mentioned earlier in which children can no longer understand their parents, nor parents their children, and in which neither brothers and sisters nor nations and peoples can get on together any longer. There are already plenty of people who watch with a bleeding heart these situations which, though necessary, can only work properly if they are rightly understood. Motivation for a new way of working in the world must be wrung consciously from the heart's blood. The estrangement of individuals from one another will happen of its own accord, but what is to flow from the human heart must be consciously sought. Every individual soul faces difficulties in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, for only in overcoming these difficulties will those trials come about through which the consciousness soul can be developed.

Many people today say that they have no sense for what they should be making of themselves, or that they do not know how to set out in life in the right way. This is because they have not yet found the right way of thinking clearly about the needs of the present time or about their individual situation. In many cases such an impasse results in physical illness or physical instability. We must seek ever more intensively for a right understanding of this. Humanity in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch will of necessity find itself beset by the distress of soul described just now. Many people see this as I have described it, and feel the necessity for social understanding on the one hand and freedom of thought on the other; but very, very few are inclined to turn to the right means of help. This is because so often all kinds of idealistic sounding phrases are used in attempts to describe what is necessary for social understanding.

Such a lot is written nowadays about the need to treat growing youngsters individually, with all kinds of detailed theories being thought up in every possible educational field. Yet this is not what is really needed. What should be disseminated in an understanding way are as many positive descriptions as possible of how human beings really develop, positive descriptions in the sense of being like a 'natural history' of individual human development. Wherever we can, we should recount how person A—or person B or person C—has actually developed, by entering lovingly into the way a specific human being we have right here in front of us is growing up. Descriptions like this are needed more than anything else. We need studies of real life, the will to understand life, not to elaborate programs, for a program based on theories is an enemy of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture it would be appropriate for societies to form in such a way that the individual human beings belonging to them are seen as the main element. In their fellowship together these people would achieve truly individual results. Yet what actually happens today? Statutes are drawn up. These are all well and good, and indeed perhaps necessary since outer circumstances require such things. But in our field in particular we should be fully aware that any talk of programs and statutes is nothing but a concession to existing circumstances. The important thing must be the way individuals live together and what results from this; mutual understanding is what matters.

Many centuries of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch still lie ahead of us, so there will be opportunities for insight into the way individuals actually develop in real life to spread beyond the circles of those who already understand this and become general knowledge. But for the moment the only idea people have is to impose the torture of paragraphs and regulations on everything. High-minded discourses resound from every pulpit and platform purporting to be concerned with life. Yet the ideas and ideals put forward in these discourses are positively drenched in abstractions. This cannot be what is needed, for the real matter in hand is to penetrate into real life, into what actually happens in life, in an understanding way. So how can this be done?

It goes without saying that entirely reasonable objections can be raised about what I have been saying. 'How,' people will ask, 'can we learn to form judgments about all the statements made today by various authorities? Think what you have to learn to become a physician! Obviously a physician has to learn these things, but we cannot learn them as well, and in addition everything a lawyer has to learn, or someone who wants to become an artist!'

It goes without saying that it would be impossible to do this. But it is not a matter of becoming creative in these fields, but of learning how to form judgments. We must be able to let those in authority do their work, but at the same time we must become capable of forming judgments about them. We cannot learn to do this by thoroughly studying every branch of specialist knowledge, but what we can do is acquire the possibility of forming judgments through something that will shape our understanding and our capacity to judge. This something is not the material knowledge of the various specialisms; it is all-embracing knowledge of the spirit.

Spiritual science must become the central kind of knowledge. Spiritual science will not only inform us about all that is involved in human evolution; by the very kind of thinking it cultivates it will also develop in us a sound power of understanding. Such a power has to be drawn up to the surface from greater depths today than was the case in the Graeco-Roman times of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of culture. The way spiritual science forms concepts and develops inner pictures differs from the way other sciences work. Rather than enabling us to become an authority in any particular field, it teaches us how to form judgments. The reason for this will come to be understood little by little. There are mysterious powers in the human soul, and these secret, mystery powers will link the human soul with the spiritual world. Through this link that forms between the human soul and the spiritual world in consequence of our work in spiritual science we shall become capable of forming judgments when confronted by an authority in a particular instance. We shall not know what that authority can know, but when the authority acts on the basis of its knowledge in a specific case we shall be in a position to form a judgment about this action.

We should emphasize this strongly as something that must be brought about by spiritual science. Spiritual science does not merely instruct us; it helps us to become capable of forming judgments, it gives us the possibility of freedom of thought, of becoming independent in our thinking. Spiritual science does not turn us into physicians, but if we enter into it rightly it gives us the ability to judge what physicians do in public life. A thorough understanding of this point will give us much insight into forces that bring healing in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. A tremendous amount is contained in the statement that spiritual science will alter the way human beings understand things, so that as a result they will become capable of forming judgments and achieving real freedom of thought through bringing powers of understanding to birth from the depths of their soul life. Only then will they truly acquire freedom of thought.

If I may now speak more in pictures, I would like to express this thought to you in a pictorial, imaginative form. Spiritual science tells us about the real spiritual world, the actual spiritual world, about elemental beings all around us, about hierarchies, angels, archangels and so on. We discover that the world is populated by actual spiritual content, spiritual powers and spiritual beings. Our knowing about those spiritual beings living in the spiritual world is not a matter of indifference to them. They were more or less indifferent about it during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, but this is no longer the case in the fifth epoch. For human beings not to know about them is like depriving them of spiritual nourishment. The spiritual world is most certainly linked to the physical world here on the earth. You will perhaps understand this better if I tell you something that may for the moment appear paradoxical although it is absolutely true. Perhaps one cannot say too much as yet, but some truths need to be expressed so that human beings do not have to live without them.

Here on earth we are correct in saying that Christ entered earthly life—in which he has since been present—through the Mystery of Golgotha. From one point of view it can be felt as a source of happiness that Christ has entered into earthly life. But put yourself in the situation of the angels, a situation that is not my invention but one that every genuine spiritual researcher will discover to be true. From the angels' point of view the opposite was experienced in the spiritual world. In order to come to human beings, Christ has departed from the angels' sphere. From their point of view they have to say that Christ went away from them through the Mystery of Golgotha. They have as much justification for being sad as human beings have for being glad that Christ has come to them while they dwell in a physical body.

These are real thoughts, and those who know the spiritual world know that only one salvation is possible for the angels, and that this involves what I have just been saying. It is that human beings on the earth in their physical body so live with the thought of Christ that since the Mystery of Golgotha this thought of Christ can shine up to the angels like a light. Human beings can say that Christ has entered into them and that they can develop in a way that will allow him to remain in them: 'Not I, but Christ in me.' Angels, on the other hand, have to say that Christ departed from their sphere, that in the Christ-filled thoughts of individual human beings he shines up to them like so many stars. Since the Mystery of Golgotha they find him again in what shines up to them like this. It is a real relationship between the spiritual world and the human world.
Another expression of this relationship is the way the spiritual beings living in the spiritual world outside us look with pleasure, with joy and satisfaction, upon the thoughts we have about their world. They can only come to our assistance if we can think about them, even if we have not yet reached the point of being able to look into the spiritual world clairvoyantly. They can help us if we know about them. Help reaches us from the spiritual world in return for our study of spiritual knowledge. Not merely the things we learn about, the knowledge itself, but also the beings of higher hierarchies themselves come to our assistance if we know about them.

As we continue to be confronted by authorities in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, it will be good to be backed up not only by our own human understanding but also by what the spiritual beings manage to bring about in our understanding through the fact that we know of them. They make us capable of judging what comes from authority. The spiritual world helps us. We need it, we must know about it, we must take it into our conscious understanding. This is the third thing that must come about for the fifth post-Atlanean epoch of culture.

The first is a social understanding of human beings, the second is to achieve freedom of thought, the third is to attain a living knowledge of the spiritual world through spiritual science. These three must be the great and real ideals of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In social life, social understanding must arise. In religious life and in the way human souls live with one another, freedom of thought must come about. In the realm of knowledge, recognition and understanding of the spirit must come into being. These are the three great aims and incentives of the fifth epoch. We must develop in the light of these three, for they are the right torches for our time.

Many people feel strongly that there is a need for a new kind of community life nowadays, and that new concepts must be developed. Yet the ultimate conclusions to be drawn from this feeling fail to be grasped either by their good will or their power of understanding. This is demonstrated by the attitude many individuals have towards the endeavors of spiritual science or anthroposophy. We can disregard the malicious slanders that are expressed against spiritual science, or against theosophy or anthroposophy, and the hostile attitudes that arise for one reason or another. But look instead at the honest good will that exists in many, many people whose aim it is to create incentives in humanity that move in the same direction as those of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

Think of the many reformers who are appearing in all kinds of fields, of the many socially-minded clergymen, and of other preachers on social matters emerging from non-theological, non-religious circles. They have the very best intentions, and are leading people towards aims that are entirely compatible with the life of our time. Very much good will exists, so let us look for a moment at what this good will comprises and not at the ill will that is also there. So long as the good will remains in the realm of generalizations, however warm the feelings by which it is sustained, it cannot help us unless knowledge can also come to life, knowledge given only by spiritual science about the achievement of the three great goals: social understanding (based on understanding the human being), freedom of thought, and knowledge of the spirit. At present, however, people have not even reached the beginning of this knowledge, except for that small group gathered together around the world view of spiritual science.

There are, though, some pleasing and generous developments in this direction, of which I should like to give you an example that came to my notice 'by accident', as they say, although in reality it was through karma. I happened to notice a small book in a shop window, and I bought it because of the impression the title made on me. (5) It describes the modern human being, his aims, and what influences him as he grows up. The book tells of the many things in the external world that help people and make their life more comfortable and easy, and the pleasures that are derived from new inventions such as steam power and electricity. Then it goes on more tellingly to stress something by saying that while the pace of living has greatly increased, life has also become more rich. These things are emphasized with enthusiasm; the marvelous cultural achievements of modern times are described, and it is pointed out how much more fortunate people are today than they were in the days when life was duller, sadder and more at the mercy of the inevitable. The book then correctly describes what I pointed out earlier as the difficulties of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. But there is no recognition of the fact that these are actually the consequence of this fifth post-Atlantean epoch and its requirement of developing the consciousness soul. The author fails to see clearly what is going on, and this is the point I am trying to make. He is open-hearted and full of feeling when he says: 'It may be noted that in describing the inner path along which our time has developed we took our departure from the joys of life and the pleasures of existence. Yet we have to conclude this chapter by describing the profound inner distress of soul now prevalent. What we are experiencing here on a small scale is being experienced by the present age on a grand scale.' (By 'small scale' he is referring to the place where he happens to be living at the moment.) 'Our culture is incomparably more abundant, and our life more energetic and beautiful than at almost any other period in history; and yet a profound distress of soul is beginning to envelop whole swathes of the population.'

Having rightly recognized the symptoms, the author goes on to describe various remedies for overcoming this helpless distress and for finding incentives that can guide modern humanity in the right direction. Amongst these he cites what he calls 'theosophy', and tells us how he got to know it. Amongst so many who are antagonistic to theosophy, here is one who feels kindly towards it and has the best will in the world to get to know it, someone who has made a study of it and whom we should therefore take seriously. (6) I am not telling you this for frivolous reasons, but because it is most important that we should concern ourselves with the positive resonance our spiritual science is experiencing in the life around us.

Having discussed how mysticism that does not become 'mystical' wants to bring about the deepening of life and assuage the distress of soul, the author continues: 'Beside mysticism we have theosophy. Many people regard it as something that merely aims to provide surrogates in place of proven strengths; or else they see it only as an inclination to syncretism and eclecticism.' He means a combination of all kinds of religious creeds and world views. As you know, some of those who do not go more deeply into spiritual science talk of it as though it were warmed-up Gnosticism, and so on. But this author goes a step further, for he talks of those who 'see it only as an inclination to syncretism and eclecticism to suit individual tendencies, and who lump it together with some of the less enlightened concomitants of present-day life, such as superstition, spiritualism, ghost-watching, symbolism and similar expressions of intellectual pursuits that titillate by their mysteriousness. But it is not like this. One does this movement an injustice if one fails to recognize the profound inner values and references that come to expression in it.' You can see that this man is kindly disposed towards us. He continues: 'Instead we should regard it—or at least the circle around Steiner—as a religious movement amongst our contemporaries which, although not original but only syncretic, directs its attention towards the foundations of life.' Let us hope that, with all his good will, this man will one day also discover its originality!

'We may judge it as a movement that wants to satisfy people's interest in the supersensible and which therefore wants to grow beyond a realism that remains trapped in what is sense-perceptible. Above all we may regard it as a movement that draws people's attention towards a personal consideration of the moral dilemmas they are facing, and a movement that aims to work towards an inner rebirth through scrupulous attention to self-development...' As I said before, I am not reading this to you for frivolous reasons but because, given what is otherwise said about anthroposophy, it is rather relevant to learn about opinions such as those expressed here. '    ‘One need only read Steiner's introductory book on theosophy in order to discover the earnestness with which the human being is here exhorted to work at his moral refinement and self-improvement. In its speculations with regard to the supersensible, theosophy is furthermore a reaction against materialism, although,' (please take special notice of what now follows) 'in this respect, it easily departs from the firm ground of facts, going too far off course into hypotheses, into clairvoyant fantasies, into a realm of dreams, so that it retains too little force for the realities involved in shaping individual and social life. Nevertheless, we will and must register theosophy as a corrective influence in the cultural processes of the present time.'

The only thing that really displeases this man is the matter of ascending to knowledge of the spirit, to concrete, realistic knowledge of the spirit. He wants what, in his opinion too, can arise out of the theosophy by way of incentives for the refinement of the human being, but as yet he fails to realize that now, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, this can only come through a real, concrete knowledge of the spirit. He does not recognize the roots. He wants the fruits without the roots. He does not see the overall picture. It is most interesting to consider this man, for as we have seen he has studied my book Theosophy with enthusiasm and yet cannot understand that the one does not exist without the other. (7) He wants to cut off this book's head while retaining the body, for he regards the body as something of value.

This relates directly to what I was saying just now when I pointed out that social understanding and freedom of thought were necessary. People can understand this, but they cannot yet recognize that the third element, knowledge of the spirit, must form the basis for our fifth post-Atlantean epoch. One of the most important tasks of spiritual science and its stream is to open people's eyes to this. The ascent to spiritual worlds is still described by many as a fantasy. They fail to recognize that the loss of knowledge of the spiritual worlds is the very thing that has brought about materialism with its concomitant lack of social understanding, as well as today's materialistic life and materialistic attitudes. In order to find out why it is still so difficult for people to recognize the necessary existence of real spiritual worlds, we should look in particular at those who are otherwise favorably disposed towards us. We must increase our efforts to win understanding for the impulses I have been speaking about in today's lecture.

The booklet I have been quoting from is entitled 'Concepts entertained by educated people'. As I said, I found it 'accidentally', for it was published two years ago. It reproduces a lecture given in Hamburg by Professor Dr Friedrich Mahling during the 37th Congress of the Internal Mission Society on 23 September 1913. I am rather surprised that no one amongst our circle has mentioned this book, for surely someone must have seen it between 1914 and now? It really is important to follow up the various threads that interweave between all kinds of areas. It is important to take notice of the vulgar abuse and mockery, which is much more prevalent, but also of instances where honest attempts are being made to understand us, as in the present case. These can teach us about the real difficulties even people with the most honest attitude are still experiencing.

My lecture today was aimed at showing what are to be the three great ideals, the concrete ideals for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch: social, genuine understanding of the human being, freedom of thought, spiritual knowledge. These three ideals must in future act as guides for the sciences. They must ennoble and purify life, they must give incentives to morality, and for modern humanity as a whole they must pervade and direct all aspects of life in the most comprehensive way. However, the first two—social understanding and freedom of thought—will remain unfulfilled unless knowledge of the spirit can join them, for it is the consciousness soul that must be developed. As its highest stage the consciousness soul possesses the spirit-self, which must be prepared in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch of culture. This cannot be developed if preparations are not made through the inner independence of the human being that is achieved by unfolding the consciousness soul.

In our work with spiritual science we must take into account that what we see as abstract truths definitely have within them a magical power that need only be set free for the brightest light to be shed on all of life. Wherever individuals find themselves in life, in whatever field of science or field of practical work, even the most lowly, they will be sharing in the great tasks of our time if they are rightly able to bring to life for their own field the things we take up as abstract truths during our meetings. Real joy will enter such souls, as opposed to superficial cheerfulness, real joy is linked to a seriousness which sustains our lives, gives us strength and allows us not merely to enjoy life but to become real workers for life.

In this sense these three concrete ideals for social life and knowledge will also enable the consciousness soul in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch to understand the Mystery of Golgotha in a new way, and to accept the Christ. For we must forge real links with the spiritual worlds; we must find out how these worlds, too, relate to the Christ-impulse, to this central incentive of Earth evolution. This is what the Christ-impulse will become for us under the influence of the thoughts that come into earthly existence from the spiritual world. For since the Mystery of Golgotha thoughts can light up in human souls on earth, thoughts like bright stars that bring comfort, as I described, even to the world of the angels, who have lost Christ in their sphere but can see him shining towards them from the sphere of human thinking.

Spiritual knowledge should most certainly not be described as a fantasy. Spiritual knowledge strives to find real ways of alleviating the distress of soul that is necessarily linked with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.
This is what I wanted to speak about today. I do hope we shall meet here again before too long, and until then I hope we can remain together in our thoughts and continue to work on in the spirit of our movement. (8)


1    Lecture to members of the Anthroposophy Society, 'Wie kann die seelische Not der Gegenwart iiberwunden werden?', in Die Verbindung zwischen Lebenden und Toten (GA 168), Dornach 1995.
2    See R. Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science (GA 13), tr. C.E. Creeger, New York, Anthroposophic Press 1997, for a description of Atlantis, the Atlantean catastrophe and the seven post-Atlantean epochs of culture, the fifth of which is our present time. See also Roy Wilkinson, Rudolf Steiner. Aspects of his spiritual world-view. Anthroposophy, Vol. 1, London, Temple Lodge Publishing 1993.
3    According to Rudolf Steiner, the human being is constantly developing and perfecting his physical as well as his higher principles. Whereas the intellectual or mind soul was worked on during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in the fifth epoch it is the turn of the consciousness soul.
4   Lucifer and Ahriman were described by Steiner as powers who are opposed to proper human evolution. The former seeks to estrange human beings from the earth, the latter to enmesh them too firmly within it. See R. Steiner, The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman (in GA 191 and 193), tr. D.S. Osmond, New York, Anthroposophic Press 1993.5    Lecture by F. Mahling on 23 September 1913, Die Gedan-kenwelt der Gebildeten. Problems und Aufgaben (Concepts entertained by educated people. Problems and tasks), Ham¬burg 1914. Quotations from pages 35 and 42.
6   Before parting from the Theosophical Society in 1913, Rudolf Steiner used the terms 'theosophist' and 'theosophy', although from the beginning he was speaking entirely in the light of his own independent research into the spirit. He suggested that the terms 'anthroposophist' and 'anthroposophy' should be substituted in later editions of the lectures he had given prior to that date..
7    R. Steiner, Theosophy (GA 9), tr. C.E. Creeger, New York, Anthroposophic Press 1994.
8    Even within Switzerland travel was difficult during the war.

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