Karmic Relationships: Volume 2 E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

During 1924, before his last address in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures on the subject of karma to members of the Anthroposophical Society. These profoundly esoteric lectures examine the underlying laws of reincarnation and karma, and explore in detail the incarnations of certain named historical figures. In Rudolf Steiner's words, 'the study of karma is a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world-existence?' In this volume Steiner deals with individual karmic relationships in history - for example Marx and Engels - as well as surveying karma in human life, the shaping of karma after death, and the "cosmic form" of karma.

Leseprobe

KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS

Esoteric Studies

Vol. II

RUDOLF STEINER

Sixteen lectures given at Dornach, Switzerland, between 6th April and 29th June, 1924

Translated by George Adams, with revisions by M. Cotterell, C. Davy and D. S. Osmond

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

First edition 1956 Second edition 1974 Reprinted 1997, 2004

Originally published in German under the title Esoterische Betrachtungen karmischer Zusammenhänge, Zweiter Band (volume 236 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 1974

The moral rights of the translators have been asserted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 438 4

Vol. II

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Editor's Preface

STUDIES OF KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS IN THE COURSE OF HISTORY

I

Examples of karmic relationships. Lord Bacon of Verulam and Amos Comenius. Marx and Engels. Otto Hausner

6th April, 1924

II

The esoteric trend in the Anthroposophical Movement. Souls united by karma work together in their pre-earthly existence. Leopold von Ranke, influenced in his pre-earthly life by Bacon of Verulam, Schlosser by Amos Comenius. One incarnation works across into later incarnations. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer

12th April, 1924

III

Study of history must centre around observation of man. The fruits of earlier epochs are carried over into later times by human beings themselves. Pestalozzi. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Emerson. Herman Grimm

23rd April, 1924

IV

Reincarnations of former Initiates. Differences in the successive earthly lives. Adaptation to new conditions of civilisation. Earlier knowledge is submerged but not lost; it merely takes a different form of expression. The great question in the Mysteries of Asia Minor during the early Christian centuries. The ancient Initiate-wisdom of earlier lives presses its way from the heart into artistic, poetic creation. Ibsen, Frank Wedekind, Hölderlin. Hamerling.

26th April, 1924

V

The attitude of wonder towards the things of everyday life. Types of character emerge from events in history, becoming impulses of soul in subsequent earthly lives. The Emperor Nero. The Crown Prince Rudolf. Good and evil viewed in the light of karma. The problem of destiny. Temple architecture. Meditation in pictures. The Goetheanum Building—an education for vision of karma

27th April, 1924

KARMA IN HUMAN LIFE

VI

The study of karma has value only when it flows into the moral life. Man is little inclined to detach himself from his own being and to give himself wholly to another. Spiritual endeavour is fraught with the danger of enhanced egoism. Karmic adjustment between death and a new birth. Karma casts its shadows or its light in advance. Practical exercises for the vision of karma. Through “thinking away” the physical man, the impulses of Saturn, Sun and Moon become visible behind him.

4th May, 1924

VII

Perception of karma attained gradually through inner activity of soul. The beginning of the path to knowledge is to fill our thoughts with the infinitely wise provisions made in the world; then we must be able to wait. Insight into karmic connections can be stimulated by picturing vividly something experienced during the day; during the night the astral body gives shape to the picture in the outer ether which impregnates it with its own substance; the picture is further elaborated during the second and third days and nights by the etheric body and it is then received into the physical body, spiritualised and transformed. Spiritual exertion is essential if will is to be transformed into vision. In the study of karma, absolute clarity and soundness of head and heart must prevail.

9th May, 1924

VIII

Karmic connections in relation to the physical. Studies that approach the subject of karma from the side of the bodily form, the physiognomy and the external manifestations of the human being in the physical world. Certain types of character point back to definite behaviour in the previous earthly life. Matter is the outer revelation of the spiritual. The human form and its possibilities of movement are an image of the spiritual world. Head, rhythmic system, metabolic-limb system, in the stream of karmic development

10th May, 1924

IX

The inner configuration of karma. The shaping of karma is connected with the primeval Teachers of humanity who now have their dwelling-place in the Moon. The magic power of these Moon Beings. The pictures of man's deeds in “negative”. The strong impressions of life in the soul-world on the backward journey after death. In the region of the Moon Beings the pictures of earthly experiences are imbued with cosmic substance. Reading the World-Script in the light of the ten Aristotelian concepts. Observation of the backward journey after death of two individualities: the prototype of Strader in the Mystery Plays, and Jacob Frohschammer. The transformation of man's being after death in a sphere of reality utterly different from earthly reality. The seed of karma and the “negatives” inscribed into the cosmic ether are received into the earthly will when the individual returns to incarnation

11th May, 1924

THE SHAPING OF KARMA AFTER DEATH

X

The terrestrial world and the extra-terrestrial world work quite differently upon the shaping of karma. The transition from life shared with the Moon Beings to life shared with the higher Hierarchies. Journey through the planetary spheres. What is in essence human derives from the Sun-existence; the earthly is but an image. Bad karma is left behind before man enters the Sun-existence; it is found again in the Moon-sphere on the return from cosmic existence. Homunculus in Goethe's Faust. Predisposition to health arises in the Sun-existence; predisposition to illness is engendered in the region below that of Sun-existence. In the world of the Second Hierarchy, natural laws are without validity. In the region of the First Hierarchy, the spiritual laws are transformed into the physical

16th May, 1924

XI

Beings of the spiritual world and the part they play in human karma. Man's connection with the beings of the kingdoms of nature and with the higher Hierarchies of spiritual Beings. Karmic demands and karmic fulfilments. Unborn-ness and Immortality. Modern cleverness and its failure to give support in the later years of life. Concrete reality of man's relation to the higher Hierarchies

18th May, 1924

XII

Influence of the Hierarchies and reflections of the planetary Beings in human life. Imaginative and Inspired consciousness. Life after death in the planetary spheres. Elaboration of karma in union with the higher spiritual Beings. Voltaire. Eliphas Levi. Victor Hugo

29th May, 1924

XIII

Understanding of karmic connections depends upon insight into what is happening in the world behind man's ordinary consciousness, therefore upon supersensible cognition. Survey of the life-tableau. In acts of Imaginative and Inspired knowledge man still remains within the physical body. The physical body as the bearer of spiritual Beings. Karma is shaped by the gods who are working within the human being. Freedom is acquired through the development of the Consciousness Soul. Human destiny an affair of the gods. Tranquil acceptance of destiny kindles forceful and strong spiritual impulses. Scenes in the Mystery Plays

30th May, 1924

THE COSMIC FORM OF KARMA AND THE STUDY OF INDIVIDUAL KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS

XIV

Concerning the sense of responsibility in regard to communications from the spiritual world. Spiritual science and the writing of a biography. How and where does higher vision perceive karma working in the life of a man? Deeds of the day are translated, integrated into karma during sleep. During sleep man has memory-experiences of his own lives on earth. Behind the cosmic thoughts live the Hierarchies, just as our own human being lives behind our memory-thoughts. Karma is contained in the “section” of the cosmos allotted to each of us by the Hierarchies who look back over our previous earthly lives.

22nd June, 1924

XV

Groups of human souls united by their karma. The connection of events in Nature with the karma of humanity. The influence of karma upon external Nature in volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and similar phenomena. Behind and through the workings of the Sun weave the Beings of the Second Hierarchy. The “Midnight Sun”. From the world of the Second Hierarchy the Third Hierarchy rays on us during sleep through the traces of our thoughts left behind in the etheric body. Into the weaving and working of the Second Hierarchy there strikes the first Hierarchy. These two Hierarchies together are concerned with man's astral body and Ego. Initiation-vision in cult and ritual. “True ritual comes into existence as a copy of happenings in the spiritual world”

27th June, 1924

XVI

Karma viewed from the standpoint of world-history. Social systems created under the influence of materialistic thinking. Events in elemental Nature and events due to civilisation. Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers play into the deeds wrought by the gods for man. Difference in the karmic consequences of Nature-catastrophes and catastrophes due to civilisation. Moon-forces remaining in the earth are stirred into activity and used by the Ahrimanic forces. Nature-catastrophes lead to the introduction of an earthly element into the spiritual worlds. The karmic consequence of Nature-catastrophes and of catastrophes brought about by civilisation is enhancement of the intellectual faculties and of the will respectively, in the next earthly life. Through misguided impulses in civilisation a Luciferic element is carried into the spiritual world, working in that world as darkness, of which Ahriman can avail himself. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. The good gods lead human destinies again into the paths of righteousness and justice. The destiny of men is inwoven with the destiny of gods. Knowledge of karma is the holy ground of the spirit where we reach out for the hands of the gods

29th June, 1924

Publisher's Note

EDITOR'S PREFACE

During the year 1924, before his illness in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures, published with the title Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies, to members of the Anthroposophical Society in the following places: Dornach, Berne, Zürich, Stuttgart, Prague, Paris, Breslau, Arnhem, Torquay and London. English translations of these lectures are contained in the following volumes of the series:

Vols. I to IV. Lectures given in Dornach (49).

Vol. V. Lectures given in Prague (4) and Paris (3).

Vol. VI. Lectures given in Berne (2) Zürich (1), Stuttgart (3) Arnhem (3).

Vol. VII. Lectures given in Breslau (9).

Vol. VIII. Lectures given in Torquay (3) and London (3).

All these lectures were given to members of the Anthroposophical Society only and were intended to be material for study by those already familiar with the fundamental principles of Anthroposophy. The following extract from the lecture of 22nd June, 1924 (see Vol. II) calls attention to the need for exactitude when passing on such contents:

“The study of problems connected with karma is by no means easy and the discussion of anything that has to do with the subject entails—or ought at any rate to entail—a sense of deep responsibility. Such study is in truth a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world-existence, even of the phenomena of nature. These difficult and weighty matters entail grave consideration of every word and every sentence spoken here, in order that the limits within which the statements are made shall be absolutely clear....”

The attention of readers is called to the fact that the fundamental explanations given by Rudolf Steiner of the laws and conditions of karma are contained in Vol. I of the series. Knowledge of the earlier lectures should therefore be regarded as an essential basis for study of those contained in the later volumes.

I

We will now continue our study of karma. I have pointed out to you how the impulses in the souls of human beings work on and are transplanted, as it were, from one earthly life into another, so that the fruits of an earlier epoch are carried over to a later one by men themselves.

An idea such as this must not be received merely as a theory; it should take hold of our very hearts and souls. We should feel that we who are now here have been many times in earthly existence, and that in every life we assimilated the culture and civilisation then around us; we took it into our souls and carried it over into the next incarnation, after working upon it spiritually between death and a new birth. Only when we look back in this way do we really feel ourselves standing within the community of mankind.

In order to be able to feel this, in order that in the coming lectures we may pass on to questions which concern us more intimately and will bring home to us the actual effects of karmic connections, I have found it necessary to give concrete examples. And I have tried to show you by these examples how the effects of what a man experienced and achieved in olden times, remain, and continue to work into the present, inasmuch as his achievements and experiences form part of his karma.

I spoke, for example, of Haroun al Raschid, that illustrious follower of Mohammed in the 8th and 9th centuries, who was the figure-head of a wonderful life of culture far surpassing anything to be found in Europe in those days.* Such culture as existed in Europe at that time—it was during the reign of Charlemagne—was extremely primitive; whereas over in the East at the Court of Haroun al Raschid there came together everything that an Asiatic civilisation fructified from Europe could produce—the fruits of Greek culture and of ancient Oriental culture in practically every domain of life and knowledge. Architecture, astronomy (in the form in which it was pursued in those days), philosophy, mysticism, the arts, geography, poetry—all these branches of culture flourished at the Court of Haroun al Raschid.

Haroun al Raschid gathered around him the best of those who were of real account in Asia at that time. For the most part they were men who had been trained and educated in the Initiate Schools. Let me tell you of one of these personalities at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. The East, too, had reached its own Middle Ages, and this personality had been able to assimilate, in a rather more intellectual way, wonderful treasures of the spirit that had been carried over from long past ages into those later times. In a much earlier period he had himself been an Initiate.

Now as I have told you, it may easily happen that a personality who was an Initiate in a former age does not appear as one when he reincarnates, because he is obliged to adapt himself to the body at his disposal and to the educational facilities available at the time. Nevertheless he bears within him all that he acquired and experienced during his life as an Initiate.

In the case of Garibaldi, we have seen how in that he became a kind of seer in his life of will, giving himself up to the circumstances of the immediate present, he lived out all that he had been as an Irish Initiate.* We can see that while participating in the events of the day he bears within him impulses of quite a different character from those which an ordinary man could have gained from his education and environment. The impulse of Garibaldi's Irish initiation was still active; it was merely under the surface. And when some special experience or stroke of destiny befell Garibaldi there may very probably have welled up in him in the form of Imaginations, all that he bore within him from his life as an Irish Initiate.

So it has always been; and so it is to this day. A man may have been an Initiate in a certain epoch, and because in a later epoch he must make use of a body unable to contain all the impulses that are alive in his soul, he does not appear as an Initiate; nevertheless the impulse of initiation is at work in his deeds or relationships in life. So it was in the case of the personality who lived at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. He had once been an Initiate of a very high degree. He was not able to carry over in outwardly perceptible form the whole content of his earlier initiation, but nevertheless he was a shining light in the Oriental culture of the 8th and 9th centuries. For he was, so to speak, the organiser of all the sciences and arts studied and practised at the Court of Haroun al Raschid.

We have already spoken of the path taken by the individuality of Haroun al Raschid in later times. When he passed through the gate of death there remained with him the urge to carry further into the West the Arabism that was already spreading in that direction. And, as you know, Haroun al Raschid, whose field of vision embraced all the several arts and sciences, reincarnated as Lord Bacon of Verulam, the famous reformer of modern philosophy and science. All that had been within Haroun al Raschid's field of vision came forth again, in a Western guise, in Bacon.

The spiritual path taken by Bacon led from Bagdad, his home in Asia, to England. And from England, Bacon's work for the sciences spread over Europe more widely and with greater force than is generally realised.

After they had passed through the gate of death, these two personalities, Haroun al Raschid and his great counsellor—the outstanding personality who had been a high Initiate in earlier times—separated, in order to carry out a common work. As I have told you, Haroun al Raschid himself, who had occupied a position of great power and splendour, chose the path which led to England, where, as Lord Bacon of Verulam, he accomplished what he did for science, for the sphere of knowledge in general. The other soul, the soul of the man who had been his counsellor chose the path leading to Middle Europe, in order to meet there what was coming over from Bacon. The dates do not, it is true, absolutely coincide; but that is not important in a matter where actual time means little. Impulses separated by hundreds of years may often work simultaneously in a later civilisation.

The counsellor of Haroun al Raschid chose the path through Eastern to Middle Europe—chose it during his life between death and a new birth. And he was born again in Middle Europe; he was born into the spiritual life of Middle Europe as Amos Comenius.

These are remarkable events, of profound significance in history. Haroun al Raschid goes through his later evolution in such a way as to lead over from West to East a stream of culture that is abstract and bound up with the outer senses; whereas Amos Comenius unfolds his activity from the East, from Siebenbürgen in what is now Czechoslovakia, coming to Germany and afterwards undergoing exile in Holland, bringing with him his profoundly significant impulses for the development of thought and knowledge. If you follow his life you will see how he comes forward as the champion of the new pedagogy and as the author and originator of the so-called Pansophia. What he had formerly brought from his initiation in very ancient times and developed at the Court of Haroun al Raschid—all this he now brought to the movements of the day. It was the time when the Order of the Moravian Brothers had been founded, when Rosicrucianism had already been at work for several centuries; it was the time, too, when the Chymical Wedding had appeared, and also the Reformation of Science, by Valentin Andreae. And into the midst of all these movements which sprang from the selfsame source, came Comenius, that significant figure of the 17th century, with his message and his impulse.

You have there three successive earthly lives of importance, and it is by studying the more significant incarnations that one can learn how to study those of less importance and finally begin to understand one's own karma.—Three significant earthly lives follow one another. First we see, far away in Asia, the very same individuality who afterwards appears in Amos Comenius; we see him receiving in the places of the ancient Mysteries all the wisdom possessed by Asia in far distant ages; we see him carrying this over into his next incarnation, living at the Court of Haroun al Raschid, becoming there the great organiser and administrator of all that flourished under the aegis and protection of Haroun al Raschid. And then he appears again, this time going forth as it were to meet Bacon, who is the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid; he meets him in European civilisation where the impulses which both of them had caused to flow into this European civilisation are at work.

What I am now saying, my dear friends, has really great point and meaning. For if you will study the letters that were written and that build, as it were, a road from Bacon to Comenius—naturally they do so in a roundabout way, as is also the case with letters today!—if you will study the letters that were exchanged between Baconians, or between people in very close connection with the Baconian culture and the followers of the Comenius school, of the Comenius wisdom, you will be able to discern in the writing and answering of these letters the very same event that I have sketched diagrammatically on the blackboard.

The letters that were written from West to East and from East to West represent the living confluence of the two souls who meet one another in this way, having themselves laid the foundation for this meeting when they worked together over in the East during the 8th and 9th centuries. Now they unite again, to work once more in co-operation; this time they work from opposite directions, yet no less harmoniously.

This is the way in which history should be studied in order to gain insight into the working of human forces and the part they play in history.

Again, let us take another case.—It happened that peculiar circumstances drew my attention to certain events that occurred in the region we should now call the north-east of France. These events also took place in the 8th-9th century—a little later, however, than the time of which we were just now speaking. It was before the formation of large States, in the days when events took place more within smaller circles of people.

In the region, then, which today we should call the north-east of France, lived a personality who was full of ambitions. He had a large estate and he governed it remarkably well, quite unusually systematically for the time in which he lived. He knew what he wanted; there was a strange mixture of adventurousness and conscious purpose in him. And he made expeditions, some of which were more and some less successful; he would gather soldiers and make predatory expeditions, minor campaigns carried out with a small troop of men with the object of plunder.

With such a band of men he once set out from north-east France. Now it happened that during his absence another personality, somewhat less of an adventurer than himself, but full of energy, took possession of all his land and property.—It sounds fictitious today, but such things actually happened in those days.—And when the owner returned home—he was all alone—he found another man in possession of his estate. In the situation that developed he was no match for the man who had seized his property. The new possessor was more powerful; he had more men, more soldiers. The rightful owner was no match for him.

In those times it did not happen that if anyone were unable to go on living in his own home and estate he immediately went away into some foreign country. The rightful owner was an adventurer, certainly, but emigration was not such an easy matter then; he had neither the wherewithal nor the facilities. And so he became a kind of serf, he with his followers—a kind of serf attached to his own estate. His own property had been wrested from him and he, together with a number of those who once used to accompany him on adventures were forced to work as serfs.

In all these people who were now serfs where formerly they had been masters, a certain attitude of mind began to assert itself, an attitude of mind most derogatory to the principle of overlordship. On many a night in those well-wooded parts, fires were burning, and round the fires these men came together and hatched all manner of plots against those who had taken possession of their property.

In point of fact, the dispossessed owner, who from being the master of a large estate had become a serf, more or less a slave, filled all the rest of his life—as much of it as he was not compelled to give to his work—with making plans for regaining his property. He hated the man who had seized it from him.

And then, when these two personalities passed through the gate of death, they experienced in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, all that souls have been able to experience since that time, shared in it all, and came again to earth in the 19th century. The man who had lost home and property and had become a kind of slave, appeared as Karl Marx, the founder of modern socialism. And the man who had seized his estate appeared as his friend Engels. The actions which had brought them into conflict were metamorphosed in the course of the long journey between death and a new birth into an impulse and urge to balance out and set right what they had done to one another.

Read what went on between Marx and Engels, observe the peculiar configuration of Marx's mind, and remember at the same time what I have told you of the relationship between these two individuals in the 8th-9th century, and you will find a new light falling upon every sentence written by Marx and Engels. You will not be in danger of saying, in abstract fashion: This thing in history is due to this cause, and the other to the other cause. Rather will you see the human beings who carry over the past into another age, in such a way that although admittedly it appears in a somewhat different form, there is nevertheless a certain similarity.

And what else could be expected? In the 8th-9th century, when men sat together at night around a fire in the forest, they spoke in quite a different style from that customary in the 19th century, when Hegel had lived, when things were settled by dialectic. Try all the same to picture to yourselves the forest in north-eastern France in the 9th century. There sit the conspirators, cursing, railing in the language of the period. Translate it into the mathematical-dialectical mode of speech of the 19th century, and you have what comes to expression in Marx and Engels.

Such things lead us away from sensationalism—which creeps all too easily into ideas relating to the concrete facts of reincarnation—towards a true understanding of history. And the best way to steer clear of sensationalism is, instead of giving way to a feverish desire to know the details of reincarnation, instead of that, to try to understand in the light of the repeated earthly lives of individual human beings, those things in history that bring weal or woe, happiness or grief to mankind.

It was this point of view that while I was still living in Austria—although in Austria one is really within the German world—I was particularly interested in a certain personality who was a Polish member of the Reichstag. Those of you who have been attending lectures for a long time will remember that I have often spoken of Otto Hausner, the Austrian-Polish member of the Reichstag who was so active in the seventies of last century. Truth to tell, ever since I heard and saw Otto Hausner in the Austrian Reichstag about the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, the picture of this remarkable man has been before my mind's eye. He wore a monocle; he looked at you sharply with the other eye, but all the time the eye behind the monocle was watching for the weak points in his opponent. And while he spoke, he was looking to see whether the dart had struck home.

Now Hausner had a remarkable moustache—in my autobiography I did not want to go into all these details—and he used to accompany what he said with his moustache, so that the moustache made a kind of Eurythmy of the speech he poured out against his opponents!

It is interesting when you picture it all.—Extreme Left, Left, Middle Party, Czech Club (as it was called) and then Extreme Right, Polish Club. Here stood Hausner, and over on the extreme Left were his opponents. That was where all of them were.

The curious thing was that when, over the question of the occupation of Bosnia, Hausner was on the side of Austria, he received tumultuous applause from these people on the Left. When, later, he spoke about the building of the Arlberg railway, the most vehement opposition came from the same people on the extreme Left. And the situation remained so, in regard to everything he said after that.

Very many warnings and prophetic utterances made by Otto Hausner in the seventies and eighties have, however, since proved true. One often has occasion nowadays to look back in thought to what Otto Hausner used to say.

Now there was one feature that appeared in almost every speech Otto Hausner made, and this, among other less significant details in his life, gave me the impulse to investigate the course of his karma. Otto Hausner could hardly make a speech without uttering a kind of panegyric, as it were in parenthesis, on Switzerland. He was forever holding up Switzerland to Austria as a pattern. Because in Switzerland three nationalities get on well together, are indeed quite exemplary in this respect, he wanted the thirteen nationalities of Austria to take example from Switzerland and live together in the same federal unity as do the three nationalities of Switzerland. Again and again he would come back to this theme. It was quite remarkable.

In Hausner's speeches there was irony, there was humour, there was logic—not always, but very often—and there was the panegyric on Switzerland. It was perfectly clear that this panegyric arose out of a pure feeling of sympathy; this feeling gripped hold of him; he wanted to say these things. And moreover he knew how to shape his speech so that no one, except a group of German-Liberals on the Left, was seriously provoked or offended by it.

It was most interesting to see how, when some Left Liberal member had spoken, Otto Hausner would get up to oppose him, and with his monocled eye never turn his gaze aside for a moment but pour upon the Left Wing a perfectly incredible torrent of abuse and scorn. There were men of importance and standing among them, but he spared none. And there was always breadth of view in what he said; he was one of the most cultured members of the Austrian Reichstag.

The karma of such a man may readily arouse interest. I took my start from this passion of his for returning again and again to praise of Switzerland, and further, from the fact that once in a speech subsequently published as a brochure, German Culture and the German Empire, he collected together in a spirit of impishness and yet at the same time with nothing short of genius, all there was to be said for German culture and the German people and against the German Empire. There was really something grandly prophetic about this speech that was made in the early eighties, scuttling the German Empire as it were, saying all manner of harsh things about it, calling it the wrecker and destroyer of the true being and nature of the Germans. That was the second thing—this singular ‘loving hatred’, if I may put it so, and ‘hating love’ for all that is truly German, and for the German Empire.

And the third thing was the extraordinary interest which made itself manifest when Hausner spoke of the Arlberg Tunnel, of the plan to build the Arlberg railway from Austria to Switzerland and thus unite Middle Europe with the West. Needless to say, here too he introduced his song of praise for Switzerland, for the railway was to run into Switzerland. But when he spoke of this railway—and his speech was well-seasoned, though delivered with perfect delicacy—one really had the feeling: the man is basing it all on tendencies and proclivities he must have acquired in some remarkable way in a former earthly life.

Everyone was talking in those days of the enormous advantages that would accrue to European civilisation from the alliance of Germany with Austria. At that very time Hausner was developing in the Austrian Parliament his idea of the Arlberg railway; he was saying, and naturally all the others were going for him hammer and tongs about it, that the Arlberg railway must be built, because a State as he pictured Austria, uniting thirteen nations after the pattern of Switzerland, must have a choice of allies; when it suits her, Austria has Germany, and when it suits her she must also have a strategic route from Middle Europe to the West, so that she may be able to have France for an ally when she wishes. Naturally, when such an opinion was expressed in the Austria of those times, it received short answer! It was reported that Hausner was ironed out flat! In truth, however, it was a marvellous speech, highly spiced and full of poignancy. And this speech, I would have you note, pointed in the direction of the West.

Holding these three things together in mind, I discovered that the individuality of Otto Hausner had wandered across Europe from West to East at the time when Gallus and Columbanus* were journeying in the same direction. He set out with men who had been inspired by the Irish initiation, for the purpose of bringing Christianity to those regions. In company with them, his aim was to carry Christianity to the East. On the way, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Alsace of today, he found himself extraordinarily attracted by the relics of ancient Germanic paganism, by the old memories of the gods, the old forms of worship, the figures and statues of the gods that he found in Alsace, and also in Germany and Switzerland. He received all this into his heart and mind in a deeply significant way.

Afterwards there developed in him, on the one hand, a liking for the Germanic nature and, on the other hand a counterforce which came from the feeling that he had gone too far in that past life. He underwent a drastic inner change, an inner metamorphosis, and this showed itself in the wide and comprehensive outlook he possessed in this later incarnation. He could speak of the German people and culture and of the German Empire like one who has once had close and intimate contact with these things, and yet who feels all the time that he ought not to have been influenced by them. He should have been spreading Christianity. He had come into these parts while his duty lay elsewhere.—One could hear it in the very tone of his speeches.—And he wanted to go back and make good again! Hence his passion for Switzerland; hence his passion for the building of the Arlberg railway. Even in outward appearance, he did not really look Polish. Hausner himself used often and often to say that he was not a Pole at all by physical descent but only by civilisation and education, and that ‘Raetian-German’ blood flowed in his veins. He had brought over from an earlier incarnation the tendency to look towards the region where once he had been, whither he had accompanied St. Columbanus and St. Gallus with the resolve to spread Christianity, but where, instead, the old Germanic religion and culture had captured him and held him fast. And so it came about that he did his best, as it were, to be born again in a family as little Polish as possible, far away from the land in which he had lived in his earlier life, far removed from it and yet so that he could look longingly towards it.

These are examples which I wanted to unfold before you today in order to show you how strange and remarkable is the path of karmic evolution.—In the next lecture we shall consider the question of how good and evil develop through successive incarnations of human beings, and through the course of history. By studying in this way the more important and significant examples that meet us in history, we shall be able to throw light on relationships belonging more to everyday life.

* See Vol. I, lecture X; also Cosmic Christianity, lecture II (given by Rudolf Steiner in Torquay, 14th August, 1924).

* See Vol. I, lectures XI and XII.

* Not St. Columba, but a slightly younger Irish monk—St. Columbanus (sometimes called Columba the Younger).

II

It is a little difficult to continue what has been given in the last lectures, because so many friends who have not taken part in these studies are here today. On the other hand it is hardly possible to make a new beginning, for many things contained in the previous lectures have still to be completed. Friends who have just arrived will have to realise that if some of our thoughts today prove somewhat difficult to understand, it is because they are connected—inwardly, though not outwardly—with preceding lectures. At Easter we shall have a self-contained course, but today I must continue what has gone before. We did not expect so many friends at this date, although needless to say we are extremely glad that they have come.

In recent lectures we have been speaking of definite karmic relationships—not with the object of finding anything sensational in the successive earthly lives we have studied, but in order to arrive step by step at a really concrete understanding of the connections of destiny in human life.

I have described successive earthly lives of certain historic figures, in order to call forth an idea of how one earthly life works on into the next—and that is not an easy matter.

Again and again it must be emphasised that a new trend has come into the Anthroposophical Movement since the Christmas Foundation Meeting at Dornach. Of this I should now like to say a few introductory words.—You know, my dear friends, that since the year 1918 there have been all manner of undertakings within the Anthroposophical Society. Their origin is clear. When the Anthroposophical Society was founded, this question was really being asked, out of a deep occult impulse: Would the Anthroposophical Society continue to evolve by virtue of the inner strength which (in its members) it had acquired until then? There was only one way to make the test. Until then, I, as General Secretary, had had the leadership of the German Section, which was the form in which the Anthroposophical Movement had existed within the Theosophical Society. The only way now was for me no longer to take in hand the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society but to watch and see how this Society would evolve through its own inherent strength.

You see, my dear friends, that is something quite different from what the position would have been if already at that time (as at our Christmas Foundation Meeting) I had said that I would undertake the leadership of the Society. For the Anthroposophical Society, if led by me, must naturally be an altogether different thing than if led by someone else. Moreover, for certain deep reasons, the Society might have been led all the better if I myself had not had the administrative leadership. Many things might have been done if human hearts had spoken—things which in fact remained undone, or which were even done from outside, often enough under resistance from the anthroposophists.

During the War, of course, we had little opportunity to unfold our forces in all directions. So it came about that after the year 1918, the prevailing state of affairs was taken advantage of by those from many quarters who wanted to do this or that. If I had said at the time, “No, these things shall not be done”, then of course we should hear it said today: “If this or that had only been allowed, we should now have numbers of flourishing undertakings.”

For this very reason it was the custom at all times for the leaders of occult movements to let those who wanted to do something try it out and see what became of it, so that convictions might be called forth by the facts themselves. For that is the only way to call forth conviction. And so it had to be in our case too.

The upshot of it all has been that since the year 1918, opposition to our Movement has grown rife, and has brought about the present state of affairs, when it is impossible for me, for instance, to give public lectures in Germany.

At the present moment these facts must in no way be concealed from the Anthroposophical Movement. We must face them with all clarity. As long as we work with unclear situations we shall make no progress.

As you know, all manner of experiments were made in the hope of being “truly scientific”—shall we say? Quite naturally so, in view of the characters of those concerned! Scientists who also partake in our Society naturally like to be scientific. But that is the very thing that annoys our opponents. When we say to them, “As scientists we can prove this or that truth”, they come forward with all their so-called scientific claims, and then of course they become furious. We should be under no illusions on this point. Nothing has annoyed our opponents more than the fact that our members have tried to speak on the same subjects as they themselves do, and in the same manner, only—as these our members often used to say—”letting a little Anthroposophy flow into it.” It was precisely this which called forth our opponents in such overwhelming numbers.