The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. Elementary Beings and other Higher Spiritual Beings — spiritual beings of the natural kingdoms

[ 1 ] We have often emphasized that the spiritual scientific worldview should not remain something abstract and conceptual, something we put forward as our worldview in moments of celebration to satisfy our inner spiritual needs. but that it should be something that deeply influences our entire life and being, our activities from morning to night, this becomes particularly clear when we consider the relationships and connections between spiritual beings and the spiritual world in general, which are always around us, and us, and our life. In a sense, the physiognomy of external life only becomes understandable to human beings when they can look into what causes this physiognomy of existence from the spiritual world. Just as we only begin to understand a person's physiognomy when we know their soul, when we know how to interpret their gaze and explain their expressions, so too does the external world, in its large and small manifestations, become comprehensible to us when we get to know its spiritual underpinnings. We can already make a great deal clear to ourselves if we follow and observe life at every turn with a gaze sharpened by spiritual science.

[ 2 ] If I may start in the introduction with an aperçu that has impressed itself upon me recently, it is only to help us get into the mood for today's consideration.

[ 3 ] I have often drawn your attention to how strangely things have become intertwined in European culture in the destiny of the world, in historical karma. I have pointed out to you how, in the Nordic world of mysteries, in the world of mysteries of the Druids, the Trotten, a certain tragic trait prevailed in teaching. In the ancient pre-Christian world of mysteries, students were introduced to high spiritual wisdom and high spiritual science, but they were always made aware of one thing: they were told that the view of the spiritual world that could be conveyed, especially in northern and northwestern Europe, would be illuminated in a special way by an event in the future. They pointed prophetically to the later appearance of Christ. And the whole of European culture becomes understandable to us when we follow the strange threads of how Christianity became entangled in what remained of the old Nordic views of the spirit world, how Christianity drew itself into them. And sometimes small, external facts really appear to be symptoms—they are more than symptoms: they are real testimonies to what is happening within; and to those who follow the fine threads, the physiognomy of external events becomes decipherable.

[ 4 ] This became very vivid to me on one of my last lecture tours, how in the northern regions, in Sweden and Norway, the after-effects of the old Nordic spirit world play into a spiritual view of everything that exists to the left and right of the railroad, as they can still be perceived in every detail. And then you feel this particularly strongly when something comes into the midst of these echoes of the old Norse world of gods that points to strange karmic connections in history. In the midst of these echoes of the old Norse spirit world, so to speak, an impressive picture presents itself. When you come to Uppsala and find yourself, so to speak, in the midst of things that are more reminiscent of the ancient Norse world of mystery, you encounter Ulfilas' first Germanic translation of the Bible, this wonderful document of Christianity's entry into the European world. Even if we do not go into any particular spiritual connections, we will feel something of karmic connections when we think that this document was first in Prague, then captured during the Swedish War and brought to this place through strange circumstances. This first translation of the Bible into Germanic seems to us like a living monument to the penetration of Christianity into the ancient Nordic spiritual world.

[ 5 ] Thus everything becomes alive, everything can be explained from within, if one truly regards the things that confront us as the outer expression of inner spiritual realities. And so today we want to bring before our souls some of what external events and facts show us as consequences, as physiognomic expressions of inner spiritual beings and events, of facts of such spiritual beings and events.

[ 6 ] When we look at human life, we notice first of all, in our present materialistic age, that we study and pay attention only to those connections that are actually visible in the external world. Something is called harmful if we can see the damage it causes with our eyes, useful if we can see its benefit in a general sense with our eyes. That spiritual facts take place between the sensory events of life, between our sensory bodies, so to speak, spiritual facts that are connected with human life, will become clear to us in particular when we first take into account certain actions of beings that play a role in our world with their effects, which humans naturally do not perceive with their physical senses, but which have profound significance for the whole of human life.

[ 7 ] Since there are many such beings, we can only consider a certain type. The space around us is not only filled with air, but with spiritual beings of various kinds. There are those we call elemental beings. They can be characterized by the fact that, for the most part, they lack what actually makes human beings human, namely a sense of moral responsibility. They cannot have this; they are organized in such a way that they cannot be held responsible in a moral sense. You must not believe that these beings, which enter and leave our bodies—at least a certain kind of them—do not have understanding or intelligence. Some of them are very clever beings, beings who are not particularly inferior to humans in terms of cleverness and understanding. Let us first turn our attention to those beings who are found in the higher worlds but who have a certain relationship to humans that has an effect on their lives. Let us consider this.

[ 8 ] In doing so, we start from the assumption that human beings actually live in two states. Within twenty-four hours, normal human beings today alternate between the waking state and the sleeping state, and we know from earlier considerations that during the day human beings are regularly composed of four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego. At night, when human beings fall asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, and the astral body withdraws with the ego. Now we have also heard that these four members of the human body find their expression in the physical body. We know that the ego finds its expression in the blood. The blood in its movements is nothing other than the material manifestation of the ego. Similarly, the nervous system is the material manifestation of the astral body, the glands are that of the etheric body, and the physical body has, so to speak, its own manifestation. If you keep this in mind, you will be able to understand that the human nervous system in the physical body is structured in such a way that it can only exist when it is permeated by the astral body; for it is organized by the astral body, depends on it; the astral body is its creator and sustainer. It can only live under the influence of the astral body. In the same way, the blood is connected with the ego. Think about what happens when you leave your physical body every night! You leave your nervous system behind in the physical body and take out the astral body, which is its nourishing father. You leave what this astral body has to provide for itself. Likewise, your ego steps out and leaves the blood to itself. This is what human beings do every night. They leave their physical body, or rather the nervous and blood systems, to themselves. But these could not exist if it depended solely on them. For, as they are, they must be permeated by an astral body in human form, just as the blood is permeated by something equivalent to the ego.

[ 9 ] What you do not do yourself — supplying your nervous system — must be done by other beings. Therefore, you see that at the very moment when the astral body and the ego withdraw from the physical and etheric bodies, higher beings from higher realms move in; they lower their astrality into the nervous system and supply the nerves and blood. Every night, when the human being contemptuously leaves his body, that which descends from higher worlds takes possession of the physical body. So we can say that the astral substances that create the physical and etheric bodies, and are involved in their creation, take them back when the human being leaves them. In doing so, they find them different from how they originally delivered them to the human being. The human being was in them with his astral body and I, and he worked in them; and there the spiritual beings from higher regions of the world find effects that do not correspond at all to their higher spirituality, which are the after-effects of what the human being does during the day from his astrality and his I in his physical body. Now, a materialistic view only knows about the gross, but when one enters into the mysterious facts of the spiritual world, one finds that there are quite different influences at work even in the physical body. One cannot have a thought, a sensation, or a feeling without these expressing their effects in the physical body. Even if the anatomist cannot prove it, every sensation, every form of feeling causes a certain change in the structure of the physical body, and these are then found by those beings who sink into the human being.

[ 10 ] Of particular significance are those effects exerted on our physical body by everything that a person has in their soul in the way of lies, slander, and hypocrisy. The materialistic mind believes that lies, slander, and hypocrisy are things that are only as harmful as can be observed externally. This is not the case, however. Very subtle effects, imperceptible to a microscopic apparatus, penetrate the physical body. When the soul leaves the body during sleep, these effects remain in the physical body, where they are found by the beings. And this includes not only those soul experiences that we call lies, slander, and hypocrisy in the gross sense, but also the subtle, conventional lies, for example those that are necessary for the social order today. Lies out of politeness or custom and the whole range that can be cited, from insincerity and hypocrisy to small slanders, even if only in thought — all of this is expressed in the effects on the physical body, and this is found by these descending beings. And because this is inside the physical body at night, something special is brought about. This causes pieces to be torn away from the substance of these beings sinking into the body. Certain parts of the higher beings must thereby be cut off. The consequence of lying, hypocrisy, and slander during the day is the cutting off of certain beings at night, which thereby have a certain relationship to the physical human body. These beings thereby gain an independent existence in the spiritual world surrounding us; they are beings that we classify as phantoms. Phantoms are spiritual beings that are physiognomically expressive in their outward appearance, in a certain sense replicas of human limbs and form. They are of such a thin materiality that the physical eye cannot see them, but they are, so to speak, of physical form. The clairvoyant sees pieces of human heads, human hands, entire figures whirling through the air; he even sees the insides of human bodies whirling around, the stomach, the heart; he sees all the phantoms that have detached themselves in this way, because the person has surrendered to his physical body what is the result of lies, hypocrisy, and slander.

[ 11 ] Such phantoms, which constantly swirl through our spiritual space, will be proof to you that human life itself is the cause of beings that now have a less than favorable influence on humans; for they have, in a certain sense, intelligent qualities and no moral responsibility. They eke out their existence by placing obstacles in the way of human beings in their lives, many more obstacles than what we call bacteria. Something else even takes place. Important pathogens are to be found in such beings; for when these phantoms are created by humans, they find in bacilli and bacteria a very good opportunity for their existence; they find, so to speak, nourishment in them. They would more or less dry up in their spiritual essence if this nourishment were not there. But these bacteria are in a sense created by them. By their very existence, these entities of the physical world are something that can serve a purpose. They are therefore something that is needed in a certain way, and through mysterious causes they are also there.

[ 12 ] Thus, through lies, slander, and hypocrisy, human beings create, so to speak, an army of spiritual beings of the phantom class.

[ 13 ] It is similar with the etheric body, which human beings leave behind at night. They have also arranged it for their life in such a way that this etheric body can only exist as a human etheric body if it is permeated by higher beings; when their own astrality is outside, those beings also enter the etheric body. This must be remembered! Then it will become clear to us that certain processes in our soul life produce effects in the etheric body that remain there during the night and cause beings to be cut off from what sinks in, following the pattern of the etheric body. The soul processes that lead to such beings are processes that are brought about in human coexistence by what we can call bad laws and wrong measures. All kinds of things that the soul experiences through lawful effects in human relationships have such an effect on the soul that their after-effects remain in the etheric body during the night, severing those beings that we call ghosts. This is the second type of beings that belong to the kind created by human beings.

[ 14 ] Then we must consider that the opposite is also true. That which emerges at night, the astral body, is organized in such a way that it is dependent on being inside the nervous system; when it is outside, it is not in its proper place. Then it too must be supplied from higher worlds, higher, protective spirits must unite with it. And something can also be cut off from these by the soul activity of the human being, through peculiar soul processes, through the fact that what we can describe as “giving wrong advice,” imposing false advice on others, forming prejudices that are not sufficiently justified, persuading people in such a way that their souls are treated in a manner that does not allow them to give their consent, but rather forces them, as it were, into a conviction to which one is oneself fanatically devoted.

[ 15 ] When people act on each other in this way, an effect remains in the astral body during the night, which cuts off certain entities that we classify as demons from higher beings. They are created in the manner described above because people do not face each other with the attitude that can be expressed in the words: I want to tell the other person what I think—whether he agrees is his business! Hundreds of demons are created at the card table, at gatherings known in Germany as “Herrenabende” (gentlemen's evenings), at coffee klatches, where the attitude that comes from inner tolerance is very rare, where the attitude prevails in which the individual says: If you don't agree with me, you're a fool. - This soul-to-soul interaction is extremely demon-generating. Spiritual beings literally spring from human life and enliven the spiritual world. And all these beings, phantoms, ghosts, and demons in turn have an effect on humans. When this or that prejudice, this or that foolish fashion, becomes epidemic in our environment, it is the demons created by human beings that are holding back the line of progress. Human beings are always surrounded and swirling around with the beings they have created.

[ 16 ] Thus we see how human beings hinder their own progress by being creative in the spiritual world. We must become aware that everything we think, feel, and sense has, in the greater context, more significant effects than what is caused by firing a bullet. The latter may be bad, but it is only considered more dangerous than the former because humans can perceive it with their gross senses, while they cannot observe the latter.

[ 17 ] This is a part of spiritual life that human beings develop themselves, so to speak. Another part, namely how human beings participate in the interaction of the spiritual world, may arise from certain human cultural activities, which are also not merely what they appear to be to the outer senses. To understand this, you must realize that there are other beings besides human beings.

[ 18 ] Now there are beings who do not have such a coarse physical body in their present stage of development, but who have the etheric body as the lowest member of their being, and who nevertheless actually exist. Human beings can now summon such beings into their circles, more than happens without their intervention. In fact, part of cultural development consists in seeking communication with these beings, whose lowest member is the etheric body. Such communication is established by means of the human being creating, in a certain sense, physical entities which these beings can use to attach themselves to and complement themselves through; in this way, bridges of connection are created to these beings. Imagine that we were to imagine a physical entity in this flower basket standing here on the desk, which would correspond in its forms to certain forms of the etheric body of the higher beings mentioned above. These beings would then have a tendency to settle there, to play around the flower basket, to connect with it. We would see how this basket causes spiritual beings to descend, lovingly clinging to it and feeling comfortable in this way, descending into the community of human beings. We need only create the appropriate forms, and then we will create such bridges between ourselves and such beings. And people have always done this at certain times through this or that. Thus, during the time of Greek culture, people actually had a high degree of ability to communicate with the spiritual beings they called their gods. For these Greek gods are not figments of the popular imagination, but are true beings, existing and to be taken as such — this Zeus, this Pallas Athena, and so on — whose lowest member is the etheric body.

[ 19 ] And how did the Greeks conjure these gods into their circle? — By acquiring to a high degree what we might call an architectural sense of space. The person who studies space from the standpoint of spiritual science knows that this space is not the abstract emptiness that our ordinary mathematicians dream of, that our physicists and mechanics dream of, but something very differentiated. It is something that has lines within itself, lines in all directions, lines of force from top to bottom, from right to left, from front to back, straight and round, in all directions. These are spiritual pressures in space, tensile forces; in short, one can feel space, penetrate it emotionally. I have often used the example that someone who has a sense of space knows why certain old painters were able to paint three angels floating so wonderfully lifelike, so that someone who has a sense of space knows that these three angels hold each other like three celestial bodies in space through their attraction. When this is told to an undeveloped person, they come to the conclusion that they must fall down. They cannot comprehend that they are supporting and holding each other. It is these mutually supporting, dynamic dimensions that the ancients were aware of, who still had a living sense of the ancient clairvoyance that existed at that time. It is quite different when you look at such a connection as you find, for example, in a Böcklin painting. In contrast to the otherwise excellent quality of the painting, which is not to be criticized in any way, you find this strange angelic figure, which, if you have retained your sense of living space, gives you the feeling that it must fall down at any moment.

[ 20 ] In more recent times, this lively sense of space has been lost. The Greeks had this as an architectural, artistic idea. A Greek temple is a crystallized idea of space in the purest sense of the word. The column that supports what lies horizontally or at an angle is not something invented, but something that, for those who have a sense of space, already exists within the space and cannot be anything else. The entire temple is born out of the concrete space; this is what the person who sees the lines of the space sees. And all they need to do is add the stone material where they see the lines, simply filling in what has been ideally pre-drawn with physical material. In the Greek temple, the spirituality of space is completely transformed into a visible form. By creating the crystallized idea of space in this way, forms have been created in which those spiritual beings whose lowest link is the etheric body can sink into the enclosed space thus created and find an opportunity to exist in the forms of space.

[ 21 ] It is therefore not mere fantasy, but complete truth, true truth, that the Greek temple was the dwelling place of God. Yes, God dwelt within it! He dwelt there through the forms of the space. And it is the peculiarity of the Greek temple that the invisible God descends and takes possession of the forms. In the Greek temple, you can imagine all human beings gone, you can see no human beings far and wide, the place can be completely deserted by human beings, and yet the temple is not deserted! God is there! This is the distinctive feature of the Greek temple, but not of the Gothic cathedral. It is something completely different when you imagine the Gothic cathedral without people and think of it as empty. Then it is not a whole. The Greek temple is a whole without people, the Gothic cathedral only when it holds the congregation within itself and when the pointed arches are joined by folded hands, when thoughts and feelings unite with the architectural forms. If you imagine these away, the Gothic cathedral is not a whole. This is what distinguishes it from the Greek temple. It is a different architectural idea, born out of the spiritual realm in a grandiose manner, but without people it is not a whole. And then again: if it is spiritually populated, spiritual beings of the kind described can descend when it is filled with the faithful congregation. And so every architectural idea is very precisely designed for something specific.

[ 22 ] The Egyptian pyramid is also designed so that the soul leaving the body may take the path that is traced in the inner passages of such a pyramid; it expresses the passage of the soul from the body into the spiritual world. The idea of the tomb is expressed architecturally in Romanesque buildings. A Romanesque church without a crypt, if it cannot be conceived as a vault rising above the corpses, is not complete. It is part of it. It is born out of the idea of the risen Savior; it is the venerable building for the tomb of Christ Jesus.

[ 23 ] In this way, you can see that through what he creates in his forms, man builds a bridge from the physical to the spiritual world. It may be of little comfort that man creates an army of spiritual beings that halt his development, but it may be consoling to see that through what he places in the world in such architectural forms, man paves the way for himself to higher spiritual beings.

[ 24 ] And so it is no less with other works of the plastic arts. It is the same with the works of sculpture and painting, that in their forms they give opportunity to those beings who, in their etheric forms, are able, so to speak, to adapt themselves to what is being formed in order to surround it. In sculptures, it is more a matter of applying something from outside, of surrounding these plastic works, while in architectural works it is more a matter of filling them from within. In painting, we encounter other entities, entities whose lowest limb is in very fine etheric matter. People who understand this know how astral-ethereal entities feel at home where the painter, in his harmony of colors and lines, gives them the opportunity to come from the spiritual world into ours.

[ 25 ] Then there are spiritual beings whose lowest limb is the astral body, which therefore consist of an even finer substance. These beings find the opportunity to commune with human beings again in those arts that express themselves in moving form, in music. A room filled with the sounds of music is an opportunity for spiritual beings with the astral body as their lowest limb to enter. Thus, filling a room with musical tones is something through which human beings create interaction between themselves and other spiritual beings. Just as human beings draw good beings into their circle through high, meaningful music, so it is also true that repulsive music draws evil astral beings into the sphere of human influence, and you would be little edified if I were to describe to you some modern musical performances and the hideous astral figures that dance around when the orchestra plays. These things are to be taken seriously! In this way, we have seen how our visible world interacts with an invisible world of spiritual beings that lies behind it.

[ 26 ] The spiritual worlds also manifest themselves in many other kinds of beings. We can find, for example, that where different natural realms touch each other, there is also cause for spiritual beings to appear. We can point to elemental beings that make life even more understandable to us. Thus, there is a cause for certain beings to manifest themselves when metal comes into contact with ordinary earth. Wherever ordinary earth is permeated by metal veins, we find such elemental beings, which are very clever but use their cleverness to play pranks on humans, although they sometimes also act beneficially. We call them gnomes. We find gnome-like beings inside the earth, and they huddle together in certain places as long as the earth is solid; they are there by the hundreds. When the vein is exposed, they scatter. Then everything that was huddled together there comes to life and weaves. This is what happens, as I said, when the earth comes into contact with metal. Where the plant kingdom touches the mineral kingdom at a spring, in the moss that entwines itself fraternally around the stones, where things come together that otherwise do not belong together, that come together in a peculiar way, there we find such beings that we call undines and nymphs. These are also real beings.

[ 27 ] And finally, we find such beings, such elemental beings, where the spiritual interacts with the physical, when the animal kingdom touches the plant kingdom in such a way that the beings are initially separated from each other and later come into contact, for example, when a bee sucks on a flower. In the space where the bee and the flower are together, there is a development of taste, the flower juice is absorbed, and a taste effect is present. This effect is so perceptible to the spiritual researcher that he sees something like an aura forming around the flower's corolla. This is the expression of the taste process. And the whole thing causes beings that we call sylphs to manifest themselves here. These sylphs have a special task in the life of bees, for they appear not only when the little bee sucks, but also in the swarm; there they show the way, they are the guides of the bees.

[ 28 ] Here we have an example of how spiritual science will one day prove useful. The beekeeper's knowledge of bees has its origins in clairvoyance. What is done in beekeeping has been handed down from ancient times; these are instinctive movements. In the past, there was probably still a dim clairvoyance; beekeepers were able to use the activity of the sylphs to organize the life of the bees. Modern beekeeping knows nothing of this and therefore does many things wrong with its innovations. Modern science lacks the necessary insights. People will be able to shape such natural processes, in which they themselves must participate, much more fruitfully if they consciously recognize the work of spiritual beings. Anyone who takes a look at life in this field will see that, when it comes to bee science, what comes from ancient times is good, while today's natural scientists are doing some truly appalling things. This is completely inapplicable and leads people astray. Most beekeepers are guided by sure instincts and fortunately do not pay attention to modern science. Even what plays a major role, for example, ‘what exists as theory about the process of fertilization,’ is false and cannot stand up to the knowledge that is penetrating into reality.

[ 29 ] Then, humans give rise to such types of elemental beings when they live together with the animal kingdom, not as in a sports club, but as, for example, the Arab with his horse or the shepherd with his flock of sheep. The soul interaction between shepherd and flock is similar to the interaction between bee and flower, and therefore the feelings between shepherd and flock give rise to very special beings, the salamanders. These are beings of fine substance, who are very intelligent and very wise, even if they have no moral responsibility. And their wisdom is expressed in what they whisper to each other about the wisdom of shepherds. This is not stupidity, which is attributed to shepherds who are not swindlers, but contains much of what such beings whisper to shepherds, beings that arise from the shepherd's life with the flock of sheep.

[ 30 ] But anyone who wants to undertake such studies will never have the opportunity to do so, for such things are dying out. Some time ago, however, it was still quite possible to undertake such studies if one could find selfless people in the countryside who knew all kinds of things about health and healing. They knew very important things. So much so that Paracelsus could say that he had learned more from associating with such people than at all the universities. — This was not without reason. So we see that there is still such a realm where spiritual beings are present in our environment and enter our sphere in a peculiar way. One must not ask: Yes, where do these beings come from? — The world has all kinds of spiritual beings in its depths. It is only a matter of opportunity to bring them to the right place somehow. Although the comparison is not nice, it is correct: there are no flies in a clean room; but if the house is dirty, if all kinds of food scraps are left lying around, then the flies will soon be there. It is the same in the invisible world around us: as long as human beings do not provide an opportunity, spiritual beings are not there, but when we provide an opportunity, they are always there, they enter our circle, they interact with us.

[ 31 ] This is something that shows us how human vision can expand beyond the physiognomy of the external world. Just as the soul creates its own face, so spiritual beings create and influence our world. And there will come an age for humans when they will necessarily have to shape their lives based on knowledge of this spiritual world. Today, they can only approach the world in a coarse, sensual way; but we will see how we advance toward where humans create out of the spiritual, how we advance toward an age where our entire environment will be an expression of the spirit, even if this age cannot be like the ages of old, even if it cannot initially be an age like that of the Gothic cathedrals or the Greek temples.

[ 32 ] But even in our age of technology and utility, it is possible for more to happen than is happening today. People have lost the ability to feel, sense, and experience spirits, which is why we have also lost the longing to express spiritual forms in outer forms. But even in our utilitarian buildings, if people can feel the spiritual again, this can be achieved once more. What I experienced as a young man comes to mind. When Ferstel, the architect of the Votive Church in Vienna, gave his rector's speech on architectural styles, he said: Architectural styles are not invented; architectural styles are born out of the entire culture of the times. This can be proven by studying the architectural style of the Egyptian pyramids in connection with the entire spiritual life of that time. In our time, only the materialistic idea of utility finds expression; our time cannot have an architectural style similar to the Gothic or Greek. This is something to which anthroposophists should listen.

[ 33 ] From the spiritual life of the anthroposophical movement, a cultural sea must be created from which forms will crystallize again that represent a new architectural style. An expression of humanity is only possible where there is a communal spiritual culture. Our age has a style that is truly new, namely the architectural style of the department store. It is possible that people in a later age will look back on earlier times and characterize them according to their styles. The Middle Ages can be characterized solely on the basis of Gothic cathedrals. All other documents could be disregarded, but the nature of the Middle Ages could be seen solely from Gothic cathedrals. The same is true of the period between the 19th and 20th centuries; this can be deduced later from the style of department stores, which correspond entirely to the materialistic concept of utility. This is evident in them just as the Gothic cathedrals express what lived spiritually in Tauler or Eckhart.

[ 34 ] But even in our time, it is possible to have a stylistic effect in other ways. Our cultural resources are so capable of shaping form that they can still have a much more educational effect on the soul life of human beings than they do today. For example, we now live in the age of railways, but we do not yet have an architectural style for railway stations, because people do not feel what happens when a train arrives and departs, because people do not feel that what happens when a train runs can be expressed outwardly. Arriving and departing locomotives, that which must enter, can be expressed in the hollow forms of the buildings. Hopefully, when humanity masters air travel, it will be advanced enough to connect the idea of departure with the point of departure, so that one senses in the form of the latter that only an airship can take off there. Spiritual life can find formal expression in everything. Only when we feel that we are surrounded everywhere by the expression of the soul, as was the case in the Middle Ages, will we have achieved what is right. This can only happen when a culture such as that which arises from the insights of spiritual science permeates human life. Spiritual science is not an impractical thing; it is something that must permeate and take hold of the culture of the world. It does not consist of abstract thoughts, but, according to the intention of those who brought it into being, should flow into all cultural currents. It should be expressed in everything. We should permeate everything with these thoughts that spiritual science offers us.

[ 35 ] Let us consider another thought, one that can give us a certain awareness of how spiritual science impulses must work if they are to become what they are destined to be. And it is good, especially when we are coming to the end of the winter season and going our separate ways, to take such strengthening of our feelings and mood with us; to let something of this flow into our hearts and carry it out with us, and always feel ourselves to be members of the spiritual world stream. It may be that many people outside still know nothing about spiritual science. Look at these small gatherings, and look at everything that is being done outside: they know nothing, feel nothing of the spiritual nature of science!

[ 36 ] When something like this is placed before our soul, may only another image appear, an image that strengthens the soul and the heart, the image we can have when we look back to the earliest Christian times, when we see what was dominant there, what lived as culture in the time of ancient imperial Rome. Let us remember what life was like in that ancient imperial Rome, how the influential circles sat down floor upon floor, and how at the same time a small group lived banished in cellars; how incense burners had to be set up so that the smell of death emanating from the decomposing bodies of those persecuted and killed from among this small group would not be so noticeable. Let us follow how the wild animals rushed out of the kennels, tearing apart those who had been thrown to them from the ranks of that small group, let us descend from the palaces of the influential circles of imperial Rome into the passages where the first Christians, that very small group, lived, where they erected their first altars over the bones of their dead and developed their cult, invisible to the influential imperial Rome, invisible like today's followers of a new spiritual knowledge, who meet there invisible, spiritually invisible to the official, influential culture! Let us follow those down there who were not even allowed to see the light of day, how they lay buried there by the thousands, hidden, they who planted a new, spiritual culture among humanity beneath the surface of the earth, while above, imperial Rome acted as we know it did, and then let us consider the circumstances a few centuries later: What the then dominant imperial Rome produced has been blown away, swept away. And what remains is that which had to eke out its existence invisible to the eyes of those in power down below in the vaults. That is what has remained.

[ 37 ] This is how cultures arise in the darkness of obscurity, how they form, how they then emerge from the darkness. And we can take this awareness into our feelings, that this spiritual-scientific movement is truly called to something similar to the first Christian movement. No matter how underground its existence may be at first, no matter how much those in the above-ground worlds may consider themselves to be the authorities, in a few centuries things will have changed. Then the anthroposophist will feel that he will carry up into the light what is now reigning underground; that he will carry spiritual-scientific ideas, just as the first Christians carried their culture up from the catacombs. Such awareness gives us the strength and the possibility to take spiritual knowledge into our soul life. Let us go out with these feelings, so that we may find each other again in these feelings. Let us not pursue abstractions, but something that can become the nerve of our life. Let us pour into our souls what we hear from higher worlds. We want to equip ourselves with strength and remember a little that spiritual scientific thinking should be so dear to our hearts that even if we are separated for a while, we are still together in the spiritual realm. And this feeling should bring us together again!