58. lecture on the Apocalypse of John (documentation)

Dear ones, I welcome you very warmly to the 58th lecture on the Apocalypse or around the Apocalypse, as there is always a lot more to come - a lot at the moment. As always, I would like to welcome you with the verse of the week, this time it is the eighth, the eighth week since Easter Sunday. The tendency of the last sayings is now continuing, that we are going out more and more into the world of the senses, into the light that is outside, into the warmth that is also still there.  will come -   but in any case the tendency is to go out into the world more with the consciousness, with the soul, and to connect with the world spiritually. Perhaps not in such a completely awake state, but a little more into the dream-like. So it's like this: the alertness that we have goes back a little - first of all the alertness of thinking that we have when we are so completely closed in on ourselves and develop our own thinking. Where we have to do so completely with ourselves. Now we go out a little more, we develop a bit of an intuition towards nature. But it is precisely through this foreboding, first of all towards nature, that we can get a bit of a feeling, I would say first of all for the spiritual that is at work in nature, which we have often talked about in the last few times. That is somewhat the theme of this 8th week's preaching. 

The power of the senses grows
In league with the work of the gods,
It expresses the power of thought
To the dream's dullness me down.
When divine beings
To make one of my soul,
Must think humanly
In the dream being quietly humble.

And this is also connected with a certain polarity that we have in our whole soul life, which is reflected in our whole activity of perception and cognition. Rudolf Steiner already speaks in his Philosophy of Freedom of the fact that there are two sources of knowledge, each of which initially gives us one half of reality:  One side is observation, certainly the sensual observation of the world that lies outside around us, and the other side is what thinking brings to it in terms of concepts in order to understand the world that we experience with our senses. In truth, if there wasn't a bit of thinking involved, we would basically perceive nothing. Not true, because even the simplest distinction - ah, this is red, this is green - is already an act of cognition that is carried out with the help of thinking. So it is actually  Pure perception without thinking is a borderline case that we never reach in reality. And the other extreme would be that we switch off our senses completely and only remain in our own thinking, that is, where we are active as thinkers, but where concepts are brought in that are not only our own arbitrary product but in which there is a regularity. And if you bring the two together, you can see that this regularity, which I bring into thinking, always coincides somewhere with what I perceive outside in the senses, because it actually makes the sensory world perceptible and explainable in a wider perspective. So they belong together. So it is through thinking that I bring in discernment in the first place.  We experience this very rarely in everyday life, because most of the things we encounter are so familiar to us that we immediately have the concept for them and we immediately have the finished structure that is formed from concept and perception. And then we say: "ah, I see an oak tree" but for me to see an oak tree, there must already be something conceptual about it. If I don't have the concept of the oak tree, I only see something. Above all, if I don't have the concept of the tree at all - assumed - then it is something very nebulous for us. We notice this today only by name in nature outside  then when  something flits past, flits across the path, and we actually only perceive some indefinable shadow, and only when we get closer,  whatever that was, an animal probably, if we can get a closer look at that, then gradually the concept comes in:  ah yes, that's not a deer, that's a wild boar. So we still experience a bit of that, that the concept doesn't come automatically but that we really have to be active. With the things we are familiar with, it happens ad hoc.  But basically it tells us that into perception, we actually lose ourselves completely. If we go into it in the extreme, we lose ourselves in it. We don't really know anything any more, we have become one with it, but we no longer know anything about it as an object and nothing about ourselves as a subject. We are  We have lost ourselves in the world of the senses. That is one extreme and the other is that we withdraw completely into ourselves and only look at what is happening in our thinking. And it is healthy if this alternation always takes place: to be able to lose oneself in the world and to take something back from it into one's own full consciousness, if it always goes back and forth. In truth, it is always swinging back and forth. This is particularly the case, or should be the case, in encounters with other people. If things are to go really well, we have to dive deep into the other person. Don't just get stuck on the outside - we probably have the usual sensual image that we know of the person when he or she is familiar to us.  but  with his soul, his spiritual  us  through the sensuality that he presents to us: through his words, through his facial expressions, etc. - but to really read it, to really feel through his words, yes, what does he want from me?  say. Because we all know that what is said with words is initially interpreted differently by everyone, according to their own ideas. Everyone hears something different, understands something different, which only shows us that the world of concepts is much wider and is not exhausted in a few abstract concepts, but that every real concept has a huge scope and is much, much richer and shows all the connections that belong to other concepts. If, for example, you go into living thinking - that is, into really active thinking at the moment, perhaps even into imaginative thinking - then you notice how the radius becomes larger and larger and each individual concept, each individual idea, basically encompasses the entire world of ideas. That's why Goethe says so beautifully that it is actually wrong to speak of the idea in the plural, there are  only one idea, namely because everything is connected with everything in the world of ideas. There is nothing that falls out, everything is connected with everything else.  from the smallest to the largest from, say, the smallest atom - whatever that is - to the cosmic distances beyond, everything is ultimately connected. Of course, we don't see this with our intellectual thinking. Our intellectual thinking is completely overtaxed, because the more things there are, the more confused we become. But in living thought, in the imagination, we see these connections in a certain sense. The great difficulty is to put it into words, because the moment I put it into words, I have to cut it down to nothing. Because a whole lifetime would not be enough to be able to really describe a single imagination and even then it would only be a fragment and an excerpt. But in principle you can experience it mentally, that's the point, but you can't express it. That is the great problem that one always has, that one experiences something spiritually - that is, esoterically (in this case esoterically means first of all only being able to experience it oneself, becoming aware of it through one's own experience). The moment I say it, it becomes exoteric.  Exoteric means external, put into external words, into external concepts, and the external concepts of the mind, those are the ones that limit everything: Definitions, that is the extreme case. Definition means setting a limit, with that I say: yes, it is infinite but I am only interested in the small area of it, only that can I put into words, only that can I really describe and that is what I pick out. But we are now on the verge of a time when we can, and should, succeed in immersing ourselves more in this lively-imaginative thinking and seeing, so to speak, perhaps blurred, very blurred, but nevertheless large connections. The call for this is becoming clearer in some areas, especially in the natural sciences, when I think, for example, of the way in which the Systems Biology  has developed.   Since the whole biology of the 20th century    was, as they say, very reductionist,  that is, which wanted to put everything on some small, simple basis, preferably on the basis of genes, systems biology took this as its starting point:  So if I know the genes of a living being, I know all the essentials, so to speak, and I could develop the rest from that. Well, snail! It doesn't work at all. Especially since the human genome was deciphered at or shortly after the turn of the millennium, it was soon realised that this alone tells us very little. We can already say: yes, this gene produces this or that protein molecule - to be more precise, the gene does not produce it at all, but the gene is completely passive.

but the body, the cell, then produces a corresponding protein molecule with the help of this gene. That is still not very much that is known about it. How entire organs or something like that are created from it is still more than mysterious. Yes, you can say that if this gene is not there, then the ear will not develop well. You can find things like that, but that doesn't explain the shape of the ear and how the ear can develop. All I know is that if this one important gene is missing, it doesn't work properly. We have not progressed much further, but we know today that   - Systems biology deals with the fact that the whole organism plays a role in every little thing, namely how a gene is converted into a protein molecule, and even more so, not only the whole organism, but also the environment has an influence.  on it. So that means it clearly goes even beyond the boundary of the living being and the point is that it's not that simple: the gene is a section of the hereditary substance  - yes, one thought! : that is translated 1:1 into a protein molecule.  That is not true. Various pieces can be taken out of these sections of the genetic material and combined, and it is not written anywhere in the DNA how this should happen, but it happens because the whole organism is involved, plus the environmental situation, and so on.  They first assemble the real thing that is needed and the combination possibilities alone are huge, are huge! Are much bigger than stars   in the whole observable universe. So there is nothing that you can simply predict, but rather it is a game with these things and the DNA is nothing other than a bit of a construction kit that you can play with, from which you can make many things. But what we can do and what we have also recognised in systems biology is,  that you simply look at the higher levels  and must certainly grasp it roughly, without too many details, and see what influence it has on the lower levels. So in the living there is a causation  from below - certainly the genes are there, the genetic material is there and it sets certain limits, so that a mouse gene will certainly not become an elephant, but it will always become a mouse, but there are just a lot of possible variations in how this mouse develops. Even in a litter of mice, each mouse has different characteristics and even in its own organism, the genes are transposed quite differently in different places. Otherwise we would all have to consist of the same cells - but that's not the case, they change. And the fact that this now forms organs again, which are larger structures, i.e. which develop from tissues, where different cell types are perhaps also connected with each other, is all very complicated and is not written in the genes in this way. One could say that the intelligence behind it, which creates it playfully, the etheric forces play a role, but the astral forces we have spoken of also play a role. 

But what I have already said the last few times, one can at least recognise the activity of the etheric forces from the traces, from what they are doing. That will be important for the future, that we leave this alternation between sensory perception - very concrete sensory perception - and go back into thinking, take that into thinking and thereby become more and more aware of what I see and increase that, precisely this thinking up to the living imagination. That is where we are now. That is very, very important, and it is also a little bit contained in this week's verse. It shows us that the course of the year actually gives us the opportunity to really go through the extremes over a longer period of time, but to find the transition from one to the other: to come completely into our own inner being in the winter time. This I THINK, it is I who think, it is I who bring something in from the conceptual world, from the spiritual world that stands behind it. That is one side and the other side is going out, losing oneself in the outer world, then taking something back into one's own and awakening there to what I have actually experienced. This process is going on all the time. It is this connection between observation, perception and thinking that R.St. speaks of in his philosophy of freedom. So this is a rhythmic transition between the two poles, and  - as I have already indicated -  This is particularly important in social life. This really being able to dream over, to sleep over into the other, i.e. to actually become the other soul-spiritually. But I completely forget myself in the process. Completely. There is no longer I think about this or that but I transform myself mentally into this other person and I take that back and by taking it back at least a part of it is lifted into waking consciousness and with every pulse beat, so to speak, it goes back and forth and in the alternating beat it can emerge more and more and build up so that I really begin to understand the other person out of himself. In the truest sense of the word. Because it's not just a matter of feeling then, it goes through everything. First of all, when I am with myself, I think what I think, then it changes into a feeling, more of a foreboding, that is perception, and then I immerse myself completely, with my will, completely in becoming the other. But then I actually fall asleep in the other person, I fall asleep in the other person. But then comes the way back and the more I come back to the level of feeling and the level of thinking, the more I raise it into consciousness. This goes back and forth and is not only a process of cognition but also a very real process that means something for the world and for the other person and for the social life that we lead together. And it is similar with nature. By immersing oneself in the essence of the animal, by sleeping over into it, so to speak, and taking something of it with us and recognising it, one recognises, for example, that the animal kingdom is something that has basically come into being because we have temporarily separated it from our essence, because forces are at work in it, spiritual forces that we could not yet master ourselves, from our own selves.  Which we could not get a grip on, for example, the forces that work in a lion, we could not yet deal with them, really deal with them, if they were united in their full strength with our being, but we can now make a preparation for taking these forces back into our being, for uniting them with our being. Once we begin this process of cognition. With this, this real process already begins to unite us again with this animal, with this animal species. And that is the redemption of the animal world. I will read something more about this from Paul in a moment, there is a beautiful passage on this in the Letter to the Romans. But I'm going to read the verse of the week again to round it off. That was just the verse of the week, but in truth there is a lot in it, a lot that can be used for our topic here.  So 8th verse of the week:

The power of the senses grows
In league with the work of the gods,
It expresses the power of thought
To the dream's dullness me down.
When divine beings
To make one of my soul,
Must think humanly
In the dream being quietly humble.

The more we approach summer, being in a dream even becomes being asleep in a certain way. But then we are really connected intuitively - but unconsciously at first - with the world outside. Intuition has to do with the will, with the willpower of the human being, and in truth we are least conscious in wanting, although it is precisely in wanting that our real I is most active. But we do not yet have the power to really awaken in the will. We are asleep in the wanting, because of course we already have in our minds, in our thoughts, in our consciousness I WANT this and that, but that is only the thought of wanting. To really know what our will is would mean, for example, when it comes to a physical action, to be fully awake and aware of what every fibre of our body is doing, down to the smallest detail, what all plays a role in it.   Because will, that's where it becomes very real, that's where it's power, and of course it's not blind power but highly intelligent power, if you like, that is, spiritual power, which is behind it, which doesn't act blindly but in a very coordinated way, and if we could see through all this coordination, then we would know what will really is. Will, one can say, is the idea that has become power. What we experience as an idea in the spirit is the idea that has become an image. That which is reality in the will is - as we experience it at least now - image become, at first, but consciously. Then it becomes reality but unconsciously for us, it just happens. Where one is really active out of the spiritual, as an artist for example, and if one were active awake in the spiritual, then one would know exactly with every brushstroke why it is like that. But not before I do it, but by doing it. Because then exactly this alternation always takes place: doing and recognising one's own doing. Giving impulses out of consciousness and moving into action, that changes continuously. But this is not possible with intellectual thinking, it is only possible with imaginative thinking, which is the intensification of living thinking, one could say, is only possible there - or rather - is only possible everywhere where we really think actively, that is, where we think creatively, do not merely think combinatorially, i.e. building on already known, learned concepts. That is our intellectual thinking, with which we really get neither anything of ourselves nor anything of what is outside. In fact, we always remain in front of it. The real thinking is only behind it, the real thinking is that which first brings forth the concept, brings it to appearance. And indeed, one could say out of nothing, not derived from something already known but taken directly from the spiritual. Goethe had this to a certain extent in his theory of metamorphosis, that is, where he dealt with plants, where he experienced the original plant. I have often spoken of this. This experience of the original plant, you could say, is the idea, the concept of the plant. But it is something so alive that it makes it possible for him to transform this original plant in his mental image into any plant that exists in nature or that perhaps does not exist but could exist,  out  to be able to develop in its spiritual experience. That means that this is very closely related to the artistic process and a truly artistic thing always makes a spiritual thing visible in its very one-sided form. When I paint a picture, I can only ever make it visible in a one-sided form. That is already clear. So I would have to intercept the moment, so to speak, before I put it on the canvas, because basically hundreds of pictures are possible, but in the end it can only become one. Perhaps the next time I approach it again, it will show a different perspective of the same thing. There are many artists who have painted certain motifs over and over again in their lives and the pictures are quite different because the artist has worked on the process of bringing it in, of putting it on the canvas, has developed himself and manages to bring more and more down and into the picture. But in reality he lives with the motif all his life. That is to say, it is about becoming an artist in thought and connecting ourselves with this artistic sense, connecting ourselves with nature. To connect with the animals, for example. In a way, it's easiest there, because it's about connecting ourselves through the sensual appearance, for once, with the soul level of the animals. And this is what Paul addresses in the Letter to the Romans, and I will read it out now, the piece about it, this is exactly the process where the redemption of the animal kingdom also begins. Paul expresses this very clearly. I am now reading it in Emil Bock's version, which makes it very clear. Not in all translations does it come out so clearly, there it is very clear of course, because Emil Bock had the anthroposophical background and can therefore translate it better into the German language. It is already there in the original text, but the problem is usually the translations. So much is lost because the words are translated with corresponding German words, which never really get to the heart of the matter. You often have to rewrite things in order to get the real thing across. I mean, I notice that so clearly now because I'm translating the Anthrowiki story from German into English and there are so many things that are very difficult to express in English. In English, for example, it is common to say EGO by default for the I of man, "the ego of the men". Yes, of course they have the word "I" and that is even written in capital letters, but they don't actually have the word "the I", but instead they use the word "I".  EGO set. But now EGO and I are actually things that are diametrically opposed. The EGO is only the astral shadow of the I and has almost nothing to do with the real I. It is actually what is usually the counterpart of the real I in everyday life and must be educated in any case. It is actually what is usually the counterpart of the real I in everyday life and in any case has to be educated by the I and these are quite contrary things. It is really very difficult.  The Greek language, it was created from the spirit. Ancient Greek was much more spiritual than our modern German and even more so English. - This must also be said. The English language is a great language for the task it has and for the people who have this task: namely, to grasp the outer world quite consciously and awake with the consciousness soul. That is its task: to grasp the outer sensuous world as undisturbed as possible by everything that comes from the higher spiritual, and that is absolutely a virtue. Because it's a complete virtue that we have very often, especially in the German-speaking world, where there were many researchers who always brought their religious, spiritual convictions into the very hard-headed, materialistic research into nature - and that's wrong. This creates a false image of the spiritual, a false image of the material world. These are things that must be clearly separated, although they naturally interact in reality. But you can't recognise the right interplay if you dream something into it that isn't there at all. And we have had more than enough of that. And it is a merit of the English-speaking world that it has really brought the hard materialism into scientific thinking. That is a great virtue. And the idea of God has, so to speak, flown out of natural science everywhere with great justification. Which had to be used again and again,  where one has not got any further with the explanation, the good Lord does it. Finally, now I have the point where the good Lord is effective. And that is exactly the wrong thing to do. One must learn to recognise - and one will learn to recognise if one goes to the limit in a purely materialistic way - then one will see that the spiritual works in the material. And that the material is inconceivable without the spiritual. That is the interesting thing: there is no spiritless material. That is the point, one must recognise that, one must recognise the spiritual in matter, but for that I must not dream it in. Therefore, I am certainly not rejecting materialistic thinking, it is necessary in the world. But one must recognise where the problem lies - and that is the urgent task in our time. This materialistic thinking, which on the one hand is very, very valuable,  but on the other hand has taken up practically all the space, which is a problem.  We must - yes, as R.St. often says -.  Drill a tunnel from both sides. We would have to drill it from the materialistic side and from the spiritual side in order to finally meet in the middle, so that it comes together and then we see that the material cannot exist without the spiritual. And that the spiritual too is everywhere  expressed in nature outside, which I can grasp sensually, materially. The   was already one of the tasks of the 20th century.  These are the very things that still - yes, out of the best of intentions but still  - A dreaming from the spiritual into the material was a false dreaming - to end it through materialism.

I cannot dream the spiritual into it from some religious tradition that I like or don't like - however I like it -.  but I must be able to experience the spiritual. If I cannot experience it at least in thinking - that is, experience it in a very real way - then I do not have it.

The spiritual is only there where I can think spiritually, really think spiritually. We still have to develop this or are in the process of developing it. The time is ripe to recognise that spiritual things are active in thinking and that this is at the same time the spiritual side of nature. It is not true that we have in our thinking all the forces which are the spiritual side of nature and which are active in nature, active in shaping it. We can grasp them with our real thinking from the other side - there we are exactly in the tunnel construction: on the one hand we can see the outer material side, on the other hand we can see the spiritual side.  With our senses, that's what we have them for, and from there we can grasp the spiritual side, which constitutes the essence of these things that we see with our eyes, with our thinking. But this is no longer intellectual thinking, it is this living, formative thinking, and basically, external natural science gives us an uninterrupted abundance of material from which we must first recognise how the spiritual is active in it. The whole theory of evolution serves this purpose, starting with Darwin and all the variations that have come along - one of the pioneers was Goethe. He already foresaw these things, he saw the connection between the formation of animals and man. That the animals are not lower creatures created by God, one after the other, and man as the one who was somehow put in at the end. NO we are closely connected with the whole of nature outside and we have grown out of this nature in our physical form. And the same forces that form outside in the animals, we have in us in all their fullness and the animals only have them in part in one-sidedness. You only have to look at all the facts that the theory of evolution has provided, and then you see what a wonderful artist nature is, playfully trying out things where there is no ready-made plan in the divine office that says: this and this and this should be created and then - I don't know - on which day of creation, what was created in the six days of creation,  hocus-pocus then it was there. NO but it is in constant movement and artistic change, in constant formation and this can be experienced in nature. And it is thanks to natural science that it has brought us many, many facts about it from outside, which one can really only grasp sensually and now we must finally come so far as to be able to grasp them spiritually as well. With the observations we have made of nature, we are actually ahead of what our thinking can achieve. Because we are basically still operating with the kind of thinking that developed in the Greco-Latin period - although it has reached its heyday in a certain way - but is now basically completely dead. That's the problem and we have to completely rethink when we take the next step. So we have not yet arrived at our epoch with our thinking - especially with our thinking. Or only with one half of the consciousness soul in the outer world. We do not see the outer world but do not understand it in reality.  What we have learned in the process is to try ourselves out, to get to know ourselves to a certain extent, at least that we are an I that can think for itself. That is what we have learned. But in the not too distant future, all the theories we have about nature will seem rather ridiculous to us. That much of it works and that it can describe just the dead okay but that is the dead. With this way of thinking we can really only recognise what has died in nature, that is, what is actually no longer nature but has become dead nature, dying nature, that is, basically going the way of sub-nature. We can recognise that - nothing more. We still know damn little about nature itself because of the way we think. There are, of course, individual people who have developed such a way of thinking - Goethe, for example, was one such person - he avoided thinking about nature in an extremely abstract way and instead thought in an artistic, creative way. It was then also said of him that he had an observational power of judgement. That means that for him, looking at nature and thinking about nature were in a certain way one and the same thing, and it was precisely through this that he was able to connect with the reality of nature. What we develop in terms of theories is this: I think it could be like this and like that, according to what I have learned, according to the experiences, it also worked there, let's try whether we can apply it there now. I'm actually imposing something on nature with which I can only understand the dead to the maximum and that's not always quite right. So things are going to change, and relatively soon. We are standing on the threshold of a change. Yes, but for that we must now take the big step, if we want to achieve that, we must really be able to lose ourselves in this dream or sleeping state to nature. That's the important thing and when we come back to something higher we wake up, just through that. Today we wake up to the sensual outside of things and that's where we essentially bounce back. So that means: perception of the outside and we bounce back and  think something about it now, but what it really is, we have not perceived. For that I have to dream into it, sleep into it and go through all the states.  From abstract intellectual thinking, the sense image first becomes imagination, imagination begins to tell me something, it becomes inspiration and then I fall completely asleep into intuition - I have become this other being spiritually and I take that back and gradually it lightens up.  I then come to the spiritual side, to the real spiritual side. And then I enter into a connection, for example, with the animal world, which contributes to the redemption of the animal world. Paul says it so well that I can't say it at all, so I'll read it to you how he puts it. So this starts off very well. It's in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 18:

"I mean that all the difficulties and sufferings of the present age are trivial compared with the power of light of the spiritual world which wants to reveal itself to us." 

That is already a powerful sentence.  All the difficulties and sufferings of the present age! Let us think through, which age was that in which Paul lived, which age, which ages were still in between up to our present, all that is trivial. That is a strong word

"All around us, all creatures are waiting with great longing for the sons of God to begin to shine in humanity."

So that this spiritual light within us really awakens.

"The creature is subject to impermanence, not for its own sake but for the sake of the one who has dragged it into impermanence, and so everything in it is filled with a longing for the future.

Yes, who is it for whose sake she is dragged into this transience? It is us. For our sake, we have actually plunged her into this transience, yes,  We have also plunged ourselves into this transience, but not only ourselves, but also everything that has become our nature today. Because if that hadn't happened - but this is purely hypothetical:  Because, of course, it was also necessary so that we could develop here in the way we are supposed to develop. But we have to know that we have dragged everything into transitoriness and that it is up to us to work on overcoming this transitoriness.  So

"The creature is subject to transitoriness, not for its own sake but for the sake of the one who has dragged it into transitoriness, and so everything in it is filled with longing for the future. For the breath of freedom shall also pass through the kingdoms of creatures, the tyranny of transience shall cease". 

Please listen to this: let the breath of freedom pass through! So redemption, liberation of the creature out there means that it becomes part of the freedom that we as human beings conquer here on earth. And that is precisely by reconnecting ourselves as humanity as a whole with this whole of nature, which we have put out of our being because we were not yet strong enough to work these forces that the animals have taken upon themselves. We have to be aware of that, we have deposited there all the strong, powerful forces that we were not yet able to deal with in the past. And as I have already said in the last lectures, there is still a long way to go, but it is a necessary way to get a grip on our own astral forces, which are at work in our underground, not only to get a grip on them, but also to renew them creatively, to let them become more and more something else, to let them become a product of our freedom. So we still have enough to do with our own being. And now we can see that in the animal world there are even stronger forces outside and we must also take them up if we want to redeem nature, if we really want to become completely what we - yes, if you like - are destined to be or have been made possible to be. Let us put it better this way. Predestined is perhaps wrong: what has been made possible for us. That is, where we have been given the opportunity to achieve this goal, precisely free human beings, human beings who can freely draw from the spiritual and thereby become free creators themselves, which the hierarchies above us are not. As I have said many times before. The great difference is that in the human I the source of creation itself can speak directly. Directly through the Christ-power that is present in our I. I will go into how this came about, what was necessary for it, we will certainly have to think about that. 

So the kingdoms of creatures, they shall also be able to take in the breath of freedom. The tyranny of transience shall cease.

"In the lightening of the spiritual sphere, bondage is replaced by the freedom intended for all God's shoots. We know that the whole creature - in the pangs of a new birth - suffers and groans to this day."

And this new birth will come about through the human being - yes, not alone, we have help in this. But the help is imparted by the fact that the Christ-power is present in our I, for our service, if you like. We must make the decision to do something, then the Christ-power can strengthen us, help us to realise what we strive for out of our will. But the impulse of will must come from us. We have to get away from seeing the divine above us as something that directs and guides us, but we are destined to take over the leadership ourselves. The whole of creation is set up for us to take the lead, for us even to make the decisions.  meet about which direction it is going. A direction that goes up or a direction that goes down. The whole of creation is subject to what we decide. That is the opportunity we have been given, but that is also the responsibility we have with it, with every step. So we don't need to talk ourselves out of it, the good Lord will sort it out. We will have all the support we need, but it is up to us to decide what will happen. That is actually something great, that we are trusted with it. So 

"We know that the whole creature  suffers and groans in the pangs of a new birth to this very day. She does not do it alone; she does it with us who have received the firstfruits of the new Spirit and yet painfully await the mystery of sonship which will bring redemption for us, even into our physicality."

That is to say, by making the power of Christ ever more active in us, through our I, the power of Christ that works through our I. This is the way of the Christ. And this path has  It began in the earlier incarnations of our earth, but it began in a very concrete way during our earth's development. And now one should perhaps take a look at it:     

How did we get our I in the first place, because we did not have it yet in the previous cosmic stages of development on our earth. In any case, this I as our I did not yet exist. To remind you briefly: R.St. calls the first cosmic stage of development of our earth the old Saturn. There, actually, only the physical body of the human being was prepared, as a pure heat body, if you will. Yes, even at first not as something spatial but only as something to be grasped temporally in the broadest sense. So it is very, very difficult to imagine what that is like. But in any case, that's where the first structure of our physical body was created and that then continued. On the old sun, the next stage, the etheric body was added and at the same time the physical body became the warmth-air body and then light and all kinds of things were added. Then it continues on the old moon, the watery element and the sound ether, and   What else is there on the old moon, something important, the astral body - that is, these astral forces which also rule in animal nature, but which are actually the forces which in truth make up the wisdom of the cosmos. Although created by the spirit, this is realised first as the order that rules in the world of the soul. The first chapter of Genesis describes exactly that. I have already mentioned several times that the first chapter has nothing at all to do with what appears externally, sensually, physically. So there, when the plants and the animals etc. are mentioned, even the human being, it is not his physical, not even his ethereal form that is meant, but his spiritual form. That is to say, the creation of the ordered soul cosmos is described there, and this soul cosmos is a world full of wisdom, which was already prepared on the old moon, that is, on the preceding stage of our earth. So that R.St. also calls this old moon the cosmos of wisdom. This wisdom did not exist before, it was not yet creatively realised, but was only realised step by step on the old moon, so that in the end it was there in its most mature form, and  now with the creation of the earth, that comes out. And therefore one can say that world astrality is the expression of this wisdom. That is to say, the whole cosmic order that we have is based on this astral world, this astral order, and earthly life has come into being because something of this cosmic order was brought in and connected with the etheric forces.  We already know from the last lectures that the lower realms of the astral world are actually identical with the upper realms of the etheric world,  so there is the transition  –  You can see the two sides - but these etheric forces now have the task of shaping the physical and also of imprinting this wise form on the physical, and that is what has happened. That is exactly what you can really follow in evolution, you only have to look at it as an artistic process, then you can see how more and more wisdom is being imprinted into the physical and becoming effective, actively imprinted. And this is anything but a purely coincidental process, but it is also anything but an execution according to a fixed plan, but it is an artistic creative process, where work follows work and the artist - well, in a certain way - develops further and further and brings forth higher and higher forms. That's how it works, that's how the spiritual develops, and you have to think about that: first of all, all the hierarchies are involved and they develop further by doing this, by developing that. And now we should begin to cooperate by completing this work. For it is not yet finished, nature is unfinished.  We have to bring it to the finished state. That's where we are now, really the whole of nature. I mean, which is the big question now:  Does the whole cosmos belong to the whole of nature? I don't want to answer the question now, but we have to look far beyond our earthly sphere, because all that belongs to it, is part of it. The earth could not exist as it does if it were not for the whole cosmos with its - I don't know - quadrillions of stars. All that is necessary for it. These are things that have not yet been fully grasped by spiritual science and anthroposophy. One must think that it is a question of the co-transformation of this whole out there.  And there are all these stars, no matter whether they have planets or not, all are populated with at least spiritual beings. Whether there are also physical beings running around somewhere is another chapter, but all these beings are involved in it. We are connected to all of this. With what we do here on this spot of earth that we think is so excellent, the whole cosmos is connected to it and we have a lot to do with it.  the task of working on all of this. So it's a huge thing and I can't say much more about it at the moment. The future will show that we will continue to connect with these things, but I can prophesy to you that even in the short time we have left on earth that we are physically embodied, we will still experience enormous changes. We have often spoken of the fact that in the 6th, 7th or 8th millennium many people will cease to incarnate on earth. That is an incredibly short period of time in terms of evolutionary history.  Our horizon will still have to expand enormously. It was a big, important step that we overcame the geocentric view of the world, which has its advantages, but which still had a very narrow perspective and placed our earth at the centre. It is a next step: the sun has moved to the centre. Yes, but the sun is also a star somewhere out there. We have to see that the centre is everywhere and that we have to connect with all these centres that are possible. We do it in the afterlife, when we go through it we connect. It's also often said that way:  every human being has his star. R.St. says: each person has a whole star region, each has a different one. They may even overlap to some extent, but that is already connected with the fact that we have a task there. So in our task we must also  see  it plays  It is not only the life on earth where we are incarnated that plays a role, but another side of the task is the one we accomplish after death, and that is very important. The fact that we belong to a certain star region, at least temporarily, does not mean that we somehow muddle through there.  but also have a task to perform there. There are no details from R.St., but there is still much to be discovered. Anthroposophy must also develop and discover more and more of these things. That means that in time we will  also pass through the afterlife, more and more awake. When you go into the star regions, that is already a very high realm. As we are today, we are still quite unconscious when we enter these regions. Our consciousness fades earlier, before we even leave our planetary system spiritually, separate from it and enter the greater dimension. But we will come so far, or should come so far, that we will ultimately consciously reach beyond the visible universe, to where our I really comes from, namely from the realm beyond space and time, which the Middle Ages called the crystal heaven. One must not imagine that this was meant as primitively as we say today:  They thought to themselves, there's a crystal ball and the stars are picking at it. That's the image that is often spread, but that's the image that we believe today, that people thought back then. They only recognised one thing: the special quality of our I-power is connected to this crystal sphere, because from there come the forces that also shape our minerals, our crystals. And our I has the quality of shaping in there. It is related to the forces that can also shape the crystals, the minerals, the hardest things and that can actually only be done by a force that works beyond the visible universe, that therefore comes from outside of space and time. But which thereby spiritually embraces and encloses all that is below and in consciousness  carries. Yes the Godhead does and some of that power is in our I. We will not be able to have all of it in our consciousness. We will not be able to have all of it in our consciousness, at least not during the development of the earth, that will still take time, but we are on the way there. That is the very important thing, that we also wait painfully for the mystery of sonship. That is to become the Son of God. Becoming the Son of God means  To really unite ourselves completely with the power of Christ. To become one with it. But each person in an individual way. That is very difficult to put into words. But perhaps you can see what we are capable of, if you take these writings seriously, but which have been lived out of real spiritual experiences. It has to be said that they were gradually distorted beyond recognition by Christian theology. Through the interpretations that were attached to them with the intellect, and I say it even more clearly: with the intellect that was used to assert one's own point of view, one's own power interests and thus also decided on theological questions, on the interpretation of such questions.

It is simply this: the mind as we have it today only serves to assert one's own interests. That is what it has become, the source was different, it came from the old clairvoyance, from spiritual perception, but it has become a tool to assert one's own point of view with logical arguments and to pierce the other spiritually in truth. That is also the true background of the Cain and Abel affair, that is what lies behind it. It's not about an external murder, that's just the sensual image of it. It's about the fact that when we want to recognise someone else, we actually do it with the powers of our intellect,

Just as when we want to recognise nature, we kill it spiritually. That's what's behind it and that's what we have to slowly get over. That is the task that lies ahead of us. That is to say, it is a matter of nothing less than transforming this killing mind into a living, formative thinking.. That's what it's all about and, as I said, the first step is to really to think, to think in the moment, and in doing so to strip away everything - that is the difficult thing - that we have learned in terms of ready-made concepts. To approach with complete impartiality what I experience in the sensual world, for example, and to consciously put away everything that I have learned, everything that I know, to put myself, as it were, with full, awake consciousness, into that stage that one has as a very small child, before thinking has even awakened. The moment when the child says I to itself is actually the moment when the mind begins to awaken and the killing begins. Then the innocence of the child is over  in a way, then we are on the path of Cain. We have to be! Now this is not a moral devaluation at all, but it is about becoming aware of it. We have to be on this path. The people who are actively transforming the earth are the sons of Cain. If we Abelites remained alone, then we would float dutifully in the spiritual world, but we would not come to freedom, we would not be able to transform the world as free human beings. We have to get there and therefore it is also very important that the child enters into this, but we also have to see what the process actually is. From a spiritual point of view, we become murderers at that point, because we really destroy and annihilate the soul in the world. So first of all it's about the soul, it's not about the outer murder. It is about the fact that murder takes place in the soul, and these are the forces - I have already spoken in the last lectures about the darkness of the soul in which the earth is wrapped.  that is the result of the fact that mankind has been practising this way for a very long time now - just since Cain and Abel, that's where it starts, of course it was far from our mind as we have it today - but that's where it starts. So right at the beginning, when we enter the earth, it starts, this process, but now it's time to reverse the process. Now it is a question of not destroying the soul, that is, of transforming it into something negative, something destroyed. Because the dark soul is actually a destroyed soul, which is being destroyed step by step from its wise order, which it actually has and which it took over from the old moon. In this we have been great until now. We needed that to come to ourselves, to shield ourselves from the spiritual world, to become free, but now we need to lighten up. And to lighten up means to develop living thinking, to no longer kill the soul but to create it anew. That is, to dissolve the dross and create new soul. This will perhaps be very similar to the soul that was there, but it is nevertheless a new creation. It is not a question of thinking: yes, how is everything going to be completely different now, I can't imagine that at all. Many things will be very similar, but it's just like an artist who continues to develop. The new work is a new beginning. He has developed and he produces something new, even if it is similar, it is not the old picture but it has become a new picture. That's the direction. 

 We are approaching - slowly but surely - the last chapters of the apocalypse and it is now a matter of speaking plainly about where the journey is going. Where the journey can go, if we want it to. Now we should think about what we can really do practically. Now the framework has been set out a little, what we can do. That's what it's all about now,  As I have already said in the last lectures, it is above all about the transformation of our soul world, that through our spiritual activity we first of all get to know this soul world more and more consciously, learn to grasp it more and more consciously, learn to direct it, but ultimately renew it, creatively renew it. This is the transition in the consciousness soul, where we begin to create the spirit self out of the soul-astral, and this is one of the great tasks of our consciousness soul age. The age of the consciousness soul has two very different faces, but they necessarily belong together. One is the awakening to the sensual outer world,  Yes, that is the English task, if you like, the Anglo-Saxon task, which is very big. I don't mean to say that there are no spiritually striving people there, that doesn't mean that if you dedicate yourself to this task you have to be spiritless. One can indeed be very spiritual and really develop the other in oneself, but there is a certain spiritual quality in there, to really take care very sharply that one does not dream false spiritual-mental things into natural events. Because that is the greatest obstacle to the understanding of the spiritual that we have today. There are so many   Books that are beautiful to read and often also uplifting, because one senses: with what religious, spiritual feeling man actually lives in there - although he is a natural scientist - but he dreams something wrong into it, something that completely cuts off the knowledge of the spiritual. It cuts off least of all those who reach the point where they really only stand with the dead at the end. There is the point of passage from the other side to the spiritual. If we don't get there, it's like trying to plug up the tunnel again so that I can't get through. That has to go. And that is a great, great task, for which one must really be grateful, we can learn from it. There is a very interesting artist and anthroposophist - he's no longer alive - who is a very good man.   Karl Balmer - some may have heard of him and he wrote a very interesting book. He had had a really deep understanding of R.St. and had also experienced him personally. 

"Overcoming Theism as a Contemporary Task" is the title of the book. That is to say, overcoming an attitude of mind that basically seeks God in natural research wherever it does not know how to proceed in truth. I will now read you a small excerpt from his book - he says this as an anthroposophist and in the following way:

People today are comfortable in judging anthroposophy. Because Steiner did not take a polemical stand against theism. Because he presented his world view as theosophy, people think they are dealing with an attempt to preserve the theistic world view. The often enough challenging lack of expertise of Steiner's evaluators serves to support this view. ? venture?  And yet a not too distant future will come to understand that with the appearance of Anthroposophy the liquidation of theism has entered its final phase. 

That is a strong statement, but it gets to the heart of the matter. In order to arrive at a truly free, spiritual knowledge, to arrive at spiritual reality, one must, on the other hand, arrive at the very dead, without first of all mixing the two. That is the very, very important thing. It is a question of really getting to this zero point, because only there can what is really created out of nothing take place. We can't get around that. Our I, if it is to be a free I, must come exactly to this point. 

Let's ask ourselves where this I comes from. I have already started the story, but I haven't finished it yet. So I'll pick up where I left off: where does our I come from? So we already know that on the old Saturn man received the first formation of the physical body, which was then developed more and more until our development on earth: on the old sun the etheric body, on the old moon the astral body, now obviously during the development on earth the I is added. How does it come about? Yes, you have to take a look at the first chapter of Genesis. You can learn a lot there. Firstly, it says: THE Elohim created the heavens and the earth, it is a community of spiritual beings called Elohim. Elohim is the Hebrew term for the beings that R. St. calls the spirits of form and these spirits of form have - aha, what power?  the power to form shapes into the physical. In fact, to really form into the solid physical. Of course, higher spiritual beings also work through the Elohim.  - although  is then translated in the Bible as GOD created the heavens and the earth. Then under God one must understand all the hierarchies that are above up to the highest creative source. The Elohim themselves are the lowest, but they are a plurality of Elohim.  R.St. always speaks of 7 Elohim that exist, that is a community of spiritual beings and only this community was able to create this earthly cosmos. That is the first thing. The next thing is: how were they able to create this earthly cosmos in such a way that, as a final result, man can come out with a free I? There has never been anything like that before. All spiritual beings above us do not yet have that, they all have an I but no I that has full freedom. What works through the Elohim so that they can begin creation properly in the first place?  namely with the word "let there be light and there was light"? More precisely it says: the Elohim said, let there be light and there was light. This is the first time they speak. They speak because - this must be taken very deeply - the divine Word works through them, namely the Christ. This means that the community of the Elohim is able to really tackle the creation of the earth through the fact that the Christ is active (speaks) through this community of the 7 Elohim. Everything that has gone before has already been described, i.e. the separation of the Elohim.  of heaven and earth was already accomplished and darkness over the earth and the spirit of Elohim   "Ruach Elohim......." that is, the spirit of Elohim hovered over the deep. By the way:  "Ruach" is  Hebrew and related to smoke, to breath, but it is also related to the activity of the mind. So what one would call, for example, in the anthroposophical context, the mind soul, that corresponds to ruach. The human mind soul would also be called Ruach. That is to say, it is about the divine power of understanding that initially hovers above the waters. But this alone is not enough to bring forth the creation of the earth. Ruach Elohim that hovers over the deep is not enough to bring about earth creation. They can do nothing other than bring the wisdom that was created in the past on the old moon back into an outer appearance, because after the old moon the moon disappears from the outer, sensual appearance but also from the spiritual appearance, withdraws completely into the spiritual, i.e. there is nothing left and then a new cosmos comes into being and it begins again in such a way that  it comes from the spiritual, takes on a spiritual form and then becomes spiritual. This is what the first chapter describes, this cosmos of the soul that comes into being. They can get all this out of the past and, if only it would stay there, they would stop there,  to make a repetition of the old moon, that's all that would come out, that would be the maximum that would be achieved. That the decisive new impulse comes in -  The Elohim said let there be light and there was light - by which is meant a spiritual light and indeed a spiritual light of the highest quality, namely this Christ power that comes in. It is only given at this moment and this Christ power is working now, yes, preparatory but in a similar way as it is intended later with man. This is the first stage where the Christpower begins to work through the I's of these Elohim. And now one must see that these Elohim, these 7  Elohim are very exalted beings, so they are still above the angels, there are angels, archangels, primal angels even, above them are the Elohim,  are therefore quite highly developed entities, are entities that had their origin - I can't say now before the old Saturn, I always like to say away from it, because with Saturn the calendar of time, that is the concept of time that we have, is no longer valid.  can use in a meaningful way,  has only just begun there. So I cannot simply say before it, but rather say apart from it. The fact that they have become spiritual beings, that is to say, that they have acquired an I, was already apart from this old Saturn. They are therefore I-beings, i.e.  Beings that are comparable to us humans,  already been away from the old Saturn.  And they have brought this ability with them, and in this ability, with this I-power, which these Elohim have, the Christ I, the Christ-power, now unites during the earth creation, that is the very essential thing. And now it must be said that the Elohim, because several stages have passed in between: the old Saturn, the old Sun, the old Moon, that their whole structure of being has changed very much. What do we have as human beings? We have a physical body, we have an etheric body, an astral body and our I, and if we now work diligently out of our I, we begin to renew the astral creatively and make it into a spiritual self. We are now at the beginning of this activity. The Elohim have a much longer development behind them, they have already done a lot more, i.e. they have already developed not only the spirit self, they have developed the life spirit, they have developed what we would call the spirit man and there is still a lot more. But they have completely stripped off everything that we call the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body. Because they no longer need all that as external created things, because they have complete creative power to create that out of nothing. We are also on the way, but that is still in the distant future. So that means they are also gods in the true sense.   The title gods is quite justified - but spoken in the plural - just not the highest divine, but they are gods in the sense that they can create the astral, etheric and physical out of nothing. So they no longer have an astral body, an etheric body, a physical body, but they have an I, but the I is the lowest and the outermost with them. So just as with us the physical body is the lowest member of our being, one could say that with the Elohim it is their I-power, unimaginable as it may seem to us. Their I-power is - one could say, what is   outwardly appears from them.  That is the first thing one encounters, is their I-power, and behind that there is much more. And now it is described in the Bible that they finally decide to create man in their image, in their common image, one should say. So not in the image of one Elohim or the other, that would only result in an imperfect human being, but in their common image. This act of creation is completed when they sacrifice their I-power. In doing so, they rise another level higher. And this I-power that they sacrifice, namely their jointly sacrificed I-power, is the spark from which the human I arises.. But now you have to know: the I-power as such is pure activity. It has no content, so that I can now say: yes, what is there in the I? It is the pure, unadulterated power to create something out of nothing. So what we don't take with us is the creative power that the Elohim have already developed, we don't take that with us, only the pure possibility of creating something out of nothing, whatever. No, not whatever. The first thing is to create ourselves. Because that is the core activity of the I-power, to create itself. Everything that goes beyond that is an even higher ability. If, for example, I can create astral things out of nothing, then the I is necessary for that, but then it has to do with the fact that I must have developed my spirit self.  This is conditional on each other. So the power to really create the soul, the astral, for that my I must have developed so far that it has developed the spirit self, and we learn that by transforming our lower members of the being, that's how we learn it. That is to say, through the fact that the I works on our astral body, we learn what it is like to create the astral, the soul, out of nothing. It begins by learning to control it, to deal with it a little, so that it doesn't do something for itself without restraint, but that is only the first beginning, the goal is that we can create it out of nothing. The moment we are able to do that, we have developed a little bit of the spirit self, the element that is above the self. That is to say, the Elohim have not created anything for us other than the power, the possibility, that which is underneath, which was also given to us by the Elohim and was given to us by the spiritual world in general - that is, the astral body, etheric body, physical body - that we can begin to transform this creatively. To the extent that we do this, it happens. However, something else is now necessary for this. 

One likes to imagine the I as a point, because we don't grasp anything about it other than that we have it, but that is only the reflection of it in our consciousness:  it's me. But in reality, the I is a force that comes from beyond what the spatio-temporal world is. So from beyond the crystal sky. That is where this power comes from. So it is the highest creative power.  And this I of the Elohim has exactly this power, which in this form really concerns the human I in particular, how this looks with the I of other beings is another question, but the Elohim - at the moment when the Christ begins to work through them, with the word "the Elohim said let there be light and there was light".  - at that moment  the Christ connects with the I of these Elohim and this impulse is inside. At first it remains in the sphere of the Elohim, when these Elohim sacrifice this I-power so that the human I can come into being, but there is inherently a relationship between this human I and the Christ-power, because it has moved into the community of the Elohim. Only that it becomes effective.....   The Elohim had the sun as their spiritual dwelling place and the Christ has settled in the solar realm.  –  

whereby we are still talking about the astral world, but astrally there is already the sun prepared, the sun, which astrally also contains all the other planets at this time, but where actually - in the first line the whole path is already indicated - the sun is already in the astral world.  where the sun then separates from the earth. The Elohim separated the heavens and the earth, divided that from each other. That is the process where the sun separates from the earth. The earth still contains the moon - but everything in the spiritual realm.  So the earth's soul system separates from the soul system of the sun and the Christ first unites in the solar realm with this I-power of the Elohim. But out of this I-power of the Elohim the human I emerges as a spark, as a spark that begins to multiply. It keeps igniting new sparks. So out of a human I comes forth that which arises and this human I has the power to multiply. It's a very difficult thought - it's an image.

The image is also a little misleading because I would have to say on the other hand that there is only one I, one single I. Just as we have spoken of the idea, where Goethe said that it is actually wrong to speak of it in the plural, it is basically the same with the I. The point is that every I has the whole divine I. The point is that every I has the whole divine I. The point is that every I has the whole divine I. The point is that every I has the whole divine power within it. The separation means  but each I can use them in an individual way. Many threads emerge from the one centre, many paths of activity, paths of creation, but they are assigned to each other.

We will go into this again, even more deeply, but this is just an indication of how the whole thing arises. So it is a spark and from this spark - let's just take it as an image - from this spark several sparks arise, although they are actually all identical, i.e. they come from the same source, each theoretically has the entire power, but the great difference is that this power is only realised through activity, through this I becoming active. Before that it is pure possibility. So the ego can indeed create itself constantly, but it would not develop further through constant creation alone. It would thereby alone  only   exist at all, exist? It never actually exists. It only exists in activity, in creating itself again and again, in that it exists. That's why the image of division, etc., is so important. It's all so difficult to express, they are representational images and they don't really fit at all.

Another image for the many I's is: There is a big infinite circle, which is the big I, and  in it there are infinite circles with other shades of colour, which  overlap each other and  all together form the white, large, infinite circle. But that is also just an image. Because actually this white circle is not separated from the coloured circles but each one draws from the whole, each one is the whole in a certain way but still in a unique way. I don't have the words to make it clearer but maybe it will help you a little bit to get in the direction. We are so influenced by representational thinking that we can only think of things next to each other, but which are not spatially separable in any way, which do not have a 

They are not side by side, but one inside the other, and yet they are one. It is incredibly difficult to put this into a sensual image. So these sparks - let's say - slowly rain down on the earth and from them humanity arises, the incarnations on earth begin. The spark of this I is there in any case, but it is still lacking something decisive so that it can acquire the quality that it really needs, namely this connection with the Christ-power. It is indeed there, but in order for it to be effective for the human being here on earth  realised, the Christ must incarnate as a human being on earth. He must himself become a human being or, conversely, one can say that the incarnation of Christ means,  that in humanity, in the human ego, this Christ power begins to awaken. These are two images. One could say: let us leave out the whole external description of the Mystery of Golgotha, let us leave it out for once. But there is a point in humanity where the I-power begins to shine forth in the human ego, again taken as an image. This is how one could describe this image of the turning point of time without any external historical development. So it is the moment when this Christ-power, which has already worked through the community of the Elohim, now awakens in each individual human ego, of which we know it is nevertheless in a certain way one, that is the paradox. It can only be expressed in such a paradoxical way. The Christ is this communal I, the great macrocosmic I of all I's. Every I is this Christ force, but it is not the Christ. Each I is this Christ-power, but not the whole of it in its activity. The Christ is the one who created our whole cosmos with the help of the Elohim and through the Elohim,  but he is the real creator of this earthly cosmos, that is, of the earth and the planetary system and all the stars that still play a part in the visible cosmos. The real Creator is Christ, who works through the Elohim and with the help of the Elohim. And therefore also gives the Elohim the possibility to sacrifice their ego power in such a way that this ego power is ready to receive the Christ power. So that is already laid down there. Even if you read the first chapter of Genesis and come to the passage where the Elohim said "Let there be light and there was light", then the impulse for the whole subsequent development is already there. The impulse is already there for the Christ to unite with the earthly embodied human beings. It is already there, the impulse for it is given. Of course, initiates at that time already saw and foresaw this in certain contours and therefore also contributed to steering the development in this direction, so that it is possible that people are also prepared for it. In the early days of humanity, however, they could not really prepare themselves from their own selves, but had to draw something from higher, spiritual beings, from their powers. Very high beings and therefore first of all the powers of the Elohim, which work through them, the powers of the primal angels, the powers of the archangels, the powers of the angels, which work through them, but all this is only preparation. The human ego is still in a very germinal state. It can only really awaken when the Christ Himself has connected with each of these sparks, which are all only one spark. and this is only possible if, conversely, the Christ becomes a human being and every human being who takes up this impulse becomes Christ in a certain way. The difference is, the Christ can do it for all, and we can do it with our ego only in an individual way. That is the point towards which we are heading. And this point, this ignition, that the power of the Christ becomes one with the power of the ego of the human being, i.e. that it completely unites with it, happens at the turn of the times or, to be precise, with the Mystery of Golgotha. There this effect takes place and then you can see how basically the whole earth lights up spiritually and what really lights up are these lights in the I's of the people. That is actually what primarily lights up and what then begins to illuminate the whole earth sphere. But the counter-current is that something comes in through the adversaries which covers up all this spiritual light that comes from above. But one must think that the lights of the I-impulses are there below. In everyone there is potentially this I-power which can begin to shine, which can illuminate the earth sphere. But at the same time - and this was and is the task of the contradiction - to that which comes down, so to speak, from above, the lid is placed over it, the astral sphere which is becoming blacker and blacker, which envelops the earth, which is becoming denser and denser. And the illumination does not come from above but must come out of the human ego. Therein lies the luminous power which dissolves and not only dissolves but redeems this darkness, precisely that which has been destroyed or distorted by the adversary forces or which has thereby acquired the tendency to branch off in a completely different direction. We have often spoken of this: the most problematic force is this being Sorat, which really would have the power to steer development in a completely different direction. However, it only has this power where there are people who, out of free will, reject this Christ power, reject the principle of freedom and say I would rather become an unfree but very, very powerful spiritual being who goes another way and then goes along with the world of Sorat. Because you have to think that all the spiritual hierarchies that are above us are very, very powerful, but they all don't have a free I, but they have enormous creative power. In this world here, one cannot ascend so easily, but in the world of Sorat, which would be a kind of counter-world, it is very possible to ascend on the dark side, so to speak, which, however, does not have this creative power of renewal that is possible through the power of Christ in man. But one must not underestimate that nevertheless there is still a tremendous possibility of creation. But it ceases to be this real ability to create out of nothing. It is then simply a matter of continually reshaping a world of finite possibilities. You have enough to do, there's no question about that. If you know a little bit about probability and things like combinatorics, you know that the numbers get very high very quickly. It's a hyper-exponential growth that happens. You may know the legend of the chess game where the pawn comes to the king and he has one wish. He wants no more than grains of rice  but in such a way that on each square of the chessboard there is first one, on the next twice as many and so on. And the king, who was obviously not that familiar with mathematics, thinks to himself, well, we can easily fulfil that. But the number becomes huge, the entire kingdom's supply of rice grains is not enough to fill the last square. The numbers become very big. And that is the world that Sorat is interested in and where he could well win over people who say, so if I am given enormous power in this empire,  that is something. Only this requires the completely free will decision to join this realm. Anything else will not be able to draw Sorat into his kingdom. There is a danger that people who initially feel too weak in their ego strength to face this challenge, to illuminate the darkness, that people fall prey to this temptation, so to speak: rather to become a great leader in this kingdom than to struggle with what I might not be able to do out of my ego strength. But the point is that it must ultimately be a free decision on the part of the human being to join this path of Sorat. But it is - as I have already said in the last few times - that no human being on earth is yet so far advanced that he has already made this final decision. This decision will be made towards the very end. The great and really final possibility of decision is really only in the next but one cosmic embodiment of our Earth, where the final decision will be made. Until then, everything is still temporary. But that is where we are going. 

The big question for us is: what do we do with our ego power? That is the great decision we are facing. Today, I believe, it is very much a question of becoming aware of the possibilities we can make use of through the fact that we have this I, of the powers that are in there. We have the powers of the Christ within us. These powers are present in the human ego and in unlimited abundance, only we must want this Christ power, the ego-Christ power, to become active in us by making it possible. I emphasise that it can only become active in us if we allow it. By itself, the Christ cannot become active in us. He can become active in many other areas, but as far as the human ego is concerned, he cannot become active in that area by himself. That is the point - yes, one could say that this is also a sacrificial act of the Christ, representative for the whole source of creation or as the source of creation itself.  that he has taken away from himself the power to influence the human ego in any way. Christ cannot force anything on us, he cannot do anything with us that we do not want. If we want, then it is the Christ who wants with us. Then in this willing we are one with the Christ. So with every truly free decision, it is a deed of Christ and at the same time our deed, that is no longer distinguishable. The question is whether people are willing to accept this freedom. At first glance it seems so:   Everyone wants to be free!  Just being free doesn't mean: I do what I want. It has nothing to do with that at all, that is the ego. 

I've already talked about how it's difficult in English to keep the ego and the I apart. But we have to keep them very much apart. What the ego wants has very little to do with the ego, it has only to do with the fact that the ego has a task to educate the ego and to bring it to the point where the ego becomes a creative product of the ego more and more. That is the punk. And therefore it means that we must be extremely vigilant that everything is done in the future that promotes and does not undermine the individual freedom of man. The struggle from now into the future is about the freedom of the individual human being. Now, some might say, it's all about the individual again.  No, that would be about the ego. The ego is that which has within itself the creative power to create something out of nothing and to give it to the world. That is the ego power. Ego power means creating something out of nothing and giving it to the world. The ego cannot be active in any other way. Only then is it a real ego, an ego according to the pattern of the Christ ego, only then is it the Christ ego that is inside this action, when it creates something out of nothing and gives it away in love, because that is the same thing. It is a power that builds up the world, that builds up the world spiritually. This power is within our ego. And the first task is to transform all the spiritual, astral things in us through this, in us, out of freedom - in other words, not just to become master of our astral things - that is the first step - but to become master of our astral things.  The second step is to illuminate it by creatively transforming the negative into nothingness and replacing it with spiritual light. That is the decisive thing. To that extent we will also develop the spiritual self. Many people are already on the way to achieving this. It is not necessary to believe that it is impossible, it has already happened in many cases, but it must happen to a much greater extent, in that we really make full use of our possibilities. That is what is before us. This giving away is also community-building. And now I come back to the very beginning of the lecture, that also works inside, that is the other side of it, when I am so strongly creating inside myself and begin to give away. But giving also means that there is someone else who accepts the gift. It is not simply throwing something out into the world, but giving means giving something to another person in a very concrete way: Giving ME to the other person and that happens in social communication at the moment when I sleep over into the other person. I described the side of it at the beginning, that when I then come back to myself, I take something of the other person's being with me, so that I can recognise him. The other side of it is that I give him something of what I have brought out through my ego power. That means that the other person must of course be ready to receive it. Then he can take something that enriches him. That is real, spiritual exchange. Ego-power absolutely does not mean that humanity splinters into individual beings, where one basically does not understand the other and each wants something different, but where all give to each other in such a way that together they create something even higher. That is the purpose. It's not a question of: well, I'll give you something to make you feel better. That is very petty thinking. I give you something that comes out of my creative power and that stimulates new creative possibilities in you. The gift I give is such that the other person can do with it what he wants. Only then will it be fruitful.  It's not about me pushing a great idea on him, so to speak, and saying that if you do that, you'll feel much better, everything will be fine. No, it's not about that at all. It is a gift that consists in one I stimulating the other to its own activity. That is the gift. It is a stimulation so that the other can stimulate his own powers. That is the real gift. It is something like opening up a wider space for the other person's own creative activity than he has had so far. It is a kind of encouragement: yes, now you can go a step further with your own creative activity. And that is in all areas where it is a question of what is really common, common to humanity, common to nature, common to the whole cosmos, that is only possible together and in this common lives the great Christ ego. It lives in each individual and it lives in the whole that arises from it. That is the path to the New Jerusalem, a next stage towards it, that is not yet the last stage. But this is the perspective that John draws, that John outlines in his book. To conclude, I would like to read a piece from the Apocalypse. We have come to the 14th chapter. First of all, there is the story of the great city of Babylon, which outlines the task that we actually have with our astral. To transform not only our own astral but also the astral of the whole earth. Babylon is actually the whole earth as it has become through us. And then the next confrontation was mentioned, namely that with the being Sorat, with the two-horned beast. The task of redeeming those who have the imprint of this beast on their forehead and on their hand, and what is necessary for this, I have not yet read, and I would like to read it out now.

This leads us to recognise the essence of the Christ even more deeply, and this is indicated here with an image. I will not discuss the image in detail today, I just want to let it have its effect. Let's read - before that there was the story with the Sorat - and now it continues: 

"What alone proves itself here is the persevering strength of those who are devoted to the Spirit, who keep the divine goals of the Spirit and faith in Jesus".

It is very interesting that the word Jesus comes here and not Christ. It is about the Christ who embodied himself in Jesus, who became man. So that is very precisely expressed. It is about the embodied Christ who went through the embodiment, that is the essential thing. Who has had this experience of humanity. Who has had the experience of death, something that no spiritual being, apart from man, has had until now and which the highest source of creation is now going through. You have to imagine going through these experiences!  

"What alone proves itself here is the persevering strength of those who are devoted to the Spirit, who keep the divine purposes of the Spirit, and who keep faith in Jesus."

By the way, faith does not mean: well, I just believe it, because it is written in the Bible and the pastors have also explained it to me. I can't say whether it's really true, but I believe it.

Faith is certainty, but certainty - I would say - in emotional experience, in the astral.

Experience. There I developed the certainty. The body of faith is the astral body or the transformed astral body, transformed into the spirit self, that's what's inside. So faith means:  I have become active in transforming my astral body into the spirit self. That is called faith. None of this is to be taken externally, it is meant much more intensely. Of course, you can also read it externally: I believe it - or I don't believe it, depending on the case. But that is not what is meant. Here the question is: have I transformed something from my astral to my spiritual self or have I not transformed it. If I have transformed a little of it, I have faith. If I don't have it, I can say all day long "I believe in Jesus Christ" and it's of no use to me, even if I have the highest feelings of well-being constantly reciting it and I feel very holy. Under certain circumstances, that can be the way to the depths. 

Yes, and now it continues as a consequence:

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying: write:  Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the power of Christ, yes, the Spirit speaks: they shall find rest after their toil. The real fruits of their life they do not lose in their soul's journey. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud the form of the Son of Man. On his head he wore a golden crown and in his hand he held a sharp sickle and another angel came out of the temple and called with a loud voice to the one coming on the cloud: "Strike with your sickle and reap, for the time of harvest has come. The harvest field of the earth is ripe. And he that was on the cloud passed over the earth with his sickle, and the earth was reaped."

There is no time today to go into the picture in more detail but we will bring it up next time and we will also have to talk about it,  which soul forces we have to develop in order for all this to work. We have already discussed some things the last few times: the development of the 2-petalled lotus flower,  the 16-petalled one, which has to do with this. It has to do with living thinking and imagination, it has to do with inspiration, and then very important is the heart centre, the heart chakra, the so-called 12-petalled lotus flower. This already points us very far out, because the 12-number naturally has something to do with the zodiac and so on. So that means we will also discuss that in the course of this. I have not forgotten to go into this, but there were again some digressions, which I think are necessary in order to understand what our I is, who we really are, what enormous dimension lies within. We are not aware of it. We say I, I, I so often during the day, but what do we really experience? We have to learn to feel this great dimension, then we have a chance to really consciously take the next step. Once again I emphasise, we need not be afraid of the size of the task. The potential is there but it can only unfold step by step and this step by step unfolding is enough. Nobody expects us to transform the whole cosmos in one leap. In the end it should be sometime, but that is not the next step. The next step is a very small one. And every I can take this step, because it is an I, and the next step follows this step. So over time the steps accumulate. It is manageable, but of course it is not always easy, because the opposing forces have us quite in their grip. That is why it is crucial for the future: the free I, to stand by it and to be alert, vigilant against everything that wants to hinder this free I, to prevent it with the seductive things. There are so many impulses in the world that promise people a beautiful, orderly world, they just don't say that freedom will perish in the process. In much of what is preached today as morality, there is a fighting impulse against the ego. That is the great trick: to morally defame those who are really active out of freedom and to present the others, who obediently follow some central guidance without perhaps noticing it, as the morally good ones. Yet it is those who are most at risk of falling into the grip of the adversaries. This confrontation is there every day in almost everything we encounter. It is about how I can preserve my freedom here, not only preserve it, but expand it. And this is also connected with personal responsibility. That is the great task, that we finally become aware of it, at least in this century. It would actually have been appropriate in the last century, but there were many, many strong impulses against this freedom. But despite everything, humanity has matured in these 100 years, even if it doesn't always look that way. The possibilities are there, the opportunities are there and I am sure that many people will succeed, and I hope very many.  

With this in mind, I say thank you and apologise once again for going overboard,  Yes, like Hans-Joachim Kuhlenkampf in the past.  in the TV show "One will win", he also always exaggerated, shamelessly exaggerated. I hope I didn't suffer any harm from watching those shows back then, they weren't that bad. 

In this sense, thank you for being there - until next time.