From Limestone to Lucifer
GA 349
XI. On the Christ, Ahriman and Lucifer and their relationship to man
7 May 1923, Dornach
Good morning, gentlemen, have you thought of something we might discuss today?
Question: Perhaps Dr Steiner would say something about the true nature of the Christ, Ahriman and Lucifer in relationship to human beings?
Rudolf Steiner: For this we must consider the true nature of man from another point of view, otherwise it might sound like superstition to you. Basing myself on the things we have already been discussing, let me now say the following. You see, gentlemen, today the general thinking is that the human being is the same all the way through. That is not how it is, for the human being is really all the time in a condition where he comes alive and dies again. We don't only come to life when we are born and die when we die. We are all the time dying and coming alive again, as I have also told you on other occasions.
Now if we look at the head, for instance, the inside of the head really consists completely of what we call 'nerve substance' inside. As you know, the nerves are otherwise just threads running through the body, but the head is all nerve inside. We might show it like this in a drawing [Fig. 27]: head, forehead; there head is all nerve inside, a thick mass of nerve matter. Some of this nerve matter also goes down the spinal marrow, and then the nerve threads go all through the body. Matter that occurs only in threads throughout the body is thus a uniform mass in the head. That is the nerve mass.
If you were to look at the inside of the human belly, you still have many nerves in there. There you have the solar plexus, as it is called. There's still a lot of nerve in there. But in the arms and hands and in the legs and feet the nerves are mere threads.
If you now look at something else again, the blood vessels, you'll find that they are fairly delicate in the head. On the other hand the blood vessels are particularly well developed in the heart region; and there are also thick blood vessels in the limbs. We are therefore able to say that on the one hand we have the nerve system, and on the other the blood system.
Now the situation is that we are born again out of the blood every day and every hour. Blood always means renewal. If we only had blood in us, therefore, we would be like creatures that grow all the time, getting bigger, creatures that are fresh and new, and so on. But you see, gentlemen, if we were nothing but nerve, consisting only of nerves, we would all the time be tired and worn; we would really be dying all the time. We therefore have two opposite principles in us—the nervous system that makes us get old all the time, actually handing us over to death all the time, and the blood system which is connected with the nutrition system and lets us grow young all the time, and so on. We can take this matter, of which I have just spoken, further. As you know, some people change in old age in such a way that we have to say they are calcified. Calcification, sclerosis develops. When people's arteries get furred up, as we say, when the walls of the blood vessels calcify, people easily reach a point where they can no longer move so well. And if the calcification gets really severe, one has a stroke, as we say. One has a stroke. This stroke, which people get, simply means that their blood vessels calcify and no longer stand up to the strain.
What has come over someone who calcifies, who grows sclerotic? You see, it is as if the walls of his blood vessels want to turn into nerves. That is the strange thing. The nerves have to die all the time. The nerves have to be in a condition throughout life, as it were, in which the blood vessels must never be. The blood vessels have to be fresh. The nerves must all the time be inclined to die off. If someone's nerves get too soft, not sufficiently calcified, if I may put it like this, he'll go mad. So you see, nerves must not be like blood vessels and blood vessels must not be like nerves.
This really compels us to say that man has two principles in him. One is the nerve principle. It really makes him old all the time. We really get a little bit older all the time from morning to evening. During the night this freshens up again, something that comes from the blood. And that is how it goes all the time, like the pendulum swing of a clock—grow old, grow young, grow old, grow young. Of course, if we are awake from morning to evening, we'll get older; and when we sleep from evening till morning, we'll get younger again. But there's always a little bit left over. The night does improve the situation; but a little bit of every day's getting older is left over. And when the sum of this gets big enough, the person will truly die. That is the way it is. So we have two things in the human being that work in opposite directions—growing old and growing young. Now we can also look at this with regard to the soul. I have so far spoken of the body. You see, if getting young grows too powerful in a person, he'll get pleurisy or pneumonia. The point is that things which are really quite good, which are excellent within their limits, become illness if they get too powerful. Sickness in human beings simply means that something which they always need is getting too powerful. A temperature develops when the getting-young process grows much too powerful in us. We cannot cope with this. We begin to be too fresh with the whole of our body. We then have a temperature, or pleurisy, or pneumonia.
Now we can also look at this from the point of view of the soul. You see, people can also dry up in their souls, or else get into the kind of state which in the physical body would be a temperature. People have some character traits—we don't like to hear about them, because so many people have them today—where they become pedantic, become philistines. Philistines do exist. You get to be a pedantic philistine. And if you are a teacher, someone who should be really fresh and lively, you get to be as dry as dust. And you see, this is the same as when our blood vessels calcify and dry up. We can also dry up in our souls. And on the other hand we may also grow soft in our souls. This means we get to be zealous, mystical—or theosophists! What is it that we want in that case? We don't want to think properly. We want to reach out to all the world with our powers of fantasy and not think properly. This is the same as the temperature you get in the body. To become a mystic, a theosophist, is to develop a temperature in your soul.
But we must always have the two things in us. We are quite unable to have insight unless we use fantasy, and we are quite unable to somehow bring things together in our work unless we are a little bit pedantic, keeping records of all kinds of things, and so on. Too much of this, and we are pedantic, we are philistines. Getting the balance right means the soul is as it should be.
The point is that there is always something or other that has to be at the right level in a human being. If it gets too powerful it will make us sick in body or soul.
It is also like this with the spirit, gentlemen. We cannot sleep for ever but have to wake up occasionally. Just think of the jolt it is to wake up. Just imagine the way it is with sleep. You lie there, knowing nothing about the world around you. If you're having a good sleep, someone may even come and tickle you and you won't wake up. Now think of the difference when you wake up, seeing everything around you. That is a big difference. Now when you wake up—yes, we must have the power to wake up in us; but if it is too great, if one is always waking up, if one can't sleep at all, for example, the power to wake up is too strong in us. Now there are also people who cannot ever wake up properly. Some people are always in a dim, dreamy state of mind, wanting to sleep all the time. They cannot wake up. We need the ability to go to sleep properly; yet this ability should not be too great. Otherwise we sleep for ever and never wake up at all.
We are thus able to say that different conditions can be seen at three levels in human beings. The first level is physical. On the one hand we have our nervous system. This shows a constant tendency to harden, to calcify. So we say:
| physically | hardening | softening |
You see, you are all of you at an age—with the exception of just one who is sitting there among you—that you must have your nervous system a little bit calcified. For if you still had the nervous system today the way you had it when you were six months old, you would all be mad. You can't have that kind of soft nervous system any more. People who are mad have a child-level nervous system. So we have to have the power to harden, to calcify, in us. And on the other hand we must have the power to soften, to grow younger. The two powers need to be in balance.
| physically | hardening | softening |
| calcification | growing young |
If we look at the soul level, we are able to say that the soul equivalent of hardening is pedantry, being philistine, materialistic, with a dry intellect.
All this needs to be understood. We have to be a bit of a philistine or we'd be madcaps. We have to be a bit pedantic or we would not keep our things in proper order. We'd hang our jackets in the stove or in the chimney rather than in the wardrobe. So it's not a bad thing to be a bit of a philistine and a bit pedantic, but of course not too much of it. We also have the power of fantasy, the power to be dreamers, mystics, theosophists. If all of these get too much, these powers, we will be dreamers, we'll live in fantasies. This must not happen. But on the other hand we also should not be completely without fantasy.
I once knew someone who hated anything by way of fantasy. He never went to the theatre, for instance, let alone the opera, for he'd say none of it was true. He had no fantasy at all. But someone who has no fantasy at all will be very dry, sneaking through life, and not a real, proper human being. So again things must not go to extremes.
| in the soul | pedantry | fantasy |
| philistinism | dreaminess |
| materialism | mysticism |
| dry intellect | theosophy |
If we now look at the spiritual side of things, we have the power of hardening in waking up. Waking up, we firmly take hold of the body, using our limbs. And the power which at the physical level causes softening, getting younger, we have here on going to sleep. Then we sink into dreams. We no longer have our bodies in hand.
| in the spirit | waking up | going to sleep |
We can say that human beings are constantly in danger of falling into the one extreme or the other, either becoming subject to too much softening or going into excessive hardening.
If you have a magnet you know it attracts iron. We speak of two kinds of magnetism in the magnet. And that is true. We have positive magnetism and negative magnetism. The one attracts the magnetic needle, the other repels it. They are opposites.
You'll agree that when it comes to physical, bodily things, we are not afraid to call things by their names. We need names. I have now described something to you in body, soul and spirit which every one of you can perceive for himself, something we always see, and about which you can all be quite clear in your minds. But we need names. When we have positive magnetism, we have to understand that this is not the iron; it is something in the iron. There is something invisible in the iron.
Someone who will not admit that there is something invisible in the piece of iron will say: 'You are daft! Iron is supposed to have a magnetism in it? This is a horseshoe. I use it to shoe my horse.' I think you'll agree that someone who'll not admit that there is something invisible in the iron and uses it just to shoe his horse is an idiot. You can also use this horseshoe for quite a different purpose if it has magnetism inside it.
Now you see, something invisible, something we cannot perceive with the senses, is present in the hardening process. And this invisible, supersensible principle, which one can observe if one has the gift for it, is called ahrimanic. The powers that want to make the human being into a kind of corpse all the time are ahrimanic. If only the ahrimanic powers were there, we would all the time turn into corpses, we would be pedantic, human beings turned to stone. We would wake up all the time and be unable to sleep. The powers that soften us and make us younger, taking us into fantasy, are the luciferic powers. We need the luciferic powers so that we may not become living corpses. But if only luciferic powers were present, well, then we would be children for the whole of our lives. The luciferic powers are needed in the world, so that we do not become old people at three years of age. The ahrimanic powers are needed in the world, so that we do not remain children for ever. These two opposing powers must be present in the human being.
| ahrimanic | luciferic | |
|---|---|---|
| physically | hardening | softening |
| calcification | growing young | |
| in the soul | pedantry | fantasy |
| philistinism | dreaminess | |
| materialism | mysticism | |
| dry intellect | theosophy | |
| in the spirit | waking up | going to sleep |
Now it is important that these two powers must be in balance. How is the balance held? Nothing of these two powers should gain the upper hand.
You see, it is now the year 1923, as you know. This whole time from the beginning of the century until 1923 has really been such that humanity is in danger of falling prey to the ahrimanic powers. Just consider—we are educated in an ahrimanic way today, unless there is a science of the spirit. Just think—our children go to primary school where they have to learn things that must seem very odd to them, things that cannot possibly interest them. I have mentioned this before. They have always seen their father. He looks like this—hair, ears, eyes—and then they are supposed to learn this: father [writing on the board] is their father. It is something quite alien to them. And that is how it is with all the things children are supposed to learn initially in primary school. They are not the least bit interested. And that is, of course, the reason why we must establish sensible schools again, where children may first of all learn things that would interest them. If the teaching were to continue the way it is done at the moment, people would grow old very early, for it is ahrimanic. This makes people old. The way children are educated at school today—it is all ahrimanic. The way it has been in these 1900 years is that the whole of human evolution has gone in the ahrimanic direction. It was different before.
If you go back to, let us say, the time from the year 8000 BC to the turning-point of time, things were different then. People then faced the danger of not being able to grow old. They did not have schools in those early times the way we have today. Schools were only for people who had already reached a respectable age and were meant to be real scholars. They had schools for those people. There were no schools for children then. They would learn from life. They would learn the things they saw. And so they did not have schools, nor was any kind of effort made to teach the children anything that was alien to them. The danger with this was that people might become utterly luciferic, dreamers, in short, luciferic. And they did. Much wisdom existed in those early times, as I have told you. But this luciferic principle had to be controlled, otherwise they might have gone on all day telling each other ghost stories! That was something people were particularly fond of then. We are thus able to say that in very early times, from about the year 8000 BC to the turning-point of time, it was a luciferic age. And then came an ahrimanic age.
Let us take a look at the luciferic age. You see, the people who were the scholars in those early times had some problems. At that time scholars would live in places that were like towers. The tower of Babylon about which the Bible tells us was one of those buildings. That is where the scholars lived. These scholars would say: 'Yes, of course, we are fortunate. For fantasy also wants to take over our minds. We always want to go into ghostly, luciferic things. But we have our instruments. With them we look into the stars and see how they move. This puts a rein on our fantasy.' You see, if I look at a star and want it to go a particular way, it won't do it. So then my own fantasy is reined in. The scholars therefore knew that they could use the phenomena of the world to keep a rein on their fantasy. Or they would have instruments for physics. They would know: 'If I were to think that burning a very small piece of wood will give me a huge fire, I can imagine this, but when I do it in reality the small piece of wood will only give me a small fire.'
That was really the purpose of those ancient schools—to keep a rein on the lively powers of imagination those people had. And their problem was that they would say: 'Yes, but there are all the other people who cannot be scholars.' And so they made their teachings public, sometimes honestly so and sometimes in a dishonest way. These are the ancient religious teachings, and they were certainly based on great knowledge. Only it would sometimes happen, of course, that the priests went astray. And the result is that the dishonest teachings—the honest ones have largely been lost—have come down to posterity. That was the way in which a rein was kept on the luciferic element.
As to how things are in the ahrimanic way—this you know. Present-day science is going more and more ahrimanic. The whole of our science today is really designed to make us all dried up. For in this science people really only know the physical world, which is the calcified, material world. And this is the ahrimanic element in our present civilization.
Between the two is the principle which we call Christian in the true sense. You see, gentlemen, people do not really know the truly Christian spirit today. If you take the element known as 'Christian' in this world today, this is indeed something we would have to fight, that is obvious. But the spirit of whom I also said a few things the last time we met, who was born at the turning-point of time and lived for 33 years—this individual was not the way people say he was. His true aim was to teach the whole of humanity the things that will make it possible to create a balance between the ahrimanic and luciferic elements. And to be Christian is indeed to look for the balance between the ahrimanic and luciferic elements. You really cannot be Christian the way people often say it is supposed to be. What does it mean, for example, to be Christian in a physical sense? To be Christian in a physical way is to learn things about the human being. A human being can fall ill. He gets pleurisy. What does it mean when we say he gets pleurisy? It means there is too much of the luciferic element in him. If I know this, that there is too much of the luciferic in him, I have to say: 'If I have some scales [Fig. 28] and they shoot up too much on this side, I have to take away some weights. If it goes down too much here, I must add weights there. And so I now say to myself that when someone has pleurisy the luciferic element is too powerful and the ahrimanic too weak. I have to add something ahrimanic to balance it out.
So let us assume I say to myself, quite rightly: 'This person has pleurisy; how can I help him?' I take a piece of birch wood, let us say. Birch wood grows actively in spring. And birch wood is something really good, especially the part near the bark; the bark has excellent powers of growth. I kill these by making the birch wood into charcoal. So what have I made of that fresh birch wood that was always growing young again? I made it into birch charcoal, something ahrimanic. And I then make the birch charcoal into a powder47Carbo Betulae, Weleda Co. and give this to the person who has too much of the luciferic element in him with his pleurisy. I have then added the ahrimanic element to the luciferic of which he has too much.
You see, I have made things balance out. Just as I have to add something when the scales go up too much on one side, so I have added birch charcoal when there is too much of the luciferic element in that pleurisy. I made the birch wood mineral by turning it into charcoal. It has been made ahrimanic.
Or let us assume someone gets to look so tired, inactive, that I have to say to myself: 'He'll have a stroke next.' He has too much of the ahrimanic element in him. I then have to put something luciferic into him, to balance things out. What am I going to do in this case?
Now you see if I have a plant—there's the root [Fig. 29]. You know the root is hard. It contains many salts. That is not luciferic. The stem and the leaves are not luciferic either. But if I go higher up I come to a scented, powerfully scented flower. The scent wants to escape, just as fantasy wants to take wing. Otherwise I'd not be able to smell it. I then take the juice of the flower.49Fresh lily of the valley flowers are expressed and processed by special methods. That is luciferic. I give it in a suitable way and so balance out the ahrimanic element, and I can cure the person.
What is done in modern medicine? In modern medicine, things are tried out. A chemist one day discovers acetylphenetidin.49Former name of phenacetin. I need not tell you what it is; it is a complex substance. People now take this to a hospital. There they have, say, 30 patients. All 30 patients are given acetylphenetidin, their temperatures taken and recorded, and if there's any result the substance is considered medicinal. But people have no idea at all as to what is really happening in the human body. We cannot look inside the human body. It is only if we know that pleurisy means there's too much of the luciferic element and one has to add something ahrimanic, or that a stroke means there's too much of the ahrimanic element and one has to add something luciferic—then that is the right way. This is something humanity lacks today. The human race is not Christian enough in this sense, because the Christian element creates the balance. You see, I am showing you why purely physical healing can be something Christian. It is Christian because a balance is sought.
You see, this is also what I wanted to show in the wooden figure which is to be set up in the building?50The Representative of Man Between Lucifer and Ahriman, at the Goetheanum in Dornach. Up above is Lucifer, the luciferic element, all the things that are feverish, fantasy, going to sleep in human beings. Lower down is everything that wants to harden, the ahrimanic element. And between the two is the Christ.
It is this which helps us to discover what we should do—in medicine, in science, in sociology and everywhere. And it is part of being human today that we understand that human nature has both luciferic and ahrimanic elements in it.
But what do people understand of these things? A pastor who was very famous in Basel and beyond, his name was Frohnmeyer,51D.L. Johannes Frohnmeyer (1850-1921). The passage in question from Die theosophische Bewegung, ihre Geschichte, Darstellung und Beurteilung; S. 107, Stuttgart 1920, reads: 'A 9- metre-high statue of the ideal human being is currently being carved in Dornach, with 'luciferic' traits in its upper and animal characteristics in its lower parts' (omitted from the 2nd edition). Frohnmeyer took this information from an article written by pastor Heinrich Nidecker-Roos (Christlicher Volksbote aus Basel 1920; 88: 23: 179 f., 9 June 1920) without checking it, and without giving the source, as if this was something he had established himself, rather than go to Domach from nearby Basel and look at the sculpture himself. See also lectures given on 16 January and 6 February 1921, in GA 203 S. 76 ff. and 193 ff. (not available in English). once gave a lecture. He did not take the trouble to go and look at the figure, but he had read in someone else's work—who may not have seen it either, but just copied from someone else again—that a figure is being made here, luciferic at the top, the Christ in the middle, and ahrimanic down below. It is three figures, one above the other, and, as you know, there are in fact even more of them. Ahriman twice, Lucifer also twice over. This man Frohnmeyer, however, knew it so well that he wrote: 'Steiner is producing something quite terrible out there in Dornach—a Christ figure that shows luciferic traits up above and animal-like traits down below.'
Well, the Christ figure has no luciferic traits at all but a completely human head. But he got it mixed up. He thought it was a Christ figure that has luciferic features up above and animal-like characteristics down below. In actual fact the Christ figure is not at all finished yet down below, it is still a block of wood!
That is how this Christian pastor seeking the truth has described the matter, and the whole world now says it must be true, for after all it is a pastor who has written it. It is difficult to cope with this if people do not want to understand, do not want to grasp things. They always run to the pastors because they believe what they say. You have here an example of falsehood being told, an example that is so miserable that one simply cannot think of anything worse.
And these people do have strange views. Pastor Frohnmeyer has written this. At the time when he wrote it, Dr Boos was still here at the Goetheanum.52Boos, Roman (1889-1952), lawyer and social scientist, active representative of anthroposophy, leading figure in the threefold movement in Switzerland. As you know, Dr Boos does tend to go at things a bit with a cudgel. You may have your own views as to whether one should swing a cudgel or a hand-brush. The hand-brush is softer, more luciferic, a cudgel is hard, more ahrimanic. So the question is, which should one use? Well, he told Frohnmeyer the truth, telling him the truth more with a cudgel, as it were.53In a publication called Die Hetze gegen das Goetheanum, S. 106, Domach 1920, which included a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the truth about anthroposophy and defending it against untruthfulness, and Dr Boos's article. So who gets a letter from Frohnmeyer? I do! I get a long letter from Dr Frohnmeyer in which he asks me to get Dr Boos not to be so rude to Dr Frohnmeyer.54Letter dated 23 January 1921.
Now just think what kind of ideas people have. It is hard to believe what kind of ideas they have. They speak ill of someone, as I have told you, and then they turn to one, asking one to proceed against someone who is putting the matter straight.
This is the problem. The public, especially the middle class public, are not inclined to make the least effort to see things for themselves but simply accept what they are told. It must be right because this is someone who holds an official position. And this is why our civilization is so tremendously frivolous and so mean in many things.
The situation is that the whole way of thinking people have today must get on to a track where it is possible to see again that all this talk about Christian things will not do. We have to be objective about it. We have to know, therefore, that medicine can be Christian if we know the following, for instance. Let us say someone shows quite clearly that people who have regularly been eating sugar, perhaps even as children, get cancer of the liver—this means the liver turns ahrimanic. We then have to know what to use to treat it, and that is the corresponding luciferic element.55Rudolf Steiner suggested using a medicament made from mistletoe grown on poplars to treat cancer of the liver. Just as we can tell the difference between hot and cold, so we must tell the difference between becoming luciferic and becoming ahrimanic. You know that if one's limbs have grown stiff, one has become ahrimanic. Hot compresses, warm cloths put on them will be the luciferic element to counteract this. And so we really have to know in all areas, and in all situations, what is the matter with a person. And then medicine will be Christian.
Education, the school system, must also become Christian. This means we have to teach in such a way that the children do not turn into old people in their earliest youth. So we must let them start at school with things that are familiar to them, in which they are interested, and so on.
You see, if we take the matter in this way, then using such terms as ahrimanic, luciferic, Christian has nothing superstitious about it but is completely scientific. And that is indeed what it is.
How did the historical evolution go? Well, you know, there was a time from the earliest Christian times until the twelfth, thirteenth centuries, and even the fourteenth century, when Christians were not allowed to read the Bible. It was forbidden to read the New Testament. Only priests were allowed to read it. The faithful in general were not allowed to read it. Why? Well, it was in fact because the clergy knew that the Bible has to be read in the right way. The Bible was created at a time when people did not think the way people do today; they still thought in images. And so one has to read the Bible in the right way. If people were to read the Bible without being properly prepared for this, they would discover that there are four Gospels in it, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. These actually contradict each other. Why do they contradict each other? Well, gentlemen, you have to understand this the right way. Anyone who is even halfways not a fool would have realized that they contradicted each other even in the fourth or fifth century. Of course they contradict one another.
But just imagine I have taken a frontal photo of Mr Burle and show it to all of you. Well, you'll all recognize him from his picture. Then someone comes along and takes a photograph from the side, so that one sees the profile. I'd show you this and you'd all say: 'That's not Mr Burle, he looks quite different; you've got to see him from in front, then he looks like that. But the picture you are showing me that was taken from the side—that's not Mr Burle!' Well, it is Mr Burle, but we see him from two different angles. And if I were to take a photo of him from behind you'd certainly say: 'But he does have a nose as well, and not just hair!' But that is because of the different angles.
Now if we 'photograph' spiritual events from different sides, they will also look different. One simply has to know that the Gospels were written from four different points of view. They therefore have to contradict each other, just as a picture of Mr Burle looks different if it is taken from the front, from the side or from the back.
Now, however, a time has come when people have said: 'No such thing! To prepare before reading the Gospels! We don't prepare for anything any more today. We let ourselves be prepared at school; there we let ourselves be broken in. But once we've been broken in, once we are beyond the age of 14 or 15 or so, then there's nothing to prepare any more, then we have to understand everything.' Well, that's the general view today.
So why should this not also go so far that people see the Goetheanum and see it to be a place where no children go to be prepared but really old fellows with bald heads—they still want to be prepared. That must be a house of fools! You see, that's what they say, for they cannot imagine that people still want to learn. That's the way things are today. And we have to be clear in our minds that to read something like the Gospels we really have to prepare for this first, for it is meant to be in images. You know, anyone wanting to read something written in Chinese today would first have to learn the script. To take the Gospels just the way they are written would of course be nonsense, just as Chinese writing is all scribbles unless one is able to look at it the right way. But when one understands these things rightly, one discovers that with anything Christian it is always a matter of: 'You must learn to find the right balance between the ahrimanic and luciferic elements, and not let one side of the scale rise and the other go down.'
And so we anthroposophists are also not ashamed to speak of the Christian element in this sense. In anthroposophy it is made very clear that being Christian does not mean having the name of Christ on one's lips all the time, and so on. One of the reproaches directed at anthroposophy is that so little is said about the Christ. But I always say: 'You see, the name of Christ is not used all the time in anthroposophy because the Ten Commandments are taken seriously. And you talk such a lot of the Christ because you do not even know the commandment that you shall not use the Lord's name in vain.'
When a pastor preaches in a Christian church today, the name of the Christ is on his lips all the time. It should only be used if one truly understands what it is about. And this, you see, is the difference with anthroposophy, which is intended to be truly Christian, not superstitious or sanctimonious, but truly scientific, and in these terms indeed wholly scientific. And so the event that came between the earlier luciferic and the later ahrimanic times, the event that happened in Palestine, is in anthroposophy considered tc be the key event in world history.
When people rightly understand once again what happened on this earth in that event, they will really find themselves again, as we might put it. Today people are really quite beyond themselves with their utterly external science. We'll talk more about this when we meet at 9 o'clock next Wednesday. This is what I wanted to say in reply to your question. I think it is possible to understand it all.