AN APPROACH TO CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY The Golden Blade Faith. Love, HoPE^-d ... Rudolf Stelner Two lectures (hitherto untranslated) given at Nurnberg, December 2-3, 1911 George Adams: His Life and Work - Olive Whicher Science and the Threshold - - John Waterman T h e L o r d ' s P r a y e r - - . A d a m B i t t l e s t o n Religion in the Round - - - Kenneth Bayes Emerson and Rudolf Steiner - - Virginia Moore K n o w i n g A b o u t T h i n k i n g - - - A l a n H o w a r d Books reviewed will include the new editions of Rudolf Steiner's Christianity as Mystical Fact and The Tension between East and West; Honest to God, by the Bishop of Woolwich: and The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant, by Arthur H. Nethercot. Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman 1964 PUBLISHED ANNUALLY P R I C E E I G H T A N D S I X The Golden Blade 1964 Faith, Love, Hope: I - Rudolf Steiner Two lectures (hitherto untranslated) given at NUrnberg, December 2-3, 1911 George Adams : His Life and Work - Olive Whicher 27 Science and the Threshold John Waterman 54 T h e L o r d ' s P r a y e r - Adam Bittleston 65 Religion in the Round Kenneth Bayea 78 Emerson and Rudolf Steiner Virginia Moore 86 Knowing and Thinking Alan Howard 94 Books reviewed will include the new editions of Rudolf Steiner's Christianity as Mystical Fact and The Tension between East and West; Honest to God, by the Bishop of Woolwich; and The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant, by Arthur H. Nethercot. Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman 1964 Price 8f6 {9/5 post free) from the Rudolf Steiner Bookshop, 35. Park Road, London, N.W.L Faith, Love, Hope: I THE THIRD REVELATION TO MANKIND Rudolf jSteiner Two Lectures {hitherto untranslated) given at Niirtiberg, December 2-3,1911 * These lectures were given by Rudolf Steiner during a period of intense productive activity, involving many journeys. In March and April, 1911, he had given fundamental lectures in Prague and in Italy. "In The. une Spiritual he gave Guidance in Copenhagen of Humanity." the short In but August pregnant the coursefirst per- on Soul'sforman^ Probation." was given In in October Munich theof his course second "From Mystery Jesus Play, to Christ" " The was given in Karlsruhe; here he gave the fundamental spiritual concepts for the understanding of the Resurrection of Christ. With the exception of the course on St. Mark's Gospel, which followed in September 1912, the great courses on the Gospels had already been given during the preceding years, from 1908 onwards. Dr. Steiner theu manyChrist inplaces the twentieth about century; the renewed in the Karlsruhe experience course heof described in detail the work of Christ as lord of human destiny—a theme taken up again in these Niirnberg lectures. For some years the most significant figure among the group of Anthroposophy, a way of thought rather than a students of Rudolf Steiner resident at Niirnberg had been Michael body of dogma, springs from the work and teaching Bauer, the friend and biographer of the poet. Christian Morgenstern. of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). He spoke of it as Not long before these lectures were given, Michael Bauer had come to "a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the know Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who had become widely known in human being to the spiritual in the universe Germany as a preacher and pastor, working from Niirnberg. Through Bauer, Rittelmeyer came to Rudolf Steiner himself. These lectures may well have been among the first by Rudolf Steiner that Rittelmeyer could have heard. Certainly we may find in The aim of this Annual is to publish writings which them an indication of the great mysteries of destiny that worked in these encounters, and which led towards the foundation, eleven years bring the outlook of Anthroposophy to bear on ques later, of the Christian Community. For example, Rudolf Steiner tions and activities relevant to the present time. describes in these lectures the meaning of the altar in early Christianity. The theme of Faith, Love and Hope appears in a wonderful way in the second Mystery Play. At about this time Rudolf Steiner gave The title derives from a reference by Rudolf Steiner lectures under this title in other places also, for example in Vienna. to an old Persian legend. "Djemjdid was a king A. B. who led his people from the north towards Iran, and who received from the God, whom he called Ahura TIIScoherent evening study and to-morrowof the being evening of man, we and are of goinghis connection to attempt with a Mazdao, a golden dagger, by means of which he was the occult foundations of the present time and the near future. to fulfil his mission on earth .... It represents a From various indications I have given here you will have force given to man whereby he can act upon and grasped that to-day we are, to some extent, facing a new revelation, transform external nature ". a new announcement to mankind. If we keep in mind the recent periods of man's evolution, it may well be that we shall best under stand what is approaching if we connect it with two other important revelations. In doing so we shall be considering, it is true, only what has been revealed to mankind in times relatively near to our own. * From a shorthand report, unrevised by the lecturer. Published by per mission of the Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland. These three revelations—^the one now to come and the two as we can understand men in their bodily nature only as descend ing through the generations from this couple, so, in order rightly to others—may be best understood when compared with the early understand the greatest gift coming to our ego, we have to trace development of a child. Observing the child rightly, we find that on its first coming into the world it has to be protected and cared this fact, that must sink more and more into our ego during earthly for "by those around it; it has no means of expressing what is going existence, back to the Mystery of Golgotha. on within it or of formulating in thought what affects its soul. To It need not here concern us that in this connection the old begin with, the child cannot speak, cannot think; everything must Hebrew tradition has a different conception from that of present- be done for it by those who have received it in their midst. Then day science. If we trace back men's blood-relationship, their bodily it starts to speak. Those who watch it attentively—this is men relation, to that original human couple, Adam and Eve, who once tioned in my book. The Education of the Ch/W—will know that lived on earth as the first physical personalities, the primal forebears first it imitates what it hears; but that in the early days of talking of mankind, and if we must therefore say that the blood flowing it has no understanding which can be attributed to thinking. What in men's veins goes back to that human pair, we can ask: Where the child says does not arise out of thought, but the other way must we look for the origin of the most precious gift bestowed on round. It learns to think by talking; learns gradually to apprehend our soul, that holiest, most valuable gift, which accomplishes in the in clear thought what previously it was prompted to say out of the soul never-ending marvels and makes itself known to our conscious obscure depths of feeling. ness as something higher than the ordinary ego within us ? For Thus we have three successive periods in the child's develop the answer we must turn to what arose from the grave on Golgotha. ment—a first period when it can neither speak nor think, a second In every human soul that has experienced an inner awakening there when it can. speak but not yet think, and a third when it becomes lives on what then arose, just as the blood of Adam and Eve con conscious of the thought-content in what it says. With these three tinues to live in the body of every human being. stages in the child's development we may compare what mankind We have to see a kind of fountain-head, a primal fatherhood, in has gone through—^and has still to go through—since about 1,500 the risen Christ—the spiritual Adam who enters the souls of those years before the Christian era. who have experienced an awakening, bringing them, for the first * time, to the fullness of their ego, to what gives life to their ego in the right way. Thus, just as the life of Adam's body lives on in the The first revelation of which we can speak, as coming to man physical bodies of all men, what arose from the grave on Golgotha kind during the present cycle of time, is the revelation proceeding flows in like manner through the souls of those who find the path from Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments. Anyone going to it. That is the second revelation given to mankind; they are more deeply into the significance of what was revealed to mankind enabled to learn what happened through the Mystery of Golgotha.