CASPAR HAUSER

From "The Threefold Commonwealth" Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1921

(continued from No. 12 [note: No. 12 missing. s.p.])

From a lecture series titled "Spiritual Science, Christianity and the Future of Mankind" by Dr. Rudolf Steiner

 "Evolution" has become a magic word in many spheres of thought

today. But the external Science of our time applies it only to the

external facts of the sense world. For one who regards the world

from the point of view of Spiritual Science, everything is in process

of evolution - and above all, human consciousness. The state of

consciousness in which you are living today, and by virtue of which,

every morning when you wake, you see the perceive the sense world

through your sense organs - this state of consciousness evolved out

of a different one. In Spiritual Science we call this present state

of consciousness "clear day consciousness." This clear day

consciousness gradually evolved out of a primaeval consciousness

which was of a different nature, and which we call the "dim picture

consciousness" of mankind.

 It is true that we are here going back to an early stage of human

evolution, one of which external Anthropology has no knowledge. For

external Anthropology only makes use of the instruments of the senses

and of the methods of the intellect. External Anthropology imagines

man in a remote primaeval age, passing through stages essentially the

same as those through which our present animals are passing now. We

have indicated in former lectures how Spiritual Science thinks of the

relationship of man to the animal creation. Man never was such a

being as the animal is today. He is not descended from beings that

were like the present animals. If we were to describe the forms of

evolution from out of which man has evolved, they would indeed appear

most unlike the animals of today.

 The present animals are beings who have, as it were, remained behind

at earlier stages of evolution, who have preserved those earlier

stages of evolution and hardened them. Man has grown out beyond his

earlier stages of development; the animal has grown down beneath

them. Thus in the animal world we see, as it were, brothers of

humanity, who have remained behind, but who no longer bear the form

of those earlier stages of evolution. For those earlier stages took

their course in an age when the conditions of life on earth were

different, when the elements were not yet distributed as they are

today, when man was not yet burdened with a body such as he has

today - and yet was man. In the course of evolution man was able to

wait, if we may use this image. He was able to delay his entry into

the flesh until a later time - until this fleshy material could

evolve in such a way that man might develop the power of his present

mind and spirit. The animals were not able to wait; they became

hardened at an earlier stage. They entered into the flesh before the

proper time - hence they had to remain behind.

 Thus we may imagine man living under different conditions and in

different states of consciousness than today. If we follow back man's

states of consciousness through thousands upon thousands of years, we

find them ever different. What we call logical thought today, man's

intellect and reason, did not develop until late in the evolution of

mankind. On the other hand, forces in man which are now on the

decline were far stronger in earlier ages. Memory, for instance, was

far more highly developed than it is today. Through the increasing

intellectual culture of mankind, memory has very largely sunk into

the background.

 Anyone who looks out into the world with open eyes may recognize

even today, that statements like this, which are made from out of

Spiritual Science, are not altogether in the air. If what has just

been said is true, one would expect men and women of today, who have

remained behind through some chance or other, to be backward least of

all in memory. Nay more, one  would want to show that efforts to

develop the intellectuality of such people have had the result of

weakening their power of memory. There was a case in point in this

very town. Professor Daumer, of whom one cannot speak too highly,

made a special study of this case. I am referring to the man who was

an enigma for so many people, who was once mysteriously placed within

this town, and who met his death in a no less mysterious manner at

Ansbach. A certain author, wishing to indicate the element of mystery

that surrounded this man's life, said of him, that on the day when he

was carried out the sun set on one side of the horizon and the moon

rose on the other. You know I am speaking of Casper Hauser. Apart

from all the pros and cons that have been brought forward in this

case, and looking only at what is absolutely well established, we

know he was a foundling, who was simply there one day in the streets

of the town. He was called the child of Europe, because no one knows

whence he came; and at the time when he was found he could neither

read nor reckon. At the age of 20 he had none of those

accomplishments that are gained through the intellect; but the

remarkable thing is, he had a wonderful memory.

                               END OF PART I

Subject:          Casper Hauser, II

 Then, when they began to teach him, when logic entered into his

soul, his memory power vanished. And something else went with this

change in consciousness. Originally, he had an inborn and

well-nigh supernatural quality of sincerity and truthfulness; and it

was just in this respect that he afterwards became ever more and more

distracted. The more he was able to enjoy the fruits of

intellectuality, the more did his inborn sincerity vanish away. There

are many other things we might study, if we were to enter deeply into

the story of this human being, who had been kept back by artificial

circumstances. There is a popular tradition about him, which our

modern men of learning do not believe, but which is by no means so

unfounded for one who stands on the ground of Spiritual Science. It is

said that when he was still quite ignorant, when he had no idea that

there were other beings of different form beside him, Caspar Hauser

exercised a wonderful influence on wild or raving animals that were

brought into his presence. They cowered and became tame and patient:

something streamed out from him, with the effect that animals which

viciously attacked all other people were gentle in his presence. As I

said, this is a case which can be understood from out of Spiritual

Science. We might enter deeply into the soul of this remarkable and,

for many people, enigmatic personality, and from the picture thus

gained it would be evident once more how things that are inexplicable

from out of ordinary life can, with the help of Spiritual Science, be

traced to spiritual facts. It is true that such spiritual facts

cannot be arrived at by any speculative thought; they can only be

found by spiritual observation. Once found, however, they are

intelligible to a logical and all-round way of thinking.

 But this is only to show how you may find a way of approach to the

idea, that our modern state of consciousness has evolved from out of

a primaeval one, one that was altogether different. In that primaeval

state of consciousness, man was not in direct contact with the things

of the sense world in the way he is today; instead, he was in direct

relation to spiritual facts and spiritual beings. He did not see the

physical shapes of other creatures; indeed, in their present form,

these physical shapes did not yet exist. When another creature

approached him, something like a dream-picture arose in his soul.

According to its form and colouring, this picture showed him whether

the creature was well or ill disposed towards him. Such a

consciousness perceived the spiritual facts, and hence the spiritual

world in general. As man now lives with other beings in the flesh, so

at that time, when he could gaze upon himself, when he was soul and

spirit to himself, he lived amongst spiritual beings - they were

present for him. He was a spirit among spirits. And though he only

possessed a kind of dreamy consciousness, nevertheless the pictures

that arose within him were in living relationship to his environment.

Such was the ancient time, when man still lived within a spiritual

world; fleshly nature, as a basis for the consciousness he has

today, through which it was right for him to pass.

 And the animals were already here as physical beings, when man's

perceptive life was still in spiritual realms. Man lived among

spiritual beings, and in that primaeval age he required no kind of

testimony to convince him of the spiritual beings, just as little as

you need any testimony to convince yourself of the existence of

stones and plants and animals. Man lived among Spirits and among

Gods, and hence he needed no religion. Such was the pre-religious

age. Then man descended. The earlier form of consciousness was

transformed into the modern one. Now man no longer sees the shapes

and colors freely hovering in space; he sees the colors laid out over

the surfaces of the things of sense. And as he learned to direct his

external senses to the outer world of sense, so did this outer world

of sense spread itself out like a veil, like a great Maya, over the

spiritual world. And through this veil man had to receive testimony

of the spiritual world. Religion became necessary.

 Now there was also a condition, between this pre-religious

consciousness, and the religious state of consciousness in the proper

sense of the word. There was an intermediate condition, and from it

the various mythologies and legends, the folklores that tell about

the spiritual worlds, originated.

 It is a piece of armchair philosophy, utterly ignorant of real

spiritual processes, which states that the great figures of Norse and

Germanic mythology, and of the Greek mythology, and all the

traditions about the Gods and the deeds of Gods, are an outcome of

the poetic imagination of the peoples. They are not. The people do

not make poetry in this way. They do not imagine flocks of sheep when

they see fleecy clouds passing across the sky. The statement that the

peoples make poetry in this way is a product of the poetic

imagination of modern academic scholarship, which certainly is full

of lively imagination in these matters. The truth about it is

altogether different. All represents the last relics, the last faint

recollections, of the ancient pre-religious consciousness.

 A tradition remained to man of what man himself had seen. Those men

who described Wodan and Thor and Zeus, described them because the

memory was still living that these things had once been experienced.

They mythologies are scraps and fragments, often broken fragments, of

what man had once upon a time experienced.

 In another respect also, there was this intermediate condition. Even

in a time when the enlightened people - let us say - had already

reached a high level of enlightenment, even then there were some, who

in exceptional states (you may call them states of rapture or of

madness as you will) could still perceive what the majority of

mankind had once upon a time perceived. They told how they themselves

still saw something of the spiritual world. And what was so related

was mingled with the ancient memory-traditions, and brought about a

living faith within the peoples. This was a transition stage to the

religious condition in the strict sense of the word.

 How, then, was this religious condition of mankind prepared? It wa

prepared through man finding the ways and means so to develop his

inner life, that he might again perceive those worlds from out of

which he had grown and which, in dim consciousness, he had once

perceived. We are here approaching a subject upon which contemporary

thought is highly sceptical - the subject of "Initiation." What were

the "Initiates" within mankind? The Initiates were human beings who

by special methods had developed their inner soul and spiritual

being, in such a way as to grow into the spiritual worlds again.

                           END OF PART II

Subject: Casper Hauser, III

      There is indeed such a thing as Initiation. In every soul there

slumber supersensible faculties and powers; and for every human

being there comes, or at any rate, can come, that great and mighty

moment when these powers awaken. We may bring this moment of

awakening visibly before our minds, if we consider how another part

of man's development took place. Speaking in terms of Goethe's

thought, we may say: We did not yet contain the physical eyes, nor

the physical ears, that it contains today. We look back into past

ages, when, in the region that is now occupied by these sense-organs,

there were different organs, incapable of seeing and of hearing. Then

there came a time in the development of the physical man, when these

blind point became radiant, when these organs gradually unfolded till

light emerged for them. And in like manner there came a time when

man's ear had so far evolved that the world, which had been dumb

before, revealed itself in sounds and harmonies.

      The sun with its forces worked and formed the eyes from out of the

organism of man. In like manner, in his spiritual being, man can now

live in such a way as to bring about a development of those spiritual

organs, those soul-organs, which are as a rule unformed and

indifferent in man today. The moment is possible - and has indeed

already occurred for many - when the human soul and spirit become so

transformed as once did man's external, physical organization. New

eyes, new ears are formed, whereby, from out of the environment that

has been spiritually dark and dumb, light shines in and tones

resound.

      Evolution is possible, even in the sense of living and growing into

the higher worlds. And that is Initiation. In the ancient Mystery

Schools, man was instructed in the methods of Initiation, just as in

the external world today he is instructed, let us say, in the methods

of the chemical laboratory or of biological research. There is only

this difference between the methods of external Science and of

Initiation. External Science has to construct instruments and

apparatus to assist it in its search; but for him who wants to become

an Initiate, there is only one instrument - and that indeed he must

develop in all its forces. It is himself. Even as the magnetic force

may slumber in the iron, so in the soul of man there slumbers the

force to penetrate into the world of spiritual light and sound.

      Thus there came the age when the normal man in his normal condition

saw only the physical things of the sense-world, and when the leaders

of mankind were Initiates, who were able to look into the spiritual

worlds, who could declare and explain the things of the spiritual

world - those things among which man had at one time lived.

      The first stage of Initiation - whither does it lead? How does it

present itself to the soul of man? You must not imagine that this

inner development of Initiation consists merely in philosophic

speculation in spinning out ideas and practicing refinements of

thought. What man possesses in the way of concepts about the external

world, becomes transformed in him when he grows into the spiritual

world. Man then no longer grasps things in sharply outlined concepts,

but in pictures, in imaginations. In effect, he grows into the

spiritual and world-creative process. It is only the objects of the

sense-world that are sharply defined and clearly outlined. In the

world-creative process you do not have the animal with its clear,

sharp outlines. You have something that lies at its foundation,

something like a plan or type of  picture, from out of which a whole

variety of external forms may be evolved. It is a living and inwardly

organised reality. We must take our stand firmly and clearly on the

basis of Goethe's saying: "All that is transitory, is but a parable."

It is in pictures that the Initiate first learns to know and

understand, to rise into the spiritual world. And in the process, his

consciousness must become more mobile than the consciousness which

serves for an understanding of the world of sense that lies around us here. For this reason the stage of development of which we are here

speaking is called "Imaginative Consciousness." It leads man back

again into the spiritual world, but this time in no dim and cloudy

manner. This Initiate consciousness, which is to be attained, is

clear and wide awake, like the day-consciousness of man today. Man is

enriched by adding the consciousness of the spiritual world to this

day-consciousness.

      Thus at the first stage of Initiation man lives in the Imaginative

consciousness. And what those who have thus been Initiated have

discovered in the spiritual world, is communicated to mankind in the

great records and documents, just as Euclid has communicated the

things for the lower science of geometry. We recognize what is

written in these documents and records when we go back to their

sources, to the vision of the Initiates.

      So it was within mankind until the appearance of that greatest Being

who ever trod this earthly sphere, of Jesus Christ. With His

appearance a new element enters into evolution. If we desire clear

understanding of the essentially new element that was given to

mankind through Christ Jesus, there is one thing of which we must

take notice. In all the pre-Christian places of Initiation, he who

sought Initiation had first to leave the common course of external

human life. He had to work upon his soul in places of the deepest

mystery and secrecy. And above all, we must be clear on this point,

that there was still present in his consciousness something like a

transition, whenever he lifted himself again into the spiritual world

of the ancient dream-like picture-consciousness. He had to leave this

world of the senses, in order that he might enter the spiritual

world. That is no longer necessary today. And it is this change which

has been brought about by the appearance of Christ Jesus on the

earth.

                                  END OF PART III

Subject: Casper Hauser, Part IV

      The Christ principle has entered into humanity: there has appeared

historically, as a man upon this earth, the Central Being of the

spiritual world. He is that same Being towards Whom went the longing

of all who had developed a religious life in earlier times, the

longing of those who saw, in the places of Initiation, who left the

world of sense in order to enter the spiritual world. The Being, of

Whom it was proclaimed that in Him man meets his Highest - it was he

who entered the field of human history in Christ Jesus. And anyone

who has knowledge of genuine Spiritual Science, knows that all that

was proclaimed in the religions before the appearance of Christ

Jesus, was prophecy of Him. When the old Initiates wished to speak of

the Highest that was accessible to them in the spiritual world, when

they wished to speak of what they were able to see as the First

Beginning of all things - then, in the most varied names, they spoke

of Jesus Christ. We need but call to mind one instance - the Old

Testament, which is also a book of prophecy. WE remember how Moses

was instructed, when he had the task of leading out his people: Say

unto thy people that it is the Lord God Who hath told thee what thou

art to do. And Moses said: How will the people believe it? How shall

I be able to convince them? What must I say when they ask me? How

shall I be able to convince them? What must I say when they ask me,

who was it that sent thee? And he receives instruction: Say unto

them, the "I AM," it is He who hath sent me.

      Look it up in the original and compare it as accurately as you may;

you will then realize what is the important point. What is the

meaning of these words, the "I AM"? The "I AM" is the name for the

Divine Being, the Christ Principle of man. It is the name for that

Being, whom man divines like a drop or a tiny spark within him, when

he is able to say "I am." The stone cannot say "I am"; the plant

cannot say "I am." Man is the summit of creation in that he can say

"I am" to himself, in that he can speak a name which is valid for no

one else than for him who speaks it. You can call no one but yourself

"I". No one but yourself can call you "I" - it is here that the soul

speaks to herself, in this word to which one being alone has access,

this pathway. Here speaks the God; and for this reason the name "I

AM" was given to the Divinity Who fills the world. Say, "I AM" told

it thee. That was what Moses had to say to his people.

      But slowly do men learn to understand in full the deep sense of this

"I AM."  Men did not feel themselves as individual men at once. you

can still find the trace of this in the Old Testament. There men did

not yet feel themselves as individuals. Nor did the members of the

Germanic tribes, even as late as the early Christian church, feel

themselves as individuals. Think back to the Cheruscans, the Teutons,

etc., the various Germanic tribes on whose territory there lies this

present country. The individual Cheruscan felt rather the tribal "I",

and himself as a member of it. The individual could not have said "I

am" in that clear way in which we can today. He felt himself linked

up in one common organism with all those who were his blood

relations. Among the people of the Old Testament we find this

principle of blood relationship developed in its most far reaching

sense. The individual feels himself sheltered within his whole

nation; it is the nation which, for him, is governed by an "I." HE

knows what the saying means: "I and the father Abraham are one." For

he follows up the blood relationship through the generations until

Abraham; and when he wishes to go beyond his separate "I," he knows

himself himself sheltered in the father Abraham, from whom the blood,

the external vehicle of the common national "I," flows down through

the generations.

      Let us now compare what Christ Jesus set down, with these words that

meant so much to every professor of the Old Testament religion. We

then see, illumined as in a lightning flash, the whole progress that

was brought forth by the Christian evolution. "Before Abraham was,

was the 'I AM,'" (for such is the right translation and interpretation

of this passage in the Bible). It means: Go back through all the

generations, and you will still find something in yourself, in your

single individuality, that is more eternal than all that flows

through the blood related generations. Before the ancestors were, was

the "I AM," was that Being who enters into every human being, and of

Whom every human soul can feel something within herself directly,

without any intermediate. Not I and the father Abraham, not I and a

temporal father, but I and the Spiritual Father, He Who is bund to

nothing transitory - I and the Spiritual Father, we are one. "I and

the Father are one." In every human being there lives the Father,

there dwells the Divine Principle - something that was, and that is,

and that will be.

      Two thousand years have run their course, and men have only just

begun to feel the power of this cosmic impulse. In future times they

will recognize this mighty step within earthly evolution, and

understand its meaning for mankind and for the mission of the earth.

                           END OF PART IV

Subject: Casper Hauser Part V

      The old Initiates strove to attain what could only be attained and

recognized by going out beyond the individual existence, beyond the

individual human being - by comprehending the Spirit of a whole tribe

or race. When a man in the ordinary outside world heard of this, he

said: "It is something transitory, which begins with birth and ends

with death"; but when he was initiated into the secret of the

Mysteries, he saw what the others dimly felt within themselves, he

saw what flowed through the blood of the generations, as a real

being. He saw a Racial Spirit. It was given him to see that which is

unattainable in the world of external reality, which is attainable

only in the spiritual realm. He saw the God Who flows through the

blood of the generations. To stand thus, face to face in the spirit,

before the God, was only possible within the Mysteries.

      Those who were round about Christ Jesus as His intimate disciples

and with fuller understanding, were conscious that there stood before

them, as a human personality in the flesh, visible to the external

senses, a Being of divine spiritual nature. They felt Christ Jesus as

the First, the First in Whom, as in an individual human being, thee

was indwelling such a Spirit as had hitherto been only felt

indwelling in the blood related groups of human beings - such a

Spirit as had hitherto been only visible to the Initiates in the

spiritual world. He was the First born among men.

      The more man becomes individual, the more can he become a vehicle of

love. Where blood links men together, men love because they are

guided to that which they shall love. But when individuality is given

to man, when he cherishes and brings to life the divine spark within

him, then the impulses of love, the waves of love, must proceed from

the free  heart of man, from man to man. With this new impulse, man

has thus enriched the old bond of love, that bond that was bound to

the blood. Love is gradually becoming transformed into that spiritual

love which flows from soul to soul, and which will at length embrace

the whole of mankind in one common bond of brotherhood.

      And Christ Jesus is the force, the living force, through Whom, as He

appeared in history and revealed Himself to external sight, mankind

was first led towards brotherhood. It is lightly said in these days,

that theosophy should seek the one kernel of truth in all religions,

for all religions after all contain the same. People who speak like

that, and merely compare the Religions in order to find the abstract

equality in all, do not understand the principle of evolution. It is

not or nothing that the world evolves. It is true that the truth is

contained in every religion; but in evolving from form to form, the

truth evolves to higher forms. It is true that if you will look

deeply enough, you may find all the teachings that Christianity

contains, in the other Religions also. Christianity brought no new

teachings. But the essential thing in Christianity lies not in its

teachings. Take the pre-Christian founders of religions. In their

case, the important thing was what they taught. Imagine that those

founders of religions had remained unknown. If what they taught had

been preserved, this in itself would have been sufficient for

mankind. But in Jesus Christ it is not this that matters. What

matters in His case is that He was there, that He lived in a physical

body, here upon this earth. Not the belief in His teaching, but the

belief in His personality, is the decisive thing. He was seen and

recognized as the Firstborn among mortals, and in His case one can

ask: "Wouldst Thou also, in the situation in which I am, feel as I

feel? Wouldst Thou also think as I now think, will as I will?" That

is the important thing: he stands there as the greatest example of a

personality. The essential thing is, not that we listen to His

teachings, but that we gaze upon Him Himself, and upon what He did.

      Hence the intimate disciples of Christ Jesus speak quite differently

from the disciples and pupils of other founders of religions. The

latter say: "The Master taught this and that." But the disciples of

Christ Jesus say: "We are not telling you any myths, nor teachings

discovered by subtle thought; but what we tell you we have seen with

our eyes and heard with our own ears. We have heard His voice, or

hands have touched the Foundation of Life, that we might have communion

with you." And Jesus Christ Himself said: Ye shall be my witnesses in

Jerusalem, in Judaea, until the end of the world. A very important

thing is said with these words. Ye shall be my witnesses until the

end of the world. It means, there will at all times be those who,

even as the disciples in Judaea and Galilee, can testify from their

own immediate knowledge and bear witness, who Christ was, in the

sense of the Gospel: "In the sense of the Gospel," means nothing else

than that He from the beginning was the Principle tht permeated all

creation.

      He Himself says: If ye believe no tin me, believe at least in Moses.

For if ye believe in Moses, then ye believe in me, for Moses spake of

me. - We have already seen this, in this lecture. It was of him that

Moses was speaking when he said: The "I AM" hath sent me - the "I

AM," Who however, until that time, had been visible in the spirit

only.

      Christ appeared in the world, in the world of visible phenomena, as

a man among men. It is this which constitutes the difference between

the Christian Gospel and the Divine Revelation in other religions.

For in the other religions all spiritual wisdom was directed to

something outside the world; but now in Christ Jesus something came

into the world of sense. What did the first disciple feel as the

ideal of their wisdom? It was no longer merely to understand how

Spirits live in the Spiritual World, but rather - how the Highest

Principle was able to appear on earth in the historic personality of

Christ Jesus. It is far easier to deny the divinity in this

personality than to experience it. And herein lies the difference of

a certain doctrine in early Christianity from what we call: inner

Christianity. Herein lies the difference between the Gnosis and the

true esoteric Christianity.

      The Gnostics did indeed recognize Christ in His divinity. But they

were never able to rise to the perception that the "Word" became

flesh and dwelt among us. And it is on this that the writer of St.

John's Gospel lays such emphasis. For he says: You are to regard

Christ Jesus, not merely as something which is only to be understood

in the invisible, but as the Word Which was made flesh and dwelt

among us. You shall know that in this human personality there

appeared a Power, Who will work into the lost distant future, Who

will weave the true, spiritual love, as a living force, round the

whole earth sphere, Who lives and works in all things, Who lives on

into the future.

      And if man gives himself up to this power, then he will grow again

into the spiritual world from out of which he has descended. He will

rise again into that region, where the Initiate can already see into

today. Man will strip off what is of the senses, when he penetrates

again into the Spiritual World.

      As the disciples who were initiated in ancient times could look

backward to the past, to the far distant ages of spiritual life, so

by partaking in the impulses of Christ Jesus, those who are initiated

in the Christian sense receive the faculty of seeing what will become

of this our earthly world in the future, if human being work in the

sense of the Christ Impulse. Even as one may look back at the

conditions that were before, so, starting from the appearance of

Christ Jesus, one can look forward into the most distant future. One

can say: Thus and thus will man's consciousness evolve once more;

thus will man stand in the relation of the spiritual to the world of

sense.

      So, while the earlier Initiation was an initiation into the past,

into primeaval wisdom, the aim of Christian initiation is to unveil

the future to the disciple. And this is the necessary thing: man must

not only be initiated in wisdom, in his mind, he must be initiated in

his will. It is only through being able to set himself aims for the

future, that he knows what he has to do. The everyday man of the

senses sets himself aims for the afternoon, for the evening, for the

morrow. The spiritual man, from out of spiritual principles, can set

himself distant aims - aims which throb through his will and make his

powers live. To set mankind aims in this sense, is to grasp

Christianity esoterically, in the true, the highest sense - in the

sense of the original Christian principle.

      It was in this sense that Christianity was understood by him who

wrote that great foundation for the Initiation of the Will, the Book

of the Apocalypse. We little understand the Apocalypse, until we

realize it as the giver of an impulse for the future, an impulse to

deed and action.

      All that we have passed before our minds today can be understood

from out of Spiritual Science. Today we have only been able to

indicate the merest outlines. But when we understand through

Spiritual Science what lies behind the world of sense, then we shall

also look with understanding on all that is revealed in the Gospels

and in the apocalyptic work. And the farther we go in penetrating

towards the spiritual worlds, the deeper content shall we find in the

great Christian documents. The Christian documents appear to us in

higher radiance, in deeper content and fullness of truth, when we

approach them with that keen spiritual vision that can be gained by

the help of Anthroposophy. It is true that the simplest mind can feel

what truths there are in Christianity. But man's consciousness will

not always be satisfied with a dim feeling; he will want to evolve to

a higher stage, he will want to know and to gain knowledge. Yet, even

when his consciousness has risen to the highest heights of wisdom,

there will still be deep mysteries in Christianity. Christianity is

for the simplest human soul, and it is for the most highly developed

intellectuality. The Initiate experiences it once more in pictures,

in Imaginations.

      The naive consciousness may well feel what truths are hidden in

Christianity. But man will come to the point when he desires

knowledge and not faith, and then, too, he will find his answer in

Christianity. When the Gospels are explained to him through Spiritual

Science, he will find in Christianity the fullness and satisfaction

that he seeks. Spiritual Science will thus come to take the place

even of the word of Hegel's which we quoted at the outset: The

deepest thought is bound up with the external, historic figure of

Christ; and the greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that every

stage of consciousness can understand it in its external aspect,

while at the same time it challenges the deepest and most penetrating

wisdom.

                                      END

New DNA tests prove that Kaspar Hauser really might have been the Heir to the throne of Baden (though this was always beyond a doubt for the friends of Kaspar anyway). German history of the 19th c. would have to be rewritten to a considerable extent. Thanks to all who helped to trace the following news items. Markus
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http://www.rhellbart.de/kaspar/arte_presse.html

P R E S S E  -  I N F O R M A T I O N   zur "arte"-Sendung am 17. August 2002
 

Neue Untersuchungen von Haaren und Körperzellen des rätselhaften
Findlings Kaspar Hauser haben die "Erbprinz"- Spekulationen neu
angeheizt. Analysen von Münsteraner Wissenschaftlern hätten ergeben,
dass die Proben weitgehend identisch seien mit Proben einer Nachfahrin
des Hauses Baden, berichtete die Stadt Ansbach kürzlich unter Berufung
auf Informationen des ZDF. Das ZDF selbst sprach hingegen nur von
vorläufigen Erkenntnissen.

ANSBACH, 23. August (dpa). Nach Angaben der Sprecherin der Stadt
Ansbach, Ute Fleischmann, beruft sich der Fernsehsender auf jüngste
Untersuchungen des Instituts für Rechtsmedizin an der Universität
Münster. Mit neuesten gentechnischen Methoden hätten die Wissenschaftler
im ZDF-Auftrag zwei aus unterschiedlichen Quellen stammende Haare
überprüft, die Kaspar Hauser zugeordnet werden.

Das eine Haar stamme von einer Haarlocke aus dem Ansbacher
Caspar-Hauser-Museum, das andere aus dem Nachlass von Hausers früherem
Ziehvater Anselm von Feuerbach. Außerdem seien noch Körperzellen im
Schweißband von Hausers Zylinderhut gefunden und gentechnisch untersucht
worden.

"Die Gewebeproben stimmen weitgehend mit den Blutproben von Astrid von
Medinger überein - aber nicht in allen Fällen", berichtete die
Stadt-Sprecherin. Medinger ist eine Nachfahrin von Stephanie de
Beauharnais aus dem Hause Baden, die manche für die Mutter von Kaspar
Hauser halten. "Damit sind wir zwar ein bisschen weiter, aber die letzte
Gewissheit, dass Kaspar Hauser aus dem Hause Baden stammt, fehlt uns
immer noch", fügte Fleischmann hinzu.

Dagegen wiesen die neuesten Untersuchungen darauf hin, dass die vor
einigen Jahren vom Spiegel und der Stadt Ansbach untersuchte
blutbefleckte Unterhose nicht von Kaspar Hauser stamme. Die Gewebeproben
aus den Haaren und aus dem Zylinder stimmten nicht mit denen aus der
Unterhose überein. Das ZDF sprach derweil auf Anfrage nur von
vorläufigen Untersuchungsergebnissen. Sie sollten in den kommenden
Monaten noch einmal verifiziert werden, sagte ein ZDF-Sprecher. Diese
Ergebnisse sollen dann in einer TV-Dokumentation möglicherweise im
Dezember präsentiert werden. Vom Institut für Rechtsmedizin an der
Universität Münster war keine Stellungnahme zu erhalten.

Im Dezember 1996 hatten Forschungsergebnisse die jahrzehntelangen
Spekulationen über Kaspars Hausers adelige Herkunft vorerst weitgehend
verstummen lassen. Damals hatten DNA-Analysen von den Blutflecken auf
der Unterhose keine Übereinstimmung mit Proben von Nachfahren des Hauses
Baden ergeben.

Der hilflose Hauser war 1828 im Alter von 15 Jahren in der Nürnberger
Altstadt aufgelesen worden. Nach eigenen Angaben hatte er seine Kindheit
in einem dunklen Raum ohne jeden Kontakt zur Außenwelt verbracht. Sein
Schicksal hatte damals großes Aufsehen in Deutschland erregt. Hauser
erhielt Zutritt zu hohen gesellschaftlichen Kreisen.

Seine letzten Lebensjahre hatte er in Ansbach verbracht. Dort wurde
Hauser am 14. Dezember 1833 von einem Unbekannten niedergestochen.

Drei Tage später starb er.