The death of the Pope has prompted me once again to ask myself: what actually is the difference between Catholic faith and anthroposophy? When I put it like that, then of course the first difference is that anthroposophy is not a faith and also not a religion. So what is the point, really, of comparing them? I also do not want to compare them, but of course there are many people who originally were in the Catholic Church, perhaps also simply remain in it, do not have themselves removed from its records, and then nevertheless find anthroposophy and prefer that. And then the question arises: what actually is the difference? I believe that in the time of Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophy was forbidden for Catholics. I do not know how far that went, but it was not permitted to feel oneself Catholic and at the same time to be an anthroposophist. That must surely sometimes have been the case, but officially anthroposophy, of course, was not considered something divine, people thought. The great, greatest difference is that in anthroposophy the knowing of karma and reincarnation has come. And that is still entirely rejected by the Christian churches. Although in the New Testament there are indeed passages where one actually must read that the idea was alive at the time. For there is the passage where John the Baptist, when asked whether he was Elijah, says: no, I am not. How could he be Elijah, if there were no reincarnation? That will undoubtedly be answerable by theologians, what that then is supposed to mean. But one can also of course read it in such a way that the question was: are you the reincarnated Elijah?

That is a big difference: that in anthroposophy this knowing of reincarnation and karma has a central place. And I consciously say knowing. It is not a belief, it is knowing. And when discussions about it arise, I always have the tendency to say: yes, it is fruitless to discuss it, because it either is so or it is not so. And if it is not so, then anthroposophy would be wrong. But it is not wrong, because it is so. And if it is so, it is so. But of course that is no argumentation. I know that already, but emotionally it is so. For why should one argue about it? Because it is so. And Rudolf Steiner brought it in such a way that if one thinks along with him, one also has it as knowing, not as belief. There is a piece of thinking one can think along with, and that is to be found in his book *Theosophy*, where he wrote an entire chapter about karma and reincarnation, which really is a piece of thought that can be followed with logical reasoning. And although, of course, here and there there may be something where one says: yes, I cannot, I cannot perceive that it is so, one can still see the logical necessity of it, that it must indeed be so. And then one does not have to believe it, then one knows it. And when one then knows it, one experiences the blissful effect of understanding life. And one knows: before, I understood nothing at all. I did not understand where my thinking originates, why I form certain judgments by nature the way I form them, why I experience certain encounters as glorious or terrible, even though it is the first meeting, and so on. Why does one person have so much luck in life and another so little? These are questions that can only be answered with the concept of karma and reincarnation. And perhaps in our time the most important thing is that the gender question ceases — that one would have preferred to be a woman or a man. One has already often been woman and man. So gender becomes much less important, because one knows that one alternates and is not always a man, and also not always a woman. And then it becomes something entirely different. That is a liberation in the feeling.

And then it may still be that one is dissatisfied with what one has, but one can then better understand it. And then probably also better accept it through understanding. So karma and reincarnation, that is a pillar of certainty that anthroposophy gives and that one does not really find in the other confessions of faith, only in the Eastern ones, of course. But reincarnation in the anthroposophical sense always takes place in human beings, not in animals, not in plants, only in humans. Thus, once a human being, one continues to incarnate as a human being until the time comes when that is no longer necessary. Then of course in anthroposophy, Christ is a central being, who also in the Christian religions is a central being. And then the question arises: yes, what actually is the difference?

Then one enters very difficult realms of thought, or rather more realms of feeling. Because it may very well be that the name does not match the being. One can of course give a being a name, and another can give another being the same name. And of course that is found to be unacceptable. But Rudolf Steiner has often set forth in his lectures on Christ that the God who in the other Christian confessions of faith is called Christ has far more attributes of the Father God than of the Son God. That thus, if one wants to get to know Christ as a being, as God’s Son and then as the Son of Man — and one really wants that as a Christian — then it may be that a time has come when one must feel differently about the Christ being than what the churches teach us. Then anthroposophy teaches that there is also a cosmic Christ, that we can recognize him as a being who came from the Sun to the Earth. That is something that in Catholic faith is absolutely not present, and probably forbidden to believe as well. Such things are of course less easily immediately known, and one probably begins by feeling: yes, I find it probable what Rudolf Steiner said here. And then one continues to live with it and the truth confirms itself more and more. But the hallmark of anthroposophy is that it works through knowing of truth, and not through faith. And thereby there is also immediately a third point of difference with the Catholic Church, namely that in the Catholic Church everything gnostic and also Manichaean was always judged as heretical. But Rudolf Steiner, early in his work, already set forth that the Christ being was not already present in the Jesus child at Christmas, but only entered the Jesus being at the baptism by John. And that is known as a gnostic view.

That belongs to the difference in understanding Christ between anthroposophy and the Catholic faith. And one can easily imagine that if one has experienced something in the Catholic Church, that what the anthroposophists believe they know can be experienced as downright diabolical. But on the other hand, I myself have always experienced the Catholic foundation as a solid support for being able to receive anthroposophy as a spiritual science. So it is not that for every person there is a separation that cannot be bridged. One can very well fertilize one through the other, but in the larger world, it is not so.

What is of course very, very important in the difference — and actually this again is not such a sharp difference — but well, it is that in anthroposophy one can undergo an esoteric development and that one decides for oneself that one wants to. It is not that one is born once as a holy soul and then lives out one’s holiness through grace and then may remain forever close to God in eternity. In anthroposophy, we get to know a principle of development that naturally also goes through these many incarnations. And now, in our time, the time has come that we are no longer chosen in the old sense, but that we ourselves decide that we want it. I want to sanctify my soul. And I can sanctify my soul, I only need instructions for it, and I need the will to truly follow those instructions, because it becomes my life’s goal. And one must not say then: yes, that is a selfish enterprise, because one knows in anthroposophy that the individual soul, the personal soul, is a drop in the great soul-world. And everything that a soul does works beneficially — if it is beneficial — in the great soul-world.

If I want to receive spiritual knowing through the Holy Spirit, then one can decide that oneself, at least the first part. The second part is not so easily decided: that the Holy Spirit actually wants to flow in. That is still, in a certain sense, grace, one must still be chosen for that, but one has already prepared oneself through striving for holiness. So the difference is actually the free will. That has no place in the Catholic Church; that is not allowed. One cannot choose oneself as a person who wants to develop toward holiness, although one knows that the people who ultimately became saints and were recognized by the Church, naturally did not do nothing. They withstood many trials and had the will to endure it.

Thus, the difference is actually not even so great. But they do not want it. They do not want that a person says out of oneself: now I have tasted enough of the outer life, I will still continue with it, but at the same time, I want to nurture and develop my inner life so that ultimately someday — and that I cannot decide — it becomes ready for a conception of the Spirit. That is anthroposophy. And I felt the need to express these three differences — of course, there are more, but these are fundamental ones — on the occasion of the death of the Pope, because I would also like to discuss anthroposophy here in videos. So three big differences: one chooses oneself, an expanded knowing of Christ, and reincarnation and karma. Then next time further.