The Flowing of the Currents of New Knowledge

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – December 1, 2025

Czech original: Plynutí Proudů Nového Vědění · cesta-gralu.cz

Everywhere around man it is possible to perceive the flowing of currents which bring within them the prototypes needed for the attainment of great progress in every direction of human striving

And yet men do not succeed in catching up these currents

The greatest obstacle for the individual and for the whole of mankind in the ability to catch up anything new is every time exactly the same thing – rigidity

It is not, however, an outward rigidity, that is, a rigidity of the movements of the body, but a rigidity in a man's comprehension and thinking

Few suspect how grave, and also how dangerous in its consequences, this kind of rigidity is

Rigidity in comprehension and in thinking proceeds from the lukewarmness of the spiritual spark

It is therefore possible to write that it is precisely the lukewarmness of a man's spiritual essence that has a very grave influence upon his fate, and that it even endangers his very existence

Lukewarmness meanwhile advances creepingly and inconspicuously

Hidden in surroundings that are of a homogeneous kind, it advances degree by degree, in order finally to manifest itself in its all-enveloping perniciousness by causing irreversible damage

Just as many an earthly illness at first shows only quite small signs that point to it, often even for whole years before it breaks out in full force, so spiritual lukewarmness too manifests itself gradually over a very long time in a growing rigidity of thought

It is no otherwise than that rigidity of thought and of opinion is the consequence of a weak radiation of the spiritual inner being in man

It is thus so, that this rigidity in a man depends closely upon the inner mobility just mentioned

We may therefore also put it the other way round, that rigidity does not arise in that man whose inner spiritual spark radiates brightly

Rigidity can never develop where there is permanently in a man a living movement and a pure courage for independent healthy intuitive perceiving

Mobility of the inner being excludes rigidity

A spark that glows and radiates will by its very nature always strive unceasingly for the recognition of the Truth about everything that concerns life, it will long to know something more about itself and also about the meaning of its existence

It will want to swing for ever in the Light of Truth

It will be drawn by everything that comes from the Light, for in it it will perceive the nearness of its home

For the sake of this blissful swinging it will be ready to overcome basenesses of every kind that place themselves in its path as an obstacle to the gaining of higher recognition

In this direction it will wage an honourable and noble struggle with itself and also with its surroundings, if this should be needed

It will overcome everything that seeks to weaken and to bury its noble longings for the Light

In doing so the spark will free itself in all its coverings from every artificiality and overwrought posing

But it will just as much free itself from coarse rudeness and from base vulgarity, because an inner being that has become luminous will not permit anything of the kind

Thereby it will gain within itself a complete maturity, which shows itself in kindliness and in understanding for every similar struggle waged by other people

Through the very striving for maturity the spark will be strengthened in itself and permanently refreshed

The spiritual inner being in man greatly needs the refreshment of vitality in the experiencing of compassion with others, for this guards it against the tendency to grow faint

The inability to feel compassion is the beginning of spiritual rigidity

There is the danger of a hardening of the soul, which must then of necessity sink further and further down into the darkened planes

Here it always holds good that one can move either upwards or downwards

As soon, then, as the spiritual inner being begins to move downwards towards immobility, which comes about through the aforementioned lukewarmness of the spark, this at once loses strength and with it its own will to independent reflection and intuitive sensing

Outwardly a man grows coarse and dulled in his perceiving, until at last in the outer earthly world he sinks below the level of the animal

Instead of the original blessing there pours out of him into his surroundings ever more often discontent, evil, coarseness and disintegration towards everything he meets with

And instead of the spark itself pressing forward, it lets itself be dragged along by the opinions and thoughts of others

It does so without observing anything of it itself

It will always defend itself furiously against any indication that something of the kind threatens it

Although this causes a growing unconscious irritability, it is precisely the narrowed outlook of mental rigidity that hinders the ability to recognise the descent downwards

A man does not realise that he is gradually narrowing his outlook to only a very small circle of thoughts which absorb him for the greater part of the day

He loses the connection with the helping currents out of the Light, and the channel of higher connection which at least now and then uplifted him narrows until at last it closes altogether

Everything higher is cut off, and the earthly world becomes the centre of his perception of life

Such people have the direction of their attention fixed only upon the gross material part of their existence here, upon success in the earthly sphere, upon the concerns of their work, which they often regard as the most important thing in the world, upon the family, upon their pastimes and hobbies, of which there is such a great number

The reason for these efforts, however, is not thereby to give joy to others and to bring blessing into the life around them, but it is precisely a sign of an inner dividedness which takes refuge in false conceptions in order to fill the emptiness

In that which is truly important, that is, in the true meaning of their life here on Earth, in which a high spiritual goal with all the marks of nobility of character and of wisdom must necessarily be found, such people take only little interest or none at all

Thereby their inner being becomes lukewarm and their spirit falls asleep, and this despite the fact that outwardly and earthly such people are often very inventive and therefore also successful in the fields of their interests

Alas, this is a very frequent phenomenon among men here on Earth

The immobility of the radiation of the inner spark of the spirit in man leads always of necessity to the weakening of healthy intuitive perceiving

The first thing that testifies outwardly to the loss of a man's healthy intuitive fullness is usually a tendency to vulgarity in speech

This alone already indicates a weakness of the inner being, which is unable to free itself from the influence of surroundings that overflow with vulgarity and baseness in speaking

Speech and the use of words is thereby the clearest proof of the state of the inner being

Listen to a man, how he speaks when he is offended by something, when he is under pressure in some matter, when he does not receive the justice he supposes to be his due, and you will see at once with whom you have the honour of dealing

Whoever forsakes nobility of character and turns towards baseness makes it possible, through the lukewarmness of his inner being, for the influence of the outer ballast of the world of thoughts to overpower him

Yet nobility in speech is the simplest instrument which a man can always command, if his inner being is strong and mature

No one can place obstacles in the way of how he speaks

Carelessness in speaking is a chapter to which very little attention is given by men

Therefore all vulgar speaking is perceived only superficially, or no significance at all is attached to it

It means that a man is either temporarily weakened within himself, or that he has already become lukewarm in his very spiritual foundation

Either, then, a man is able in this smallest of matters to set himself apart from the influence of his surroundings, or there is in him a tendency to lukewarmness, which bears witness to the decline of his own inner being, which is losing the intuitive perception for such a thing as nobility in speech

Intuitive perception, as an expression of the vitality of the spirit, remains in such a case pushed into the background, and through the kind of speech and the choice of words it makes known the wretchedness dwelling in the inner being

Although intuitive perception and perceiving in man can never wholly die out and always retains at least the smallest form of a faint stirring of conscience, healthy intuitive perceiving in man will gradually be weakened to such an extent that it brings about a shift and he becomes rigid in his comprehension and in his thinking

And because rigidity in the comprehension of the human spirit shows itself here on Earth ultimately in the manner of reflection, we shall always find the expression of spiritual rigidity first of all in the crippling of a man's mental work and in his manner of speech

A man begins to move in his thinking within an ever smaller enclosure, which he holds to be the only right one

The expression of this is then either a lifeless clinging to dogmas, or herd-like behaviour accompanied by growing coarseness

The cold cunning of men swayed by the intellect can also be found as an expression of rigidity

Here it needs to be pointed out that cunning or material inventiveness are not to be confused with the creative activity of the spirit

The active and creative comprehension of the spirit is pure and is filled only with good

Cunning, on the contrary, moves towards evil, however skilfully masked the ways it outwardly chooses

All this is a most fundamental crippling of the independence of healthy intuitive perceiving

Everything of the kind is for the human spirit an unworthy result of its inner lukewarmness

If living and healthy intuitive perceiving is lacking, then a man is hardly able to grasp anything of that which lies above the level of the boundaries of his own world of thought

Whatever in its demand for vitality lies above the circle of mental rigidity remains ungrasped

Therefore rigidity is only with difficulty recognisable to those people who are themselves crippled by it

On the contrary, many such people fancy that they know everything best and that no one has the right to point to their spiritual weakness, which shows itself precisely in the inability to judge themselves soundly

The inability to see one's own deficiency in healthy intuitive perceiving is therefore a necessary accompanying phenomenon of the lukewarmness of the spiritual spark

Whoever, then, has succumbed to rigidity finds himself in a trap which does not permit him to see beyond the boundaries of dogmatic opinions

Thereby the vitality of the Truth remains for such people entirely outside their receptivity

In spite of all this, however, it is possible to uncover it even for those who of themselves would not be capable of catching it up

A man is always to wage the struggle to set in motion his inner capacity for healthy intuitive perceiving

Because rigidity consists in the impossibility of accepting that something is other than it has become ingrained through the human manner of thinking, it is always necessary first to point to the essence of something that was likewise denied in earlier days, so that under the pressure of change it afterwards became a fact accepted by men

And of such things and events, which for a certain time gave men reason to take up a seemingly unalterable position, only for these positions within a short while to turn wholly round into the opposite opinion, there have been very many in the history of the Earth

Here belong, for example, all the overthrows, the revolutions, the striving for dominion over colonies, and also the violent occupation of nations as the consequences of wars

Such events always brought with them a pressure for a change of thinking, and that often into wholly opposite positions

Owing to the forcible imposition of these changes, or even merely through a gradually mounting persistence, a change in the general thinking of society was formerly achieved

Today, fortunately, we meet, apart from exceptions, for the most part only with outwardly non-violent overthrows in human society

In principle, however, it is always a matter of the same thing

However much it may not outwardly be a question of tangible violence, on the plane of thinking it is an influencing of a wholly coarse and ruthless kind, in which threats or the pressure of punishing those who will not submit are not lacking

The punishments and the violence are carried out by way of social humiliation and ridicule

These outwardly non-violent overthrows take place today under the pressure of the immense influence of the public media, which use tried and tested instruments of influencing, whereby an effect upon the thinking of the majority is achieved

Owing to the mastery of thinking by the currents of the media, certain changes in society are pushed through

This is today a part of everyday life on Earth

And it will go further and will soon unfold, strengthened besides by the present strong influence of dead cleverness, which at this very moment is already causing immense damage, however much this is not yet observable to men

Here too many examples could be given

But at this moment it would be only a needless effort for the limited comprehension of many

Although every day a certain shift towards the complete subjugation of the human capacity for free decision takes place, men observe nothing of it

All these are the changes which repeatedly shake the ingrained rigidity of human thinking

Thereby the life of society moves in a cycle of repetition, again and again round and round

This is generally called an advance of the human community, development or progress, but it is not any true development at all, nor is it progress, but it is a process repeating itself through the millennia of human history on Earth, which in the result brings but a single change – a change in the view of the form of earthly life

In this way mankind has already passed through many stages which were reflected in the visible world and had their effect upon the development of the conditions of life, without, however, making the smallest advance leading to a higher vitality of the spiritual spark

The outward shifts and changes, but the inward remains ever the same as centuries ago, for it is influenced by rigidity in exactly the same way

And however much this might, under the pressure of experiencing, lead even to a strengthening resulting in complete spiritual awakening, it is precisely the long-standing rigidity in the comprehension of the majority that does not permit anything of the kind

Alas, there are only very few such people who under the pressure of the changes they live through awaken inwardly, that is, in their intuitive sensing of something higher

The majority, under persistent pressure, merely adapt themselves sooner or later to the new direction

That means that men accept new dogmas and, fulfilling the habit of herd-like conduct, gradually adapt themselves to the changes in the ways of life

Therefore we can never seek in this the progress or the development of human society for the better

On the contrary, it is a direction that holds the human inner being in a state of paralysis, in which the spark is permanently in danger of having finally to be extinguished altogether by circumstances

Development and progress consist in a whole perceiving of the meaning of human existence, in the completing and the widening of even the fundamental understanding of the spiritual value of human life

It is a knowledge which by its livingness proves itself true in many variations and mediates refreshment for a further advance forward

Progress and development are a building up, borne on the wings of a fresh advance forward in the completing of the knowledge that was lacking

If, however, it is merely a turn-about in some opinion regarding the manner of life on Earth, an opinion that for a certain time was imposed upon the majority with dogmatic rigidity, and that without any higher understanding of the true spiritual essence in man, then we must speak of a turning in a circle of constriction

This holds good also in the case where the intolerableness of a previous dictatorship weighs upon mankind, which does indeed lead to a movement in thinking, but again only to a change in the outward conditions of life

Often such a turn-about is also made only on the basis of the intolerableness of the fruits which the original rigid opinion had brought forth

This bears witness to an incredible rigidity of comprehension

And precisely this we shall find in many places throughout the whole history of mankind

It was therefore never a development when a change occurred in some opinion of society which at its beginning had perhaps originally appeared splendid, but it was always only a rescuing turn-about made out of despair before a complete plunge into the abyss, when all the perniciousness hidden in some dogmatic direction of society had become evident

This cannot be regarded as development, but only as an experience gained on the basis of what had already become intolerable to live through

Although something of the kind bears within it a portion of the value of an awakening, it is not a healthy development, but is always only a desperate act of rescue

Here belong all the conceptions of men that through a change of outward conditions an inner progress of mankind will be attained

All such former efforts of earthly men, convinced of the rightness of their way in the shaping of social forms of life, prove themselves as a rule sooner or later to be wrong, and thereby come to collapse

Whoever takes refuge in the conception that the way leads through the outward imposition of outward regulations, without regard being paid first to the inner awakening of men, will always in the end bring to life on Earth only the likeness of some dictatorship founded upon rigid opinions

From the standpoint of the All-Wisdom of God such a tossing of men from one side to the other is only a sad sign of the weakness and the indolence of those who allow rigidity in thinking to gain the upper hand within them, who let themselves be surrounded by wrong opinions which gradually become an ingrained dogma

In reality it is no free and joyful ascent, but is as a rule a desperate tossing that stands at the boundary between the being and the non-being of the human spirit

And yet men mistakenly call it development

However clearly true progress and ascent have their given conditions, by which we may recognise them, they are still not rightly understood by men

Progress is a matter of unfolding a certain original healthy foundation of knowledge which has proved itself in accord with the Laws of the work of Creation

Such progress always goes by the ways of a long confirming of the rightness of accord with the whole Harmony of the work of Creation, which contains within it all the working of the inhabitants of this Creation, both visible and invisible to earthly eyes

Hand in hand with this, mental rigidity recedes and ceases to hold the upper hand over the inner vitality of personal intuitive perceiving

Rigidity, however, is alas to be found all around us

However much it may not seem so today at first glance, it is precisely in the advancing inertia of a weakened intuitive perceiving that the rigidity of the masses is very widespread

Daily this shows itself in the mental disposition of men through the repetition of the ingrained opinions of the majority, and above all in the manner of speech and in the use of words

It has even gone so far that a certain rigidity is to be found truly everywhere, that is, also among people who hold in their hands the work in the Light of Truth

These people could already have been much further than they are today, if they had been able courageously to free themselves from the rigid manner of their thinking

For all the knowledge that has been given them, they stand in a case similar to that of the sad majority

Therefore that strength of a great free unfolding of the spirit is lacking here

And yet the grave moment is here for the warning call to sound everywhere, that for all the findings of science and for all the experience of historians and philosophers with the past that mankind has lived through, it is still not in the least a question of a true progress leading mankind to ascent

This ascent can be brought about solely by the great awakening in the spiritual enlightenment of mankind

Only in spiritual awakening can the influx of the currents of new knowledge come in such measure that it becomes an inseparable part of the thoughts of the whole of mankind

Spiritual awakening opens the possibility of an influx of the refreshing streaming of new knowledge, which brings progress in every direction of human life

Above this Earth there flow mighty currents of knowledge, to which the right attention is to be given on the part of men

The currents are filled with the blessing of high spiritual recognition

And only these currents will make it possible for a true progress and ascent of mankind to dawn to that level which will bring with it wholly new ways in the whole of life

The radiance contained in these currents calls almost strikingly to earthly men to rouse themselves and to step higher out of their narrowed enclosures of thought

Thus, for example, but one small step in the upward direction, and all knowledge of the mighty forces of the High animistic servants of Valhalla working in the universe would at once acquire a wholly different charge and direction, for the knowledge of the tasks of these glorious servants of God would open up the hitherto locked knowledge of the connections of all that must remain unattainable to the intellectual approach of science

Waiting in the face of the necessary step of breaking the seal of unknowing leads only, with each further day, to the accumulation of hardships which will finally come in order, like storm clouds, to discharge themselves and with the force of their blows to shake the mental edifice built out of the stones of rigidity

There is no longer any reason for a single person to carry within him any further the hereditary sin of the intellect, which exerts the influence that makes the human inner being lukewarm

Away with the delusion that shapes the heavy thought-form that there is nothing further beyond this world of gross matter

This form must be rolled aside and left to crumble into oblivion

The reality is the exact opposite of the conceptions the majority have held until now

It is precisely only above the material world here that life is to be found in its fullness and its beneficent power

The vistas to which mankind closed itself in its narrowness, when it let the intuitive perceiving of its inner being grow lukewarm, are precisely that promise of the beginning of a new age of great recognition

Therefore a fundamental change must come about on the part of men in the whole comprehension of the connections concerning the meaning of life

Inspirations blessed by the Light draw across the vault of heaven above the heads of men, in order to bring strengthening and support on all planes of human existence

In them is contained a whole new world which, in the following of the Laws of God, will at last bring the longed-for peace and ascent

Why men do not occupy themselves with these inspirations as is needful at this time is a great question

The answer, however, is plain

It is caused by the rigidity of the mental disposition of the majority

Therefore he who longs to raise himself higher is now to seek with all his strength ways to break out of the dull herd-like reflection which for the majority has become a hypnotic state

It requires courage for the inner tearing away from the surrounding ballast, but all this is worth the gaining of a free outlook, which then swiftly presents itself

And together with this outlook, in uprightness joined with human humility, the blessed inspirations out of the currents of new knowledge will also present themselves

Everyone can become a discoverer and an artist in many directions of human knowledge

Everyone can already in these days of ferment enter upon the refreshing and wholly fulfilling path of ascent

The currents bearing help within them are close above man

For a certain time they call quietly and patiently to everyone, and it rests with us alone whether we heed them or let them flow away aside to those people who awaken at the last moment and in the purest childlike trust take firm hold of them

Here above all it holds good that what is today in our nearness is also today to be fully used, for tomorrow everything may already be otherwise

Let us remember this in every moment of our life