The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the book Rudolf Steiner und die Zivilisationsaufgaben der Anthroposophie (Rudolf Steiner and the Tasks of Anthroposophy for Civilization),² published at Christmas, an attempt was made to depict through Rudolf Steiner's words and through his work in Spiritual Science how immense was the energy and how selfless the sacrifice of his endeavour to give to mankind the new spiritual impetus for which there is such dire need at this turning point of time. His influence on the public at large had reached its climax in 1922 when Wolff's concert agency³ had applied for the organization of his lectures within Germany and when even the largest auditorium in many towns was too small to contain the crowds wanting to attend. Köthener Strasse in Berlin, which leads to the philharmonic concert hall, had even had to be cordoned off by the police because the congestion was so great. People from all around stood there with their luggage, unable to enter. This externally visible success fanned the flames of the opposition's will for destruction. Circles connected with the Pan-German movement⁴ at that time had no scruples about instigating riots or indeed resorting to ambush or murder, as is shown in the cases of Erzberger,⁵ Rathenau⁶ and a good many others. Groups otherwise at loggerheads with each other joined forces in order to do away with a growing spiritual movement which appeared to threaten their own goals. So it was not difficult to stir up rowdy scenes. These were particularly violent on the occasion of Dr Steiner's lectures in Munich and Elberfeld.⁷ The Wolff Agency was confident that it possessed sufficient personnel to organize and implement, all the more energetically, the arrangements for the lectures, in which it had a financial interest. It considered itself capable of reconnoitring the situation beforehand and felt it could then take preventative measures sufficient to cope with any disturbances. However, after further investigation, it had to admit that the enemy organizations were so powerful that it would unfortunately not be possible to guarantee the safety of the lecturer or even to ensure the smooth running of the event. It advised cancellation. Thus Dr Steiner's public lecturing was cut short by force at the very moment when it was at its most effective. Feeble and insignificant, but all the more unscrupulous, General G von G⁸ now took the stage as a disseminator of propaganda. His hatred was inflamed by private family quarrels and personal intrigues. The hate campaign set in motion by the opposition from far and wide was at its height in 1922, the year which culminated in the burning of the Goetheanum, and in 1923.

Rudolf Steiner strove all the more strongly to imbue the Anthroposophical Society with its task for mankind and for the culture of mankind, doing everything he could to make it morally sound. It was to become the instrument through which, despite immense efforts on the part of the opposing powers, the spiritual renewal of mankind would have to be attempted. The book Rudolf Steiner und die Zivilisationsaufgabe der Anthroposophie describes this through his words and deeds. It is also revealed in lectures given in 1923 and published in booklet form.⁹ The events described in the book lead to the point when it became possible to re-constitute the Anthroposophical Society as the General Anthroposophical Society, with its centre in Dornach, resting on the foundation of the newly-founded national groups. Before this could take place, the old connections linking us with Berlin as the earlier centre of activity had to be dissolved. It was my destiny to carry this out.

As the year 1923 drew to a close, inflation in Germany reached its nadir. A billion Reichsmark were now worth one pre-war mark. Ever since 1920, the strain of keeping up with the increasing speed of this avalanche had been making devastating demands on the nervous energy of anyone who had a business to run, especially when not only material values but above all spiritual treasures were involved. Official regulations which could not be ignored were changed every few days to take account of the shifting situation, and merely keeping abreast of the requirements devoured time and strength. If in addition you had taken upon yourself the burden of other people's affairs and had to make sure their rent and taxes were paid, you found yourself drowning in noughts when trying to work out what they owed—for taxes included not only the usual things but in addition items for the war, for the army, for the Ruhr, and all kinds of special funds. And next day everything would have changed once more. To send out a bill required a postage stamp which within quite a short time came to be worth much more than the payment requested. There was no lack of comical incidents, and the gallows humour evolved in their recounting did a little to lighten the burden of the depressing situation. Thus when the multiplication factor was a ‘mere’ few hundred thousand, a dear old member was heard to exclaim: ‘Good gracious me, when you are seventy thousand years old you can't be expected to understand these sums any longer!’ And the urchins in the streets of Berlin adopted boastful attitudes: ‘Did you say that star was four hundred billion miles away from that one? What's in a few billion? That's nothing!’ Such concepts of dwindling values must have had a decidedly negative influence on the strength of morals of the rising generation.

All over Germany things were being dismantled! We, too, could no longer maintain our dwelling in Berlin. And the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag had to be transferred to Dornach to ensure its continuing existence. Even Fräulein Johanna Mücke,¹⁰ stubborn and resilient Berliner though she was, could see no other solution. She was driven almost to despair in her isolation. We were forever either on tour or working feverishly in Dornach, while she waited in vain for replies to urgent letters, often facing decisions for which she felt unable to shoulder the responsibility alone. Dr Steiner was overburdened to the limit of his strength and now had to make preparations for the Christmas Foundation Conference and settle all the arrangements for international understanding and the reconstitution of the Society. Yet Fräulein Mücke could not be left without help any longer. Our worries on her account and about the continuing existence of the publishing company meant that we would have to divide the work between us. It was now my duty to hasten to Berlin in order to wind up our work and our home there.

So immediately after the Dutch conference¹¹ I traveled directly to Berlin. We had already given notice of our intention to relinquish our apartment. Now I had to rescue from Dr Steiner's library whatever we wanted to keep for the future. It was necessary to sift through all his papers in order to extract the important items from among the mountains of old letters and also manuscripts and newspapers which had become worthless. The last night before every lecture tour had been devoted to this job and each time several baskets full of torn-up papers had been the result. And yet an endless amount still awaited destruction on an even larger scale. It became our evening occupation for several weeks. Fräulein Vreede, who had come to Berlin to help, joined me and Fräulein Mücke. Whatever we wanted to keep was sent to Stuttgart. Permits for the transfer of the publishing company to Dornach had to be applied for, and everything had to be packed in accordance with border and customs regulations: Dr Steiner had given Dr Wachsmuth the task of helping us in this. He came from Stuttgart to Berlin to inspect the crates, now packed, and to arrange for their dispatch across the border. His visit was short. On their return, both our guests gave Dr Steiner quite dramatic descriptions of their impressions of Berlin.

We completed our work. Finally homes had to be found for the paintings and pictures; and the furniture from the Berlin group room, the Stuttgart Eurythmeum and our apartment in the Landhausstrasse had to be distributed. A last word to friends and we bade farewell to this place where we had worked and with which we had been connected for twenty-one years. Five hundred crates of books together with all the cupboards and shelves were transported to Switzerland. Fräulein Mücke herself had had to show the packers how to tackle the task with verve. Now she stayed on in Berlin for a while. But at least she had been relieved of the great burden and had the comfort of knowing that she had saved the publishing company. We owe it to her exemplary loyalty that in Dornach it has been able to flourish once more.

Thus I did not return to Dornach until shortly before the Christmas Foundation Conference, once the task of winding up everything in Berlin had been fully completed. It was as a matter of course that this part of the work should have fallen on me. The old form had to be dissolved before the Society, newly constituted in Dornach, could find its own form, taking into account the growth of the Movement and also the fields of work which corresponded to its new cultural tasks. Dissolution is always tinged with sadness, though joyful anticipation of coming educational and artistic tasks was undiminished. The past that had to be dismantled was infinitely significant, and anchored in it was the guarantee of fruitful new development.

Therefore I was astonished when during his introductory lecture, at the opening of the Christmas Foundation Conference, Dr Steiner conjured up before our souls a deeply moving image of the ruins of the Goetheanum, and then extended this image to include the publishing company. For the crates, packed to the brim, had resembled ruins merely externally, and this picture created an inaccurate impression among the listeners. When I later pointed this out to Dr Steiner and asked what he had meant, it turned out that he had received a report which had given him the impression that the devaluation of currency in Germany had brought about too great a dissipation of resources. When some months later Fräulein Mücke was able to show him the account books herself, he was delighted and said: ‘But this gives quite another picture and shows that everything is alright.’ He congratulated her on having rescued the publishing company out of that complicated situation.

To give a description of the Christmas Foundation Conference is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks one can set oneself. It is barely possible, with our limited insight, to gain an overall view of the impulse and power behind that event. It represents the most mighty endeavour of a teacher of mankind to lift his contemporaries out of their own small selves and awaken in them a conscious will to be allowed to become tools serving the wise guides of the universe. Yet at the same time this Christmas Foundation Conference is also bound up with something infinitely tragic. For we cannot but admit: We were called, but we were not chosen. We were incapable of responding to the call, as further developments showed.

At first every participant was as though lifted above him or herself, inwardly warmed through and through and at the same time deeply moved. But a destiny held sway over the whole situation, a destiny which has had to run its course in other spheres of existence. The outcome revealed what it meant for Dr. Steiner to take our karma upon himself.

Herein lies the deeply esoteric nature of that deed of sacrifice. This is not the usual interpretation of the designation ‘esoteric Vorstand’. What could have been deeply esoteric would have been to bring diverging earlier spiritual streams to a harmonious balance in the persons of some of their present representatives. This would have been an esoteric task that could have been achieved together with Dr Steiner through his superior insight, strength and capacity for love. But our human karma and that of the Society burst upon him the very minute the Christmas Foundation Conference had been brought to a close. On that last day, 1 January 1924, he suddenly fell seriously ill. At the social gathering with tea and refreshments, described as a ‘Rout’ on the programme, he was struck down as though by a sword aimed at his very life. Yet he continued without intermission and with boundless energy to be active until 28 September, the day on which he spoke to us for the last time.¹² His failing physical forces were nourished by spiritual fire, indeed they were borne by this fire and grew beyond themselves. But at the last, after superhuman achievements during the month of September, the power of this inner flame finally devoured him too.

For those who have the possibility of viewing events as a whole, the Christmas Foundation Conference is bathed in this tragic light. We have no right to turn our thoughts away from the gravity and suffering of these events. For insight is born of suffering and of pain. This pain must lead us to take hold of our tasks with a will that is all the greater.

There is much to be learnt from the discussions and events of the Conference, which were recorded in shorthand. If we follow them day by day just as they took place, we arrive at a picture that at first remained unclear to us because the excessive burden of work, and the bombardment of wishes from the members arriving from every direction, made it impossible to realize straight away the totality of the prospect that had been given. With time, what Dr Steiner had sketched along general lines by way of intentions for the future would have gained clearer contours. And a gradual putting into practice of his intentions would have enabled us to gain a complete picture. For this, a period of time was needed. First the spiritual foundation had to be deepened and strengthened. This was done through the cycle of lectures on the Mystery centres of the Middle Ages¹³ and also the cycle Anthroposophy¹⁴ which led up to the moment when the first lesson of the First Class was given. At the same time, the lecture tours could not be allowed to cease. These took Dr Steiner to France, Holland and England, as well as German-speaking and eastern regions. Wherever he went, the demands made on his strength were immense. In September he would have been ready to begin the Second Class. But the throng of members coming to Dornach was such that account had to be taken of it, as well as of the spiritual needs and receptivity of the new arrivals. In addition to the four separate lecture courses running every day,¹⁵ so many personal wishes had to be met that the total physical exhaustion of the teacher and bestower became inevitable. From 28 September onwards, Dr Steiner had to give up any further work amongst the members. He was confined to his atelier, which had been transformed into a sick-room, and as far as the lecture tours were concerned, he had to ask us to go in his place. On his sick-bed he continued to write further letters to the members¹⁶ and also the essays on the course of his life.¹⁷

Now it is our task to let the Christmas Foundation Conference speak for itself through the talks and lectures given by Rudolf Steiner and preserved for us in shorthand reports. What was said by the different officials or individual members, if extant, would overburden the book. Their questions are revealed by the answers given. The meetings and discussions in their totality represent for us a path of training in how to conduct meetings and deal with problems within the Society. All this is bathed in the atmosphere of most lofty spirituality, an offering, to the higher powers, of supplication and gratitude. The dominant endeavour is to conduct matters of this world in a practical and sensible manner while yet ensuring that they remain subordinate to the will of a wise universal guidance. The details of daily life are thus raised up to the sphere of spiritual goals and higher necessity.

Members from all the national Societies had gathered in large numbers. The lecture room in the old carpentry workshop¹⁸ had to be extended by opening up the adjoining rooms, and the walls leading to the foyer, which still served as a workshop or, during performances, as a cloakroom, had to be taken down. Outside, the scant remains of the burnt Goetheanum building stuck up out of the snow-covered landscape.

For those arriving and settling in on 23 December a eurythmy performance was offered at 4.30 in the afternoon. The words with which Dr Steiner greeted the guests and introduced the performance contained the first indication of some of the fundamental motifs which were to run through all the lectures of the Conference. That evening brought the final lecture in the pre-Christmas cycle on Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres.¹⁹ The opening of the Conference itself took place on the morning of 24 December. There now follows the address with which Rudolf Steiner greeted the guests on the occasion of the eurythmy performance on 23 December.

• 2. Marie Steiner von Sivers: Rudolf Steiner und die Zivilisationsaufgaben der Anthroposophie. Ein Rückblick auf das Jahr 1923 (Rudolf Steiner and the Tasks of Anthroposophy for Civilization. A Review of the Year 1923), Dornach 1943. Planned as GA 259 within the Complete Works.
• 3. In 1921 and 1922, the largest German concert agency of the day, Hermann Wolff and Jules Sachs in Berlin, had organized a number of lecture tours for Rudolf Steiner.
• 4. In 1894 the ‘Allgemeiner Deutscher Verband’ (General German League), founded in 1891, was renamed ‘Alldeutscher Verband’ (Pan-German League). During World War I this organization advocated exaggeratedly nationalistic aims, and after the war it campaigned for the restitution of the monarchy.
• 5. Matthias Erzberger, 1875–1921. German parliamentarian and statesman, leader of the left wing of the Centre party and signatory of the Armistice of World War I. From 1919 to 1920 he was Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister. Assassinated in 1921 by members of a nationalist organization.
• 6. Walther Rathenau, 1867–1922. German industrialist and politician. In 1921 appointed Minister of Reconstruction. In 1922 Minister of Foreign Affairs. Assassinated by nationalist fanatics in 1922.
• 7. Rudolf Steiner spoke in Munich on 15 May and in Elberfeld on 17 May 1922 on the theme of ‘Anthroposophy and Spiritual Knowledge’. The Munich lecture has been published in Blätter für Anthroposophie, 1966, Nos 11 and 12. The Elberfeld lecture has not been published. On both occasions he had to leave the building by the back stairs and down side streets because of threats to his personal safety.
• 8. Major General Gerold von Gleich. In 1921 he published a denunciation of Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner als Prophet, Ein Mahnwort an das deutsche Volk (Rudolf Steiner the Prophet. A Warning to the German Nation). Thereupon his son, Sigismund von Gleich, published a refutation Wahrheit gegen Unwahrheit über Rudolf Steiner. Widerlegung der Hetzschrift des Generalmajors Gerold von Gleich (Truth against Untruth. A Refutation of the Denunciation of Rudolf Steiner by Major General Gerold von Gleich). Published by Der Kommende Tag, Stuttgart, no date.
• 9. See Rudolf Steiner Awakening to Community, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1974. GA 257.
• 10. Johanna Mücke. See List of Names
• 11. See Correspondence and Documents 1901–1925. Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner von Sivers, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1988. GA 262.
• 12. See Rudolf Steiner The Last Address, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1967. GA 238.
• 13. See Rudolf Steiner Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1965. GA 233a.
• 14. See Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophy—An Introduction, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1961. GA 234.
• 15. See Rudolf Steiner Speech and Drama, Anthroposophical Publishing Company, London 1960, GA 282; Pastoral Medicine, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1987, GA 318; Kursus für die Priester der Christengemeinschaft über die Apokalypse des Johannes (Lectures for the Priests of the Christian Community on the Apocalypse of John), Dornach GA 346 (not available); Karmic Relationships, Volume 4, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1957, GA 238.
• 16. See Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. Anthroposophy as a Path of Knowledge. The Michael Mystery, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1973. GA 26.
• 17. See Rudolf Steiner The Course of my Life, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1970. GA 28.
• 18. Since the destruction of the Goetheanum by fire, it had been necessary to fall back on the old carpentry workshop which had served as a hall for lectures and artistic performances from 1914 onwards.
• 19. See Rudolf Steiner Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres. Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1973. GA 232.

(Note: Facsimiles of both Rudolf Steiner's handwritten versions, this one, which he prepared for the printer, and the earlier one which he had with him when he spoke each day during the Conference, will be found in the Plates.)

Menschenseele!
Du lebest in den Gliedern,
Die dich durch die Raumeswelt
In das Geistesmeereswesen tragen:
Übe Geist-Erinnern
In Seelentiefen,
Wo in waltendem
Weltenschöpfer-Sein
Das eigne Ich
Im Gottes-Ich
Erweset;
Und du wirst wahrhaft leben
Im Menschen-Welten-Wesen.

Denn es waltet der Vater-Geist der Höhen
In den Weltentiefen Sein-erzeugend:
Ihr Kräfte-Geister
Lasset aus den Höhen erklingen,
Was in den Tiefen das Echo findet;
Dieses spricht:
Aus dem Göttlichen weset die Menschheit.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

Menschenseele!
Du lebest in dem Herzens-Lungen-Schlage,
Der dich durch den Zeitenrhythmus
In's eigne Seelenwesensfühlen leitet:
Übe Geist-Besinnen
Im Seelengleichgewichte,
Wo die wogenden
Welten-Werde-Taten
Das eigne Ich
Dem Welten-Ich
Vereinen;
Und du wirst wahrhaft fühlen
Im Menschen-Seelen-Wirken.

Denn es waltet der Christus-Wille im Umkreis
In den Weltenrhythmen Seelen-begnadend;
Ihr Lichtes-Geister
Lasset vom Osten befeuern,
Was durch den Westen sich formet;
Dieses spricht:
In dem Christus wird Leben der Tod.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

Menschenseele!
Du lebest im ruhenden Haupte,
Das dir aus Ewigkeitsgründen
Die Weltgedanken erschliesset:
Übe Geist-Erschauen
In Gedanken-Ruhe,
Wo die ew'gen Götterziele
Welten-Wesens-Licht
Dem eignen Ich
Zu freiem Wollen
Schenken;
Und du wirst wahrhaft denken
In Menschen-Geistes-Gründen.

Denn es walten des Geistes-Weltgedanken
Im Weltenwesen Licht-erflehend:
Ihr Seelen-Geister
Lasset aus den Tiefen erbitten,
Was in den Höhen erhöret wird:
Dieses spricht:
In des Geistes Weltgedanken erwachet die Seele.
Das hören die Geister in Ost, West, Nord, Süd:
Menschen mögen es hören.

In der Zeiten Wende
Trat das Welten-Geistes-Licht
In den irdischen Wesensstrom;
Nacht-Dunkel
Hatte ausgewaltet;
Taghelles Licht
Erstrahlte in Menschenseelen;
Licht,
Das erwärmet
Die armen Hirtenherzen;
Licht,
Das erleuchtet
Die weisen Königshäupter.

Göttliches Licht,
Christus-Sonne
Erwärme
Unsere Herzen;
Erleuchte
Unsere Häupter;
Dass gut werde,
Was wir
Aus Herzen gründen,
Was wir
Aus Häuptern führen
Wollen.

Events which occur in human history are always marked by their own peculiar destiny. Some acquire instantaneous recognition, others remain unnoticed for decades, for centuries and sometimes forever. They are all inscribed, however, in the super-sensible sphere in a form often designated as the Akasha Chronicle.

The record of the event of the Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society which is contained in this publication became accessible in printed form in the original German version prepared by Marie Steiner in 1944, some twenty years after Christmas 1923. The Foundation Stone verse, however, which resounded each day during this Christmas Conference was printed by Rudolf Steiner almost immediately. In the many lectures, letters to the members, and articles which occupied Rudolf Steiner in the months after January 1, 1924 until his death on March 30, 1925, he also made frequent and penetrating reference to the event of the Christmas Conference and the Laying of the Foundation Stone.

The effect of this twenty year span of time between the Christmas Conference itself and the printed proceedings was that those eight-hundred people from many different countries who attended the Conference shared their impressions, memories, inspirations and resolutions with the members at home. Thus an oral tradition arose around the event itself, whereas the Foundation Stone verse, which was immediately accessible, became an inner meditative reality for countless people and was soon translated into various languages, including English. Over the decades which followed, numerous translations of this verse arose out of the anthroposophical work in various English-speaking countries. Besides the translation used in the following text, three other translations have been included at the end.

During the more than forty years between the original publication in German and this first publication in English two basic translations in typescript form served as a working basis for the people to whom they were accessible. Frances Dawson of California made a translation which served some members' groups of the Anthroposophical Society. John Jeffree of England translated the German version soon after it appeared for the English Section meetings led by Harry Collison. Harry Collison was the representative from England at the Christmas Conference.

Perhaps it is just this unavailability of the printed text for so many years which is the greatest indication that the Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society and the Laying of the Foundation Stone can never be restricted merely to a printed document; rather here is a living testimony to a spiritual reality. This spiritual reality comes towards us from the future as it continues to work on in humanity's life on earth. This event was actually inaugurated rather than concluded on January 1, 1924. It is therefore vitally important that these proceedings are now available for the English-speaking world through a translation which captures in an accurate and a sensitive manner the directness, the depth and the subtleties of this most significant event.

VIRGINIA SEASE
Goetheanum, Dornach

My dear friends!

HERR WERBECK: Dear and greatly respected Dr Steiner! Dear friends! There is no other way for this Conference, so immensely meaningful for our Society and our Movement, to end except in an outpouring of deeply moved gratitude to the one whose work of love on the earth has brought us all together here. But my dear friends, what can words express! Was not perhaps all that a word can do shown at the beginning of this Conference by our respected friend Albert Steffen when, indicating that gratitude cannot be expressed in words, he said: Our gratitude is inexpressible. And yet on the wings of these words he did express everything our human hearts can give. Dear friends! Words, addresses, resolutions and all the rest are, measured against our Conference, nothing but outdated, cheap requisites of the cultural life that is collapsing all around us. And no one knows the background to these cheap requisites better than the one who has spoken to us this evening, moving us in the depths of our being. What is or rather can become honest gratitude, this virtue of great profundity, we shall still have to practise with the help of the one who spoke to us today. He alone has shown us through his spiritual work what gratitude really is. If we understand him aright, then we know that for us anthroposophists the hour has come when we must set the deed of gratitude in the place of the word of gratitude. We must requite his great, his immeasurably great deed of love with whatever deed of gratitude our puny strength can muster. For to him who spoke to us this evening we owe nothing less than our own spiritual felicity. And we know that the worth it bears will be eternal. It pertains not only to the few years we may still have to breathe on this physical earth; the felicity he has bestowed on us will stretch ahead to our future incarnations too. We know that this has been a turning point for our further destiny. What we are permitted to experience through his deed of love is incalculably significant. But we know that the felicity brought by this love cannot be measured with the yard-stick known to us from times preceding Anthroposophy, for it will be paired with severe pain, with fateful destinies. But we also know that it is nevertheless a felicity that will lead us to salvation. And when our knowledge is truly tempered with feeling, then we know that words of gratitude are meaningless in face of this fact and that our only answer to what we have received from here can be in deeds of gratitude. And we know, however weak our forces, that our deeds of gratitude can flow into his great deeds. And therefore we also know that they can flow into the plan for salvation that is given to mankind today. For just as the great deeds are devoted to human beings, so may also the small deeds be devoted to human beings. Over this mighty life's work stands the heading: Let everything be for the good of human beings. O my dear friends, we know that something superhuman, something divine is working in him! But when we answer with deeds directed towards human beings we know that our deeds of gratitude will be felt at a human level. Yesterday he expressed it with the mighty fire of his great heart: Faithfulness and yet more faithfulness. This is something human directed towards something human. And so my dear friends, please stand once more and let us say in our heart as we depart from this holy place: You great and pure brother of mankind, out of our forces that are so very weak we want to thank you; we want to thank you through our deeds, through overcoming what has to be overcome in the service of your holy mission for mankind. We beg you: Be with us with the heavenly strength of your fatherly blessing!

DR STEINER: My dear friends! I could not have said many of the things I have had to say during this Conference in the form in which I said them, and similarly I could not accept the kind words of our dear friend Werbeck, if I were to relate all this to a single weak individual. For actually in our circles these things should not be related to a mere individual. Yet, my dear friends, I know that I have been permitted to say what has here been said, for it was said in full responsibility looking up to the Spirit who is there and who should be and will be the Spirit of the Goetheanum. In that Spirit's name I have permitted myself over the last few days to say a great many things which ought not to have been put so forcefully had they not been expressed while looking up to the Spirit of the Goetheanum, to the good Spirit of the Goetheanum. So allow me, please, to accept these thanks in the name of the Spirit of the Goetheanum for whom we want to work and strive and labour in the world.

All that remains is to ask that the practising doctors come to the Glass House tomorrow morning not at half past eight but at ten o'clock.

I also have a message to read to you: ‘Out of our strong sharing in the experience of the Christmas Foundation Conference in Dornach we greet the President of the Anthroposophical Society. We thank him and his colleagues in the Vorstand for taking on the leadership and we also thank him for the Statutes. From the members of the Anthroposophical Society in Cologne who are meeting together at the close of the year.’

This is all I have to say. Tomorrow evening at 7 o'clock there will be a eurythmy performance for those friends who are still here.

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

ABELS, JOAN (b. India – d.1962 Heidenheim a. d. Brenz)
Eurythmist. Took part in the very first performance of eurythmy in 1913 in Munich, subsequently continuing the work in Dornach. After retiring from eurythmy, he took on the office work at the Canteen.

AEPPLI, WILLI (Accra 1894–1972 Basel)
Swiss teacher. Member of the Society from 1921. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. From 1927 to 1954 he taught at the Rudolf Steiner School in Basel, and in 1954 became an adviser to the Association of Waldorf Schools in Germany. Wrote books on education.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT
See Note 77.

BEMMELEN, DANIEL J. VAN (Indonesia 1899–1983)
Dutch member from 1921. In 1923 co-founder and teacher at the first Dutch Waldorf school, ‘De Vrije School’ at The Hague.

BESANT, ANNIE
See Note 39.

BRANDTNER, W.
Secretary to the Anthroposophical. Society in Porto Alegre, Brazil, founded in 1920.

BÜCHENBACHER, DR HANS (Fürth 1887–1977 Arlesheim)
Lectured on the threefold social order. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the Free Anthroposophical Society in Germany. 1931-1935 President of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany. Later leader of the Working Group for Philosophy and Psychology at the Goetheanum in Dornach.

BÜRGI-BANDI, LUCIE (Bern 1875–1949 Bern)
Member from 1907. On the Council of the Johannes branch in Bern. 1913-1925 on the Council of the Bauverein. In March 1925 appointed by Rudolf Steiner to join the administration group for the building of the Goetheanum. Founder member of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung.

CARNEGIE, ANDREW
See Note 61.

CESARO, DUKE GIOVANNI ANTONIO OF (Rome 1878–1940 Rome)
Son of Baroness de Renzis (see below). Member of various town councils in Sicily (Radical Party, later Social Democratic Party). Member of Parliament. 1922-24 Minister for Post and Telegraphy. Co-publisher of Lo Spettatore. Political writings. In 1926 he joined the anti-fascist National Alliance. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the Novalis group in Rome.

COLLISON, HARRY (London 1868–1945 London)
Lawyer, painter and writer. Member from 1910. Leader of the Myrdhin group in London. Authorized by Rudolf Steiner to translate his works into English. Founder of the Anthroposophical Publishing Company. From 1923 General Secretary of the English Anthroposophical Society.

CROSS, MARGARET FRANCES (Preston 1866–1962 Hemel Hempstead)
Owner and head of a private school, interested in Rudolf Steiner's work. The school subsequently became The New School, Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.

DONNER, UNO (Helsingfors 1872–1958 Arlesheim)
Engineer. Founded and ran textile factories, among others. Met Anthroposophy in London in 1913. 1923-1932, at Rudolf Steiner's suggestion, General Secretary of the Finnish Anthroposophical Society. Participated in the agricultural course given by Rudolf Steiner at Koberwitz, Breslau in 1924. From 1928 he endeavoured to run a large farm on bio-dynamic lines. A bequest in his will led to the founding of the Donner Institute for Religious History and Cultural Research at the University of Abo in Finland.

DRECHSLER, LUNA (b. Lemberg/Lvov – d.1933 Poland, in her fifties)
Painter and sculptress. Active in political life (town council). Worked on the first Goetheanum. Initiated the founding of the Polish Anthroposophical Society and became its General Secretary.

DUNLOP, DANIEL NICOL (Kilmarnock 1868–1935 London)
Initially a member of the Theosophical Society. From 1918 a member of the Anthroposophical Society in England and leader of the Human Freedom group. Organiser of the summer schools in Penmaenmawr (1923) and Torquay (1924). Founder of the British Weleda Company. 1930-1935 General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in England.

DÜRLER, EDGAR (St Gallen 1895–1970 Arlesheim)
Businessman. Member of the Society from 1921. Worked for Futurum AG, Dornach, part of the time on the board of directors. Later member of the board of directors of Ilag AG, then Weleda AG, Arlesheim. Then for many years chairman of the board of directors.

EISELT, DR HANS (b. Prague – d.1936 Prague)
Having met Anthroposophy early in life, he worked for it until his death. He was leader of the branch in Prague and also lectured and ran the administration of the national Anthroposophical Society. He took the shorthand notes when Rudolf Steiner lectured in Prague. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the council of the Society in Czechoslovakia.

ERZBERGER, MATTHIAS
See Note 5.

FERRERI, CHARLOTTE (d.1924 in Milan)
Born in Honolulu as the daughter of an American missionary. Leader of the Leonardo da Vinci group in Milan. This group had resigned as a body from the Theosophical Society in 1913 and then joined the Anthroposophical Society. Later she was co-founder of a group in Honolulu. At the Christmas Foundation Conference she represented Honolulu.

FREUND, IDA (d.1931 in Prague)
An active member from 1909/10 in Prague. Her public charitable work was honoured after her death by the establishment of an Ida Freund Foundation.

GEERING-CHRIST, RUDOLF (Basel 1871–1958)
Bookseller and publisher. Founder member of the German Section in 1902 and of the Paracelsus branch in Basel in 1906, of which he became the chairman in 1921. 1922/23 he was a member of the inner working group at the Goetheanum. From 1913-1925 he was a member of the council of the Bauverein and in March 1925 he was appointed by Rudolf Steiner to join the administration group for the building of the Goetheanum.

GEUTER, FRIEDRICH (Darmstadt 1894–1960 Ravenswood)
Met Anthroposophy through Herbert Hahn when both were working as interpreters at a prisoner of war camp for British and French prisoners. After a spell at Der Kommende Tag, he began his lifetime's curative work at the Sonnenhof under Ita Wegman. From 1929 onwards he lived and worked in England, founding two homes for mentally handicapped children.

GEYER, REVEREND JOHANNES (Hamburg 1882– 1964 Stuttgart)
Heard Rudolf Steiner lecture for the first time when he was a student. Member from 1910. From 1912 pastor of the Protestant church. From 1919, at Rudolf Steiner's suggestion, a teacher at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

GLEICH, GENERAL GEROLD VON
See Note 8.

GNÄDIGER, FRANZ (d.1971)
Priest of the Christian Community. For a time secretary to Friedrich Rittelmeyer. At the time of the Christmas Foundation Meeting he lived in Zurich, from 1934 in Bern.

GOYERT, WILHELM RUDOLF (Witten a. d. Ruhr 1887–1954 Arlesheim)
Art dealer. Co-founder of the first Waldorf school in Cologne, named ‘Neuwacht School’ by Rudolf Steiner.

GROSHEINTZ, DR. MED. DENT. EMIL (Paris 1867–1946 Dornach)
Member from 1906 and co-founder of the Paracelsus branch in Basel. From 1908 to 1913 he was a member of the council of the German Section. In 1912 he placed a parcel of land he owned in Dornach at the disposal of Rudolf Steiner for the Goetheanum. From 1913 to 1915 he was deputy chairman of the Bauverein, from 1915 to 1924 chairman, and 1924/25 deputy chairman when Rudolf Steiner was chairman. In March 1925 Rudolf Steiner appointed him chairman of the administration group for the building of the Goetheanum. In 1920 he was founder-member and president of the branch at the Goetheanum, which he remained until 1946. 1922/23 he was a member of the inner working group at the Goetheanum.

GROSHEINTZ, DR OSKAR (d. 1944 in Basel)
Member from 1907 and chairman of the Johannes branch founded in Bern on his initiative. Took part in the performance of the Mystery Dramas in Munich.

GYSI, PROFESSOR DR MED H. C. ALFRED (Aarau 1864–1957 Zurich)
Eminent researcher in the field of dentistry who did pioneering work on dental prosthetics. Lecturer and professor at the dental institute of the University of Zurich, of which he was a co-founder. In 1902 he was one of the three Swiss founder members of the German Section and chairman of the Zschokke branch in Zurich which he founded in 1908 and to which he gave house room until 1920. ‘To his manner of working we owe the fact that Dr Steiner's most important Zurich lectures were scientific in character.’ (Marie Steiner, Erinnerungen I (Memoires, I). In 1913, together with Dr Emil Grosheintz, Frau Marie Schief and Frau Marie Hirter-Weber, he was one of the four Swiss members to make the land on the Dornach hill available for the building of the Goetheanum. He was a member of the council of the Bauverein till 1920. At the beginning of the twenties Professor Gysi withdrew from the Anthroposophical Society.

HAAN, PIETER DE (Utrecht 1891–1968 Holland)
Member from 1912. Having been the intended General Secretary for Holland, he withdrew in favour of Zeylmans van Emmichoven when the latter was suggested by Rudolf Steiner. From 1964-66 manager of the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag in Dornach.

HAHL, ERWIN (d.1958)
A native of Württemberg. Heard Rudolf Steiner lecture for the first time in 1919 in Stuttgart. From 1922 he worked in Yugoslavia, where he endeavoured to found a branch in Zagreb. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the work in Yugoslavia.

HARDT, DR MED HEINRICH (Stargard 1896– 1981)
Met Anthroposophy in Rostock, where he was a student. Co-initiator of the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave for young doctors in January and at Easter 1924 in Dornach. Later he was for many years the doctor at the Lauenstein home for the handicapped.

HART-NIBBRIG, FRAU J (b. Holland–1957 Dornach in her late eighties)
Was a member of the Theosophical Society before 1913. From about 1924 she lived in Dornach. She was close to Marie Steiner.

HARTMANN, EDUARD VON
See Note 53.

HENSTRÖM, SIGRID
Member from 1911. From 1924 chairman of the branch in Stockholm. At the Christmas Foundation Meeting she was the representative of the Swedish Society.

HEROSTRATOS
See Note 76.

HOHLENBERG, JOHANNES (1881–1960 Kopenhagen)
Painter and writer. From 1923 General Secretary of the Danish Anthroposophical Society. From 1926 he was the joint publisher and from 1929 the publisher of the Scandinavian anthroposophical journal Vidar till it was closed down in 1940. From 1947 to 1954 he published the cultural and political journal Øjeblikket in Denmark.

HUGENTOBLER, DR JAKOB (d.1961)
Teacher. A member of the council of the Zschokke (later Paracelsus) group in Zurich and then of the Johannes branch in Bern.

HUSEMANN, GOTTFRIED (b.1900–1972 Arlesheim)
Co-founder and priest of the Christian Community.

IM OBERSTEG, DR ARMIN (b.1881–1969 Basel)
Eminent lawyer. Member from 1919. A helpful supporter of the Goetheanum. For many years president of the cafe and restaurant co-operative at the Goetheanum and legal adviser to Weleda AG.

INGERÖ, KARL (d.1972 in Oslo)
At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the Norwegian Anthroposophical Society. Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner were guests in his house on several occasions.

JONG, PROFESSOR DE
See Note 64.

KAISER, DR WILHELM (Pery 1895–1983 Dornach)
Astronomer. Met Rudolf Steiner in 1918. Worked with Dr Elisabeth Vreede in the Goetheanum archives for a while. Lectured extensively in Germany and Switzerland. Wrote many books.

KAUFMANN (LATER ADAMS), DR GEORGE (Maryampol 1894–1963 Birmingham)
Mathematician and physicist. Member from 1916. Acted as consecutive interpreter for English-speaking audiences for 110 lectures, conferences and conversations by and with Rudolf Steiner in England and Dornach. Translated several of Rudolf Steiner's works and wrote numerous books.

KELLER, KARL (Basel 1896–1979 Arlesheim)
Journalist and editor in Basel. Heard Rudolf Steiner lecturing for the first time in 1917. As a member of the staff of the Swiss news agency he was able to publicise an essay written by Rudolf Steiner in the autumn of 1924 on the rebuilding of the Goetheanum.

KELLERMÜLLER, JAKOB (Räterschen 1872–1947 Dornach)
Engaged by Rudolf Steiner as doorkeeper for the first Goetheanum, he performed this task until 1946.

KOLISKO, DR MED EUGEN (Vienna 1893–1939 London)
Member from 1914. From 1920 teacher and school doctor at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. From 1923 to 1935 on the council of the German Anthroposophical Society. Then lived in England.

KOLISKO, LILLY (Vienna 1889–1976 Gloucester)
Collaborated with Rudolf Steiner at the biological research institute in Stuttgart, publishing works on the spleen and on microorganisms in 1922 and 1923.

KOSCHÜTZKY, RUDOLF VON (Upper Silesia 1866–1954 Stuttgart)
Member from about 1917. He was originally a farmer but worked as a war correspondent in the First World War. From 1922 priest of the Christian Community. He participated in bringing about the agricultural course and then became a member of the management of the resulting research group of anthroposophical farmers.

KREBS, CHRISTIAN (d.1945)
A member in Sweden. Participated in the agricultural course given by Rudolf Steiner at Koberwitz, Breslau, in 1924.

KRKAVEC, DR OTOKAR
Member in Prague. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative of the council of the Society in Czechoslovakia.

KRÜGER, DR BRUNO (b.1887–1979 Stuttgart)
Public prosecutor in Berlin. From 1921 he worked with the federation for the threefold social order in Stuttgart, lecturing on this subject. After the failure of the threefold project he worked as a lawyer in Stuttgart.

LEADBEATER, CHARLES WEBSTER
See Note 40.

LEER, EMANUEL JOSEF VON (b. in Amersfoort – 1934 Baku)
Dutch wholesale merchant. Member from 1909. Giver of strong financial backing to the various institutions. 1922/23 president of the management committee of the International Laboratories and the Clinical and Therapeutic Institute AG in Arlesheim. In 1924 the first president of the first management committee of the Weleda AG, Arlesheim.

LEHRS, DR ERNST (Berlin 1894–1979 Eckwälden)
Scientist. Member of the Society from 1921. Teacher at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. From 1923 a member of the committee of the Free Anthroposophical Society confirmed by Rudolf Steiner after the Christmas Foundation Conference, and thus an officer of the General Anthroposophical Society. Published scientific writings. From 1952 he taught at the seminar for curative education at Eckwälden.

LEINHAS, EMIL (Mannheim 1878–1967 Ascona)
Merchant. Member from 1909. In March 1920 co-founder, later managing director and finally liquidator of Der Kommende Tag AG in Stuttgart. From 1921 to 1923 in the central Vorstand of the Anthroposophical Society, from February 1923 a member of the council of the German Society in Stuttgart. Member of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung from 1949. Aus der Arbeit mit Rudolf Steiner. Sachliches und Persönliches (Working with Rudolf Steiner), Basel 1950.

LEISEGANG, HANS
See Note 36.

LJUNGQUIST, ANNA (d.1935 in Dornach)
One of the early pioneers of anthroposophical work in Sweden. At the Christmas Foundation Conference she was the representative of the Swedish Anthroposophical Society.

MACKENZIE, PROFESSOR MILLICENT
Professor of education at University College, Cardiff, Wales from 1910. At her instigation, Rudolf Steiner gave a course of lectures for English teachers at the Goetheanum at Christmas 1920 and he was also invited to lecture at educational conferences in Stratford-on-Avon (Spring 1922) and in Oxford (August 1922). These public lectures in England led to the founding of the Educational Union under the chairmanship of Professor Mackenzie, the purpose of which was to gain an entry for Rudolf Steiner's educational ideas particularly in English and American organizations.

MAIER, DR RUDOLF (Schorndorf 1886–1943 Hüningen)
Member from about 1908/09. From 1920 to 1924 leader of the scientific research institute of Der Kommende Tag AG in Stuttgart.

MARYON, LOUISE EDITH (London 1872–1924 Dornach)
Sculptress working in Dornach from 1914. Collaborated with Rudolf Steiner in the field of the sculptural arts, especially on the wooden sculpture ‘The Representative of Man between Lucifer and Ahriman’. On her initiative the coloured eurythmy figures came into being and also the three ‘eurythmy houses’ to provide living accommodation for those working at the Goetheanum. At the Christmas Foundation Conference she was chosen to be the Leader of the Section for the Sculptural Arts.

MAURER, PROFESSOR DR THEODOR (Dorlisheim 1873–1959 Strasbourg)
Writer and anthroposophical lecturer. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he was the representative for the Alsace.

MAYEN, DR MED WALTHER
He came from Breslau. Worked in connection with Anthroposophy in South America, including Porto Alegre in Brazil.

MERRY, ELEANOR (Durham 1873–1956 Frinton-on-Sea)
English writer and painter. Member from 1921. Together with D. N. Dunlop she organized the summer schools at Penmaenmawr (1923) and Torquay (1924).

MONGES, HENRY B. (1870–1954 New York)
Professor of architecture. Member from 1916. Participated actively in founding, shaping and maintaining the Anthroposophical Society in America. He was its first chairman, and from 1923 its General Secretary. He secured the publication rights for Rudolf Steiner in the USA, translated his works and founded a publishing company.

MORGENSTIERNE, ETHEL

MÜCKE, JOHANNA (Berlin 1864–1949 Dornach)
Belonged to the socialist trade union movement and was a member of the management of the workers' educational establishment where she met Rudolf Steiner during his time as a teacher there (1899-1904). Member from 1903. From 1908 until her retirement (1935) she was the business manager, first in Berlin and from 1924 in Dornach, of the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag founded in 1908 by Marie Steiner for the publication of Rudolf Steiner's work. From the end of 1911 until 1913 she was on the council of the German Section and from 1921 to 1923 on the council of the German Anthroposophical Society. Her book Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner und seine Wirksamkeit an der Arbeiter-Bildungsschule in Berlin 1899-1904 (Memories of Rudolf Steiner and his work at the Workers' Educational Establishment in Berlin 1899-1904) was published in Basel in 1955.

MUNTZ-TAXEIRA DEL MATTOS, FRAU (b. Holland – d. 1931 in Brussels)
At the Christmas Foundation Conference she was the representative of the Belgian Anthroposophical Society as its General Secretary. Translated works by Rudolf Steiner into French.

NEUSCHELLER-VAN DER PALS, LUCY (St Petersburg 1886–1962 Dornach)
Together with her husband she first heard Rudolf Steiner speak in 1908 in Berlin. Both thereupon became members. Later she took up eurythmy. With her husband she went to America in 1913 and there built up the eurythmy work and participated in the founding of the Rudolf Steiner School in New York. She moved to Dornach in 1959.

PALMER, DR MED OTTO (Feinsheim 1867–1945 Wiesneck)
Member from 1908 at which time he was a practising doctor in Hamburg. In 1921 at the request of Rudolf Steiner he took on the management of the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut in Stuttgart. From 1923 onwards a member of the council of the German Anthroposophical Society.

PEIPERS, DR MED FELIX (Bonn 1873–1944 Arlesheim)
Member from 1904. In 1906/7 established a private clinic in Munich. Played the role of Benedictus when the Mystery Dramas were performed in Munich (1910-1913). Co-founder of the Bauverein and member of its council from 1911 until 1925. From 1911 to 1913 a member of the council of the German Section. From 1915/16 leader of the anthroposophical work in Munich. From 1921 to 1924 worked as a doctor at the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut in Stuttgart.

POLLAK, RICHARD (Karlin, Prague 1867–1940 Dachau)
He and his wife were both artists and took part in the painting of the large dome of the first Goetheanum (1914-1919). In the concentration camp at Dachau he gave over a hundred anthroposophical lectures to those doomed to accompany him through death.

POLZER-HODITZ, LUDWIG COUNT OF (Prague 1869–1945 Vienna)
Member from 1911. In 1917 he used his influence to interest the Austrian government in Rudolf Steiner's movement for the threefold social order. From 1919 to 1921 he worked in Austria for the threefold movement. He became chairman of the Austrian Anthroposophical Society at its foundation in October 1923. At the Christmas Foundation Conference, he was the representative of the council of the Austrian Society.

PUSCH, HANS LUDWIG (1902–1976)
Actor. Participated in Rudolf Steiner's dramatic course given in 1924 and subsequently worked as a member of the Goetheanum stage ensemble under Marie Steiner. Moved to the USA in 1939 where he lectured, gave courses in speech formation and staged the Mystery Dramas.

PYLE, WILLIAM SCOTT (b. America – d.1938 The Hague)
Painter. From 1921/22 in Dornach. In 1929/30, together with his wife Mieta Pyle-Waller, he designed the scenery for the third and fourth Mystery Dramas. At the suggestion of Rudolf Steiner he worked at the production of new plant-based paints (‘Anthea Paints’).

RATHENAU, WALTHER
See Note 6.

REICHEL, DR FRANZ (d.1960 in Prague)
One of the representatives of the council of the Anthroposophical Society in Czechoslovakia.

RENZIS, BARONESS EMMELINA DE (d.1945 in Rome)
Member from 1909. Was one of the pioneers of the Anthroposophical Society in Italy. After Rudolf Steiner lectured there in 1909 she became the leader of a branch in Rome and concerned herself with the translation of his works into Italian.

RIHOUET-COROZE, SIMONE (Paris 1892–1982 Paris)
Member from 1913. In 1921 she founded the Paris eurythmy school and the journal Science spirituelle. From 1931 to 1976 she was General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in France. Translated the works of Rudolf Steiner and published the journal Triades. Wrote Rudolf Steiner, une Epopee de l'Esprit au XXe Siècle, Paris 1951.

SAUERWEIN, ALICE (b. Marseille – d.1931 in Switzerland)
Sister of the prominent French journalist and anthroposophist Jules Sauerwein. Founded the Paris group ‘Saint-Michel’ for whom Rudolf Steiner gave lectures in 1913 and 1914. From its founding in 1923, she was the General Secretary of the French Anthroposophical Society till 1930.

SIMON, FRÄULEIN

SCHMIDT, HERR

SCHMIEDEL, DR OSKAR (Vienna 1887–1959 Schwäbisch Gmünd)
Chemist. Member from 1907. Participated in establishing the Weleda company and was a member of its management from the beginning and later in Schwäbisch Gmünd.

SCHUBERT, DR KARL (Vienna 1889–1949 Stuttgart)
Member from about 1910. In February 1920 Rudolf Steiner requested him to take on the remedial class at the Waldorf School in Switzerland. He was thus the first anthroposophical curative teacher. Later he assisted in the establishment of curative establishments in Germany and other countries.

SCHWARZ, LINA (d.1947)
Met Anthroposophy in 1912 and was one of the pioneers of anthroposophical work in Italy. Worked in the Milan branch, which she represented at the Christmas Foundation Conference. She took over the leadership after the death of the founder, Charlotte Ferreri. She made excellent translations of Rudolf Steiner's works.

SCHWEBSCH, DR ERICH (Frankfurt/Oder 1889–1953 Freiburg i.Br.)
Writer about music, teacher. Member from about 1919. At the request of Friedrich Rittelmeyer, he contributed the essay ‘Goethe und Rudolf Steiner’ to his anthology Vom Lebenswerk Rudolf Steiners (On the Life's Work of Rudolf Steiner). This drew him to the attention of Rudolf Steiner who requested him to join the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. He taught there from 1921. Its re-institution after the Second World War was largely due to his initiative. In 1946 he brought the Waldorf schools in Germany together in the Association of Waldorf Schools, of which he was the chairman.

SCHWEIGLER, KARL RICHARD
Brother of the painter Emil Schweigler. Member from 1918 (St Gallen). Founded a working group in Rorschach in 1921. Lived in Dornach from 1922.

STEFFEN, ALBERT (Murgenthal/Aargau 1884–1963 Dornach)
Swiss poet. Met Rudolf Steiner in 1907 in Munich. Lived in Dornach from the autumn of 1920 onwards. Became editor of the weekly Das Goetheanum when it was established in 1921. From Christmas 1923 till 1925 Vice-president of the General Anthroposophical Society and Leader of the Section for Belles-Lettres. From Christmas 1925 President of the Society. Writer of poetry and plays, eg In Memoriam Rudolf Steiner, 1925, and Begegnungen mit Rudolf Steiner (Meetings with Rudolf Steiner), 1955.

STEIN, DR WALTER JOHANNES (Vienna 1891–1957 London)
Member from 1913. From 1919 to 1932 teacher of history at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. From 1923 to 1928 a member of the council of the German Anthroposophical Society. Later he worked in England.

STEINER, MARIE, NEE VON SIVERS (Wloclawek/Russia 1867–1948 Beatenberg/ Switzerland).
From 1902 Rudolf Steiner's closest colleague in building up the Movement and the Society. At Christmas 1914 they married. With him she developed the Goetheanistic stage arts of speech formation and eurythmy. At Christmas 1923 she became the Leader of the Section for the Spoken Arts and Music. With the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, which she founded in 1908, she ran the editing and publishing of Rudolf Steiner's written works and his lectures. In 1943 she founded the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung to continue with this work. See Rudolf Steiner The Course of My Life; Marie Steiner von Sivers Correspondence and Documents 1901-1905; Hella Wiesberger Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers (From the Life of Marie Steiner), Dornach 1956; Marie Steiner, ihr Weg zur Erneuerung der Bühnenkunst durch Anthroposophie. Eine Dokumentation (Marie Steiner. Her Path to a Renewal of Stagecraft through Anthroposophy. A Documentation), Dornach 1973.

STIBBE, MAX (b. Padang 1898 – d.1983)
Teacher. Member from 1920. In 1923 he became co-founder and teacher at the first Dutch Waldorf school ‘De Vrije School’ at The Hague.

STOKAR, WILLY (Schaffhausen 1893–1953 Zurich)
Member from about 1916. Writer. 1921-23 colleague of Willy Storrer in the smaller working committee at the Goetheanum, among other things for tours of the building and as a lecturer. From time to time he was also a member of the management committee of Futurum AG, Dornach.

STORRER, WILLY (Töss bei Winterthur 1896–1930 Dornach)
From 1919 onwards worked with Roman Boos in the threefold movement and in his secretarial and organizational work at the Goetheanum. In the early summer of 1921 he took on the responsibility for Dr Boos's work in this area. After the founding of the weekly journal Das Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner entrusted him with the administrative side. He thus became manager of the Verlag am Goetheanum. In 1920 he was a founder-member and the secretary of the branch at the Goetheanum. In 1923 he co-founded the Neue Generation branch. Belonged to the smaller working committee at the Goetheanum till the Christmas Foundation Conference in 1923. From time to time he was also a member of the management committee of Futurum AG. On 3 May 1930 he met with a fatal accident in his private aeroplane on the Gempen in Dornach.

STUTEN, JAN (Nijmegen 1890–1948 Arlesheim)
Musician. Member from about 1910. From 1914 he was a permanent musician at the Goetheanum (composing and conducting). He portrayed a number of roles on the stage under the direction of Rudolf Steiner, among others that of Faust. Later he also created scenery (in 1928 for the first and second Mystery Dramas). Composer of various works, above all stage music for Faust, Parts One and Two and for Rudolf Steiner's funeral. Member of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung.

THUT, PAUL (b.1872–1955 Bern)
Engineer. Director of the power station at Bern. Member in Bern for many years.

TRIMLER, DR

TRINLER, KARL (d.1964)
Arlesheim and Basel.

TYMSTRA, FRANS (b.1891–1979 Arlesheim)
From Holland.

UNGER, DR CARL (Bad Cannstatt 1878–1929 Nuremberg)
Member from 1902/03. Till his death he was the leader of the main branch in Stuttgart, which he had founded in 1905 together with Adolf Arenson. From 1913 to 1923 he was a member of the central Vorstand of the Anthroposophical Society. From 1923 he was a member of the council of the German national Society. At the Christmas Foundation Conference he represented that council and also the Porto Alegre group in Brazil. From January 1914 to September 1915 he was the technical building manager of the first Goetheanum and from 1913 to 1925 in the council of the Bauverein. Before beginning a public lecture on Anthroposophy in Nuremberg on 4 January 1929 he was shot dead by a mentally ill man. His collected works have been published in three volumes.

USTERI, DR ALFRED (Säntis area of Switzerland 1869–1948 Reinach)
Papers on botany. Plant drawings; lectures at the Goetheanum.

VREEDE, DR ELISABETH (The Hague 1879–1943 Ascona)
Member of the Theosophical Society as early as about 1902. From April 1914 she worked at the Goetheanum where from 1919 onwards she set up the archive of Rudolf Steiner's lectures. In 1920 she became a founder-member and later the secretary of the branch at the Goetheanum. In 1922/23 she was a member of the smaller working committee at the Goetheanum and from Christmas 1923 till 1935 she was a member of the founding Vorstand of the General Anthroposophical Society and the Leader of the Section for Mathematics and Astronomy.

WACHSMUTH, DR GUENTHER (Dresden 1893–1963 Dornach)
Permanently in Dornach from 1921. In 1922/23 in the smaller working committee at the Goetheanum. From Christmas 1923 till 1963 he was a member of the Vorstand of the General Anthroposophical Society in the capacity of Secretary and Treasurer, and Leader of the Natural Science Section. He wrote, among other things: Rudolf Steiners Erdenleben und Wirken. Eine Biographie (Rudolf Steiner's Life and Work), Dornach 1941 and 1951; Die ätherischen Bildekräfte in Kosmos, Erde und Mensch (The Etheric Formative Forces in Cosmos, Earth and Man), Stuttgart 1924.

WACHSMUTH, DR WOLFGANG (Dresden 1891–1953 Arlesheim)
Worked for various publishing companies. He met Anthroposophy towards the end of the First World War. In Stuttgart from 1920 he took over the management of the publishing company Der Kommende Tag AG until it was dissolved in 1924/25. From time to time he was a member of the council of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany.

WEGMAN, DR MED ITA (Java 1876–1943 Arlesheim)
Member from approximately 1903. Studied medicine in Zurich. In 1921 she founded the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut in Arlesheim which resulted in close collaboration with Rudolf Steiner in the field of medicine. From 1922 to 1924 she was on the council of management of the International Laboratories in Arlesheim. From 1922-23 in the smaller working committee at the Goetheanum. From Christmas 1923 to 1935 she was the Recorder of the Vorstand of the General Anthroposophical Society and Leader of the Medical Section. From 1924-25 she was Rudolf Steiner's physician. Together they wrote Fundamentals of Therapy.

WEISS, FRAU

WERBECK, LOUIS MICHAEL JULIUS (Hamburg 1879–1928 Hamburg)
Member from 1910. From 1917 leader of the Pythagoras branch in Hamburg. From 1923 he was a member of the council of the German Anthroposophical Society. He wrote Die wissenschaftlichen Gegner Rudolf Steiners und der Anthroposophie durch sie selbst widerlegt (The Scientific Opponents of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy Disproved by Themselves) and Die christlichen Gegner Rudolf Steiners und der Anthroposophie (The Christian Opponents of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy), Stuttgart 1924.

WINDELBAND, WILHELM
See Note 41.

WULLSCHLEGER, FRITZ (Zofingen 1896–1969 Zofingen)
Teacher. Member from 1920. Member of the School Association for Independent Education in Switzerland. (See Note 56.

ZAGWIJN, HENRI (d.1954)
Composer and writer from Rotterdam. Set to music Rudolf Steiner's verses ‘Im Seelenaug ...’ and ‘Die Sonne schaue ...’ Wrote Die Musik im Lichte der Anthroposophie (Music in the Light of Anthroposophy). Teacher at the Waldorf school in The Hague.

ZEYLMANS VAN EMMICHOVEN, DR MED F W WILLEM (Helmond 1893–1961 Johannesburg)
Member from 1920. Founder of the Rudolf Steiner Clinic in The Hague, co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Holland and from November 1923 its General Secretary. Wrote, among other works, Rudolf Steiner, Eine Biographie (Rudolf Steiner, A Biography), Stuttgart 1961.
[Note: a reader who was at the funeral of Dr Zeylmans van Emmichoven has reported he died in Cape Town, not Johannesburg. His ashes were scattered on Table Mountain. e.Ed]

The lectures, addresses and contributions to discussions given by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference for the Founding of the General Anthroposophical Society in 1923/24 were first published by Marie Steiner twenty-one years later. She undertook the revision of the text and wrote the introductory and concluding words. The original form of Marie Steiner's presentation has been maintained in the present new edition within the framework of the Complete Works. Any changes made in the text after comparison with the existing records have been documented in the Notes. A Supplement has been added containing facsimile reproductions of documents in Rudolf Steiner's handwriting as well as of texts and diagrams made on the blackboard during the Conference.

The Conference was for members of the Anthroposophical Society only. This fact determined the tone of Rudolf Steiner's contributions, especially the lectures. ‘I was permitted to speak in internal circles in a manner which would have had to be different had I spoken publicly from the start.’ (The Course of my Life)

The records taken down in shorthand were originally not intended for publication, and Rudolf Steiner was unable to check them himself. Though for the greatest part they may be assumed to be verbatim, nevertheless, as with all his published lectures, account must be taken of his own proviso in this matter: ‘There will be nothing for it but to accept that there may be mistakes in the records I have been unable to check myself. A judgment on the content of these private publications will in any event only be acceptable when it is based on that knowledge which is a prerequisite for such judgment. In the case of most of these publications this is at least the knowledge of man and the universe as given by Anthroposophy, and also what may be found under the heading “anthroposophical history” in the wisdom that has been received from the spiritual world.’ (The Course of my Life)

In this [German] Edition the verses are given as Rudolf Steiner spoke them during the Christmas Conference of 1923, as shown by the complete and reliable record in shorthand made by Helene Finckh. Previous editions [in German] contained variations in some of the verses, especially in the rendering of 25 December. This is explained as follows:

Rudolf Steiner gave the verses in two versions, both of which are recorded in his own handwriting (see Facsimiles 1 and 4 in the Supplement). The first version was used during the Conference. The second version was made for the printed record in the report ‘Die Bildung der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft durch die Weihnachts-tagung 1923’ (The Formation of the General Anthroposophical Society through the Christmas Conference of 1923) in the first number of Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht. Nachrichten für deren Mitglieder (What is Happening in the Anthroposophical Society. News for Members) of 13 January 1924. In this second version there are certain divergences from the text as spoken during the Conference. The most important of these are that the hierarchies are not named but approached under a general designation, and that the Rosicrucian motto is given in German and not in Latin.

The reason which moved Rudolf Steiner to make this alteration was given on a number of occasions by Marie Steiner, and recorded by one of her colleagues, Günther Schubert, as follows: ‘She spoke repeatedly about her memory of the great difficulty Rudolf Steiner experienced in reaching the decision to publish the verses of the 1923 laying of the Foundation Stone. In the end he toned down the direct approach to the hierarchies by making the salutation more abstract. He wanted this toned-down version to be the one used exclusively within members' circles too, for he said that there was a law attached to esoteric mantrams of such a cultic nature: The force with which they return equal to that with which they are sent forth, and it is therefore necessary to ask oneself whether one will be strong enough to endure this.’

Marie Steiner originally wanted to take this into account when she published this record of the Christmas Foundation Meeting. However, it was only possible in respect of the words spoken on 25 December, for on 29 December the call to the hierarchies by name was included in Rudolf Steiner's subsequent discussion of the ‘rhythms’. The relevant lines were not spoken on the other days.

In the present [German] edition the verses, including that of 25 December, are given as they were spoken and recorded in the shorthand report.

1 January, 4.30 p.m.

These words of welcome were taken down in shorthand by Helene Finckh. The gaps at the beginning arose because, as the greeting had not been announced, it took her by surprise.

... on the occasion of this painful anniversary ... at such a crowded gathering I imagine that out of this grave mood the minds and souls of our anthroposophical friends must find one another in personal conversation. We need it, my dear friends. There will always be a need in our Society for human being truly to find human being, for heart to find heart, and for soul to find soul. But we need it particularly here where we have to gather in this makeshift room while directly next door stand the remains which so painfully remind us of what we endeavoured to have as an external sign for our sacred cause. It seems to me that each one of us must feel the urge this afternoon to find an opportunity in many directions to speak his or her mind about the pain and the sorrow, but also, in contrast, to fire the development and unfolding of the hope, courage and strength that we shall need for the future. Though spoken out of heartfelt sorrow, may these words, my dear friends, serve as a starting, point for many and varied fruitful exchanges amongst us as anthroposophical friends this afternoon. May it be so!

[ 1 ] “When released from the body you ascend to the free aether, you will become an immortal god, escaping death.” In these words Empedocles epitomizes what the ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal in man and its connection with the divine. Evidence of this is provided by the so-called Book of The Dead which has been deciphered by the diligence of nineteenth century research workers. (See Lepsius, Das Totenbuch der alen Ägypter, Berlin, 1842.) It is “the greatest coherent literary work of the Egyptians which has been preserved to us.” It contains all kinds of teachings and prayers, which were put in the grave with each dead person to guide him when he was released from his mortal frame. The Egyptians' most intimate conceptions about the eternal and the genesis of the world are contained in this literary work. These conceptions indeed indicate ideas of the gods similar to those of Greek mysticism. Of the various deities worshiped in different parts of Egypt, Osiris gradually became the favorite and most universally acknowledged. In him the ideas about the other divinities were summarized. Whatever the Egyptian populace may have thought about Osiris, the Book of the Dead indicates that according to the ideas of priestly wisdom he was a being which could be found in the human soul itself. This is expressed clearly in everything they thought about death and the dead. When the body is given up to the earth, preserved within the earthly element, then the eternal part of man sets out upon the path to the primordial eternal. It is called to judgment before Osiris, who is surrounded by forty-two judges of the dead. The fate of the eternal in man depends upon the verdict of these judges. If the soul has confessed its sins and is found to be reconciled with eternal righteousness, invisible powers approach it, saying, “The Osiris N. has been purified in the pool which is south of the field of Hotep and north of the field of Locusts, where the gods of verdure purify themselves at the fourth hour of the night and the eighth hour of the day with the image of the heart of the gods, passing from night to day.” Thus within the eternal cosmic order the eternal part of man is addressed as an Osiris. After the title Osiris, the individual name of the person concerned is mentioned. The person who is uniting himself with the eternal cosmic order also calls himself “Osiris.” “I am Osiris N. Growing under the blossoms of the fig tree is the name of Osiris N.”⁶⁰ Thus man becomes an Osiris. The Osiris-existence is only a perfect stage of development of human existence. It seems obvious that even the Osiris who judges within the eternal cosmic order is none other than a perfect man. Between human existence and divine existence is a difference in degree and number. At the root of this lies the conception of the Mysteries concerning the mystery of “number.” The cosmic being Osiris is One; nevertheless he exists undivided in every human soul. Each man is an Osiris, yet the one Osiris must be represented as a special being. Man is engaged in development; at the end of his evolutionary course lies his existence as a god. Within this conception one must speak of divinity rather than of a perfected, completed divine being.

[ 2 ] There is no doubt that according to such a conception only one who has already reached the gate of the eternal cosmic order as an Osiris can really enter upon Osiris-existence. So the highest life man can lead must consist in changing himself into an Osiris. In the true man an Osiris must already live as perfectly as possible during mortal life. Man becomes perfect when he lives as an Osiris, when he experiences what Osiris has experienced. In this way the Osiris myth receives its deeper significance. It becomes the example of a man who wishes to awaken the eternal within him. Osiris had been torn to pieces, killed by Typhon. The fragments of his body were cherished and cared for by his consort Isis. After his death he let a ray of his light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus. Horus took over the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second Osiris, still imperfect but progressing toward the true Osiris.—The true Osiris is in the human soul. The latter is of a transitory nature at first. However, its transitory nature is destined to give birth to the eternal. Therefore man may consider himself to be the tomb of Osiris. The lower nature (Typhon) has killed the higher nature in him. Love in his soul (Isis) must cherish and care for the dead fragments; then will be born the higher nature, the eternal soul (Horus), which can progress to Osiris-existence. Whoever strives toward the highest existence must repeat in himself, as a microcosm, the macrocosmic, universal process of Osiris. This is the meaning of the Egyptian “initiation.” The process Plato describes as cosmic,—i.e., that the Creator has stretched the soul of the world upon the body of the world in the form of a cross, and that the cosmic process is a redemption of this crucified soul—on a small scale this process had to happen to man if he was to be capable of Osiris-existence. The neophyte had to develop himself in such a way that his soul-experience, his development as an Osiris, became identified with the cosmic Osiris process. If we could look into the temples of initiation where people were subjected to the transformation into Osiris, we would see that what happened there represented microcosmically the creation of the world. Man, who is descended from the “Father,” was to give birth in himself to the Son. The spellbound god, whom he actually bore within him, was to be revealed in him. The power of earthly nature suppressed this god within him. First this lower nature had to be buried in order that the higher nature might rise again. From this it becomes possible to interpret what is told of the processes of initiation. The candidate was subjected to secret procedures. By means of the latter his earthly nature was killed and his higher nature awakened. It is not necessary to study these procedures in detail. One must only understand their meaning. And this meaning is contained in the acknowledgment which everyone who has been through initiation could make. He could say: Before me floated the endless perspective, at the end of which lies the perfection of the divine. I felt the power of the divine within me. I buried what holds down this power within me. I died to earthly things. I was dead. As a lower man I had died; I was in the netherworld. I communicated with the dead, that is, with those who already have become part of the circle of the eternal cosmic order. After my sojourn in the nether world I arose from the dead. I overcame death, but now I have become different. I have nothing more to do with transitory nature. My transitory nature has become permeated by the Logos. I now belong to those who live eternally, and who will sit at the right hand of Osiris. I myself shall be a true Osiris, united with the eternal cosmic order, and judgment over death and life shall be placed in my hand. The neophyte had to undergo the experience which could lead him to such an acknowledgment. The experience which thus approached man was of the highest kind.

[ 3 ] Let us now imagine that a non-initiate hears that someone has undergone such experiences. He cannot know what has really taken place in the soul of the initiate. In his eyes, the initiate has died physically, has laid in the grave and has risen. When expressed in terms of material reality an occurrence which has spiritual reality at a higher stage of existence appears to break through the order of nature. It is a “miracle.” Such a “miracle” was initiation. Whoever wished really to understand it must have awakened within himself powers which would enable him to reach a higher stage of existence. He had to prepare the whole course of his life in order to approach these higher experiences. However they might take place in individual lives, these prepared experiences always had a quite definite, typical form. So the life of an initiate is a typical one. It may be described apart from the individual personality. Or rather, an individual personality could be characterized only as being on the way toward the divine if he had gone through these definite, typical experiences. As such a personality the Buddha lived with his followers; as such a personality Jesus at first appeared to his community. Today we know of the parallels which exist between the biographies of Buddha and of Jesus. Rudolf Seydel has pointed out these parallels strikingly in his book, Buddha and Christ. We need only follow up the details to see that all objections to these parallels are futile.

[ 4 ] The birth of Buddha is announced by a white elephant who descends to Maya, the queen. He declares that she will bring forth a divine man who “attunes all people to love and friendship and unites them in an intimate company.” In Luke's Gospel is written: “... to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, ‘Hail thou that art highly favored ... Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest.’” Maya's dream is interpreted by the Brahmins, the Indian priests, who know that it signifies the birth of a Buddha. They have a definite, typical idea of a Buddha. The life of the individual personality will have to correspond to this idea. Correspondingly we read in Matthew 2:1, et seq., that when Herod “had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.”—The Brahmin Asita says of Buddha, “This is the child which will become Buddha, the redeemer, the leader to immortality, freedom and light.” Compare this with Luke 2:5: “And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him ... And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” It is related of Buddha that at the age of twelve he was lost, and was found again under a tree, surrounded by minstrels and sages of ancient times, whom he was teaching. This corresponds to Luke 2:41–47: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.”—After Buddha had lived in solitude and had returned, he was received by the benediction of a virgin: “Blessed is the mother, blessed is the father, blessed is the wife to whom thou belongest.” But he replied, “Only they are blessed who are in Nirvana,” i.e., those who have entered the eternal cosmic order. In Luke 11:2–28 is written: “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.’ But he said, ‘Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.’” In the course of Buddha's life the tempter approaches him, promising him all the kingdoms of the earth. Buddha will have nothing to do with this, answering, “I know well that a kingdom is appointed to me, but I do not desire an earthly one; I shall become Buddha and make all the world exult for joy.” The tempter has to admit, “My reign is over.” Jesus answers the same temptation in the words: “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him.” (Matthew 4:10,11)—This description of parallelism might be extended to many other points: the results would be the same. The life of Buddha ended sublimely. During a journey he felt ill. He came to the river Hiranja, near Kuschinagara. There he lay down on a carpet spread for him by his favorite disciple, Ananda. His body began to shine from within. He died transfigured, a body of light, saying, “Nothing endures.” The death of Buddha corresponds with the transfiguration of Jesus: “And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening.” At this point Buddha's earthly life ends, but the most important part of the life of Jesus begins here: Passion, Death and Resurrection. The difference between Buddha and Christ lies in what necessitated the continuation of the life of Christ Jesus beyond that of Buddha. Buddha and Christ are not understood by simply throwing them together. (This will become evident in the subsequent chapters of this book.) Other accounts of the death of Buddha need not be considered here, although they also reveal profound aspects of the subject.

[ 5 ] The conformity in the lives of these two redeemers leads to an unequivocal conclusion. What this conclusion must be, the narratives themselves indicate. When the priest sages hear about the manner of the birth they know what is involved. They know that they are dealing with a divine man. They know beforehand what conditions will exist for the personality who is appearing. Therefore his career can only correspond with what they know about the career of a divine man. Such a career appears in their Mystery wisdom, marked out for all eternity. It can be only as it must be. Such a career appears as an eternal law of nature. Just as a chemical substance can behave only in a quite definite way, so a Buddha or a Christ can live only in a quite definite way. His career cannot be described as one would write his incidental biography; rather, it is described by giving the typical features contained for all time in the wisdom of the Mysteries. The legend of Buddha is no more a biography in the ordinary sense, than the Gospels are intended to be an ordinary biography of the Christ Jesus. Neither describes an incidental career; both describe a career marked out for a world-redeemer. The patterns for both must be sought in the traditions of the Mysteries, not in outward physical history. To those who have perceived their divine nature, Buddha and Jesus are initiates in the most eminent sense. (Jesus is an initiate because the Christ Being incarnates in him.) Thus everything transitory is removed from their lives. What is known about initiates can be applied to them. The incidental events of their lives are no longer described. It is said of them, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1,14)

[ 6 ] The life of Jesus, however, contains more than the life of Buddha. Buddha's life ends with the transfiguration. The most significant part of the life of Jesus begins after the transfiguration. In the language of the initiates, Buddha reaches the point where divine light begins to shine in man. He stands before the death of the physical. He becomes the cosmic light. Jesus goes further. He does not die physically at the moment the cosmic light transfigures him. At that moment he is a Buddha. But at the same moment he enters upon a stage which finds expression in a higher degree of initiation. He suffers and dies. The physical part of him disappears. But the spiritual, the cosmic light does not vanish. His resurrection follows. He reveals himself to his community as Christ. At the moment of his transfiguration, Buddha dissolves into the hallowed life of the universal Spirit. Christ Jesus awakens this universal Spirit once more to present existence in a human form. Such an event had formerly taken place in a pictorial sense at the higher stages of initiation. Those initiated according to the Osiris myth attained to such a resurrection in their consciousness as a pictorial experience. In the life of Jesus this “great” initiation was added to the Buddha initiation, not as a pictorial experience, but as reality. Buddha demonstrated by his life that man is the Logos and that he returns to this Logos, to the light, when his physical part dies. In Jesus the Logos itself became a person. In him the Word became flesh.

[ 7 ] What was enacted for the ancient cults of the Mysteries within the Mystery-temples, through Christianity has been grasped as a world-historical fact. His community acknowledged the Christ Jesus, the initiate, initiated in a uniquely great way. He proved to them that the world is divine. For the community of Christ, the wisdom of the Mysteries was indissolubly bound up with the personality of Christ Jesus. The belief that he lived and that those who acknowledge him, belong to him, replaced what would have been attained previously through the Mysteries. Henceforth for those in the community of Christ a part of what previously was only to be attained by the methods of the mystics, could be replaced by the conviction that the divine is given in the Word which had been present. The determining factor was no longer only that for which each individual spirit had to undergo a long preparation, but also the account of what they had heard and seen, handed down by those who were with Jesus. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we ourselves have beheld, which our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life ... that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you, that you may have fellowship with us.” Thus it is written in the first Epistle of John. This immediate reality is to embrace all future generations in a living bond; as a Church it is to extend mystically from generation to generation. In this way we may understand the words of Augustine, “I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Church.”⁶¹ The Gospels, therefore, contain in themselves no evidence of their truth, but they are to be believed because they are founded on the personality of Jesus, and because in a mysterious way the Church draws from this personality the power to make them appear as truth. The Mysteries handed down through tradition the means of coming to the truth; the Christian community propagates this truth itself. Faith in the One, the primordial Initiator was to be added to faith in the mystical forces which light up in man's inner being during initiation. The mystics sought apotheosis; they wished to experience it. Jesus was made divine; we must cling to him; then we are participants in his apotheosis within the community established by him:—This became Christian conviction. What was made divine in Jesus, is made divine for his whole community. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) The one born in Bethlehem has an eternal character. Thus the Christmas antiphon is able to speak of the birth of Jesus as if it took place every Christmas: “Today Christ is born; today the Saviour has come into the world; today the angels are singing on earth.”⁶²

In the Christ-experience a quite definite stage of initiation is to be seen. When the mystic of pre-Christian times went through this Christ-experience, then, through his initiation, he was in a condition enabling him to perceive something spiritual—in higher worlds—for which the material world had no corresponding fact. He experienced what comprises the Mystery of Golgotha in the higher world. Now when the Christian mystic goes through this experience, through initiation, at the same time he beholds the historical event on Golgotha and knows that in this event, which took place in the world of the senses, is the same content as formerly existed only in the supersensible facts of the Mysteries. What had descended upon the mystics within the Mystery temples in earlier times thus descended upon the community of Christ through the “Mystery of Golgotha.” And initiation gives the Christian mystic the possibility of becoming conscious of this content of the “Mystery of Golgotha,” while faith causes mankind to participate unconsciously in the mystical current which flowed from the events depicted in the New Testament and has been permeating the spiritual life of humanity ever since.

• 60. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 125, 19–22. Papyrus of NU.
• 61. Augustine, St., one of the four great Fathers of the Latin Church, born 354 in Tagaste, Numidia, and died as Bishop of Hippo during the siege of that city by the Vandals in 430. Steiner's reference is to Augustine's work, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus called Fundamental, par. 6.
• 62. The Christmas Antiphon to which Steiner refers is found in the Breviarium Romanum, and appears just before the end of the Christmas section, In Nativitate Domini, headed Ad Magnificat Antiphona:
  
  Hodie Christus natus est;
  hodie Salvator apparuit:
  hodie in terra canunt Angeli,
  laetantur Archangeli:
  hodie exultant justi,
  dicentes: Gloria in excelsis
  Deo, alleluia.

A lecture delivered in Dornach, on December 31st, 1915. Lecture 17 of 19 from the lecture series: The Festivals of the Seasons (1928), and lecture 6 of 13 from the lecture series: The Spiritual Union of Humanity through the Christ Impulse. Published in German as: Die Geistige Vereinigung der Menschheit Durch Den Christus-Impuls.

Much that I should like to say regarding the spiritual world has to be hinted at pictorially, or rather half pictorially for the pictures must be taken in a real and active sense.

It is necessary to indicate pictorially such things as I desire to bring before your souls to-day for further meditation, because if one were not to speak symbolically but in ideas, one would have to speak at very great length. Each one of you can himself reach the depths of that of which I shall speak to-day, if he holds and ponders over it to a certain extent within his soul.

Every year at this season we pass from one division of time to another. This may at first appear simply a matter of convenience; but it is not so. The men who had to separate time into seasons followed by profound instinct certain great laws regulating the course of time. The festival of the passing of one year into another takes place with us in the depths of winter (naturally, I speak of our part of the world) at the time when all plants have suspended their growth, their blossoming and fruit-bearing. Only certain forest trees remain what is called evergreen through winter. The power of the Sun is then at its lowest.

We know that in all events and occurrences that take place before our senses, spiritual events are interwoven. We know that when we walk through the forest, we have not only the trees about us with their green foliage, but that in the background of existence spiritual and psychic beings are everywhere active. We are already familiar with this thought, which the clever people of our time regard as a childish superstition; we realise it as a true and actual fact.

It is absolutely clear to us that behind all the things of sense, whether they be solid or whether they be happenings which our senses perceive—are spiritual activities, and spiritual life.

Now let us, to begin with, consider what people call our lifeless inorganic Earth, the mineral kingdom of our Earth. This which is apparently lifeless substance, the mineral which to the materialist is merely lifeless, is to us not only endowed with life, but with soul and spirit, so that we speak also of a soul-and-spirit part of our so-called lifeless inorganic, purely mineral Earth. True, when we speak of the consciousness of the Earth, we do not in the first place see in the geological-mineral substance that which may be compared to a man's muscles and blood, but we see only what may be compared to his bony system, namely, the solid earth ; so that when we speak of the consciousness of the Earth, we have to think of it as connected with the whole Earth, not only with its bony system, but with water, air, ether, etc., corresponding to the muscles, blood, and so on.

The whole Earth has consciousness, a consciousness belonging to the mineral kingdom. We shall not occupy ourselves with the differences in this consciousness of the Earth in special regions during the course of the year, but we shall endeavour to evoke in our souls the conception that the whole Earth has consciousness. Let us now turn from the mineral Earth, and direct our attention to all that springs forth and sprouts on Earth, to the plant world.

Looked at in accordance with Spiritual Science, we must regard the plant world, in the first place, as an independent entity in reference to the Earth. That the whole plant world is an independent entity as regards the Earth only comes clearly before us when we consider the consciousness of these two entities or beings. We can speak of a consciousness of the whole mineral Earth, but we can equally speak of a consciousness of the whole plant world which evolves on the Earth. The laws of this consciousness are certainly entirely different from the laws of human consciousness. In speaking of plant consciousness, we must always speak of it as regards certain districts only, because it changes with different regions of the Earth.

As men we are not aware that there really is a certain parallel between our consciousness and the consciousness of the whole plant world, for we are apt to look on our waking consciousness as our complete consciousness, without taking our sleeping consciousness into consideration. To simplify our subject, we say: In the daytime when awake, our ego and astral body are within our physical body. I have, however, often remarked that this in fact refers to our blood and nervous system only, not to the remaining parts of our system. When the ego and astral body withdraw from our head, for instance, they are so much the stronger within other parts of us.

A parallel thing happens on the Earth, when on one part of it there is summer and on the other winter; this also is merely a change of consciousness. The case is the same with ourselves. We are not aware of this, however, because in man the two kinds of consciousness are not of equal clearness; they are of different strength. Night consciousness is beclouded consciousness, for us practically no consciousness at all; while day consciousness is full consciousness of our other side. In the night our lower nature wakes, while with our higher nature we sleep, and it is exactly the same with the Earth, when on the one hemisphere there is winter, on the other there is summer. On one side the consciousness is awake, on the other side it sleeps and vice versa. As I have just said, and as I have often explained, this only holds good in respect to the plant world. We know that the plant world sleeps in the height of summer when there is growth on every side; while it is outwardly unfolding its physical nature—it is asleep. But it wakes to full consciousness during the time when physically, externally, it is going through no development; then the plant world is awake. Thus we speak of all plant life on Earth as a whole; and this plant life, as a whole, has a consciousness.

When speaking of this consciousness which as a second consciousness intermingles with the mineral consciousness of the Earth, we can really say that during the height of summer in our part of the Earth the plant consciousness is asleep, and in depth of winter it is awake. At this season, however, during the time at which we now are, something further takes place.

Now I beg you to note that these two states of consciousness, that is, the general consciousness belonging to the mineral earth, and the general plant consciousness—are always distinct. They are throughout the whole year two separate beings. But these are not only two distinct Beings, for at one season they unite, so that at the present time of year, the one interpenetrates the other. At the time when one year is passing over into the other, the mineral things and events of the Earth and the whole plant world have but one consciousness, which means that these two consciousnesses interpenetrate each other.

What is the nature of the mineral consciousness of the Earth, the varieties of which (as I have said) we shall not study to-day as we shall those of the plant consciousness, which we realise wakes during winter time and sleeps in summer? What is the peculiar nature of this mineral consciousness, this consciousness of the great Earth-Being?

The man who is limited in his physical senses, and limited to the understanding that he considers appertains to these physical senses, can at first know nothing of this great Earth-consciousness. Spiritual Science, however, can instruct as to what this Earth-consciousness really thinks—thinks as we think of plants, animals, air, rivers, mountains, etc. Just as with our ordinary waking consciousness, we think of the things round about us, so, in like manner does the Earth think. Let us inquire to-day: of what does the Earth consciously think?

The Earth thinks with its consciousness the whole firmament of heaven nearest to the Earth. As we look with our eyes on trees and stones, so does the Earth consciously look into space and contemplate all that takes place in the stars. The Earth is a being that meditates on the occurrences of the stars.

Thus fundamentally the mineral consciousness contains the secret of the whole Cosmos. While we men move about on the Earth in a superficial way, thinking merely of the stones against which we knock, or of the many things which our senses reveal to us, the Earth thinks with its consciousness—through which we are passing as we move through space—of the whole Cosmos. She has indeed greater, more all-embracing thoughts than we have. In truth, it is an extraordinarily exalting thought, when we realise: ‘I am not simply passing through the air; I am moving through the thoughts of the Earth.’

Now let us again consider the other consciousness, that of the plants. These are not able to think so much as the Earth can. The thinking consciousness of the plants—not of individual plants, but of the whole united plant-world—is a much more restricted consciousness, it embraces a smaller circle of the Earth throughout the year; but this is not the case at the present season. Plant consciousness is now one with the whole consciousness of the Earth, and because the plant consciousness interpenetrates the earth-consciousness, the plant-world at New Year time, knows the secrets of the stars and applies them. Plants are thus able to unfold again in spring in accordance with the secrets of the cosmos, and can bring forth their blossoms and fruit. In this unfoldment the whole mystery of the cosmos is contained, in the way plants bring forth their leaves, blossoms and fruit.

But during the time the plants are producing their leaves, flowers and fruit, they are not able to meditate upon it. It is only at this present season they can think—now—when the plant consciousness is united with the consciousness of the whole mineral world. This is why it is said in Spiritual Science: About the season of the New Year, two cycles interpenetrate each other.

This is the main secret of all existence—that two cycles penetrate each other; then parting, continue separately their further development; again intermingle, and so on. Only think how marvelous this secret of existence is! Plant-consciousness and mineral-consciousness, two streams of evolution—progress apart through the whole year, then at the time when one year passes over into another, they unite. Again they pass through the year apart, uniting once more at the festival of the New Year. The cyclic advance of history is similar to this.

We turn from this mystic event, through which we are now passing, and which fills us with a deep feeling of holy awe in respect of the passing of one year into the other—we turn to a still deeper mystery.

We know that we are now living in that cycle in which the consciousness-soul is unfolding, that this was preceded by that of the unfolding of the rational or intellectual-soul, which was again preceded by the cycle in which the sentient soul was developed, before which again we go back to the time of development of the sentient body. This takes us back 6,000 years before our Christian era, to a time when all human thought was evolved within the cycle of the sentient body—of the so-called astral body.

We have now to advance through the cycle of the spiritual or consciousness-soul, and through that of the Spirit-Self, and further still man has to develop.

The consciousness-soul (since 1923 translated by Dr. Steiner as the spiritual-soul) is principally developed at the present time because man chiefly makes use of his physical body alone as an instrument. On this account—as you know already from many lectures—this present age is the high tide of materialism. A time will come, however, when man will not only make use of his physical body, but will again learn to use his etheric body, as in earlier times he used his astral body, in the cycle of evolution when that body was the main element of consciousness.

We can therefore say: Our condition at one time on Earth was such, that our soul experienced a contact of its consciousness with the consciousness of our astral body. Just as at New Year, plant-consciousness penetrates mineral consciousness, so, thousands of years ago, did our soul intermingle with our astral body. At that time our soul was one, in its consciousness, with the astral body. The time of that type of consciousness was six thousand years before our era. When that consciousness came about man celebrated a New Year on Earth; a mighty New Year!

Just as we regard the New Year as the mingling of the plant-consciousness with the mineral consciousness of the Earth, so we must realise that 6,000 years before our era a great, a mighty cosmic New Year of our Earth took place. Our Soul-consciousness then united with—passed through—the astral consciousness of our body.

What was it that then took place?

At that time when our inner soul-consciousness passed through (or intermingled with) the astral consciousness of our body—then our limited human consciousness, the consciousness which we have to-day, had progressed as far as the present plant-consciousness at New Year. Just as plants gaze abroad into the heavens because their consciousness has been united to the mineral consciousness of the Earth, so did man then see and perceive a wide field of wisdom six thousand years before our era, when his soul was united with his astral body at the time of the cosmic New Year.

From this time originated the knowledge which we have now lost, since the wisdom of the Gnostics has perished. The source of this knowledge must be sought in the earthly and cosmic New Year about 6,000 B.C. This was the knowledge from which Zarathustra gave forth his teaching; the knowledge, whose last great rays still illuminated the Gnostics, but of which only a few fragments remain. It is the winter of the Earth, but the Earth's New Year to which we here look back.

If we now add four thousand years more to the years we have passed through since the founding of Christianity, we again come to a similar intermingling as that I have just indicated; to the mingling of our soul-consciousness with our astral consciousness, but at a higher stage. Man will once more experience a universal stellar consciousness. For this we endeavour to prepare ourselves through our Spiritual Science, so that there may be men ready to receive it.

We will seek to prepare for this cosmic New Year. If we prepare for it through the keeping of the Christmas Festival, as I indicated in a recent lecture, we are preparing ourselves in the right way. If the birth of spiritual knowledge within us leads to that frame of mind which is in accord with the ‘Christmas Initiation,’ we are preparing ourselves for that new cosmic New Year on which we shall enter twelve thousand years after the previous cosmic New Year.

Twelve months pass by between one union of the plant-consciousness with the mineral consciousness of the Earth, and another. Twelve thousand years pass between one cosmic New Year and another: between one intermingling of the human soul with the Astral World-Soul, and another.

So at this sacred season, we turn from the little New Year to the great cosmic New Year, from the New Year's Eve of our year, to that for which we are preparing ourselves, by endeavouring—now in this winter time—to behold the light, which in a normal elemental way flows into man as inhabitant of the Earth, only at the cosmic New Year.

We really only see the world in the true light, when we grasp what is around us, not only as it is presented to our senses,—as materialists do—but when we accept all that is about us in the outer world as a symbol of the great secrets of the universe.

Then when New Year draws near, it seems as if a message from spiritual worlds approaches, and unveils for us the mysteries connected with the birth of the New Year; and declares, ‘Behold, now in the depths of the dark cold winter, the consciousness of the plant world unites with the mineral consciousness of the earth. Let this be to you a sign that the Earth too has its year—the great cosmic year, of which Zarathustra spoke long ago, explaining how the world passed on from one great New Year's Eve to another; this must be understood by those who really seek to comprehend the course of human evolution.’

Zarathustra spoke of epochs of twelve thousand years. He meant the great cosmic years of which I have spoken to you to-day. He represented the course of human evolution as being divided into four divisions within the Earth year. This fact is deeply rooted in spiritual mysteries.

So, from a deeper understanding of our Spiritual Science, let us accept a true Christmas attitude of reverence. Let us develop within our hearts that inner warmth which comes, when in the frosty night of winter we receive the first intimation of the dawning of the Sun-Spirit on the Earth, and with it the mystery of the revolving year. The thirteen days are the days in which the plant-consciousness unites with the mineral consciousness. If a man is but able to place himself within the plant consciousness, he can dream of—can gain a conception of—the many mysteries which then crowd into his heart, such as did in the dream of Olaf Oesteson, the description and explanation of which entered into and stirred our souls here, this time last year. When we feel such a mood of initiation, we evoke the proper feelings and the perceptions for the aims and objects of our spiritual knowledge and with such warmth of heart we shall make preparations for the new cosmic New Year. Through it we can worthily expect that day which is to usher in a New Year for the world. Thus: when in succeeding incarnations our souls experience the cosmic New Year under quite new conditions on Earth, we shall be able to pass through it as those can for whom the small New Year's Eve (which recurs every twelve months instead of every twelve thousand years) becomes a symbol of the great New Year's Eve of the world.

This is the secret of our existence. Everything is in great as in small, and in small as in great. The small, the yearly cycle, can only be understood aright when it becomes for us a symbol of the mighty events of the cosmos—of the vast cycle of thousands of years. The year is an image of the aeons, and the aeons are the realities of those images which we encounter in the course of a year. When we understand this yearly course aright we are filled, in this important night in which a New Year begins, with thoughts of the great cosmic mysteries. Let our endeavour be, so to attune our souls, that they may look forward to the New Year with this conscious thought: I will accept the year as a symbol of the great cosmic year which contains all mysteries, through which pass and re-pass the Divine Beings who accompany our souls from aeon to aeon, as the lesser Gods follow the secret development of plant and mineral existence throughout the course of an Earth year.