The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When you undergo a spiritual development, you get to know the spiritual life. But there it is always, this spiritual life. For the ordinary human mind, it is much too fine and unfamiliar compared to the external world, and man cannot go beyond the familiar.

This spiritual world is the area where man lives between death and the new birth. With those souls with whom one had no connection at all here in life, no relationships can be established from here after death. The moral and intellectual life continues over there. In ordinary life, one cannot achieve such a strong ability to get in touch with that area.

Here, in the physical world, we hear what someone else says. If the disembodied soul wants to connect with another person here, it is the other way around. The disembodied soul tells us what we ask it. What comes from us, the dead person tells us, what comes from the “dead resounds in us. It is very easy to say this, but it is so difficult to fulfill, because it is usually overlooked that the messages come from us, which we think we are receiving from there. The moments of falling asleep and waking up are the most favorable for the usual communication between this world and the spiritual one. The spiritually developed person can, of course, also use other [moments].

If you want to come together with a [deceased] soul at the moment of falling asleep, then it is good to summarize what you feel for the dead person in a question to the dead person, just as you would have done when he was still alive, as far as possible in the same way as you were accustomed to during his lifetime. This can have an effect in dreams. It can lead to illusions; it is not the dead person who speaks, but what we have thought, felt and wished during the day in relation to the dead person. This comes back to us from the dead person in a dream. It is right at the moment of waking up, when something comes from the dead person into one's own soul and this comes up again during the day. During sleep, what we have thought of the dead during the day comes up; during the waking hours, what has come to us from the dead during falling asleep and waking up.

Spiritual science does nothing other than grasp with the mind's eye what is in the spiritual world. Much more plays out of the spiritual world – including the one in which the dead are – into our world than we know.

For a long time, not enough attention has been paid to what changes in the different periods. What we have experienced during life between death and a new birth lives in us. What we bring with us from the spiritual world is woven into the inherited physical body - into the blood, the nervous system, the muscles and so on. The soul that moves in with the birth is wise. We are actually tremendously wise; enchanted, we carry this wisdom within us. And we have to release what pulses as a wise being in our blood, nerve, muscle and respiratory systems. What soul mood is most suitable for this? The one that has been lost to people in recent centuries: faith in life. This is connected to a casualness in relation to religious life.

We now only really believe in our youth and young adulthood into our twenties; only up to that point can we get something out of the development of the body – up to around the age of twenty-seven. In ancient Greece, it was still possible up to the age of thirty, and so on.

But we have to replace the physical and bodily, which no longer has anything to offer, with the spiritual and soul. We must learn to believe in the whole of life. Even if I want to be able to experience something different at forty than at thirty, I have to imbue myself with the spirit that makes us capable of always experiencing something new. Not like today, of course, when twenty-year-olds are already saying, “From my point of view.” How can you have a point of view at twenty? A person must give himself impulses. Today it is the case that a person stops at the age of 27; he does not live further. That would be a person who, in terms of character, is rooted in our time, a self-made man, not a grammar school student, who already takes up traditions, not only

not only what comes from the time. Coming from a poor background, gifted with an active intellect, elected to parliament at the age of twenty-seven, and thus committed for life: that is Lloyd George, a true representative of our time.

We must rediscover our faith in the meaning of life. The different parts of the human body have different speeds, so to speak. What is in the head and what is in the trunk has different rates of development. The main organization develops relatively quickly and is completed by the twenties. The heart organism – let us call it that – develops throughout life. Our educational and social lives actually only serve the development of our minds. Our head would be ready to die at the age of 27. But there is also a spiritual side to this. If people only cared about developing their minds, humanity would soon become decrepit, physically too. It must become a principle of education that memories of youth appear like a paradise. The head that is ready to die at the age of 27 must always be able to draw new strength from what radiates from youth. Those who study spiritual science know that there are things they cannot know in their 30s or 40s, because only in their 50s can this or that enter into them. If we acquire a sense of the whole of life, then we will not be thrown back by the leap from the physical to the spiritual life, but will develop more quickly.

The leap from the physical to the spiritual life does not bring us back, but develops us faster. People today can demystify much more of the “wise” than was possible in an earlier time.

Only by starting from the point of view that Goethe can now tell us something completely different than in 1832, only by finding the strength to live with the Goethe of 1882, have I been able to achieve what is called Goethe research, which I have done.

One must set age higher, in the social higher than twenty-seven, where people are elected to parliament.

The dead should be allowed to speak. For example, Goethe's “Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years”, what is said there about social issues, should be allowed to affect the soul of people who are socially active. We can always give something to the world after we die – let the dead be fruitful for the living. This is to be taken together with what was said at the beginning about the relationship to the dead.

Dessoir: “Philosophy of Freedom”, one of Dr. Steiner's “first works”; [in the second edition] a first work in the theosophical field - all the more wrong.

It is necessary to develop a sense for the concrete, a sense of truth; to feel pain at what is not true. Full participation, pictorial participation, has declined sharply today; that wants to get into the souls later than in the 28th year.

A speaker once said, after raising many questions: “Now I have presented you with a forest of question marks.” You just have to imagine that. You have to be careful not to slip up in your speech.

How a person expresses himself in his thoughts - the “how” of thoughts - from the way a person thinks, you can see how he stands in life. A Herman Grimm has won and fought for what he says. A Woodrow Wilson seems to be possessed by his point of view, by demons. Today it is not so much the content of what one says that matters, but the “how”, whether it is identical with the personality or whether the personality is possessed. Today it will matter less and less what the content of theories is, but rather how they are presented.

We must gain a sense of the whole of life and make it fruitful for the whole of life, including life after death, and how the hereafter is referred to here. Today, despite the catastrophic events taking place outside, life is being overslept a great deal. Many people today have not yet realized that since August 1914 we have had to think differently.

In the spring of 1914, Dr. Steiner said that there was a cancer in social life and so on. This cancer soon broke out. You have to rethink and learn to feel.

When physics and so forth speak of negative and positive and so forth today, that is quite correct, but what we say about Lucifer and Ahriman is just as correct. But there must be balance between the two poles. The Luciferic lives in the spiritual world as well as here, it lives in the selfish drives. This has long been taken into account in the social structure: medals, titles and so on. In our social structure, far too much has been attributed to the one-sided Luciferic. Now the Ahrimanic is rising. The public is at the mercy of what is printed. Now it is the case that people want to take the social structure into their own hands, so to speak, in an Ahrimanic way. Through aptitude tests, they want to find out whether a child has intellectual potential. Nothing but Ahrimanic forces are revealed by these tests, nothing of the soul itself. It would be terrible from a social point of view if the aptitude tests were to continue. The child is a mystery. Belief in the meaning of life could also have a positive effect on pedagogy, not what is achieved through aptitude tests and so on.

I wanted to make sure that what has happened in these four years would not be forgotten.

My dear Theosophical friends!

During the years in which this catastrophe that has befallen humanity has called so many of our human brothers to difficult, responsible posts, we have always turned to the protecting spirits of those fighting in the field at our meetings:

Spirits of your souls, watchers ever active,
Your wings may bear
Our souls' imploring love
To earthlings trusting in your keeping,
That, joined with your might,
Our plea may helpfully shine
On the souls it seeks in love!

My dear friends!

We have not seen each other for a long time here in Vienna, but this difficult present, this present, which makes so much of what we now have to remember so necessary, so much of the past gathering of strength for the present and the future, this present necessitates so much. And we have to accept – as so much has to be accepted today – that we will see each other less on the physical plane. On the other hand, however, at such a meeting it will be particularly important to remember those souls who have been holding us together in our spiritual movement for years. One of the main thoughts, one of the main impulses that hold us together, is that through spiritual science we must increasingly come to the conviction that whatever is to help all of humanity, to help it on , must be spiritually motivated. The more we can truly feel, sense, and understand this in our souls, that humanity needs spiritual insights to warm and illuminate our souls, the more we will

we will find the opportunity to fruitfully engage with the difficult tasks that are actually posed today to every person who does not dreamily, sleepily pass by the events of the present. And so, after such a long time of not being together, it may be good today, when we tie in with this reflection, to think about ideas that, on the one hand, are connected with the present-day insights that are necessary, but which, despite being necessary, are not present in general humanity, and which, on the other hand, are again suitable to penetrate us soulfully, to strengthen us, to permeate us with strength precisely for the task we have in the present for this present.

In particular, my dear friends, if we turn our attention to what we have been doing for years in spiritual science, one main thought, above all, will remain before our soul. The thought is that if we want to gain spiritual-scientific knowledge, we must shape many a concept, many a feeling, and many a volitional impulse differently than we have done so far. We must think differently about many things, and perhaps the time is not far distant when many more people than today will see that something else also teaches us to think differently about time, about human development, and about human tasks. And this other thing is the catastrophe itself that has befallen humanity, the whole of humanity on earth, and the goal of which can hardly be grasped at all by anything other than an understanding of the spiritual path of human development.

But let us start with seemingly very distant thoughts. We can ask: Why is it that, as soon as they are present, the majority of people actually show either irony, mockery, annoyance, or some other kind of dislike or opposition to what we call spiritual science? It can be said that this is often because this spiritual science makes demands on people that have to be met, but first a firm decision of the heart must be made. The spiritual world, as everyone says, as we gradually learn to understand it through spiritual science, looks quite different from the world that our senses must actually be the spiritual world. We only learn when real spiritual research brings us close to how fundamentally different the ideas about it are; only then do we learn to understand why people are so dismissive of spiritual science.

Let us then start from an obvious thought, or I could just as easily say: from a remote thought, to show you why humanity has so much to say against spiritual science. To help us understand this idea, let us first take those spiritual beings that are closest to most people, towards which most people long most intensely, let us take the human souls that have passed through the gate of death itself. The one who enters the spiritual world with clear vision gradually comes to an understanding, although this understanding is one of the most difficult in the realm of spiritual vision. There is also a certain correlation that draws him to the so-called deceased human souls. But it is precisely then that it becomes apparent that when one enters into this spiritual communication with the departed human souls, one must become accustomed to different concepts than those to which one is accustomed from the sense world. When we stand here in the sense world and speak to another person, it is the case that when we say something to him, we know that what we speak to him as sound comes from our own soul. We hear ourselves speak; and when he answers us, we hear him speak. We know that what he has to communicate to us is coming from him to us.

We become accustomed to such communication with the outside world as a matter of course, and therefore it can only seem quite strange, quite paradoxical to us when the spiritual researcher claims the absolute opposite about communication with the dead. When he has to say that he has struggled to make contact with the deceased, when he can tie the karmic threads that connect people even beyond death, then one has to get used to perceiving what the dead person has to communicate as coming from one's own soul. What comes from the dead person resounds from one's own soul, and what we have to communicate to him, what we have to say to him, is clothed

so that it is as if we heard it spoken to us by him. So you have to completely change your habits when you are confronted with a spiritual being, when you compare the external experience you have with it to the experiences of the sensory world, when someone who has become a spirit speaks to us in that wordless language that is spoken on the spiritual plane, that when he communicates or seems to communicate something to us, then we have to say to ourselves: that is what you yourself say to him. On the other hand, when he really communicates something to us, when something really comes from him, then it rises up from the depths of our own soul.

It is easy to say such things, but to develop this habit of our soul life, to truly change our habits, that is somewhat more difficult. Now you will understand that it is not easy for a person to cross this bridge to a completely different kind of experience, to a completely different way of experiencing. [You will understand] that he instinctively, unconsciously, withholds his soul life, which, if he did not withhold it, would lead to communication with the so-called dead. But then one would have to communicate in the way I told you. On the other hand, it cannot be said that people who live here on earth in the physical body do not do so; they actually do it all the time, only they misunderstand the whole nature of this communication. The simplest thing that happens in this area for most people is that they dream about people with whom they have been in contact. But these dreams, even if they are partly subjective experiences, can also arise from a real interaction with the dead.

If one really wants to establish a right relationship with the spiritual world, then it is necessary to see two experiences in the right light. Two experiences that man actually pays no attention to in ordinary life. And these two experiences are falling asleep and waking up. The other two states of the four states of consciousness, sleeping and waking, last, and man is generally inclined to follow attentively what lasts a long time, but what passes quickly, like waking and falling asleep, man is not accustomed to follow with the same attention. And in the times when we are awake, we do experience important things for our physical life, but in the time of actual sleep, we experience, with the exception of dreaming, which we find very difficult to interpret, not much consciousness. On the other hand, we actually experience a lot in the moments of falling asleep and waking up, but we do not pay attention to it because at the moment we wake up and fall asleep, we are at our most inattentive. The moment of waking up and falling asleep has already passed by the time we want to look at it and take notice of it; that is why we are so unaware of how infinitely important and significant these two points of falling asleep and waking up are.

We know from spiritual science, at least in theory, what falling asleep is: a stepping out of the physical body. In the present state of development of humanity, we are too weak to be conscious in the time between falling asleep and waking up, and so it happens that when we fall asleep, we pass from our conscious state to the unconscious one; we do not develop enough attention to observe the falling asleep itself; and it is the same when we wake up from the spiritual world. The physical world with its impressions of light, colors and sounds overwhelms us immediately, physical sensations overwhelm us immediately as well, and we do not have time to grasp the moment of waking up in a spiritual way; our attention cannot develop that fast, and when it does develop, we are already overwhelmed by the external influences, then our consciousness is no longer attuned to grasp the more subtle things. The spiritual researcher must learn to develop attention for these two moments, for falling asleep and waking up.

Now, for us, falling asleep is a stepping into the spiritual world. By stepping into the spiritual world, we are in the realm of existence where the so-called dead are. We are with the dead. In the world in which we then are, they live and weave. But as I said, our consciousness is too weak in the present cycle of humanity to perceive our surroundings in this state. But just because we do not perceive something, it does not mean that it is not there! It is all around us, we just cannot perceive it. So we are together with the so-called dead, but at first we are not aware of this togetherness. But sometimes it does emerge from dreams, and, as I said, these dreams can only be completely subjective experiences, reminiscences. So there are dreams that, by showing us that the dead person is saying this or that to us, bring us into a real interrelationship, into a real communication with the dead. But as a rule one interprets the communication wrongly. One has the image of the dead person before one, the dead person says this to one, one takes this for an order. It is not that. Perhaps we have thought and felt about the dead, and if we are in spiritual science, we also know that we can become more and more aware of these thoughts about the dead. We can almost reshape our thoughts about the dead in such a way that they offer a certain guarantee of the reality of our contact. We can vividly remember this or that occasion when we were together, but we do not think in general, abstract terms in such a case; rather, we think of something that we really experienced with him, we think of it with the vividness with which we experienced it, and then we make the decision to to behave in our thoughts with the dead person as we would like to behave with him if he were standing in front of us. When we do this, we address a question to him, or we communicate something to him that we believe he or we might need to tell him. What we do consciously and more and more consciously – but in a sense it is what I say, what we want to send into it during our waking life – we take that into our sleep consciousness. We will then have not a subjective but an objective, real dream. But we must interpret this dream in the right way. People do not interpret it correctly, because this “dream means the echoes of what we ourselves have addressed to the dead; even if it seems to us in the dream image that the dead person is speaking to us, it does not mean that he is speaking to us in the words he is saying to us, but only that he is hearing us, that what we are saying to him is reaching him. There you have a living application of what I have told you.

I said that when we turn to the dead, we have to get used to the fact that it seems as if it comes from him. This also occurs in dreams. The dream seems as if it brings us something from the dead. But in reality it is only proof that it has been transformed in a certain way, that it has reached him; he has heard us. When we dream of the dead, that is no more than proof that they hear us, that what we have sent to them in loyal love really reaches them.

These facts of spiritual life are often misinterpreted. When someone dreams of the dead, they believe that what the dead person tells them is directed to them. But this is only proof that what they have said to the dead has been understood by the dead. I have to say to myself: Yes, I really spoke to the dead, since he tells me so in my dream. This is proof that what I said to him has reached him. For it is only the reflection of what has reached him from me.

Through the moment of falling asleep, we carry into the spiritual world what we say to the dead. By waking up, we carry into the physical world, conversely, what the dead person says to us. And what the dead person speaks to us must resound from the depths of our soul in the state between waking up and falling asleep in the everyday state of consciousness. As in the “dream, what we speak to the dead lingers, so what the dead speak to us lingers in the waking state.

But here again, people are unaccustomed to interpreting it correctly – unaccustomed for a different reason than we stated in the previous case. People, as they are predisposed for physical life, are, firstly, not very inclined to really listen to the inspirations that come from the depths of the soul. Most people, who do not consider anything that arises from the depths of the soul to be anything other than subjective ideas, think: Yes, that just occurred to us, it comes from ourselves. But one must learn to distinguish, just as there are dreams that are subjective and others that are objectively true, there are so-called ideas that are purely subjective and others that are inspirations from the depths of our soul. We must learn – and we can learn – to listen attentively to our waking daily life, so that we become aware of how thoughts penetrate from the depths of our soul, and even when we are in conversation with others, how this or that thought, which we are not inclined to pay attention to, emerges from the depths of our soul, and then we will recognize the objective character of these inspirations, which softly sound in the midst of our daily life from the soul. Then we will experience that in such inspirations the dear, so-called dead speak to us from their realm. For what the dead person tells us must come from within ourselves.

For the spiritual researcher, it is the case that he directly experiences what he has told you: What the dead person says comes from the soul, and he has to reorganize himself. For those who have not acquired this state of mind, it takes place in such a way that what we experience in our thoughts when we address a message and question to a dead person in the time between falling asleep and waking up, and what the dead person tells us, sounds from the depths of the soul.

Human life is much more connected with the spiritual world than we usually believe. Today, we have not only become [materialistic] in our views, we have also become vain and proud, dismissive of the spiritual world, presuming to say that everything that resonates within us is our own inspiration. Materialism also makes the human soul selfish and vain, leading to a certain conceit, in which we ascribe everything to ourselves. What we consider our own ideas are actually the thoughts of those who have already passed through the gate of death, who, by addressing our souls, are working together with us in this shared human life.

It is not enough for us to develop the thought: We will not perish when we die. It is certainly true, but it has something selfish about it. Rather, it is more important to grasp it practically, vigorously for life, to grasp it in such a way that we know: Not only our life does not perish, but the dead do not perish for life either. They influence our soul, and we will only understand our dreams correctly if we see them as inspired by the realm of the dead.

This is the first thought from which I started today. It should show you that the real contemplation of the spiritual world makes demands on people, in the face of which people see, consciously see: after all, all this contradicts the world in which I have become accustomed. Man does not say to himself in his conscious mind: I do not enter the spiritual world because those who fantasize about the spiritual world describe it to me in such a way that it contradicts the physical world. But instinctively man would rather say: There are limits to human knowledge, one cannot enter it - than to admit to himself: I must grasp the strong, courageous thought [and imagine] the spiritual world quite differently. If this healthy courage to think about the spiritual world replaces much of the morbid thinking that still prevails today, our earthly life can be fertilized by spiritual thoughts in a completely different way than it is fertilized when these spiritual thoughts are merely conceived in the abstract.

Let us now take up another thought. The thought that is linked to a question: What does an understanding of the spiritual world offer people with regard to ordinary physical life on earth?

There, you see, we can already penetrate a little more into the practice of contemporary life. For how could one not admit to oneself that - after humanity was so proud of its great cultural and human progress until 1914 - that what has been happening since 1914 could befall it? How could one not admit to oneself that this must pose a difficult question? And how can we not admit to ourselves in the face of this question that perhaps something in the overall state of humanity was not quite right after all? Of course this is not meant as a criticism. But we can understand this life. So when I say that something must have been wrong, I do not want to say that I condemn what happened. For spiritual science has nothing at all to do with such thoughts about the past. These are critical thoughts from which one learns and should learn. When I say that something is not right, I mean that it could not have been otherwise in the development that has now passed, but on the other hand, the human being must pull himself together, then many things will be different. Criticism is unfruitful. Only recognition of what should be from what was is fruitful.

In humanity, from old states of consciousness, it has now become so that since the middle of the fifteenth century, mainly with regard to the consciousness soul, that on the one hand man - although he does not believe it - that man preferably hangs on to abstract concepts; and [although] precisely those who believe they are very practical. So people are theorists, often completely steeped and infected by all kinds of theories. But theories are quite barren. Theories only have value when what they contain bubbles up directly, welling up from living together with the spiritual world. But in his present cycle of development, this is precisely how the human being acts. On the other hand, there is justification: the consciousness soul must be developed. But on the other hand, countervailing forces must be developed so that it does not become one-sided. The sensing, feeling, and willing that one develops primarily through the consciousness soul is tied to the human brain. One should not ignore the fact that today man develops a consciousness that is tied to the brain. And so he believes that all consciousness is bound only to the brain. But this has a very specific consequence for the coexistence of people and for practical life, that man preferably develops a thinking that is bound to the brain. This forces him to develop thoughts that come from his interaction of the ordinary brain with the external, sensual world. He cannot free himself from what the brain can experience. The consequence of this is that a general cultural trait takes hold in the human soul. This is narrow-mindedness, narrow-mindedness. This is not to be criticized. On the other hand, I would like to point out that it is necessary. But it is the case that present-day humanity is most inclined to hold only to that which arises in the brain with the outside world; only when we reach out to the spiritual world do we expand it. This is something that today's development of humanity brings with it. Spiritual science is called upon to counteract the narrow-mindedness in the intellectual field. It has this cultural task of broadening the horizon again, of raising the horizon.

Yes, my dear friends, the matter at hand is much more serious than one might think. I think most of you have known me too long to know that I don't say this or that out of some personal sympathy or antipathy. When I observe how one of the most outstanding character traits is narrow-mindedness, I must at the same time see it in important things that go beyond the world. I may mention it, one must always remind, I may mention it because I am not saying it only now, but because I have said what I am saying before this catastrophic event befell our humanity. [In Helsingfors, that is, at a time before the war began, I have already pointed out] the fact that at such an outstanding position there is a person like Wilson, who today is associated with many catastrophic events that have befallen humanity. At the time, I drew attention to the most salient trait of Wilson's character, to the narrow-mindedness and bigotry that is encroaching on the social structure of humanity.

But what [humanity] does depends on what people think. That thoughts are realities and that realities flow out of thoughts is something that humanity must come to understand: to understand life precisely on the basis of genuine spiritual science, to come to an understanding of the spiritual world from an understanding of what underlies life. We must not only recognize that spiritual science can give us those experiences that can make us whole in our entire soul life, because they prove to us that we belong to a spiritual world, but also the thought: When what lies in the spiritual world flows into our moral and social will, then thinking does not remain limited and expands. Then it will also get better, otherwise not.

If only we could grasp this thought in all its depth! Then we would become aware of much of what is going on in the present. With regard to our feeling, with regard to our thinking, the present age makes us limited. With regard to our feeling: what does it do to us? That which arises from the consciousness soul. Feeling is that these abstract thoughts, which are at the same time the most materialistic thoughts, that these actually no longer grasp our feeling and sensing in reality.

How often do we hear people say: Oh, it's just a thought, you have to feel! That is as true as it is false. You cannot have a truly fruitful influence on life, you cannot truly lead life fruitfully if you do not want to think, but instead you let everything be absorbed into the mush of feeling. You turn life into a mess. What matters is to bring the light of thought into feeling and to elevate feeling. Thinking feeling, feeling thinking, that is what is needed. What the consciousness soul wreaks, because the abstract brain cannot grasp our /gap in transcript]

Therefore, the spiritual state of present-day people in relation to feeling, the present spiritual state will tend more and more towards narrow-mindedness the more materialistic it becomes. Narrow-minded, philistine – that is what the spiritual state is currently leaning towards.

If the light of thought, the realm of light of thought, does not penetrate feeling, it makes people narrow-minded, their interests are limited to the very immediate. Thoughts must be wide-ranging, but they can only do that if we carry the sense that the world that surrounds us sensually is something quite different [from what] expresses itself spiritually, that the dead express themselves; [then our interests, then spiritual science - just as narrow-mindedness and limitation in the field of the intellect - will have to work against narrow-mindedness in the field of feeling. It needs a view of a social structure that is imbued with broad interests, namely, interests that will arise in us when we look at the wonderful, mysterious human being himself. For today's anatomist and philosopher, this human being is only a kind of physical organism, not mysterious and wonderful enough. Such ideas must kill our ethics in particular, but also our social conception of life. We must be clear that the spiritual is reality, that thoughts are what the reality of life flows from. In theory, most people agree with what I am saying on this point. In terms of their life practice, however, they do not agree. They act contrary to it. From what people say, we can see which thoughts are unfruitful for life due to the narrow-mindedness of their emotional life.

My dear friends! To have thoughts in such a way that the thought stands vividly before us, as something we see directly, that is something that people have gradually lost in the materialistic age. In the 1980s, I attended a lecture by a professor who was extraordinarily impressive for people at the time. He kept asking the question, “What should one ask?” [gap in the transcript] And finally he said: I think I have led you into a forest of question marks. Who not only expresses the thought in the abstract, but develops views on these thoughts: It is neither beautiful nor meaningful, [so] a forest of question marks. Who is not satisfied with expressing thoughts – thoughts must be immersed in reality – does not speak of the truth.

A statesman has expressed a remarkable thought. He says: Our relationship with Austria is the point that indicates the direction of our future policy. Anyone who is out of touch with reality must say to themselves: A relationship is a point and a point is a direction.

Those who think like this are not rooted in reality with their thoughts. He separates thought from feeling. But realities can only be real thoughts. He who works with such thoughts can accomplish nothing healing. He who has a feeling for such things can hear a great deal of this kind today. Recently, for example, someone said in regard to the peace treaty with Romania: [gap in the transcript] that Romania is putting itself on an open, honest footing with us. We would like it not to be on just an “open” foot, but to be on a foot at all. In the future, the Romanians should have an “open” foot in order to enter into a proper relationship with us. Is such a thought present in reality as a thought? It is not! Speech is used because the brain is in motion.

But something beneficial for humanity can only arise for the social structure when it flows from the real. It is precisely for this reason that one must respect reality and also the spiritual life. Mere criticism does not make it. You can study the life of humanity today. It would certainly be necessary to study the life of humanity in order to develop thoughts that are in line with reality. And one should not study it in such a way that every thought becomes a matter of sympathy or antipathy, of praise or blame.

You know from my lecture cycle 191[0] in Kristiania, also with regard to the present time, that I have ascribed to the British nation that it is preferably called upon to develop the consciousness soul. On the one hand narrow-mindedness, on the other hand small-mindedness. It does not apply to the individual Englishman, but to the whole English national soul. One has only to study the language. We must really, I might say, for the sake of the spirit, hold on to the idea that language is inwardly effective; it forms feelings that are effective in language. The British language simply drops whole broad sections of the word into nothingness; it is the most abstract language.

That is it, my dear friends. What matters in the present is not to create theoretical concepts, but to draw these concepts from the depths of the soul. We need such concepts. You can be a traveler, a scientist, a political scientist, you can travel to entire countries, but if you have no sense of what lives inside people, the descriptions for practical life will not be of much use. People in the materialistic age have said many a witty and apt thing about the various European and non-European national souls. When it comes to expressing the true essence of the national soul, they fail. If one wants to be effective in practical life, because people are so reluctant to get to know each other in terms of their soul qualities, they are bound to end up in a catastrophe that is only the result of incorrect thoughts.

There are two aspects to the human soul: materialism strives towards one, and spiritual science must counteract the other. The area of will: thoughts that do not want to unite with our will, they do not attack it, they do not intervene in the whole person, they arise from the brain. The result of this is that in our lives, materialistic thoughts make people clumsy, narrow-minded, philistine. This must necessarily result. Those who observe life notice the clumsiness. What can a person do today? What he has been taught and learned with difficulty. Today you can be an excellent professor of Chinese, you can be an excellent civil servant, carpenter, and yet it can happen that you cannot sew on a trouser button, but that someone else has to sew it on for you. We are highly inept at everything we have not learned, because what we absorb in our education in feeling and thinking is suited to our body and blood and muscles.

The spirit, when it takes effect on a person and has a living effect, takes hold of the whole person, makes him skillful out of the spirit. [This is] a test for the reality [of spiritual science] that it forms people out of us who are more and more able to cope with life, that what it lets flow in out of the spirit, [people] can also carry into life.

But that is what triggers another thought. What we need, out of an understanding of the spiritual world, is to come to life at all.

Let us take a truth of spiritual science: I will list it briefly today. Today I want to elaborate on the idea that When a person passes through the portal of death, he should immerse the first third between death and rebirth mainly in the imaginative, the second third between death and rebirth mainly in the inspirational, and the third third between death and rebirth mainly in the intuitive; in the last third of our life between death and rebirth – the Viennese cycle – the person immerses himself in the life he has to live here on earth. In the continuation of this, we would have to lead an imitative life between birth and the seventh year, an immersion in childlikeness. Thus, in the imitative immersion of the child, in every action, is the continuation of the life of the last third between death and new birth. We just have to grasp life in the right way. We see the human being growing into life and we can tell from his faculty of perception that he is continuing a spiritual life in the physical one, that he is continuing an imitation of the intuition from the last third. We see the human being growing into life. — What a thought!

Imagine, my dear friends, if it becomes socially fruitful for the human being to be together: this is the continuation of spiritual life, we see it in him! Life is the proof of the immortality of man. As it is, it is the continuation. To grasp the thought of immortality, the departure from the spiritual world through birth into physical life on earth! Imagine what that must be like for life! Imagine this thought! That is also why we recognize the value of thoughts. Imagine this even more in a concrete sense. Imagine: I look at this body, which comes from spiritual life, then you will believe in the whole of human life. Do we believe in the whole of human life today? No, we do not believe in the whole of human life, we only believe up to the age of 25 or 26 at the most. Most young people no longer believe that we can be educated, that life gives us something new. We still believe that we can acquire something new well into our 20s, but after that we only believe that life goes on. That what is brought in through birth is to be developed through the whole of life must, may not be a theoretical truth, it must become a concrete truth of life. Ask how many people there are today who, when they turn 30, say: When I turn 40, life will have revealed more to me. I am waiting for what life will bring me. I have not lived in vain. I live in anticipation of life, waiting for each year to reveal new secrets.

Do we believe in life like that? No, we don't expect anything more when we turn 27. Today, when we turn 20, we consider ourselves mature enough to make decisions about the whole of human life, if we are not [even] elected to parliament, where we already decide everything. [Gap in the transcript] Greeks atavistically.

We will once again look into the developing, the expectant. We should not express such a thought, nor think it, we should feel it through and through. Imagine what would have to be different in social life if people faced each other like this. Today, one person may be 60 years old and another 17. The 17-year-old has his point of view. Today everyone has their point of view. Life experiences develop and become ever richer. How different our interactions will be if we lead a life of hope and expectation. And every new

year brings me something new, and when I am ten years older, I will be completely different. [A] different view of life then arises from the view of the world, that we grasp the concrete thought of reality from the meaning of the world and the meaning of human life, that the whole of human life, the whole of the human being has a meaning [gap in the transcript]

Historical science must change completely!

Today, anyone who looks at the life of humanity at most says to themselves: the life of humanity is developing, and the individual human being is also developing. That is only an external comparison. Spiritual observation yields something quite different. Humanity is becoming ever younger.

People who are capable of development through their natural powers alone – if I may put it this way – in body and soul until their 50s [Unclear transcript; gap in transcript].

The ancient Persians 40 years to 30 years.

Today, the human being remains [only] capable of development for 27 years. Today, people believe only in youth, not in the whole of humanity. It is an important truth that man can experience through his natural powers, without intervention, [that he] can actually only develop for 27 years. He does not become more perfect through the outer world.

If we ask the question: Who is a particularly characteristic person for the present day? - A person who grew up without the advantages that one has through the past, without inheritance; [a person] who did not go to many high schools, but is open and receptive to everything in his environment, who had to grow into and only take in what today's world offers into his education. A self-made man. [He] absorbs his environment in an elementary way. Up to the age of 27 – then he enters public life, gets himself elected to parliament, becomes a minister. Now he is engaged, he has no need to develop further. A person born of poor parents, growing up wild, but receptive to his environment /gap in the transcript]: Lloyd George. — Ministry wonders what to do with the man – just take him on. What do you give him? What he understands least: transportation.

A few aphoristic remarks about the relationship between anthroposophy and science, which are to be made because the present situation suggests that we direct our consideration in this direction. People today are extremely proud of the fact that they do not believe in authority; but they only claim this. Of course, people talk about old authorities in such a way that they are criticized externally, often in a phrase-like way.

But the newer authorities, on which one depends in the most eminent sense, are not noticed at all. One of them is what we call science today. Ask yourselves, my dear friends, how much of what people hear today as something scientifically established they are able to absorb, and in how few cases they feel that it still needs to be examined in terms of its scope, its basis and its sources.

One could talk for hours about the unrecognized yet intensely present modern belief in authority. The purpose of spiritual science is to free people from this belief in authority. Spiritual science should enable people to penetrate to such foundations of knowledge that can be grasped in a certain sense and that offer the possibility - certainly not of everything, but of much of what so-called science offers - of forming one's own independent judgment. One will not be able to study the individual specialized sciences. But one can ask oneself whether there are not comprehensive points of view that are accessible to the human being and yet allow one to form an opinion about what the sciences present. Today's reflection is based on this. A direction is to be indicated, characterized by the fact that importance is attached to showing that there are uncertainties in today's sciences, unexamined things that are not considered and escape scientific attention.

First of all, I would like to draw attention to something that applies to many exact sciences: the old opinion that in the sciences, especially those related to physics, there is as much true science as there is mathematics in them; that what can be expressed mathematically is believed to form a secure foundation.

On the other hand, however, there is the way in which mathematics develops its theories. Mathematics actually has nothing to do with external reality; for many, it is precisely this that makes it safe and necessary, that you do not need experience to do it. This results in a discrepancy: how does mathematical thinking, which is alien to reality, relate to the configuration of nature to which it is applied?

So far, nothing has been done that could lead to a solution of this question, for example with the concept of space. It is important to me to point out that a correct analysis of space leads us to the conclusion that we humans are not dealing with one space when observing the world, but with two spaces. And by imagining spatially, we always identify one space with another. Every judgment of space consists in this. It is not true that one is subjective and the other objective space.

This will only be understood when we have a proper science of the senses. In the philosophical debates about sensory activity, one sense is always referred to in the singular. In general, this is not even present in reality. We cannot summarize the eye and the ear according to today's pattern by saying that these are two senses in which the external world is given and so on. The two [senses] are too radically different to be summarized as sensory perceptions. The scope of what must be understood as abstract sensory activity is divided into twelve senses: sense of I, sense of thinking, and so on. Each one must be studied.

And what about the concept of space that intrudes on everything? Here we do not get subjective and objective space, but the result that space is conveyed to us through one half of these senses, and through the other half of these senses. We never perceive with just one sense; another sense is always involved, for example, the eye and the sense of movement. Both are brought into spatial alignment.

One must be very precise in the investigation. In today's abstract way of looking at things, everything is mixed up. Concepts are applied without realizing whether one is entitled to such application. For example, something that, although not unexamined, is always forgotten: the concept of division or division. This is only possible from two points of view. You can only divide a named number by an unnamed number; say \(12\) apples by \(3\). This distinction is not made in kinematics. Velocity \(v: s = v \times t\). Physics uses this formula in a way that is not allowed in reality: \(s/t = v\), \(s/v = t\). According to physics, this would also apply. This approach can only be one of the two possible types of division; in \(s/t\) you can only divide \(s\) by an unnamed number, time can only have the value of an unnamed number. One can ask the question: Which is more essential, \(s\) or \(v\)? Which adheres to reality? Not the path, but the speed. The path is only the result of the speed. We must consider its reality to be the primary one; it is the inner essence of the movement process.

Today, investigations are carried out by only looking at the result. These are often not decisive. Consider the comparison of the two people who stand next to each other at nine o'clock and then at three o'clock, and yet have experienced very different things in the meantime. Through these simple considerations regarding \(s\) and \(t\), the whole theory of relativity is reduced to absurdity because it only considers entities such as \(s\) and \(t.

Those who study physics today will, on the one hand, rightly encounter the law of the conservation of energy, but on the other hand they will not. This has become a dogma that has been extended far beyond physics, even to physiology. When it comes to metabolic experiments, the matter is shaky. Those who go back purely historically will have an uncomfortable feeling. Julius Robert Mayer was far removed from the modern interpretation of his theory. In “Überweg” a summary is given of Julius Robert Mayer's works, which is a lie. As a law, the law of conservation of energy must be limited to the limits of its application. It is just like a bank. A certain amount of money goes in and a certain amount comes out, just as a certain amount of energy goes in and out of an animal. But what happens to the capital in the bank, how it participates in the general circulation of capital during this passage, nothing can be said about that, of course. You can, of course, make such a law, but you have to realize that reality is not affected by such a law. One has to wonder how such laws have any effect on reality! Do they serve at all to say anything about the particular? There are laws that have a stronger reality effect in one area and none at all in another. The laws here are as applicable as a mortality table at an insurance company. On average, they are correct. But someone who insures a death in the 47th year on this basis does not act on it, does not feel obliged to die.

These things can be applied to many natural laws that are made today. However, one should never draw conclusions without being aware of the limits of validity. These laws must stop where, at some point in reality, something enters from a completely different sphere than what the application of the laws in question refers to, for example in the case of humans. In his inner activity, something comes in from a completely different sphere, which is just as little taken into account if I take the law of the conservation of energy as a basis as what the bank officials do when they put the money into circulation. The naturalists have real laws, the monists draw conclusions: that is just nonsense. The more one comes across this, the more it shows how necessary it is to respond to such an analysis of the nonsense that is made because there is no connection with reality. One must not separate oneself from reality and reason further; then one has no sense at all for the concise.

In the field of genetics, something is always disregarded that is of the greatest importance. A simple consideration says: If any being is sexually mature, then it must have all the force impulses that enable it to pass on some property to the next generation. Not the whole human or animal development may be considered, but only the time until the sexual maturity of the individual. All impulses that may have an influence after sexual maturity must be treated radically differently from the former.

The science of development achieved a great deal in the nineteenth century, but it proceeded in a much too straightforward manner. A major stumbling block for the unbiased conception of a realistic science of development is that one does not distinguish between what lies in the direct line of development and what are appendages. The main organs arise in a straight line, and only then do other organs attach themselves. If you look at the human being from the point of view of linear development, you cannot get beyond the head. Only the head can be derived in a straight line from the animal kingdom; the other organs cannot. In this case, the other organs must be developed from the head as appendages. One must come to realize this difference between the head and the other organs. The head is fully developed by the age of 28; one can only continue to live because the head is refreshed by the rest of the organism. This is related to the pedagogical question. We educate only the head; as a result, the person grows old prematurely. The development of the head is three times faster than that of the other organs. The rest of the organism is only a metamorphosis of the head. This is a physical truth that can be seen. In the case of inner qualities, speed is of the essence, even in the organic sciences. You get to the core of a person by examining the different speeds at which the structures of the organs develop. This also applies to psychology.

In the 1980s, I had a scientific dispute with Eduard von Hartmann, who at the time was drawing up his life account and wanted to prove the predominance of feelings of displeasure over feelings of pleasure. I tried to show that this calculation is not done by people themselves, but only afterwards by philosophers. It doesn't correspond to life at all. If someone were to keep a toy store's account of his own appreciation of toys, it would mean nothing for the store itself. Life itself is not based on it either, not on the difference between pleasure and displeasure. How did anyone come up with the idea of doing the math and judging the value of life by it?

This is related to the question that Kant already posed, the question of synthetic judgments. When adding \(7 + 5 = 12\), is \(12\) already included in \(7\) and \(5\) or not? This is not the right way to ask the question at all. It is not possible to ask the question at all in this way. You have to ask yourself: What is the first thing? When calculating, the result is always present first, and only to have a certain overview, one splits the result. I have \(12\) apples; the countrywoman brought me \(7\) and another brought me \(5\). All operations are based on the result being split somehow. The subject is the sum, the addends are the predicate, and so on. This is of great importance because it also appears where calculation occurs in a more complicated way: in life. Eduard von Hartmann's calculation “\(w = I - u\)” is wrong. Life attaches a value to it emotionally: most people don't care about \(w = I - u\); \(u\) can be taken as large as one wants, \(w\) remains finite and becomes only \(0\) if /=0 or \(u = \infty\).

In the recently published book “Vitalism and Mechanism”, the consequences of a purely mechanistic worldview are drawn and the connections between certain social affectations are pointed out. Why do people talk such nonsense in the social field in particular? Because they are accustomed to transferring such scientific ideas, which are unrealistic, to this field? It is different than when one starts from such concepts in natural science. In natural science, reality gives one the lie when one applies incorrect concepts. For example, a bridge built according to incorrect ideas collapses, and so on. In medicine, it is more difficult to keep track of things: patients die, but one can put that down to other reasons. In social policy, it cannot be proven at all. If you carry such incorrect concepts into politics, ethics and so on, then you create incorrect realities by embodying incorrect concepts. Today, this can be seen particularly in addiction, in the transfer of scientific concepts into social considerations.

This started back in Schäffle's time. He was the mayor of Mödling and an Austrian member of parliament in the 1880s. He wrote a book in which he dismissed socialism in an amateurish way: “The Futility of Socialism.” At the time, Herman Bahr responded with “Mr. Schäffle's Lack of Insight,” a book that Bahr now, however, disowns.

Kjellén, a very ingenious historian, compares the state to an organism. That is not correct. First of all, it is only an analogy. But quite apart from that, an analogy can lead in the right direction. You can compare social life with an organism, but not the European states. Many organisms live side by side, but in a living organism there is a medium between them, which is not the case with neighboring states. At most, the individual states can be compared to cells, and life over the whole earth to a single organism. Then we would have a fruitful theory of the state or fruitful politics. But I do not want to talk about such non-existent things. But such areas should be examined to see how important realistic thinking is. If we had remained mindful of this, humanity would have been spared the horrific social theories of the last four years.

With regard to Wilson, I pointed out at the time that in his work he characterized the application of Newton's theory of gravitation to the theory of the state in the seventeenth century as an outdated point of view and that today Darwinism should be used instead. In doing so, Wilson overlooks the fact that he is making the same mistake he criticizes: extending a current scientific theory to other areas. Similar unreality is displayed by Lujo Brentano, Schmoller in Munich and others.

A realistic social science only considers wages, capitalism and rent as factors of reality; these three must be considered. Each of these three has a different economic effect and is a different powerful factor. If these three are treated correctly, twelve new relationships will be found for economics through the correct combination of these three, not just the ones that are currently valid. Only then will a fruitful economics arise.

In particular, there is a lack of interest in our time in seeking a secure foundation for the individual sciences. If there are people who try to go through the individual sciences from the point of view that spiritual science will provide, it will be extremely fruitful. The working method must be directed in such a way that one takes a critical view of the concepts used. The above is also to be applied, for example, to the concept of force. One must start from \([v] = p/m\). The mass can be an unnamed number, \(p\) must be equivalent to the mass. This point of view alone, that mass, even in the smallest mass point, is equivalent to gravity, is something tremendously fruitful. Even in mass there is something gravity-like.

The question is never put at the forefront: What happens inside things? No unrealities may be introduced into the scientific consideration, for example a clock that moves at the speed of light. You must not necessarily draw conclusions about a property if another property is altered.

The subject of the final discussion was: The earth follows the sun in a spiral.

The correction factor, which is empirically applied in Bessel's tables, would disappear if Copernicus' third theorem were also applied.

As you may have seen in the last few days, and as can also be gathered from the public lectures, it must be clear from my current thinking that important necessities must be pointed out with regard to the transformation of certain perceptions, concepts and ideas. We are still living through a catastrophic time, a time that has been so often and repeatedly pointed out as being incomparable to anything that has happened in the past, usually in the conventional, world-historical version.

It is true that even when the significance and uniqueness of this time is discussed, unfortunately the phrase has become quite prevalent, and that what is said does not always come from the depth of the heart, but rather from the depth of understanding; but much of what comes from this direction is true. But not much is said about another thing. About how much this time should urge us to change our perceptions and concepts, our ideas and feelings.

For those of us who have been involved in this movement for years, this necessity will not be completely foreign, because I would like to remind you, my dear friends in Vienna, that I pointed out in a lecture cycle held here before the war that a kind of carcinoma – a cancerous disease – is spreading in social life and weaving across the earth. That was in view of the serious events that were imminent. One could not point out what was coming with cudgels, and when considering the times, it depends not on being a true prophet, but rather on bringing forth those things that can be used to impel the will and intentions of people. When we look back today on some of the things we have experienced in recent years, the most important impression in a certain direction is probably that we have to say to ourselves that some of the things that were very close to our souls before 1914 have become so far from our souls in many respects, like circumstances that may have occurred centuries ago. I keep thinking of one thing in this regard. In my lectures, I have often referred to a spirit with a very significant world view, Herman Grimm. When I referred to him in the years preceding 1914, it was as if he were standing beside me. At that time, his views were something present, something that could be treated as present; yes, my dear friends, that is no longer the case. Now, what seemed quite modern to us back then seems so, not if it were separated from us by decades, but by centuries. One would like to understand it as history. I don't think that anyone can say that, who has felt with all their intensity what has emerged over the years for the development of humanity. Not everything that has happened is there yet; /gap in transcription] This is a general sign that seems so sad to us, especially in these years, that the materialistic age has so dulled people's minds that even the most insistent speakers of world-historical development are asleep. By sleeping I do not just mean a dull existence, which is also the case with many people in the present, who let everything that happens come close to them – by sleeping I also mean the lack of incentive to evaluate the events of the present, to properly consider these events of the present. I could give many, many examples of this kind of sleeping. I will content myself with one, because you will see from the one what I actually want to illustrate.

You see, last fall, strange news was reported in the newspapers of all the neutral countries vis-à-vis the Central Powers, including a very strange interview that someone had - and that actually spread all over the world - that someone had in St. Petersburg with Rasputin. In this interview, not only was everything described that shed a clear light on the entire position that Rasputin had taken in the current events of the present, I would not even consider that to be the most important thing, but in this interview it was clearly predicted that it would not last long last long – of course, in the way one predicts something in an interview – it was clearly predicted that it would not last long, that Rasputin would no longer be around, and the assassination of Rasputin would be followed by events concerning much higher-ranking personalities. This news spread throughout the world, that is, from the fall onwards, a fairly large number of people throughout the world were actually quite well informed about what happened the following spring. Later on, I had the opportunity to talk to a person who, well, let's just say, is considered an authority on Russian affairs; people listen to him when it comes to finding out about Russian affairs. I tried in every possible way to tie in with this interview. The person in question didn't understand anything, didn't see through anything that was actually important.

Of course, something like this is only a symptom, but you will recognize from the lecture given yesterday that our view of history needs to adopt a symptomatic way of thinking in general. We cannot arrive at a healing development if we do not learn to consider this or that event as more or less important, in order to view the individual event in such a way that we see important developmental impulses. Symptomatology will essentially have to become a consideration of history. But to practise symptomatology, a person must have sharpened their inner soul powers, their power of knowledge, through what spiritual science can give them, because this spiritual science does not want to be taken only for what it is in terms of content, for then it would again be mere theory. It should not be that way under any circumstances. What is communicated from spiritual science in terms of content, of wording, what is written in the books, may be verified - much of it may have to be said in a completely different way. Although we already have a certain basic foundation for truth that will remain for a long time, I do believe that the examination will reveal that some things will have to be different in wording than how they are said today. But the content, the theoretical outlook, is not what matters. Man must acquire a certain way of thinking, he must free his thinking from all narrow-mindedness, limited to the immediate interests, so that he is compelled to broaden his horizons, to orient himself within a broad perspective, that he must immerse himself in reality. Today, not wanting to immerse oneself in reality has become a truly world-historical phenomenon. Today, people talk about all kinds of things that they present as ideals. Of course, one can understand that people feel a certain intellectual pleasure when they can talk about this or that ideal. But when it comes to ideals, it depends on whether one is in the real truth with the formation of these ideals. For example, someone who thinks realistically reads a message from Wilson and says to himself: What is in there and so many people admire is, after all, ancient, it can almost be called historical. These are things that go through all centuries as a phrase, that can be said and applied everywhere. What is important is not introducing such things into people's minds, but striking the right note in terms of ideas that are realistic in a particular age.

Indeed, in order to live realistically in the highest life - in this life that follows the present one - people will have to acquire many things of which they have not yet acquired much today.

Last Sunday we spoke about the fact that a world view must come to establish spiritual science, which, so to speak, enables people to grow old, to lead an expectant life. We should not take such a matter lightly; because precisely such a matter is extraordinarily important. We have — as we saw last Sunday — today really only the gift to believe in the growing, sprouting life into our twenties, then we want to be ready to continue living life in the same breath, as it were; then we have — one has gone through university, the other has learned a trade, the third has not learned anything either, but all consider themselves to be finished with everything that they have incorporated into themselves up to their twenties. We must relearn to wait for what is to come throughout our lives, we must learn to say: When I am 25 years old, then simply by the fact that I am 25 years old, I say: The 35th [year of life] will be able to reveal new secrets to me, the 45th again new ones. We must learn to live in expectation. This is not only important for the individual, it also has a social significance. These things, the establishment, the regulation of the mutual relationship of people can be turned, socialism does it and other associations – for what do you not found all kinds of associations – have done it, but my dear friends, we have to keep reminding ourselves that talking about certain things is one thing, which, as I said, can give an intellectual, voluptuous pleasure that can be proven as something necessary, but it leads to nothing. No matter how many ethical and social demands arise, that the relationship between people - whether for ethical or economic reasons - should be arranged in such or such a way, that this or that position is ideal, no matter how much is preached, it is of no more use than telling the stove: You are a stove, and as a stove you have the duty to warm the room, so warm the room! But it does not warm the room; only if they put wood in and light a fire, then it warms the room. It is often the greatest pulpit orators who are motivated by such an attitude. What matters is that we draw real strength from our world view, which gives life to our soul, emotional life, will life.

Among the many aspects of creative, real power is the fact that we learn to believe in the whole of human life through it, and learn to live in expectation. But if that is not a theory, not a teaching, if that is an inner life force, if that lives in the soul, then it is quite natural that it also means that people do not enter into an abstract relationship with one another, but see that it also plays a role here, that a variety of concrete circumstances play a role when it is important, that they play a role. What social culture is cannot be regulated; it can only be established by giving in the establishment that which gives strength and life to our soul. And take some of what I said last Sunday: We can directly follow up on an idea from last Sunday that related to the coexistence of people here in physical life with the souls of those who have passed through the gateway of death. What the idea of immortality is, has also, over time, taken on a rather selfish character to a greater or lesser extent. Actually, people are hardly more interested in immortality than in what will become of their own soul when they have passed through the gate of death. Yes, that is certainly an important and essential thing, which continues to have an effect if we see it correctly; but something else comes when we really grasp the idea that we have to recognize the meaning of this life throughout our entire life, that our development is not complete at the age of twenty, but that every year of life can reveal something new to us and that it becomes real experience for us, which it can become; then the other thought will not be far from us either, truly not far from us, that life, the event of life, which outwardly presents itself as an event of death, basically does not stop the development of our earth either. For] those who can do spiritual research, this is particularly clear for the present development cycle of humanity. When people will understand that actually spiritual is revealed through all decades, when they do not believe that life has lost its meaning when a person has passed through the gate of death. Not only that a person carries a certain content, a certain essence into the other world, but in a way he is endowed with the richest life experience when he closes his life here. Even if you are no longer able to live life to the full as you age due to memory loss, the wisdom you have gained is still there in your soul, and this is not only important for the people who have passed through the gateway of death in themselves, but also for their future lives on Earth. A person who passes through the gate of death in this present cycle of humanity has not yet lived out everything that is in him. His worldly wisdom can still come in handy, if only people look for such a way of life.

I don't like to do it, but I always like to cite a personal experience when it comes to this matter. Those who have known me longer know that in my first decades as a writer, I spent a lot of time trying to make Goethe's ideas fruitful for our age. I didn't do this in the same way as Goethe researchers; I tried to develop them further. What I have done in my field in this direction has emerged only from the impulse to confront not the dead Goethe but what Goethe had acquired in worldly wisdom in 1832 and what could continue to develop, what could become fruitful for the earth. In this real sense, I tried to write about one thing or another that Goethe would speak about in a later period. One can only take such a stand on such a matter if one is clear about the fact that what a person has worked for until his death continues to be important for the earth. In saying this, I am expressing a thought that still seems quite paradoxical to people today, but which is becoming more and more important; and I am convinced that the time must come when, for example, the following will be done, when people will say to themselves: In our time, this or that question has become important for social coexistence or something else. Let us not only ask our contemporaries about such a question, let us also ask the spirits of the past, but let us ask them in such a way that they would speak to us today, when the wisdom they have gained has been expanded.

I know that many people would not consider this a truly useful thought for humanity. If not only Mr. So-and-so were heard in the parliament of the present, but if Goethe or Schiller were also heard in the parliament, but really heard. In short, I believe that the idea of immortality can be grasped in a completely different way than in the selfish sense. It can be grasped in such a way that we not only believe in the existence of what a person has processed in his soul after death, but also in the fertility, in the effective influx of what has now been processed by him into life. Sometimes it is difficult to express such a thing in general terms, because among the thoughts that I mentioned last Sunday as emerging from the depths of the soul like our ideas, some are the thoughts of the dead. We have to realize that while we think we are having an idea, a dead person is speaking to us. Those who familiarize themselves with this idea know very well that many a dead person speaks through the heart of a living person after his death, saying things that he can only express after his “death. Until his physical death, a person may have had an obstacle in his physical organization that prevented him from seeing clearly. When his life organism has fallen away, he expresses himself about this matter in a way that corresponds to his life experience. Then one must only meet him halfway, then one must be able to free oneself from vanity, not to take some things as one's own idea, but as the saying of a dead person, which he may say after three to four years.

Believing in the effectiveness of those who have passed through the gate of death must become part of the future idea of immortality. My dear friends, it will be of no use to future humanity if it is merely convinced that there is a spiritual life. It will be of use to future humanity, of course not in a trivial sense, it will be of use to humanity only if it knows how to make fruitful for the living what the dead still achieve after their death, if it can be established that the living and the dead can live together. This will be possible if spiritual science is not treated as a theory, but is accepted as something that fertilizes our feelings and permeates our entire soul life. We will certainly have to get used to communicating with the dead!

We have already mentioned a number of things in our reflections on the relationship between the living and the dead, but I must always point out one thing. We must hold on to the fact that we remain connected to those who leave the earth and with whom we have somehow been karmically connected. The connection must not be an abstract one. The connection should become a concrete one, because the most striking thing in the life of the soul after death is that the life of the soul after death is pictorial, that what is to be established as a community between the soul of a living person here and the soul of a dead person must be clothed in imagery. Remembering does not build a bridge. Only when we remember in a concrete way, remembering life situations in which we were with the dead person, remembering them so clearly as if we had them in front of us, seeing each other, hearing the sound of his words, but the words he really spoke – what we have shaped from him in this way is an image that once existed, that once really lived on earth. We then proceed to behave within this image as we would have behaved if the “dead man were still alive; we ask him a question, we tell him this or that; he will not answer us at first, but in the way we indicated on Sunday, we may receive an answer under certain circumstances. It all depends on the image and on the fact that you really develop the images, complete them in your mind and present them to your soul. You cannot remain cold in the process; our whole soul is involved. Those who develop an image in this way will live out exactly the same love that they lived out here when the dead person was still around. If this love is not lived out, it is only because we do not make the effort to bring the image to life. If we stimulate our minds in this way to turn to the dead in a concrete way, in a pictorial way, in a way that is imbued with the soul, we gain the opportunity to build a bridge from us to that realm where the dead live and weave, then we gradually gain the opportunity to be able to bring in a living way the impulses that emanate from the dead. Our social and ethical life must become such that the dead live among us as souls, that they continue to work, but they cannot work in a ghostly way. Only by opening our souls to them can they enter into a real exchange. It is of infinite importance to acquire a sound judgment in this area, because it is precisely in this area that what I have said in general must be observed in each individual case.

People today already have the longing, the instinctive need, to come into contact with the spiritual world, they just reject the only possible ways of doing so at present. In this respect, even the most enlightened people prove to be very stubborn. I will give you an example that you may already know, but which I still want to present.

You see, a very important English naturalist is Sir Oliver Lodge. He has devoted much thought to the connection between man and the spiritual world, especially to the part where the so-called dead are. Now the war in particular led him to devote a great deal of attention to this matter. Mr. Lodge's son was called up to serve at the Franco-German front. And while Mr. Lodge's son was serving there, the father received a letter from America informing him that his son would be in a difficult situation in the near future, that is, in the west in the fall of 1915, but that after the disaster had occurred, old friend Myers, who had long since died, would protect his son.

Those who are familiar with the machinations in this area will not be surprised. This letter could be correct in two cases, among others. One could be: Mr. Lodge's son was almost killed at the front, but escaped with his life. In America, whoever made this announcement would have said that Myers had held his protective hand from beyond the grave to keep him from being shot. But if he had been shot, which is what happened, people believed that Mr. Myers would have held his hand protectively over it. But most people are very satisfied with such general things. Well. Mr. Lodge's son fell, and the waves from America followed up the matter. He received more letters that Myers held his hand over the soul and that the son's soul longed to connect with Lodge and his family. As is done in such a case, it all happens by itself, but the strings are pulled behind the scenes. Several mediums came to the Lodge home and behaved as mediums. All kinds of things were communicated that the soul of Mr. Lodge's son wanted to share with the family. Lodge wrote a thick book about it. It is exemplary in a sense because Lodge is a skilled naturalist and has mastered the scientific method. So everything is conscientiously carried out that you really have the opportunity everywhere in this book to see what was available. The book caused a tremendous stir. It was like a testimony to the existence of a world that connects to ours, in which the dead live, and that people long to know something about. But for those who read the book with the appropriate critical spirit, these things are not convincing.

The following passage caused the most sensation. The one medium reported from the son of Mr. Lodge that he had himself photographed with a group of comrades 14 days before he was killed at the front, and the medium described exactly: He sat with his comrades, the photographer took two pictures, and [in the first] picture, the son of the gentleman was holding his neighbor's hand like this, then the change that was made with the hand, with the whole gesture of the son of the gentleman Lodge - [all of that] was indicated exactly. [It] briefly [said] described the photograph in its various shots. The strange thing was that this photograph had not yet arrived in England, no one in the family could know anything about the photograph, so there could be no question of thought transfer. It was striking. It was, so to speak, an experimentum crucis. Because the photographs only arrived 14 to three weeks later, exactly as the medium had described them. This is, so to speak, the crowning glory of this thick book, which caused a tremendous stir in England and America. A conscientious naturalist, my dear friends, all kinds of things are presented to us, and one can understand that laypeople really have a hard time when a conscientious naturalist describes how to get out of the web that is spun there. However, I was a little surprised that Lodge did not know anything specific. For what was actually going on here? It was a very characteristic, beautiful school case of remote viewing. Everyone who is familiar with the spiritual scientific literature knows the cases where not only [spatial] but also [temporal] remote viewing occurs, where someone sees something today that will happen in a fortnight. The medium has done nothing more than describe the photographs that will be in front of the people 14 days or three weeks later. The whole manifestation is not the slightest proof that the soul of the son of Lord Lodge has manifested itself. A remote vision that was seen in Lodge's house in London three weeks ago, which was to happen. The vision did not go beyond the physical plane. It was a vision, but it did not go beyond the physical plane. Just such a distinction must be learned if one is to be truly spiritual. External events can deceive even those who are great practitioners in the mediumistic field.

Knowledge of nature must be experienced in such a way that one can say of these experiences: they cannot lead one into the spiritual world, even if they bring to light such facts that require forces other than those usually possessed by man. Only then will spiritual science be imbued with the right meaning it is intended to have. It must not be less critical and less exact than science. One must beware of what even a learned naturalist experiences through deception; but one will gradually become knowledgeable in such things. This will lead to the fact that spiritual-scientific methods, which are meant here, really lead to making the ideas of immortality fruitful. We must familiarize ourselves with the thought that the dead walk among us, that human social and ethical structures are pieced together with us.

Yesterday, because such thoughts must be said at most to those who are open to suggestions, I pointed to a certain basic law. While we must strive to seek the impulses in the soul itself that allow us to lead an awakening life even after the twenties, in the older times of human development after the Atlantic catastrophe, this was a natural, elementary fact of life in the older times of human development after the Atlantic catastrophe, that man lives to be old. In the first post-Atlantean period, it was really the case that he experienced his second dentition, his sexual maturity, in such a way that his spiritual life was dependent on the physical until the fifties, in the Persian period until the forties years, in the Egyptian-Chaldean time until the 25th to 32nd year; in a sense, humanity is getting younger and younger; it must be able to make itself older through inner spiritual schooling. We also spoke about this here on Sunday, insofar as [...] can be spoken in a public lecture. If you do not rely on the external historical documents, which are by no means correct, you will find in the seventh to eighth century before the Mystery of Golgotha that before the period, due to the special state of mind of the soul that was present, people actually knew about repeated earthly lives because living with the physical body beyond the age of 35 gave them that knowledge naturally. In ancient times, it was a matter of course for those who were not asleep to speak of repeated lives on earth. It was only after the seventh or eighth century BC that humanity lost the ability to speak of repeated lives on earth through atavistic contemplation.

What is this based on? You see, this human life, even as we find it here on earth between birth and death, is actually a very complicated thing. We are a microcosm and the macrocosm plays into this microcosm. Anyone who believes that human life is something simple only wants to follow his or her own convenience. When we have passed the age of 35, our physical organism enters into a certain organic stage, which can be described as such. Before that, however, only in the fine structures, which anatomists do not come across, life really goes downhill, and there were previously sprouting, sprouting forces. We no longer experience this today, because we only experience up to the 27th year. But because we do not experience this, we do not actually experience in a conscious sense today what can give us certainty of repeated earthly lives. Until the seventh or eighth century, all people had this certainty beyond the age of 35. From this 35th year onwards, the forces of Ahriman begin to play a strong role in our physical life. These Ahrimanic forces have the task of bringing about the other phenomenon of decline. If we live with them and transform them into knowledge, we have pointed Ahriman in the right direction. The Egyptians experienced the phenomenon of decline, experienced Ahriman. They experienced the knowledge of repeated earthly lives through what Ahriman causes in the phenomenon of decline of life. Then Ahriman became, so to speak, untraceable, insensible; one could no longer know through inner experience the repeated lives on earth. But another time will come, approximately in the year 4000 of the Christian era, so still a fairly long span of time from now on. Around 3500, as humanity continues to move downwards – today to 27 /gap in transcription] to 15. [gap in transcription] 28. [gap in transcription] 29. [gap in transcription] 30. [gap in transcription] 31. [gap in transcription] 32. [gap in transcription] 33. [gap in transcription] 34. [gap in transcription] 35. [gap in transcription] 36. [gap in transcription] 37. [gap in transcription] 38. [gap in transcription] 39. [gap in transcription] 40. [gap in transcription] 41. [gap in transcription] 42. [gap in transcription] 43. [gap in transcription] 44. [gap in transcription] 45. [gap in transcription] 46. [gap in transcription] 47. [gap in transcription]

In the year 4000, there will be a different influence. Then people will become aware of what is strongest in this respect at the beginning of their lives, because the ability to develop will end so early.

Another real result, which, you may find [gap in the transcript], although it is an enormous and disturbing event for the spiritual researcher to learn about, when it goes further down into the seven thousandth year, where the physical body will give even less. Women will be infertile in the seven thousandth year. The kind of human reproduction that is now, will no longer be possible. Another kind of reproduction will occur. The transformations that will occur to the earth will be great. These things sound crazy to today's people who have today's ways of thinking.

A professor in London gave a very witty lecture. Dewar described the final state of the earth, which will occur after millions of years. He used completely correct physical methods, of course, from the point of view of a physicist – absolutely nothing – to show that because the earth will cool down so much, the air we breathe today will be liquefied. What is now sea will be liquid air, and it will cover the earth as a liquid. Other gases will have become denser. And now he describes very ingeniously how the other substances will have changed. Certain wires, because they are thin, can only withstand a few kilograms today, but will then support tons because of the different state of the gases. All materials will have different properties. Other materials will become luminescent, the protein, it will be able to glow at night. And now, as he says very ingeniously, one will be able to read newspapers by the light that is then created by the walls coated with protein.

Anyone who is capable of thinking will wonder how it will happen that the milk that has been solidified will be milked by the newspapers, how the newspapers will be printed – in short, you can't get to the end of it. But the calculation is correct, the method is scientific. There is nothing to be said against the physical. But how is it done? You can follow the finer anatomical and physiological structure of the stomach or another human organ as it is in its 21st, 22nd year and so on. You can calculate further and work out what the organ will be like in 300 years. You can say: After 300 years the stomach will have this structure – only after 300 years the person will no longer have the stomach. So it is with calculations based on science; they are scientific, but not realistic. It will be possible to coat the walls, it will be possible to read newspapers with luminescent protein, it will be possible for milk to solidify - but the earth will have perished.

People will have to learn to think not only scientifically but also realistically. Because only in direct spiritual vision can one grasp what is happening. But there are such laws as I have described to you now. Humanity must learn not to shrink from what seems paradoxical to it today. Even the way of thinking. The healthy-sensing human being has always revolted against something like Laplace's theory. Grimm says: Long before Goethe's youth, it was known what was later called Laplace's theory; the sun is said to have formed with the planets in a certain time, then man, the animals; nothing else has to happen but that the sun is maintained at the appropriate temperature. Grimm adds: A piece of carrion circled by a hungry dog is a more appetizing piece than this theory of Laplace.

Just the most fundamental things of the present, that in the place of the today safely believed, but just fanatical /gap in the transcript] truth. But there people will often have to learn to stick to the truth, to really take in the truth in their soul, so that it becomes the basic character of the being, no longer to stick to the excuse: I heard it this way, I couldn't have known it any other way. The obligation to tell the truth.

Perhaps one would believe that in no other field is the obligation to tell the truth more far-fetched than in the field of present-day science. There one experiences quite distressing things. I will not speak of such things, which, as it were, are close to us personally. You will find a nice example in the second chapter of “Seelenrätsel,” where I showed how a contemporary researcher reads; another example of the same kind in the second edition of the same writing by the writer in question. There the person in question says that my “Philosophy of Freedom” is my first work. No one can take it any other way than as my first work. He looked it up and tried to talk his way out of it. He did not mean that it could be easily seen that this was my first book, but that it was my first theosophical book. Those who know the facts can only laugh at that.

Perhaps I can illustrate this point with another example. I gave a public lecture in which I was obliged to illustrate something that I drew, how the human physical organism is nothing short of a miracle. How it works in such a way that you can really see: what happens inside a person, even in just one part of the organism, is infinitely more wonderful than what happens externally on a musical instrument when the most wonderful piece is played. If you observe how the cerebrospinal fluid, in which the brain is embedded, is driven up and down through the spinal canal with each breath, through places that can more or less narrow or widen, will experience something like an interaction with the meninges of the spinal canal – sometimes one meninx widens more, sometimes less – and will really come to understand [that the human organism can be seen as an image of the macrocosm]. I was obliged to speak of cerebral fluid, and in the same lecture I was obliged to refute the merely symbolic view. The reporter wrote, among other things, the following: I had indeed rejected the symbolic, but I would use the most impossible terms in the most impossible places, for example, “cerebral fluid”.

My dear friends! Brain water is something very real, otherwise the brain would crush the blood vessels that lie beneath it. Brain water makes it possible for the brain to lose so much of its weight that it does not crush the veins. But the man who writes this has no idea that brain water is something real and not something symbolic to describe something that is not true.

There are thousands, millions of examples like this. I just want to point out that it is so necessary, that we feel obliged to say what we say, to give the prerequisite [gap in the transcript]

We will truly have to become clearer about some things than we are inclined to be today. We all know, of course, the development of Christianity, but you see, my dear friends, this is also necessarily connected with the fact that we are now also pursuing the outer side of the church in its truth, that we are looking into everything that must change if it is not to turn out even more disastrously. But the connection that exists is not known to some people at all. It lives between the lines of popular literature and creeps into the human soul. Not only do people who live on the outside not know, but neither do those whose profession it is. Very strange things are happening, and we must consider it our task in the present to look into such things. You know that you will get nowhere if you divide people into body and soul. Philosophy claims that it is an unconditional science. If you examine the individual links, you come to strange things. Wundt: “Body and soul” - he has no idea how little prejudice this division is. Where does it come from? It was elevated to a dogma after the Council of Constantinople in 869: “Man consists not of three, but of two members.” From this it became the case that in the Middle Ages the Trinity was frowned upon, was hereticized, and the philosophers live off that.

Recently, a wonderful piece occurred. A professor who is actually quite average and does nothing writes a little book in the collection of “nature and the spiritual world”, in which he speaks as befits a doctor [of classical philology, astrology and astronomy]. In the final chapter, he commented on Goethe's horoscope. He talked about what it is as a whole, he just wants to show that in the course of Goethe's life these things have turned out in such a way that the matter corresponds to the horoscope. He does not say: anyone who believes in a [gap in the transcript] is a rhinoceros; but he does say quite clearly that this is his opinion. Mauthner was furious that the professor was writing about a horoscope at all, and because he was angry, he didn't notice that the professor was writing from the same point of view, and wrote an angry feature article against this book. Those who know this book and the feature article couldn't imagine why Mauthner was so terribly angry. He means exactly the same thing.

Then the professor sent in his justification, explaining that he fully agreed with Mauthner, that it was based on a misunderstanding. The relevant journal wrote: They had nothing to add; they had not been able to convince themselves that a misunderstanding had occurred. They had sent the essay to Mauthner and he had not found that he had anything to say about it either. The people agree, but then they jump each other.

But that is significant of what is happening today in all possible fields. People wage war against each other, people feud with each other, and sometimes things are like between this gentleman and Mauthner. In their hearts of hearts they don't know why, because one is far removed from having such ideas, such conceptions, that are immersed in life, that are realistic. A thing can be very logical, but not realistic.

[This includes, my dear friends, a certain inner courage that must glow in the soul, a courage that people today know nothing about. When we point out in the present how spiritual science, in contrast to a world view that believes it offers reality but is far from it, how spiritual science has to bring the soul to immerse itself in reality, to live with the real. If we teach [gap in transcript] to live with the [gap in transcript], to grasp it, then some of what humanity needs so much to get out of the [gap in transcript] can be achieved, and the sense of unreality, the unreal thinking, is not to blame for the least part. If we try to make our relationship to time our guiding principle in this way, then we will understand spiritual science not only in theory, but [...] Again, it is particularly important here that not only what is among you lives, but that the intention lives on and is realized. The most important thing about spiritual science is that it works in our souls as a living impulse, in our soul continues [...]

The crisis in human development that has occurred since the middle of the 15th century can be observed in spiritual science, even if not anatomically, in the physical body. The transition from the mind or feeling soul to the consciousness soul is a very significant one. In the present period: consciousness soul, and so on.

The Greeks felt the etheric body, but modern man does not. The Greeks felt the etheric body within the physical body, the form of the arm, the hand and so on. This was gradually lost, around the eighth or ninth century, and was completely lost by the fifteenth century. Not only did people no longer feel their etheric body, but the physical body began to decrease in size. It dried up more and more, became less and less, and hardened more and more. In the past, human bodies were softer – roughly speaking.

The sixth or seventh millennium BC marks the beginning of the ancient Indian period. Life was very different back then. Children, and even people of thirty, looked up to the elderly with great reverence and trust. Now, at seven years of age, the teeth change; at fourteen years of age, sexual maturity sets in; at 21 years of age, ideals are established. This last change is hardly noticed anymore. In the primeval Indian period, this development continued. The spiritual and soul-like is increasingly being replaced. With each seven-year cycle, something new came into life that man had not experienced before. The youthful human being was then happy to become older and older. However, this developmental opportunity decreased more and more.

From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards, this development stopped at the age of 28, and now it is the case that we actually only receive something through the body up to the age of 27, and that is becoming less and less, so that people no longer receive anything through the body, so that they have to see to receive something through the spirit. Such observations have to be made in order to understand the meaning of historical development.

Lloyd George and Erzberger are examples of such self-made men who have only received what the world around us can give, and have received nothing more from the spiritual, from their own efforts and so on.

We would face terrible times if social conditions did not return to the patriarchal conditions of the primeval Indian times. In our sixties, we have certain qualities, depending on our childhood education experiences. If a child has learned at the appropriate age to fold his hands in prayer, then this person gains the ability to bless with his hand in his old age. These are the connections. From this you will see the importance of a living education. It depends on bringing what corresponds to the forces at work each year to the child. When teaching children of seven, one must not appeal to the intellect. But reading and writing do appeal to the intellect. In the Waldorf school, we want to start with painting, drawing, and music. Art engages the human will. Drawing and form drawing affects the whole person. From these forms and lines, writing should gradually develop and from writing, reading. Because this is even more intellectual than writing.

In fables and legends – from the age of nine – where the self is already becoming stronger, plants and animals will gradually be introduced into the curriculum. Each year must be approached in this way. Then what is taught remains for life. What the teacher transfers to the pupils with fire and zeal is based purely on authority. At a later age, this comes up again through the revival of what rests in the soul. As a result, one then knows and understands what one has previously absorbed. More and more, education must be such that one can look back on one's childhood as on a paradise. This is necessary if only because the bodies no longer give us anything.

We now have to bring a lot with us through the gateway of death that we have not processed, that we have not been able to live out. Therefore, we have the following: that the dead develop the urge to have an effect on the physical world. This should be investigated in the normal way, not mediumistically. The forces that can work from the dead into the physical world can do so in such a way that we do not ignore the forces. When we wake up, we slip into our physical and etheric bodies so quickly that we don't bring anything with us. We can change this by vividly imagining a dead person in the evening. Vividly: this is how the dead person was, this is how he lived, this is how I was with him; now ask the dead person a question and then fall asleep with it. Then you have, as it were, directed your nightly life to this dead person. Now the dead person can approach this question. If he is able to answer this question, then he will answer. But not immediately, but over time, and then the answer will come during the course of the day. And then the dead who want to have an effect on the physical world can carry this into the physical world.

I would not say this if I did not know it for a fact. I could not have written anything about Goethe if I had not first tried to see what Goethe would have said or would say now or in the 1860s. If I had not had the opportunity to do such serious research into the influence of the dead, I would not say this with such certainty. In brief: we are able to let the dead be our fellow citizens.

Then life becomes richer, but we also need this. Bridges must be built to the spiritual world. Especially young people bring a lot of undeveloped things into the spiritual world.

Christianity came from east to west – horizontally. Now spiritual entities are coming down – vertically. The fresh brains of the proletariat are coming to meet them – from bottom to top. There is only one salvation for the bourgeoisie today: to turn to spiritual thinking. It is a fact of world history that the spiritual must enter into people, into spiritual life. But many people today do not want to understand this. This realization makes us ripe to understand many things, for example, the egoism of religious denominations. Life after death is what the denominations must spread. But they should also teach life before birth or before conception. The present life is a continuation of the life before birth.

One more thing: the God of whom the religious denominations speak corresponds only to the angel within us.

In the West, people have tried to come together with the dead. They have directed mediums to them and given them special questions, for example: “How will the Balkan situation develop?” The people asked went into the mediumistic state with such questions. They then acted on the answers that came out, because in the West. They knew very well that they should turn to those people who knew how to give the right answers. For example, they turned to the Thugs in India because they knew very well that they could provide information about such things. These associations existed in India until they were dissolved by the police. In Germany, people didn't believe that because they are much too clever to believe what comes from the spiritual. It is different in the East. Tagore's speeches. The spiritual that still lives in him resonates through them. We tend more to the West than to the East. The bridge must be built from West to East.

The best translation of “Maya” today is “ideology.” Only in essence is the exact opposite regarded as Maya in the East and West.

In our spiritual life, we are steeped in Greek life; in our state life, we are attuned to the Romans; only in economic life have we had to tune ourselves to modern times. You cannot eat what the Greeks ate, but what is available now.

Then we come up to the archangeloi, the spirits of the people, and get to know them. Zeitgeister - Archai; Urgeister; Zeitempfindung.

In the West: mechanization of the spiritual. In the East: animalization of the bodies. In the middle: oversleeping, not understanding what is going on.

The animalization of the body in Russia as one path – the other: spiritual realization. This path must be chosen. Draw strength from spiritual impulses for one's social conscience. That is what I would like to have expressed from the deepest feeling, so that a sense of responsibility remains to take account of the times.

Circular letter from Carl Unger, Stuttgart, [July 13, 1920]

Dear friends!

A few weeks ago, you received a circular letter informing you of the plan to hold a General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society. This was accompanied by a request to indicate the likely number of participants in a non-binding way and to make suggestions for the proceedings. Today, I regret to have to inform you that this plan has had to be abandoned because the circumstances do not allow it to be pursued at present. It cannot be the intention of the Anthroposophical Society to convene a meeting that consists of the few members who “can just come” under the current difficult circumstances; our cause is too serious for that. An effective meeting is not to be hoped for under the present conditions. However, it is very important to me to take this opportunity, and precisely in view of the current circumstances, to address the situation of the Anthroposophical Society, even if only briefly today, and I ask that the following be communicated to the members of your working group, and only to them.

On various occasions during his presence in Stuttgart in June, Dr. Steiner pointed out that the work of our movement has entered a new phase of development for some time now, and that this is entirely in the closest connection with the present world situation. The Anthroposophical Society was founded on purely spiritual goals, encompassing a movement without a fixed organizational form, burdened with all kinds of legacies from the former Theosophical Society. In the period immediately following the founding of the Society, we found ourselves still in the midst of discussions about the aims and paths of the Anthroposophical Society for quite some time; even the two general assemblies that had so far been held had to serve these discussions,

but they did not come to a conclusion, and indeed it was advisable to keep these matters in a certain fluidity. I myself was able to travel around a lot at the time and discuss the aims and ways, many of my lectures at that time dealt with the draft of the principles of an Anthroposophical Society written by Dr. Steiner, in which the indications of the ideal cohesion of the members are given. Unfortunately, I had to leave this preparatory work, which was intended to help prepare a healthy foundation for the Society, unfinished after the 1914 General Assembly for the sake of other work, and the affairs of the Society had to be suspended during the long war, if only for the reason that the Anthroposophical Society is only justified on an international basis.

Since then, the world situation has changed fundamentally, and the fact that it is still not possible to hold an international general assembly of our society today, 20 months after the armistice, can be seen as a characterization of the situation in a certain direction. If Stuttgart were chosen as the venue for the General Assembly, a considerable number of our German members would come together, but the members from non-German countries would be underrepresented. If, however, Dornach were chosen as the venue for the meeting, where the spiritual center of our movement is located at the Goetheanum, then, with a few negligible exceptions, the German members would be excluded. The only remaining option would be to invite the German members to Stuttgart and to organize a corresponding event in Dornach. But there are very important reasons against such a plan, which are again related to the world situation.

From the very beginning of our movement, Dr. Steiner repeatedly pointed out in his lectures that the time would come when it would be necessary to use anthroposophy to exert our full influence on practical life. The harrowing events of our time have precipitated this point in history more quickly than we could have imagined, and the circumstances are laden with such terrible tragedy that the responsibility is growing to gigantic proportions. From the real life of our movement, forms are beginning to emerge that are turning outward with all their might. Here, above all, the Goetheanum in Dornach must be mentioned, with its various societies: the “Verwaltungsgesellschaft des Goetheanum Dornach”, the “Treuhandgesellschaft des Goetheanum Dornach, Sitz Stuttgart” , the “Verein Goetheanismus Dornach”. The Goetheanum attracts the greatest attention of the thousands of visitors who come from all directions, and as the spiritual center of the movement it begins to radiate its strong forces; but it also has the effect of arousing bitter opposition, for which any means are justified in order to destroy the spiritual movement. Officially, however, the Goetheanum is not yet appreciated for its significance, and distressing evidence of this is coming from many sides. If this were different, many things could indeed be undertaken in Dornach that cannot be undertaken at present. Every effort would have to be directed towards completing the Goetheanum, which unfortunately the Mittelland members, who have largely supported the construction up to now, are no longer able to do; they are virtually excluded from visiting the construction site.

The “Federation for the Threefold Social Organism” turns completely outward, and does so on an international basis, although for the time being it still has to work from different centers. The idea of the threefold social order, as presented by Dr. Steiner in his 'Key Points of the Social Question', is drawn entirely from the sources of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and the members of our movement feel responsible for ensuring that the threefold movement is fed by the life of spiritual science. It is all the more surprising when one hears from time to time that individual members of the Anthroposophical Society want nothing to do with the threefold social order, although it should be clear that if the ideas of the threefold social order are not implemented in the spiritual, political and economic institutions in the near future, there will soon be no opportunity to pursue anthroposophy at one's own convenience. Conversely, there are also people who profess to appreciate the ideas of threefolding but want nothing to do with spiritual science. But of course you cannot expect to draw from a stream if you deny its source. We are fully open to public criticism regarding the threefolding, it must be propagandized so that a sufficiently large number of people are seized by this idea. The anthroposophical movement must supply it with strength, and everything must be avoided that could compromise this idea in public from within the Anthroposophical Society.

The Waldorf School, an initiative of our friend Emil Molt, now offers the long-awaited opportunity for a larger number of teachers from among our members to apply the educational principles in the manner of an art under the direct guidance and instruction of Dr. Steiner. These principles are designed to educate people who can truly rise to the great challenges of the future. The Free Waldorf School has already gained a certain amount of respect from the public, but of course it will also face hostility, especially when it proves its spiritual significance. This is already becoming clear. The newly founded Waldorf School Association has made the support of the school its special task, but it has also set itself further goals. The Waldorf School calls for its continuation up to the university level. It will connect with research institutes that have also been set up. Since eurythmy is used in a pedagogically hygienic way at the Waldorf School, the urgent necessity is already emerging for the school, as well as for our movement in general, to provide a place for the cultivation of this universal art as a 'Eurythmeum'. The archives that are being set up in Dornach and Stuttgart are also part of our spiritual arsenal. It is hoped that spiritual impulses will be provided from such spiritual centers for humanity, which is rushing towards the abyss, and which it needs to bring about a possible future.

The necessity to safeguard such spiritual centers and at the same time to show practical ways of implementing the threefold social order led to the decision to found the “Kommenden Tag, Aktiengesellschaft zur Förderung wirtschaftlicher und geistiger Werte” (a joint-stock company for the promotion of economic and spiritual values). With this, however, we are beginning to work from the spiritual science into the most practical of circumstances, which have their significance in everyday life. A prospectus to be published soon will provide more details about the current situation of this joint-stock company. Here, of course, any possibility of shyness in public must be completely abandoned, and we find ourselves in the most real relationships with our environment; indeed, we must strive to expand the influence of these enterprises as far as possible.

The Anthroposophical Society has always been a purely spiritual movement and within such a movement many things can be tolerated because the purely spiritual has its own laws for enforcement. But now that we are going public in a wide variety of directions, we are not allowed to embarrass ourselves in any way or to be embarrassed by dilettantism and cliquishness, or by sectarian desires. Everything the Anthroposophical Society wants to undertake must be considered from the point of view of how it will be received by the public. But such actions must not fail or fizzle out. Even a general assembly of the Anthroposophical Society must be an action that commands respect, and therefore all possibilities must be carefully considered in advance. But such a success, as we absolutely need it, could not be safely anticipated for this time, so, quite apart from the reasons given above, the holding of a general assembly had to be postponed for the time being. However, every effort should be made to work towards the goal of holding such an assembly as soon as possible, one that can negotiate on a very serious basis.

In view of the seriousness of the situation, I felt compelled to go into all these matters in some detail. Unfortunately, there is no possibility of visiting the working groups in the near future to discuss these matters; but I will try to establish a connection between the working groups through such reports. If this letter gives rise to any questions or comments, I will be happy to answer them after discussing them with a trusted group of colleagues.

With warmest anthroposophical greetings, Dr.-Ing. Carl Unger. Correspondence to Dr.-Ing. Carl Unger, Stuttgart, Werastraße 13.

Report in the “Mitteilungen des Zentralvorstandes der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft” No. 1/1921.

At four o'clock, Dr. Unger opens the discussion on the prerequisites, tasks and goals of an Anthroposophical Society and welcomes the numerous members of the Anthroposophical Society (about 1200) present. After a few procedural remarks that this is not a general assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, nor a founding assembly, but a gathering of the members present here, he hands over the chair to Mr. Uehli, who then gives Dr. Unger the floor as speaker.

Dr. Unger: We are in a difficult position with our movement in the midst of the decline of spiritual life, surrounded by organized opposition, behind which stand spiritual forces that we initially have to counter with only our free will to work. In order to arrive at a discussion of our main questions, some of the history of the anthroposophical movement should be presented, which is briefly outlined in my essay in the double issue of “Drei” appearing on the occasion of this congress, as it must be known to the public today. In future, no opponent must be allowed to claim ignorance of these facts. (What now follows is a reproduction of this essay, which may be read on the spot. The essay ends with the publication of the 'Draft of the Foundations of an Anthroposophical Society' written by Dr. Rudolf Steiner.) Unfortunately, there is reason to assume that even today this 'Draft of the Basic Principles' is not sufficiently known among the members of the Anthroposophical Society to fulfill its task. In the early days after the founding of the Society, it was my task to give lectures to the individual working groups that existed at the time and were forming rapidly about the tasks and goals of the Society. I had already indicated the Society's point of view in Number XIII (March 1912) of the “Mitteilungen” (Communications) for the members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, and characterized it by the words “trust” and “responsibility”. The founding committee considered itself responsible for the spiritual current and wanted to call for people to come forward who were willing to share this responsibility. Working groups were to be formed and a kind of trust organization was to be created from trustworthy personalities, who in turn should be willing to take responsibility for what they achieve to the founding committee, just as each individual member should be willing to take their share of responsibility to the trustworthy personalities. Trust should be the prerequisite for responsibility: just as the task was entrusted to the anthroposophical movement, so should trust be expressed in people, that in their hearts the spiritual current that is to be served is at work, trust in the will and understanding of those who approached the task in order to take on the responsible task of building something that could last into the future within the increasingly collapsing world of the present.

A motto precedes the 'Draft of the Basic Principles': 'Wisdom is only in the truth'. (From Goethe's Prose Sayings.) This motto was placed in its position when the Theosophical Society fought against the truth in an organizational way, when untruthfulness, lies and defamation began to cloak themselves in the nimbus of wisdom. In a serious sense, this motto calls us to the starting points of our society. A simple overview of the content of the “Draft” shows that the prerequisites, tasks and goals of the Anthroposophical Society are set out here. It contains an obligation in that every member must know it before joining the Society. But this obligation does not lie in the external organizational structure; rather, the Society as such should mean something to its members in a human sense.

There are secret societies with which the Anthroposophical Society is often compared, albeit wrongly. But for the members of such secret societies, their society means something. Of course there are also disputes among their members, and there are also apostates, but it will certainly not happen that such people will carry anything to the outside world that could harm their society. The Society as such is respected above and beyond all differences of opinion. This is one of the prerequisites of the Anthroposophical Society, which cannot establish a connection between its members through external discipline, obedience and the like, but must achieve this connection out of a free understanding of genuine spiritual life.

The goal of “a satisfying and healthy way of life” is pursued by the Anthroposophical Society in accordance with the “Draft of the Basic Principles” “by promoting genuine and healthy research directed towards the supersensible and by cultivating its influence on the human way of life”; “true spiritual research and the attitude of mind that arises from it shall give the Society its character”; thus from the very beginning the main emphasis has been placed on the practical side of life, and what has since emerged as the effect of anthroposophy on the various areas of life is precisely part of the ‘cultivation of its influence on human conduct’. The three guiding principles, in which the character of the Society can be expressed, are based on true spiritual research. They are prerequisites or conditions for the work of the Society, which sets itself and is not intended to present an external commandment. In particular, the first guiding principle shows that brotherhood is not presented as a phrase or abstract demand, but that it can result from observing the spiritual that is common to all human souls. In order to gain influence on the way of life, the work of Dr. Steiner had to be given the widest possible distribution. It must be added here to the history of the Anthroposophical Society that the initial period after its founding had to be devoted to the inner attitude towards the goals. However, this work was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of war. An Anthroposophical Society only makes sense on an international basis. However, the way in which national matters were handled during the war did not allow for external work. In addition, of the three founders of the Society who served as the Central Board, Dr. Steiner (Miss von Sivers) resigned from her post at the beginning of 1916, so that an interim administration of the Society had to be set up. And in the following years, Mr. Bauer's state of health repeatedly led him to announce his decision to resign from the central board, so that this wish could not be ignored.

The fact that the inner work was able to continue to a certain extent is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that after the armistice was concluded, out of the necessity to make a serious effort to implement the life-promoting impulses of spiritual science in the midst of the collapse of the traditional way of life, many initiatives were taken, initially by individuals. Forms began to develop out of the anthroposophical movement that were increasingly isolated from the outside world: the threefolding movement, the artistic impulses of the Goetheanum, eurythmy, the Waldorf school, research institutes, university courses, etc. All of this worked to influence people's way of life. In the explanations of the “guiding principles”, the “draft principles” then speak of an ideal of life that can be a general human ideal of how to live. Reference is made to the exemplary nature that can flow from the living interaction of the members, but that can only be shaped if the members have the right attitude despite the “complete appreciation of the thinking and feeling of the individual”.

The draft contains much that prompts us to ask: has the Anthroposophical Society fulfilled its tasks, is it in a position to fulfill them in the future? This will be the subject of our discussion. It has become quite evident in the present time that “the human being needs to know and cultivate his own supersensible nature and that of the world around him,” as stated at the beginning of the “Draft of Fundamental Principles”. The souls of people today, especially the souls of young people, are attracted by all kinds of movements with lofty goals that are pursued in an abstract way that suits the times. Such movements seek to attract people who we know are valuable and who should work with us towards our goals. Such valuable people experience great disappointments in these movements. Why don't they come to us?

As a statistical comment, it may be said that the membership of our Society has increased from 3647 in 1914 to 8238 on August 1 of this year; a large increase in membership coincides with the time when strong opposition has become effective. Let us assume that all of the more than 8,000 members own the fundamental works of Dr. Steiner (although not all of them are subscribers to the Threefolding Journal or the “Drei”!). Most of these fundamental works have reached print runs of over 20,000, with the “Core Points of the Social Question” reaching 40,000. With print runs of 20,000, one can certainly expect a readership of 40,000, and these are truly interested readers, because Dr. Steiner's books do not appear in second-hand bookshops. This proves that spiritual science as such is effective; but the Anthroposophical Society is not effective. It must be said, without fear of contradiction, that it is a stumbling block in many quarters, especially for valuable people. Why is this so? That should be the subject of our discussion, for the cooperation of the members of our Society does not correspond to what is stated as a prerequisite in the “Draft of the Basic Principles”.

The Society as such means little in the consciousness of many of its members. One symptom of this is that hundreds of members present here have come to our congress as people interested in the lectures, but not as members of the Society as such. This is shown by the fact that hundreds came without a membership card; this is said without reproach for the individual. There is much that can be said about what happens among us that flies in the face of our principles. But it has consequences that are felt throughout the world. So, in an organization that wants to be based on freedom, giving advice is what can prove to be spiritually effective. In such a society, one must be able to give advice, and such advice should be properly appreciated. Dr. Steiner's position within society is particularly that of an advisor. Dr. Steiner often gave advice, and often the opposite of what he advised happened. But often enough, the effect is that Dr. Steiner is blamed for the opposite of what he advised. I have been able to mention only a few. But much can come from the impulses of this congress for the fulfillment of the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society, which must break away from the inheritance of the old Theosophical Society. I pointed out many things in a circular letter a year ago; the circular letter had no effect. At that time, the success of such a congress could not be assumed with certainty. Now we have ventured this undertaking. Whether it will have the desired effect as an action will depend on the members of the Anthroposophical Society. To do this, we must take a serious and honest look at the situation. What I have said should be the basis for discussion, and you will contribute the best to it.

Mr. Uehli opens the discussion on the presentation and asks for written contributions.

Rector Bartsch underscores Dr. Unger's comments about Dr. Steiner's almost superhuman work and would now like to see the relationships of the members to the only remaining member of the central Executive Council regulated. He continues: Much has come from Stuttgart, as this congress also proves, and much would be better if the members of the Anthroposophical Society had shown themselves equal to their task. A movement with such great tasks would need a daily newspaper, and if the well over 5,000 members in Germany were each to recruit two to three subscribers to the three-part newspaper by Christmas, that would be a great success.

Of course, differences of opinion will always arise, but they can be resolved in the way I have described. We can only become a cohesive society if we are based on mutual trust. We must work towards solidarity. Various prominent figures at the forefront of our movement have been moved by such thoughts and feel it necessary to express that we have confidence in the extension of the board through free election, so that such an active board has the opportunity to embody the thoughts that have flowed from anthroposophy. Mr. Graf von Polzer-Hoditz: It is one of the basic truths of our spiritual movement that everything we decide and do happens at the right time. It is part of the signature of our time that everything has been stirred up in the individual human being. Therefore, we must approach our tasks with the right attitude. On behalf of many anthroposophists in various working groups in Austria, and speaking from my experience of being involved in the movement, I would like to express our confidence that the Central Board, which now consists of only one member, will be able to act again. From our relations with our friends in Czechoslovakia, I can also speak on behalf of those anthroposophists who live in Czechoslovakia today.

Dr. Stein uses an example to show how important it is to consider not only what may bother individuals, but also how things appear to the outside world. This is not given enough thought in our circles. He continues: “From this point of view, I would like to say a few words about the opposition, which is little known by members. You can't let the opponents be dealt with by a few specialists, of whom I am one. We must also take care of the individual issues raised by our opponents, for example, against the new edition of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. We do not represent our spiritual heritage at all if we accept it authoritatively. Each individual has the duty to examine the issues that an opponent wants to cast doubt on, and then to stand up for them when they know that they themselves stand for the cause with their entire personality. We are facing an opposition that does not just want to fight us, but to destroy us. The opponents organize themselves by loving evil. If our members knew that evil is even enthusiastically loved, then the strength would also be mustered to defend what wants to flow out of the sources of anthroposophy into all of humanity.

Mr. Ch. von Morgenstierne: Many difficulties have already been pointed out, and much more could be mentioned, for example, the great danger that our movement is perceived as a sect from many sides. Many influential people are repelled by this. We can best avoid this if we try to present the matter as it is done in the two main centers in Central Europe, in Dornach and Stuttgart. This could be seen at the summer course in Dornach that has just ended and at the present congress. We want to try to follow this example in the different countries. This is also said on behalf of many Nordic friends. We want to stand by the leadership of our movement, and I would also like to express the wish that the connection between the leadership of the Society and the other countries, for example with us in the north, becomes a firm and vibrant one.

Mr. Paul Smit: A true coexistence between people, the interaction from one person to another, which is so necessary for today's world, is often prevented by ideas coming between people. But these perceptions must be overcome as such; they must die in order to be transformed into life. That is why it is so important for the Anthroposophical Society to have people who understand how to practise spiritual science by silencing their perceptions when they are in contact with another person.

Mr. Uehli: Dr. Steiner wishes to read a statement.

Dr. Steiner: In a letter addressed to Dr. Steiner and myself, Mr. Kurt Walther, who has admirably led the management of the Anthroposophical Society in recent years, has resigned his office into the hands of those from whom he received it, in view of the changed circumstances and because it might be necessary to make changes that would be beneficial for the further development of the Society. Mr. Walther has devotedly administered the office within the Central Executive Council during these years, which I resigned at the beginning of 1916 for no other reason than because I did not want to associate Dr. Steiner's name with the thousand small affairs of the Society. Mr. Walther has thus taken on many arduous duties. I would like to publicly express my gratitude to him, who has to be absent today for official reasons.

Mr. George Kaufmann: Conscious of the tasks that the Anthroposophical Society has to fulfill in the whole civilized world today, I would like to warmly welcome the impulses that arise from this assembly. As it is also written in the 'Draft of the Fundamental Principles', this is connected with the fact that a knowledge of the supersensible nature of the human being and the world outside the human being is flowing into the hearts of many people. Therefore, our work is always directed towards the ability to judge and the sense of truth. Much is being done from here and from Dornach in all fields, which is beginning to give the anthroposophical spiritual knowledge respect in the world. The Anthroposophical Society should form the spiritual center of this work. Therefore, the Society must not be a sect, but the serious representative of a deep spiritual impulse. This movement is international, and in our hearts, we who work in different countries, live Dornach and the Goetheanum as the actual center of the movement; but it must be said that what could realize the Goetheanum as the center of the spiritual movement has not yet been done. Something could go out from this assembly to all parts of the world that can realize the internationality of the movement with its spiritual center in the Goetheanum; if a new revival of society emanates from here, where the strongest work is being done, and leads to concrete solidarity, then it will be able to have an effect on the non-German countries.

Mr. J. van Leer: In his opening speech, Dr. Unger pointed out that we are openly expressing here what is on our minds. I would like to point out some of the things that are to blame for the fact that we have not realized what could and should have been realized. The Anthroposophical Society welcomes all people who want to work in our spirit, but when Dr. Steiner pointed in a certain direction, cliques easily formed. One cannot say that the artistic is the main thing, or the threefold social order, or the economic, the school, but one must also look at what has been worked on in the branches for ten to fifteen years. That is also necessary. Recently, for example, Dr. Steiner's work has been focused on science, but if we want to let all of anthroposophy flow into all human hearts, then we must not consider the other aspects as unimportant either, even if sectarianism in the branches is reprehensible. This is one of the serious mistakes in our movement: we do not have enough trust to appreciate all the work. Not everyone can do all the work, but everyone can do work in their own field. We also need people who are not scientifically educated. In our society, everything is represented. If we appreciate the work of all people, we have the basis for the proper leadership of the Anthroposophical Society. If everyone works together and places their trust in the board, then we are a cohesive body that has power in the world, and we will also be able to cope with our opponents.

Mr. Vegelahn: Why is it that spiritual science works but the Anthroposophical Society does not work? I fully agree when the confidence is expressed to the central board here. It is indeed nice when it is said that we must strive for community, but what is given as a knowledge of the supersensible world must be put into the right relationship to what can be experienced here in the physical world. The right foundation for spiritual science can be gained from the 'Philosophy of Freedom'. Dr. Unger has given figures about high print runs. The 'Philosophy of Freedom' was out of print for a long time, and one would have expected the new edition to sell quickly. However, it took quite a long time. If the anthroposophists can show that their powers of judgment have been developed, then other people will have to change their judgment of them over time. Many people come to the Society as if seeking refuge from the disappointments of life, but they must also be able to leave this refuge and return to the world. To do this, they need to have strengthened their powers of judgment through the Philosophy of Freedom.

Dr. Kolisko: It has already been pointed out from various sides how necessary it is for our Society to present a unified front to the outside world. However, it can clearly be observed that a large part of what is directed against our movement as opposition arises from the fact that such a unified approach by all members of the Society is not present, because in many cases a basis of trust is still lacking. For example, when certain things are done after careful consideration, one can be sure that one will encounter mistrust or a lack of understanding and that the actions of many members will be in opposition to this. One must remember a peculiar prejudice against the Threefolding Newspaper, which I often encountered when traveling: namely, that it is too polemical, and that this is the main obstacle to all members supporting it and ensuring its distribution. This is because people are not sufficiently interested in the opposition. It has not been realized that, after the opposition had opened the fight, one was forced to take such a tone, as for example with what we have called positive time criticism. It is the case in our society that before the emergence of the threefolding movement, there was never any possibility of forming a social judgment. One was taken by surprise by the emergence into the public. But this had always been pointed out in the anthroposophical movement. The newspaper has been made as well as it could be, and if it is not yet better, it is because there is not yet broad support.

But one could also notice that there was a certain mistrust when, say, something was undertaken from Dornach or Stuttgart. They do not have the confidence that the things that have been undertaken have emerged from a certain solidarity between groups. We will not be able to work externally if we do not try to let what is being done take effect. So many things are thwarted. For example, negotiations were held with opponents when it would have been better not to negotiate with them after taking the opposing view towards them. It is often the case that outsiders have the impression that there is no society in which things are done in such an unsolidaristic way as in the Anthroposophical Society. This comes from the extraordinarily strong individualization in our society, but we must create such a basis of trust that our actions in public are carried out out of an ever-growing understanding of the movement's overall tasks, following joint deliberation. We must be able to trust the people working in the public sphere, because we have the impression that they are acting out of common understanding. Then we can counteract the formation of cliques. Not everyone needs to be an expert in everything, but everyone can take an interest in what is going on in the anthroposophical movement. The fact that they are not properly integrated into society gives rise to a wide range of grievances. I would just like to mention the issue of Dr. Steiner's lecture cycles, which are intended only for members of the Anthroposophical Society. The Society has been unable to preserve this spiritual material. The situation is such that these cycles have been leaked to a very large extent. In many cases, publishers have been keen to get hold of them. There is a tendency in the Society not to take seriously the words that are written down in the cycles. The admission of members to the Society is also handled in a casual manner, so that people have been admitted who then, due to a certain necessity, had to be excluded again. It is clear that precisely those whom one was forced to exclude have become the worst enemies of the movement. Consider where the opponents get their ideas! From the writings of Seiling. Such people, who like Seiling become our opponents, always come from certain cliques, and what confronts us is a reflection of what is present in our own circles.

All those in society who are really active in their work – and there should be as many as possible – must have the opportunity to trust each other, so that one has the impression that things are happening under responsibility. The individual can only come to a correct judgment through intensive, real collaboration. The task we face today must be to create such a basis of trust in the Anthroposophical Society, so that collaboration takes place from the point of view of feeling that one is standing in the same thing and trusting one another.

Mr. Uehli: A motion has been made to take a break now. Before that, Dr. Unger would like to say a few words.

Dr. Unger: I support this motion and would like to see something happen that will serve to fulfill our tasks. But before that, I have to discharge the most important duty. Various speakers have been kind enough to express their trust in me for what I have done or can still do for society. I can only accept this on the condition that I am allowed to express this trust and our heartfelt thanks to those individuals who were particularly involved in the creation of our society. Above all, I would like to mention Dr. Steiner (applause), who from the very beginning did everything that could be done by human beings to bring about a movement. I have already mentioned that Dr. Steiner's works were not yet valued by people in the sense that a movement came about around the turn of the century. The credit for initiating the movement goes to Dr. Steiner. She combined within herself the knowledge and abilities needed, and especially the will to achieve. It is only thanks to her work that forces could develop within society that can now try to develop something for life based on the spiritual science given by Dr. Steiner.

Among our friends, Mr. Bauer is known precisely for always being a personal center for all living things that can work among us. His intimate experience of the spiritual world flows through invisible channels into the hearts of people. In the most sincere and profound sense, I would like to transfer to Mr. Bauer what has been expressed here in terms of approval.

I would also like to express my special thanks to Dr. Steiner for what she shared about our friend Mr. Walther. For it was precisely during the most difficult times that he had an extraordinary workload on his shoulders. Mr. Walther stepped into the breach when something needed to be done, which he took on in such a commendable way.

Since words of trust and thanks are too weak for what is in our hearts at this moment for Dr. Steiner, I would like to express it in the form of a request; because, of course, everything that I and others have said here is based on what Dr. Steiner himself has done. And since everything depends on our being able to listen to advice in the right way, I would like to ask Dr. Steiner to give us his advice on this extremely important matter, where everything can depend on what comes from here, when we meet here again.

It is decided to continue the discussion in the evening. Mr. Uehli opens the continuation at [9] p.m.

Mr. Mengen: I have given particular attention to the question of why our society is often a stumbling block, and have found that we have an individualism in which people come together, listen to a lecture and then drift apart again. It is not recognized that there is a connection between the different areas of life. A free spiritual life is just as necessary as a fraternal economic life. When people talk about fraternity today, it is a cliché. Fresh forces must be brought into economic life from the living forces that are among us. An associative economic collaboration is the necessary complement to spiritual individualism. Today it is necessary for each individual to feel responsible for everything that happens.

Mr. M. Grundig: If we want to get to the point where everyone can be responsible for everything, it is necessary that everyone not only be content to be a member of the Anthroposophical Society, but that if they want to bring something into the public sphere, they must be imbued with the idea of anthroposophy. It has been pointed out that not everyone can be in science. But anyone who is in the circles of the working class knows that it is precisely here that we have to approach the matter as scientifically as possible. In his 'Key Points of the Social Question', Dr. Steiner pointed out how strongly natural science ideas have affected the proletariat. These ideas can only be made fruitful through anthroposophy. One can, as Dr. Steiner once said, come to an appreciation of spiritual science through a healthy feeling, but especially in the face of what can arise from scientific ideas in the proletariat, one must be able to provide sufficient knowledge. And then anthroposophy must intervene in the daily life of the broad masses of the people. To do this, something must be created, such as the foundation stone for the “Waldorf School” and so on, as laid out in “The Coming Day”. In this way, the worker can also do something good for the Anthroposophical Society.

Mr. Heydenreich: As a young person who has asked for the floor, I would like to make an announcement in all modesty. We anthroposophists who emerged from the youth movement came together during the congress in a few special discussions and realized that we have special tasks in our intermediary position between the youth movement and anthroposophy. We have come to realize that it is not only our duty to bring anthroposophy to the youth movement, but also that it is our duty to place our young forces at the service of anthroposophy, so that a corresponding action can emerge from it.

Mr. Michael Bauer: I would just like to make a few brief remarks that the assembly is expecting. It concerns the new central committee. I wanted to make this announcement myself so that people can feel and know from this fact that the new members of the central committee have emerged from the continuity of our movement. The two new members were not chosen over the heads of the outgoing members of the Central Committee, but with their consent, after much deliberation. They are Ernst Uehli and Emil Leinhas. Although both are friends of Stuttgart, it should be noted that it was one of the weaknesses of the old Central Committee that its members lived in different places. There must be close and constant contact between the members of the Central Committee if healthy and fruitful work is to be done, and now that all three members of the Central Committee live in Stuttgart, this is guaranteed. I probably do not need to mention that it is precisely the best factual reasons that justify this election.

Allow me to touch on a thought that has already been widely expressed in today's speeches, particularly in Mr. Kaufmann's speech from London. There has been much talk of trust, and I would like to add that there can be no meaningful communication from person to person if there is no trust in the background of the soul. When I speak a word to any human being and he has the will to understand me, something of my soul plays into the other; and it plays, strictly speaking, on the basis of what is in the first of our guiding principles, on the basis of a common spiritual. That which connects one soul with another, by which one can communicate in words, is consciously the very basis of our society. I could go on to explain that this trust that speaks from person to person in words can intensify and blossom forth as love. I could also point out that what we feel when we listen carefully, as the heartbeat of our aspirations, is a being that may be called the good spirit – I could also say the holy spirit – of humanity. Our society is based on the good spirit of humanity, which must weave from person to person if something healthy is to come about. In recent weeks, I have often been preoccupied with Uehli's beautiful book 'A New Search for the Holy Grail'; it tells how the Knights Templar were obliged not to leave the battlefield as long as a flag was still flying. Do believe that we are in an equally hard fight as the Templars had to face many times! And we should enter the fight with the same loyalty and full consciousness. I want to point out such loyalty at this moment, when you are facing a new central committee that has been formed after the most loyal and conscientious deliberation. And I would like to add the request that you reflect on the common spiritual that is placed in the hearts of people at this moment, when a new start is being made to step into the future with all that this movement wants to bring into the world, in loyalty and in the awareness of our obligation. Then the advice we are now expecting will be fruitfully received.

Dr. Steiner: My dear friends! The occasion for our being together today is an extraordinarily important and significant one; I therefore want to meet Dr. Unger's request in any case. If this request implied that I should give advice, then that will only be possible if I too try to say something about some characteristics of our social life that seems to me to be particularly necessary today. In the Anthroposophical Society, if it is to have full legitimacy and a good inner reason for being, it is necessary to address each individual. Individualism is that which cannot be separated from the nature of such a society as the Anthroposophical Society must be, and therefore it is always difficult to say this or that in small circles if there is no possibility that what has been discussed or, for my sake, reported there will really find its way to the individual members as quickly as possible and then find a responsive heart in the individual members.

Today, however, it is possible to speak to a large number of my dear friends, and so mentioning one or other of them today can also have a very special significance. And so please allow me, even if I do not claim to do so even in outline, to go into some of the history of our anthroposophical movement, and then to come to certain current details. From the very beginning, significant obstacles have stood in the way of this Anthroposophical movement, to the extent that it should live in society. It has already been mentioned today that for certain reasons, what is being attempted within the Anthroposophical Society was first attempted within the framework of the Theosophical Society. Twenty years ago, the German Section of the Theosophical Society was formed in Berlin. During the formation of this German Section, I gave a lecture for a completely different audience that was part of a lecture cycle called “Anthroposophical Reflections on the History of Humanity”.

Even at the founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, the anthroposophical goal was the decisive one for me. I do not want to go into the details of the founding now, but just mention that everything that happened in this context led to a small scene, to an argument between two celebrities – at that time German celebrities of the Theosophical Society. They were so angry about everything that had happened back then that the day after the founding they made the following very harsh statement: “Yesterday we buried the Theosophical movement in Germany.” That was the prognosis that two Theosophical celebrities gave at the time to the movement that was to be inaugurated in the way described to them. What had to happen could not be done differently at that time than it was done. But it had the effect that the whole anthroposophical movement carried certain fetters. I would like to characterize these fetters, at least in a few pages. What gradually became the practice of the Theosophical Society was something that, I would say, was second nature to a large number of the members who joined together to form the German Section at that time. They simply had the idea that they could not do anything differently from the way it was done in the Theosophical Society; you will see later why I am emphasizing and mentioning these things.

But my dear friends, for me it was actually impossible at that time, despite my involvement in the German Section of the Theosophical Society, to understand anything of these practices. I will mention just one fact: at that time, a person working with the German Theosophical Society gave a lecture in which she presented an excerpt from Misses Besant's “Ancient Wisdom”. At that time I had not really concerned myself with the literature of the Theosophical Society, but in one excerpt I heard the main teachings being put forward – and with the retention of the whole style of thinking, of looking at things – that were being spread within the Theosophical movement. I found the whole thing terribly unappealing, and I actually rejected such dilettantish, lay talk out of an inner scientific conscientiousness. This led to my being compelled to write my book 'Theosophy' as a matter of course, so that there would be something to hold on to that could also stand up to science. To me, standing up to science was always something different from being recognized by conventional science.

Then I want to highlight one more thing from all these things: I went on a lecture tour in Holland. I presented what I had to say from my own point of view. It actually caused consternation among the members of the Dutch Theosophical Society, because in essence it was heretical in their opinion. This also led to the fact that these Dutch 'Theosophists were the first to turn with all their might against what was then expressed at the Munich Congress in 1907. What came close to the Theosophical Society, but was actually intended by Anthroposophy, was, my dear friends, in many respects a crowd of dreamers who took an extraordinary pleasure in their “dreams”. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not talking about any doctrine today, not about any occult facts or the like, but about human moods. Within the Theosophical Society, it was simply the custom to absorb the Theosophical attitude in the following way:

As an external person, one lived exactly the same way as one had lived before becoming a Theosophist; one was a civil servant, teacher, noblewoman or anything else in the same way. One continued to live in the same way as before, but one had, if I may say so, a new sensation, albeit of a better kind. One pleased oneself in knowing, or at least in pretending to know, something about the whole world from occult sources. Now, my dear friends, they particularly liked to say: “Yes, somewhere, in a place that is as inaccessible as possible, there live certain individuals who are called ‘masters’; they are the guides of humanity, who have been guiding the development of humanity for so long, we are all in their care, we have to serve them.” One took pleasure in these services, which were particularly enhanced by the fact that these masters lived in an inaccessible distance, so that one never knew anything about whom one served as an actor or the like. Perhaps by extinguishing the light or darkening the room and sitting down at a small table, head in hands, one imagined that one was serving the masters in such a way that one was involved in all the most important matters of the present. In particular, one liked to sit down and then send out thoughts; this sending out of thoughts was even practiced with great enthusiasm in circles, especially within theosophical circles.

With these things, I only want to hint at the moods that, out of a certain pleasure in reverie, actually substantiated what, as a kind of mystical coquetry, was one of the vital nerves of the Theosophical Society and of theosophers in general. You see, my dear friends, this kind of mood has become too entrenched within the movement that was now incumbent upon us. No one is to be reproached for this; some have worked devotedly and sacrificially out of this mood. But one cannot say that this mood has prepared well for what Dr. Unger emphasized today.

When 1919 came, the task was suddenly to throw oneself into the stream of world evolution, to show that one had grown with what one had prepared in order to work in the stream of human development. It was no longer a matter of sitting down with a dim lamp, resting one's head in one's hands and sending out thoughts, but of grasping reality with one's thinking, which had been worked through with anthroposophy and had become practical.

In principle, this attitude had always been in preparation, but as far as I was concerned, I perhaps encountered the most vehement opposition – even if it was not expressed – from those followers who, in a certain respect, rightly considered themselves the most loyal followers. For there was always a certain tendency towards nebulous mysticism, which had to be fought against in the most terrible way, especially among those who were most well-meaning and well-intentioned. It is the after-effects of this tendency towards nebulous mysticism that is causing us such great difficulties within the Anthroposophical Society today. Because, my dear friends, we do not want to live in abstractions; we want to see reality as it is everywhere, and it must be said that this mood of dreaming is what becomes the most dangerous seducer of untruthfulness and volatility in relation to real life. No one is more exposed to taking real life lightly than the one who blurs his soul in nebulous mysticism. But that, in turn, is what makes it so difficult for anthroposophists to look at things realistically with a healthy mind. If anthroposophy were taken as it is given, if sometimes, by flowing into the other soul, a completely different soul content did not flow out of it, then the ability to take things of external reality quickly, with presence of mind and simply, would flow out of this very anthroposophy, and from the simple one would then also find the basis for confronting the organized opposition, which is much more than you think.

Let me also say a few words about this, because if the Anthroposophical Society wants to continue to exist, it is necessary to be very clear about these things. It has been pointed out today that a large proportion of the opponents copy the judgments they release from a book by Max Seiling, who once behaved as one of the most loyal confessors of the anthroposophical view. He was cajoled in the most diverse cliques, and again out of a certain nebulous mysticism, he was given a great deal of importance in certain cliques. Now, this man has written a book. Why did he write this book? One can disregard all the filth that can be found in this book. But this is to be envisaged with a healthy sense of reality: this man, who at first threw himself with all his might at - forgive the trivial expression - our Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, was allowed to publish a small booklet, for which I because this booklet was basically quite useful, I even wrote an afterword; but then this man wanted to have a book published by the same publishing house, half of which consisted of plagiarism from my lectures and half of his foolish spiritualist ramblings. This wish had to be rejected, and out of annoyance at this and out of his character, which simply lies when it hates, all kinds of lies were sent out into the world by Max Seiling. That is the reality, and any other judgment about it is nonsense; anyone with a clear mind sees through things.

I will give you another example, which may not be so easy to see through; but if one were to see that within the Anthroposophical Society there really is what has often been expressed today by the word “trust”, then one would only need to say something characteristically significant to illuminate a case on the basis of this trust. This would take hold within the Anthroposophical Society, a truthful judgment would be established. And that is what we need above all. I would like to mention the Goesch case as a small example. Goesch was also someone who, in every way, first of all threw himself at it, if I may use the trivial expression again. One day, Dr. Goesch's wife came to me with her children and introduced me to one of the children, of whom she seriously claimed that this child – I don't know how many days, but a sufficiently large number of days, as the woman believed, always knew in advance when – it was during the war – when the French would attack the Germans in some battle.

Well, my dear friends, you see, all that was needed was to set up a telephone line between the Goesch house in Dornach and the large headquarters, and then, according to the promptings of this little child, it would have been possible to communicate to the large headquarters in Germany every time the French would attack the Germans again. The fact that I was told something like that led me to say a few words about the somewhat inadequate education, and I had to point out in particular the man who was to blame for some of the failings in the education. From the next day onwards, Dr. Goesch was the opponent he has become. My dear friends, things are not that simple. But one must not look for something other than this simplicity, and to achieve this simplicity one must first acquire the ability to judge; this is acquired through healthy anthroposophy, not through that which still remains from the old practices of the Theosophical Society.

My first advice is to ensure that the remnants, not of Theosophy, but of the theosophical-social feeling, may finally be expelled from our Society.

Now, this also means that certain things that happen must be taken with the necessary weight. In my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' (Mysteries of the Soul), I pointed out the whole corruption of Max Dessoir. If what is said in my book about Dessoir's character had been taken seriously – I am not talking, of course, about the powerless anthroposophists, but about those who had the obligation to take such things seriously – then it would be clear that This is not about defending anthroposophy, but about the character of a university lecturer, and my book shows that a person contaminated by such scientific immorality must never be allowed to remain a university lecturer for a moment. This is not really relevant here, but I still had to learn that, after the fact, I was told that our side had personally negotiated with that individual Max Dessoir, so it was considered important to somehow make this man more inclined towards our anthroposophical movement than he is.

And a man like Traub has been sufficiently characterized by the reference to the sentence that he, invoked as an authority, wrote in an important Württemberg newspaper: “In my ‘Theosophy’ I claim that in the devachan, spirits move like tables and chairs here in physical space!” My dear friends! Anyone who is capable of writing such things without thinking must be judged as a pest in the position he holds. And when one is constantly confronted with such things as the sentence: “Yes, the threefold order should deal with positive things, it should not deal with these things in a polemical way so much.” – then, my dear friends, it must be said: This is a complete misunderstanding of what reality demands of us. It is necessary that the truth be told in all its unvarnishedness, and I could multiply a hundredfold what I have given only in examples.

But if such an attitude, which is thoroughly compatible with what brotherhood and universal love are, if such an attitude were to penetrate our ranks, then we would be better off. But we are still very far from this attitude, because one cannot rise to find the way from a false judgment to a true judgment. The false judgment is: “Be loving towards such a Traub, who, as a weak human being, can make a mistake, perhaps out of the best of knowledge and belief!”

My dear friends, I call that a misjudgment. I call it a correct judgment: “Be loving towards all those who are corrupted by such a university educator!” That is what it is about, not throwing one's love in the wrong place, but understanding where to let it flow. Anyone who wants to be benevolent towards the corrupters of youth out of nebulous sentimentality lacks true human love. But this must be developed within humanity, although the first may be more comfortable.

Today, a question has also been touched upon that is indeed important for the existence of the Anthroposophical Society, namely the “cycle question”. In fact, every single member has undertaken to ensure that the cycles remain within the Society. For me personally, it was less important that these cycles should not be read outside the Society than that the form in which these cycles had to be printed, because I did not have time to correct the typesetting, should remain known only to those who are aware of the circumstances. Nevertheless, it has turned out that it is even possible that Count Keyserling can continually boast that he has read the cycles, the man who, when confronted with the objective untruths he has told about me, simply has the frivolous excuse: he has no time to do research on Steiner. - In other words, this Count Keyserling has no time to inquire about the truth, so he spreads untruth. The Cycles have been delivered to people with such an attitude; and if I wanted to go over to the other side, I could cite many other things. So it has come about that today, torn out of the cycles by the enemies everywhere, sentences can be quoted. Actually, I would have to say today: Now that this has happened through the membership, the cycles can be sold anywhere, because it would be better to hand over the cycles to the public than to hand them over to those who misuse them. No one should be criticized in a derogatory way, because what has happened has happened because of all the continuation of what I have referred to as nebulous sentimentality, nebulous mystification and the like.

But such grounds have led to something else, and it is really important to speak out in this regard. Today, too, it has often been said, and it has sounded to me like a shrill discordant note, that changes have occurred in our society, that in the past there was somehow a way of dealing with things by which even the non-scientifically educated could approach society as collaborators, and that it has now become fashionable to proceed scientifically. Now, my dear friends, in forming such judgments, they spread. They are false judgments. Compare the way I presented the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society with the way I present it today; compare how I spoke to the public then and how I speak to the public now, and you will find nothing that could seriously be called a change of direction in the Anthroposophical Society. It is a different matter that individual things have been added that the times have demanded. I would even say the opposite. Anyone who takes some of the public lectures from the beginning of the century will find a more scientific tone from me from a certain point of view than he can find today; but if one were to sense correctly from the depths of the soul in this regard , then one would not come to say, as no one has said today, but as has been said many times: “Now the scientists rule, now the scientists are in favor, now is the scientific era!” No, a healthy sense of reality would lead one to say: Well, it is quite good that people have finally come to the anthroposophical movement who are able to defend anthroposophy against all scientific criticism. In any case, people would be pleased about the active work of our scientists. But from there, my dear friends, it is only one step to a healthy judgment, which is extremely important in terms of cultural history. And for that I would like to present you with a small piece of evidence. In issue no. 48 of “Zukunft” you will find an open letter written by a man who is not particularly well-liked by me, but he is a university teacher among university teachers, and he apostrophizes the entirety of German university teachers in the following manner:

I must go public, because today the filthiest lout believes he can rub up against me where Harnack rubbed up against me.

In an open letter, an attempt is made to show that Harnack, Rubner, Eduard Meyer, the celebrities, simply lied about the scholar in question.

Even blackmailers have taken up the matter and pointed out to me that the slightest public scandal would be highly inconvenient for someone who has been denounced by his peers; therefore, I should rather pay. To stand alone in a world of such mentality and to know that only the law is on one's side is not exactly pleasant. That is why I asked Herm Harden to publish this cry for help. I am looking for that one righteous person (not even the ten for whose sake Sodom and Gomorrah were spared) who will restore German science to its Christian roots.

This is how university teachers talk to each other today.

If only one determined person belonging to the university were to insist on an investigation of this dark matter, then it would have to and would come. I expect especially the honest ones among my enemies to support my demand for objective clarification. They must be convinced that it will show that I have defamed Mr. Eduard Meyer. And since slanderers do not belong at a university, my enemies would then have achieved by fair means what they have so far vainly striven for by foul ones: to deprive me of my associate professorship at the University of Berlin. But if this one honest man cannot be found, then no university teacher should be surprised if our previously respected status is tarnished even more than Sodom and Gomorrah.

My dear friends! I do not want to pass judgment on who is right or wrong here; that would be far from my mind. But I am drawing your attention to the tone in which people speak to one another today, even among intellectual leaders. Is it not time to rejoice that on anthroposophical soil a number of scholars have come together who have what it takes to lead humanity out of what is not me, but one who belongs to the people, worse than a Sodom and Gomorrah calls? I believe that this joy could be greater than the characteristic that we have now entered the era of science. What we really need to do is to take things straight and simply and look for the most important and meaningful, never closing our eyes to what is.

And if the anthroposophical movement had to broaden its circles, so to speak, how did that happen? Please study the history of this movement and you will see that it was usually not out of an urge for further work. My dear friends! I have — I think — five or six uncorrected new editions of my books, and I have had them for months. There is truly no urge, and never has been, to keep on being busy. What looks like a change has come about under the pressure of the times, under the demands that have arisen. The Federation for Threefolding, Waldorf Schools, Kommender Tag magazine – none of this came out of anthroposophical initiative. Study history and you will see how it really lies. But this is something that every single anthroposophist should know.

And that is the second piece of advice I would like to give: that institutions take root in our society that are designed to foster not only ideal trust, which is to be valued in the highest degree, among our members, but also to enable a living exchange that is never and nowhere interrupted.

How often have I had to hear it in recent times: Yes, anthroposophy, that's very beautiful, threefold social order very beautiful, but you can't agree with what those people in Stuttgart are doing. And a certain opposition to Stuttgart is something you come across everywhere.

My dear friends! Among those prominent figures who are directing affairs here from Stuttgart, there are many who, if they could act according to personal sympathies and antipathies, would gladly lay down this burden. If one really takes into account all the things I have tried to point out, one must also come to some conclusion about how the circumstances, how the whole course of events in our anthroposophical movement, have brought those personalities into the leading positions who now hold them. Then we will criticize these leading personalities less for personal reasons and more for everything else. Then we will have active trust and then we will also make it possible for these personalities not to always have to deal with personal differences among the membership and to lose time with it , but then these personalities will be able to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that, with the help of the branches, everything that can be observed at the center as being important for the movement is passed on to each individual member.

My dear friends! It is like trying to open an open door when you point out that the branch work should be appreciated. Branch work has never been underestimated, and least of all by those who have found their way into the Society as scientists. This branch work should be organized in such a way that less judgment is heard: “Yes, we don't hear anything from headquarters.” You can also do something to make sure you hear something, and I have often found that the response “We're not hearing anything” is based on the fact that you're not listening. For example, it shouldn't have happened that Dr. Unger was able to say that he circulated a letter last year and that nothing of significance came of it. This, my dear friends, is what brings us to the central issue: it is necessary for each individual member to regard the Society as their very own concern, not just as a framework for individual cliques that then stick together very closely, but as something in which anthroposophy can live as a reality. If each person regards the society as their own business, then interests in the whole of this society will arise from it. And this interest, the most vital interest in the whole of this society, is what we need if we want to realize what should be realized through the anthroposophical movement. The situation at the Goetheanum in Dornach, at the Waldorf School, at the Kommende Tag, Futurum and so on would be quite different if this interest were present; because living deeds would flow from this interest. But as it is – I am pleased that I can now also mention something that is outside the borders of the Reich, which here is actually only of theoretical interest – but as it is, I had to experience it. Because of what I call the inner opposition, which, contrary to my intentions, is actually very strong, , that last fall in Dornach I pointed out in the sharpest terms the necessity for founding a World School Society and that during my lecture tour in Holland this winter I repeatedly pointed out the necessity for this World School Society.

My dear friends! This world school association has failed, despite my conviction that it was up to us to be able to finish building the Goetheanum in peace. So it is necessary, I would say from month to month, to face the heavy concern that we will not be able to finish building the Goetheanum at all because the funds are gradually drying up. As I said, I do not need to tell you that the countries of Central Europe cannot do anything for the construction of the Goetheanum at present. But it is an example of how little respect is shown for what is, so to speak, thrown into the Anthroposophical Society as a necessity. I would not say it has failed if I believed it was impossible to do this or that, if I had not seen that the words were not understood in the sense in which I had to understand them, that the seriousness and the earnestness needed for such a matter are not taking hold in people's hearts.

And that is the third piece of advice I would like to give: that we acquire the ability to take things seriously enough, not with the superficiality that exists in the world today.

We need this within the Anthroposophical Society, and if we translate what I have taken more out of the historical development into the practical, then today it would be a matter of each and every one of the dear friends who are here trying to do what is possible for them, where they are, so that the future central board society, with such trust that it makes it possible, at the moment when one disagrees with this or that, to also say to oneself, it does not depend on the individual case, it depends on having the necessary total trust in the people who are in their place, even if one cannot see in the individual case what has led them to one or the other. And again, this central board will have to co-opt a number of personalities who are out in the world, working either like the branch leaders or in some other way on the anthroposophical movement and on related matters.

This central board will have to choose these personalities from the available options and will have to do so as quickly as possible if the Anthroposophical Society is to continue to make sense.

This is an organization that cannot be made mechanically. It is an organization that must be done with heart and soul, whether it concerns spiritual matters or scientific ones. We will make progress in everything if we want to bring life into the Society in this way. This life will ignite many other things and extinguish many damages that have occurred because, in recent times, very little has been seen of such life. Then, when such a living organism emerges from society, those personal discrepancies will cease, which today rise up like terrible waves from society and actually disfigure everything, everything, impair all work, because in the face of the great interest in the great cause of society, all these pettinesses in one's own heart will be able to disappear. That is what we must work towards.

I would like to say that the first thing we would take from today's meeting would be unconditional trust in the central committee and the conviction that if this central committee now forms its extended trust committee, the right trust can also be placed in this extended committee. It will be hard work for the Central Board to bring this extended board into being in accordance with the wishes of the members, which cannot be expressed in a vote but must be expressed in quite a different way. But it must be done; and when it is done, my dear friends, the details will have been followed in accordance with the advice that I could have given right at the start in a few words if I had wanted to spare my voice today. I could have said: “The ‘Draft of the Principles of an Anthroposophical Society’ has been printed at the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now been reprinted in the ‘Three’. And I could have summarized my advice in the words: ‘Realize these principles, because everything is contained in these principles’. And if these principles are realized, then everything will be all right in the Anthroposophical Society and with everything connected with it.

But one must understand these principles in their totality; if one understands them in their totality, then one also knows how to develop a feeling for what is approaching this anthroposophical movement. A representative of the youth movement has spoken here! There are a whole number of student representatives here, my dear friends! The fact that members of such movements or such bodies have come to our Anthroposophical Society is something we must regard as epoch-making in the history of our Anthroposophical Movement. We must feel the need to do everything that can rightly be expected of the Anthroposophical Society from such quarters. The student movement that has emerged within our Anthroposophical Society bears a great deal of the hope for the success of our Society. And how did this student movement come about? Well, it comes from something that I have already mentioned from other points of view: it comes from the fact that young scholars, scientifically minded people, have found their way into our Society. It is because of this “fashion”, this alleged “change of course” in our society, that we have a guarantee for a fruitful future of our movement through the entry of the student body.

My dear friends! We must have an open, free eye for everything that occurs in our society. You cannot give advice in the form of telling someone to do this or that. The only advice that can be given is addressed to the heart and mind of each individual member. Such advice must not shy away from saying something that could be taken by some as unloving criticism. No, if you really care about someone, then out of love you must tell them the truth. And today it is necessary to express the truth in all areas in the most concise words possible. We must see what kind of contrast this truth must be given in order to provide our anthroposophical movement with the momentum it needs.

My dear friends! We must speak of certain necessary educational measures; if we are true anthroposophists, we regard what should be made general through the Waldorf School as something that must necessarily be brought to life for the benefit of our cultural and civilizational development in the present day, for there are remarkable principles precisely in relation to the present. When I mention such principles, you will say, “That is rare.” No, this attitude is very widespread, even if it is not expressed in such drastic words everywhere. The educational principles of an opponent who has recently made himself very badly known, and who, among other things, has also campaigned against the Waldorf School and its educational system, have come to light. And I would like to share with you one of his educational principles, which is: “Children are actually hardly more intelligent than dogs, so you have to educate them similarly.” We are already speaking into the strange perceptions and attitudes of the present, and we must not shrink from developing all the strength that is necessary to be able to work into what is being treated in this way from many sides in the present.

A clear understanding of the present, an interest in the present, and an open eye for what is must, like the recovery of humanity in general, also lead to the recovery of the Anthroposophical Society. Then a time will come when perhaps the possibility will arise to no longer have to negotiate such things as the scattering of the cycles and the like. But if the attitude that I sincerely desire and that I have characterized by speaking today the words that may be displeasing to some takes hold, then perhaps it will be avoided having to sell the cycles in any way, because there is no difference in attitude within the walls and outside of them with regard to this point. So I had to tell you, my dear friends, my advice, actually characterizing; but it cannot be any different within the Anthroposophical Society. It rests on the individuality of each individual, so one can only speak to each individual. And this society will only flourish if the heart and soul and spirit of each individual strive to unfold in full health.

Report on the First Public Anthroposophical Congress in Stuttgart

My dear friends!

As I said yesterday and the day before, I will not be giving a regular lecture today, but intend to speak about what has happened in Germany in relation to our Anthroposophical Movement. Above all, I have to report on the Stuttgart Anthroposophical Congress.

This Stuttgart Anthroposophical Congress is indeed a milestone for our Anthroposophical Movement. It has shown that today we can speak of an Anthroposophical Movement that is desired by the world and that fully corresponds to certain longings that exist in the world. This Anthroposophical Congress was entirely the sporadic idea of the leading personalities in Stuttgart. I myself had very little to do with this Stuttgart congress, its intention or its overall organization. With the exception of being present at an initial consultation and having individual aspects of the program discussed with me, the congress was entirely the initiative of the Stuttgart leaders, above all Ernst Uehli. The point was that for Ernst Uehli and those who joined him in holding the congress, the main thing was to first hold a kind of examination to determine the extent to which the anthroposophical movement as such can take root in our time, in the consciousness of people of our time. And I myself, as you may know, was not even present in Stuttgart at the very beginning of the congress. I only arrived on the evening of the second day, when I was to give my own first lecture there. So everything concerning the organization of this congress was taken care of in Stuttgart. And it turned out that this congress really did become a kind of milestone for our anthroposophical movement, because it was attended by far more people than we had expected. 1600 people took part in this congress.

Now, my dear friends, try to find a conference these days that 1600 people attend! From the outset, the conference was not just intended for members of the Anthroposophical Society, but was intended for a broad audience, for all those who are currently interested in the anthroposophical movement. And so this conference is a kind of milestone because it has brought together people who are interested in the anthroposophical cause in general, and because it was not just held for the members of the Anthroposophical Society.

It has become apparent in the most eminent sense that the interest that exists today in anthroposophy extends far, far beyond the membership of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now grown to over eight thousand members. But, as I said, this is about the anthroposophical movement as such. I ask you to bear this in mind, especially in connection with some things that I will have to say later.

When I came to Stuttgart, I was informed that the beginning of the congress had been promising in terms of content, that a lecture by Dr. Unger, in particular, had been extremely well received, and it was clear that there was not just a general sensational interest in what was to come to light at the conference, but that people really did have an inner relationship to what was presented. In particular, it was clear that the majority of those present took the endeavors seriously that aim to truly introduce anthroposophy into contemporary scientific life.

But one has only to imagine how difficult this task is. Nowhere is there more aversion to - if I may put it this way - an invasion of something new than in scientific circles. Nowhere is there more talk of dilettantism and amateurism than in these scientific circles. Nowhere is there more reluctance to allow a voice to anything that cannot prove its right to be heard by its own qualities than in these circles. Whether this reluctance is justified or not is not what we want to discuss today; today we just want to point out the fact. But one can say: If it were possible to get more and more positive collaborators, people who, with a completely scientific training, can bring the cause of anthroposophy into the world, then the situation is such that one can say that anthroposophy has the potential to achieve this goal of penetrating into the individual sciences and being taken seriously in them.

We must also be clear about how those who, in the usual sense, practice criticism or want to pass judgment on something like what took place in Stuttgart are completely at a loss and deeply hostile to such a thing. The benevolent assessments were those that actually remained silent. The others have continued to put forward all sorts of things from their unobjective, untruthful bases, which basically had nothing at all to do with what was discussed at this congress.

At this congress, a lecture activity was initially developed in a very serious way. In the mornings, lectures were given on the various branches of science from an anthroposophical point of view. Philosophical, scientific, medical and historical problems were discussed, as were economic, linguistic and historical-philosophical problems. And it is fair to say that the seriousness with which the issues were treated here must have made a serious impression on 1600 people. In this respect, the fact that 1600 people were simply brought together was something eminently significant.

Just imagine what the helpless journalists – I mean the helpless journalists in the face of such a thing – would have done if a congress had taken place under some old flag, in whatever field, at which 1,600 people were present!

We then organized the matter in such a way that in the morning the positive lectures on the most diverse branches of scientific life were held. The afternoon lectures were arranged in a special way, in such a way that one imagined that one of the luminaries of contemporary science had given a lecture or written a book here or there, and that a counter-presentation from an anthroposophical point of view should now be given against this lecture or this book. These counter-lectures were held in the afternoons. So, the idea was not to speak in some kind of theoretical way from some kind of background, but to introduce oneself in a very specific way: from this or that direction of contemporary science, this or that would have been discussed by very specific representatives, and one would have had to comment on it.

These co-presentations were, I believe, an especially good idea. And above all, these co-presentations have given us all sorts of extraordinary things worth listing. I leave it to others to judge other co-presentations; I would just like to mention two of these co-presentations here, as I have already done in other places.

First, there was a lecture by Dr. von Heydebrand. This lecture was directed against something that has been advocated by so-called experimental psychology and pedagogy of the present day. This is something that almost dominates today's pedagogical direction: experimental pedagogy, experimental psychology. And Dr. von Heydebrand had set out to give a counter-lecture. This counter-lecture – I do not shy away from making such judgments because it is necessary to make such judgments in the present – was indeed an epoch-making act. In this counter-presentation, we were dealing with a complete destruction of what is unjustified in experimental psychology and experimental pedagogy; of what is currently occupying all pedagogical circles so much and which, basically, is only proof of how the human soul has become inwardly alienated from the human soul, and how one wants to get at the child's soul through all kinds of external machinations, because the human soul is so alien to the child in teaching. It is no longer possible to approach it inwardly; man has gradually acquired an intellectualistic soulless nature; therefore, by experimenting on the child externally — which, in fact, in individual cases, it should not be denied, bears good fruit, especially when it is immersed in anthroposophy. We try to achieve what we can no longer achieve inwardly in an outward way, and we do not even know how to put the useful results of experimental education and experimental psychology into the right perspective.

My dear friends, if Dr. von Heydebrand had given this lecture at a teachers' conference, or even at a teachers' club, it would have been discussed at length in all the teachers' journals. The pros and cons would have been debated at length. This is the kind of judgment that one has to form at some point. We must be clear about one thing: what has emerged from earlier times, what was still significant just a few years ago, what was still a matter of time, must be replaced by something else; and we must decide to recognize where there is recognition to be had. We will not make progress in our movement, my dear friends, if we move forward in isolation from the world and do not consider what our movement can actually be in the here and now. We must be clear about the fact that it is of great significance that such an achievement is being brought into the world by the Waldorf teaching profession. That is what characterizes anthroposophy and the anthroposophical movement today. Anyone who today tries to find something radical in what is recognized as spiritual life will not be able to find it, and we must have the courage to make initial judgments.

My dear friends, if the Anthroposophical Society wants to fulfill its task, it must not limit itself to engaging in sectarianism in small circles here and there, but must go with the great tasks of the time. Then, however, this Anthroposophical Society must decide to offer disinterested recognition – not of the person, but of the matter – where such disinterested recognition is justified. And one must also have the courage to say: Here is an epoch-making achievement! That is what I wanted to mention as an aperçu emerging from the Stuttgart conference.

My dear friends, it cannot be the sole task of an Anthroposophical Society to hold introductory courses; they must be held, of course; everything that is customary must be done; but it cannot be the only task to do such things, but the task is to keep an open and alert eye for what is really emerging from the bosom of the anthroposophical movement and what is happening that fits into the overall spiritual movement of the present day. And only when we do not just sit down at such a congress and listen, sleepily listen, as if it were taken for granted, when we then go away and in our branches begin to , but if we actually spread the possibility within the entire Anthroposophical Society of bringing what is happening to direct consciousness, then the Anthroposophical Society fulfills its real task in relation to the present-day Anthroposophical Movement. It is not only important that we read books, not only that we pass on what is in the books, but that we grasp the movement as a living one, that we become aware that something like this lecture has happened; that we have to be a living work, that we have to come to such an understanding of the anthroposophical movement as an immediate reality, as something living.

And I would like to mention a second lecture. This is the one that Emil Leinhas gave in response to Wilbrandt's latest book “Economics”. I would like to say that this lecture by Emil Leinhas on Wilbrandt's “Economics” needs to be discussed from a wide variety of perspectives. You see, in Robert Wilbrandt we are dealing with a university political economist who is perhaps the most amiable and likeable of this body of political economists at the university, and his book “Oekonomie” is, after all, something that, in addition to the theoretical discussions, also contains many human nuances. Therefore, it is a book that is characteristic in the best sense, not in the worst sense, of contemporary university economics. But precisely by giving the counter-lecture against this book, Emil Leinhas was able to show how this whole economics, which even appears in an amiable way in one respect, how this whole economics is absolutely useless for anything alive. Our universities reflect on economic matters. These reflections seep out until they shape the popular lay theories that then take hold of millions and millions of people, who are now pouring over the civilized world in a destructive manner. The whole hollowness, the whole uselessness of this national economy has been exposed here, and indeed by a man who has spent his whole life immersed in the living economy, who always emphasizes, when asked, that he never actually attended a university, but who has gained all that he has gained from direct practice; a practitioner who, however, through his practical genius, has understood that which is contained in the “key points of the social question” and is inaugurated with it, to consider it with full seriousness; he has succeeded in delivering something in this co-presentation - I would characterize it as follows: If this had been said at any other congress, even in a restricted assembly for my sake, the first columns of all the major newspapers would have been talking about it for weeks, and then only further weeks with many pros and cons would have come. Because in fact, the whole university economics will be destroyed on the ground if what has come to light in this co-lecture is further developed.

My dear friends, if things are taken as they have often been spoken of here, then one must say: the courage must be mustered within the Anthroposophical Society to take a stand on such things, to make an initial judgment, to immediately recognize the value of such a thing, in order to feel in the Society as in such a community where something like this happens. Because it is not just a matter of developing theories, but of shaping a very specific life. We must have the courage to say what is and what is going on within the Anthroposophical Society. As I already indicated, the whole Corona cannot just sit there and then endure these things and afterwards take it for granted that two epoch-making deeds have occurred at such a congress. If we sleep through this as something self-evident, then, my dear friends, little by little the Anthroposophical Society will prove to be something that will gradually become a serious obstacle to the spread of the anthroposophical cause. This Stuttgart Congress must at least teach that the Anthroposophical Society must not be an obstacle to the spread of the anthroposophical movement. Today we can say that the anthroposophical movement is here, in the world. The Anthroposophical Society has been here for decades. Today it must grow into the anthroposophical movement. In a sense, it has seen the anthroposophical movement growing beyond it. It must grow into it, and it can only do so if it finds the courage to really recognize the things that need to be recognized. I consider myself particularly fortunate that we now have Emil Leinhas as managing director at the head of the “Kommender Tag” in Stuttgart - this has come about through various circumstances. After my return from Berlin, it was my task to assist in the appointment of Emil Leinhas as General Director of “Kommender Tag.” It must be considered a significant matter that this could happen immediately after this epoch-making “act” had been performed. But it must be said again and again about such things: What can the individual do when the sounding board is not there?

These things must be understood, because only when they are understood will they be met in the right way. And then the help will be there that even the most capable person needs if they are to apply their abilities in a single place. But at any rate, it should be clear in the souls of anthroposophists that it means something that a personality is now at the helm of the 'Der Kommende Tag' enterprise, whose capacity for such a task is to be discussed in the way that I have tried to do here tonight. I am reporting in this way, my dear friends, because I see the necessity for the Anthroposophical Society to grow into its necessary task, to grow into what the Anthroposophical Society can become when its stars are seen in the right way. The anthroposophical movement, by virtue of what it has been from the very beginning, tolerates no kind of sectarianism, no kind of obscurantism; it tolerates only an open, truthful, honest effort to work into the civilization of the present. But for this it is necessary to have the courage to fully recognize human values.

That, my dear friends, is what I would like to say in this regard. The Anthroposophical Congress in Stuttgart showed that anthroposophy can indeed have a broad cultural impact, and so it was not only our task to give two very well-attended eurythmy performances at the “Wilhelma Theater” in Stuttgart, but we also followed up the lectures presentations with short satirical and humorous eurythmy performances, in such a way that the mood that had developed in response to the serious presentations could continue during the short eurythmy performances that followed immediately.

So, what might it have been like? First came the serious lecture, where each afternoon we dealt with contemporary spiritual currents. One could be outraged by what was unhealthy, or perhaps even see the humor in what was coming out of this or that corner. When the eurythmic-satirical performances followed after a quarter of an hour's break, one could simply continue in this mood, but it then just erupted into laughter. It is always a very beautiful continuation when something that must be taken seriously can continue in laughter in a very dignified way. And from the mood with which 1600 people received all these things, one could see that strings in the soul are actually struck when the arrangements are made in just such a way - if I may use the philistine expression.

Then the intervals between the lectures were filled with negotiations: negotiations among the students, negotiations among the medical doctors, and so on, and so on, among the natural scientists, among the teachers. I could not be present at these negotiations because I was always involved in eurythmy rehearsals during this time. This is often overlooked, that things also need to be prepared. But overall, it seems that these discussions also took place in an extremely objective and animated manner.

During the course of the conference, we also had an anthroposophical assembly. Of course, the actual General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society still cannot be held due to the current circumstances. So, in a sense, we had an independent anthroposophical assembly that was only open to members of the Anthroposophical Society. The living conditions of the Anthroposophical Society were discussed at this assembly. It became clear that the Central Board had to reorganize itself. I say had to reorganize itself because those who know the principles of the Anthroposophical Society as I drafted them at the time will already know that this is the right expression. The Anthroposophical Central Council is not based on election, but on the fact that the first three members of the Central Council simply went public and asked for members, so that those people who wanted to come did come and joined the Central Council of their own free will. I recall the words of our friend Michael Bauer, who said at the time: We are standing here, and anyone who wants to join, may do so! It is therefore something that is based on freedom in the broadest sense, but which should prevent impossibilities from occurring with regard to the composition of such a central committee.

You know that the first members of the central committee were: Dr. Unger, Dr. Steiner and Michael Bauer. Michael Bauer was sickly and for a long time was unable to fully perform the duties of a member of the Executive Council. Dr. Steiner resigned earlier because from a certain point on she did not want to associate matters of a purely business nature with my name, because everything concerning the Anthroposophical Society must be done independently of me. I have always emphasized that I attach a certain importance to the fact that I myself am not a member of the Anthroposophical Society. So Dr. Steiner resigned years ago, and she requested Mr. Walther in Berlin to manage the business until such time as the central board could be reorganized, so that Dr. Unger was left alone on the central board, so to speak. When the Stuttgart conference approached, Mr. Walther resigned his office into the hands of the central committee, namely into the hands of Dr. Steiner, who had entrusted it to him as her successor. The problem was that Dr. Unger was now actually alone and had to co-opt the other two members. And of course something like that has to happen – I would like to say – with the consent of a certain majority, but they don't need to be elected in a certain philistine sense. And so the Stuttgart Central Council came about – it is called the “Stuttgart” because it has to be together if it is to be effective – so the Stuttgart Central Council came about through Dr. Unger, Emil Leinhas and Ernst Uehli. These personalities are, in their work, a sufficient guarantee that everything that must lead to certain results, which are necessary today for the anthroposophical movement, but can also lead to them if the necessary support is provided by the membership, will now happen from the center of the Anthroposophical Society.

I was then asked to say my piece at this anthroposophical meeting; but I had to point out precisely those things that are connected with what I have already said here today: that a living life must actually come about within the Anthroposophical Society, such a living life that what is happening is really seen and presented to the world everywhere. There will be enough to present to the world if the individual branches really take up what the central committee approaches them with, since it is the central committee's responsibility to ensure that this vibrant life reaches every single member. But that must happen. I can say: my speech, which I was asked to give, became a kind of diatribe; but that is what was expected of me after some of the things I have said over the years. Because, my dear friends, there has not always been enough preparatory work for what needs to be demanded. This unsparing, uncompromising recognition of what is happening, and above all the effort to judge when such things happen, as in the case of Miss Doctor von Heydebrand or Emil Leinhas, that, that is not sufficiently widespread. We will first have to get used to these things, because they cannot rest on that eye-rolling following, which has always formed out of a certain nebulous mysticism, and which works in small circles here or there or also in larger circles; these things have no real significance for the seriousness of the anthroposophical movement. What is to be recognized in the anthroposophical movement must be based on sound judgment and, above all, on something that is viable in the present state of the world.

So the tenor of the anthroposophists' assembly was actually that the anthroposophists were asked to take on the anthroposophical movement, to not lose this anthroposophical movement out of their hands, so to speak. To do that, the Anthroposophical Society needs to be reformed. And there is every reason to hope – and the names vouch for this – that the present central council will indeed leave all the drivel and ramblings unconsidered. : disregarded; of course it cannot be forbidden, that goes without saying - disregarded all the prattling and rambling in order to devote itself to the serious great tasks that really exist in all areas of life. But he must also find a willing response. And just as little as the individual can do anything, so three wise men can do something if the others do not exceptionally accommodate them and, above all, join in. It is this living interaction that must come into the anthroposophical movement as a reform before anything else.

The Stuttgart Congress, which was also dedicated to the memory of Goethe, took place in just such a way. I would like to mention only what, so to speak, was a kind of underlying theme running through the discussions at this congress.

My first lecture, which I gave on Monday, August 29, immediately after my arrival in Stuttgart, started with a description of the prevailing agnosticism of our time. What actually prevails in the present is a worship of agnosticism. You find it in the natural sciences, you also find it in the historical sciences, in the economic sciences, you find it in art, you find it in religion – you find this agnosticism everywhere. And it is only in the last third of the nineteenth century that a person who was a serious thinker was actually only considered to be one who was an agnostic, who said: It is right to observe the world of phenomena, to abstract the laws of nature from this world of phenomena, but for knowledge to renounce both what the phenomenon is in the world of external phenomena and what is deeper in the world. No Gnosticism, Agnosticism, that is what has emerged in all fields. One need only mention two pillars of agnosticism in Central Europe, as has already been mentioned here: the lecture given forty-nine or fifty years ago in Leipzig by the natural scientist Du Bois-Reymond, who concluded with the now famous words “Ignorabimus”, “We shall not know”, namely, we shall know nothing about that which is behind the external phenomena and which we call matter, and we shall know nothing about what is in the depths of human nature itself. That was the proclamation of agnosticism for Central Europe. For the West, Spencer and others have done it.

In the present day, all life is fundamentally dominated by this agnostic mood. In the field of history, this agnosticism found expression in the person of Leopold von Ranke, who said that one should follow the phenomena of history from the oldest times, as far as records are available, to the present day; but then there is the phenomenon of Christ Jesus; as Ranke says, he belongs to the “primal elements”. Here history cannot set about it, here history must pronounce its “Ignorabimus”, here we will never know anything.

Thus, in the face of that which, according to our anthroposophical view of all historical development on earth, basically stands as the primal factum on which all others depend, in the face of this primal factum, one of the greatest historians, Leopold von Ranke, “Ignorabimus,” as one of the greatest naturalists of modern times, Du Bois-Reymond, would say when he raised himself to the level of the essential entities that are active in the workings of nature, as the former said, “Ignorabimus”.

This agnosticism was not opposed by the work of the entire Stuttgart congress, not by the old Gnosticism, as slanderous people say, not by anything old at all, but by something completely new, something that has flowed from the spirit of contemporary science, that does not tie in with old traditions, which is thoroughly the spirit of the present, which must not be confused with all the mumbo jumbo and drivel that is constantly linked to ancient Egyptian and Oriental, but which is directly from the present, but which is a gnosticism against agnosticism.

And now, my dear friends, if I turn to the content of the Stuttgart conference, I would say that the general mood of the conference showed that the people who, for decades, have been the sign [gap in shorthand] that these have representatives among them again, have people within them who accept a new Gnosticism, who have an understanding for it, an understanding for the word: Man is there to know – and to act fully consciously and deliberately out of this knowledge. Gnosticism, in turn, has land in the world. This should be the conclusion drawn from what came to light in Stuttgart, for the reason that, although Gnosticism is also discussed elsewhere, it is done in an unscientific way; in Stuttgart it was done in a strictly scientific way, and not only in an abstract-general but in a strictly scientific way, in the most concrete fields of medical science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and so on. So this Stuttgart congress was held under the sign of asserting Gnosticism against agnosticism.

I believe, my dear friends, that after what had preceded it, those who had not yet seen the Goetheanum in Dornach, when I presented the pictures of the Goetheanum in a slide lecture, could feel that these people were already in the right mood to sense what is actually wanted here in Dornach for contemporary civilization, as they could also feel from the eurythmy performances and other things, that anthroposophy is not some nebulous mysticism to which individual mavericks turn, but something that is primarily working on the great tasks of the time and in all different fields, for example, in the fields of art and the arts. That is what I would like to say to your souls, my dear friends.

Of course, many of you were not present at the Stuttgart Congress. But that is not the point. I used his example only to draw attention to the way in which members of the Anthroposophical Society should now take a living stand on what is happening, what is happening every day; how they should not just make themselves the bearers of theories or of something that satisfies them personally, but how they should feel as members of the Anthroposophical Society. If the members feel that they are members of this Anthroposophical Society, then what must come about will come about: the Anthroposophical Society will grow into the Anthroposophical Movement; because that is what we need, my dear friends.

Now, my dear friends, you see, there are also other symptoms that testify to the fact that the anthroposophical movement as such is now self-supporting. It is indeed precisely because of what happened in Stuttgart that much has been done to ensure that we have an anthroposophical movement today. But now that the anthroposophical movement is here, it is working through its own strength. This is shown, for example, by the fact that my Berlin lectures in the “Philharmonie” were not arranged by any anthroposophical group or branch or even by any anthroposophists, but entirely from outside, from the world, by people completely uninvolved in the Anthroposophical Society, namely from the Wolff'schen Konzertbureau, without anyone from the Anthroposophical Society having any part in the arrangement, and this lecture was truly sold out many days before it took place, and I was requested by the organizers, who were not Anthroposophists, to repeat it on the 22nd in Berlin. And I was asked to give these lectures in ten other German cities, immediately following that event, which was also not organized by the Anthroposophical Society or anything like that. Now, my dear friends, I could not do all that. I had all sorts of other tasks; many of you are here today. And so I could not give the second lecture and, of course, now that I have tasks burning on my fingers, I could not even do anything to give these lectures in the other ten German cities. I had to postpone it all. And I would say that it is necessary, my dear friends, that it be postponed. Why? Yes, my dear friends, because I have to return to the concerns here. Of course, I am always happy to return to what Dornach has become, but because I have to return to the concerns here! I spoke of these concerns when the general assembly of the “Goetheanum” was held here. At the time, I made an appeal to the members, which said: It is truly necessary that, now that the Mittelland can no longer make sacrifices because of the foreign currency issue, sacrifices be made from elsewhere so that we can continue this building in Dornach. Otherwise, as I said at the time, we will have to close this building within a short time. You can imagine that I could not possibly travel around Germany with a calm heart and simply forget these worries.

So far, I have not heard much that my appeal at the time has been met. Of course, my dear friends, I know all the things that are said as a justification for this lack of response, so to speak, but I also know how many things are not done that could already be done. And finally, it should not be the case that the central point remains in a state of limbo when the movement in those areas that are currently most in turmoil and suffering takes the course that I have just been able to tell you about. Well, I hope that you can imagine in your own souls what it would mean now that, precisely where everything is at its lowest point with regard to the old, people are longing for the new, how precisely there, I would say, how from the very core of the world's being the call comes that one should not abandon what wants to arise here as a central point.

Since that General Assembly, a few months have passed, and it should actually be seen whether that appeal has borne any fruit, or whether it must be the case that the anthroposophical movement must simply flee there – it does not need to flee, but I can put it that way – to where it is desired.

You may say: This has now become a diatribe. Yes, but my dear friends, we are also facing a serious matter, and in such a serious matter it is not always possible to speak only of beauty, but rather to speak the truth. But I would like to separate the latter completely from what the moral side of the matter is, which after all consists in the fact that the Anthroposophical Society must become an instrument that is the bearer of the anthroposophical movement. Then we can go through all the enmities that are blossoming in such abundance in all possible places in the world. But within the Anthroposophical movement itself, this must become our attitude, especially in view of what has happened in Germany.

You see, my dear friends, a whole series of eurythmy performances has been grouped around my lecture in Berlin. These eurythmy performances — how they were reported to you just a few weeks ago in the “Basler Nachrichten”! What vulgar attacks these eurythmy performances have suffered! Eight days ago today, we had a eurythmy performance in Berlin at the “Kammerspiele” theater. It was sold out many days in advance, and in the days leading up to it, requests for tickets kept coming in — the phone didn't even want to stop ringing —. It was completely sold out. And it can be said that this eurythmy performance was a success, a real, unfeigned, honest success, which can perhaps only be compared with the successes that Gerhart Hauptmann has had in the Deutsches Theater in recent decades, a completely undivided success. And the same was true of the performance that took place the day before in our own space on Potsdamer Strasse. The Potsdam venue is not smaller than the “Kammerspiele”, but larger, and it was not just for anthroposophists, but for the general public. I was unable to attend the following performances. There have been two more performances in Berlin so far, and I have been told that the success is increasing. Yesterday there was a performance in Dresden, but I have not yet received any report on how it went. Then two more performances will take place in Berlin.

So you see, we can move forward. What follows from anthroposophy as an art form is what is needed today. Don't think that I am deluding myself; I know how much sensationalism and how much sensation there is in these things, but that doesn't matter in this case because the thing is not calculated on sensation because the matter is serious, and if the supporters of the matter take it seriously, then now is the time to keep the matter warm; otherwise, of course, what has been achieved will mean a kind of culmination, and it will pass because there is a lot of sensation on the part of the outside audience. But many of those who today take up the matter only as a sensation will one day become serious people if the Anthroposophical Society finds the strength to support the matter.

So the fact that something has been achieved does not mean anything other than that a possibility has been given. But for us today, this possibility is a task, a task that will certainly lead forward if we show ourselves to be up to it. And it is a matter of rising to this challenge. In order to emphasize this in the right way, my dear friends, I wanted to give you this report today, which should stand out from the series of regular lectures, and which should show how the Anthroposophical Society should think about its reform and its progress. And basically, it should be one of the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society to constantly take care of what is happening, to know what this Anthroposophical Society actually is. My dear friends, the essence of the Anthroposophical Society is not something that is mentioned here or there in a brochure or that appears in the title “Principles of the Anthroposophical Society”, one, two, three and so on. The essence of the Anthroposophical Society is what happens every day. What is printed as statutes and so on — well: in all philistine honor. I don't want to say anything else. But that is not reality; reality is what happens every day in reality, and furthermore, how what happens every day lives in our souls. And so the Anthroposophical Society should take it upon itself to care about what happens, to know what is going on.

Sometimes this Anthroposophical Society seems very strange to me. You ask: Anthroposophical Society, yes, what are its principles? Then you want to have a little booklet that tells you what it is. It seems to me as if I were presented with an 18-year-old person and did not take him or her as a living human being with all that he or she is, and say: I want his or her baptismal certificate, I want his or her birth certificate; in these I find everything worth knowing, and perhaps some notes that were made at the time or in the course of his or her life. That is what matters: always living in the present, because the eternal must be realized in the present, and not in things that have become acts.

It is something that matters – I hope that others will do it differently – it is important to me to emphasize these two achievements of the Stuttgart Congress that I have highlighted today; but everything that happens should be evaluated and understood in this way.

Really, my dear friends, I know that something like this can be misunderstood. It can be misunderstood on the numerous sides where ill will against us is so strong today. Recently in Dornach we had a special occasion to reflect on who now has authority in relation to the representation of a matter, and to which names one should turn. Nothing was found that was right, and in fact, all the names have been used up. Those who still had a full sound in 1914 are gone, especially if you look at it seriously. Now one should also dare, one should have the courage to say: something is coming! For try to find a teacher today who gives a lecture like Fräulein Doctor von Heydebrand! Try to find an economist or a political economist who gives a lecture like the one Emil Leinhas gave in Stuttgart! We must have the courage to recognize the significance of something even when we have the opportunity to listen to it ourselves, and not just accept it as an order from some authority, even if that authority is the fact that the people concerned hold a professorship or are directors of some famous bank or belong to this or that group, and so on. We also need the courage to judge. This is precisely what the Stuttgart conference and all the events in Germany are now proving. We must have no respect for what today, in any case, cannot begin to do, such as the Stuttgart conference, the Stuttgart congress. But we must have all the more feeling for what is actually there as living life.

And so, my dear friends, I would ask you to take this to heart, what happened in Stuttgart, for these things must have an effect. Hopefully in the future we will be able to bring about a congress here in Dornach; but for that we must maintain the continuity of the building of Dornach. For that we must really be able to continue building the building of Dornach. You will say: We have had courses here at the School of Spiritual Science and so on. We certainly have had those, but we also had them in Stuttgart; I did not speak of them today, but rather of the Stuttgart congress, which addressed everyone oriented to anthroposophy and which was attended as a congress, and which was something else again, which above all showed: There, there they come, there they have their longing. We cannot really say that about the summer course that immediately preceded it, and I would very much like to say so, because anthroposophy must not be a matter of necessity, which it is to a large extent in the Central European countries. Anthroposophy must be a matter of insight, of insight into the necessity for humanity to renew its spiritual life.

That is what I wanted to show by this example today.

The Earthly, the Cosmic and the Present Christ

My dear friends!

Before I say anything else, please allow me to give you a brief report on the last few weeks. I will mention only a few things so that you here at the Goetheanum may be informed about what is going on in our movement.

After I had left Dornach and had dealt with other, internal matters in Stuttgart, the beginning of my public activity was on November 19 in Berlin, where I had to give the second lecture — the first is known to you - in the great hall of the Philharmonie, which was again filled to capacity. Then, after a eurythmy performance in Berlin, the Kristiania tour began. The first lectures in Copenhagen were on November 23 and 24. These two lectures were held at the request of the Pedagogical Association in Copenhagen. In them I had to discuss the principles and methods of anthroposophical education and didactics and to say something about the way the Waldorf School is run in Stuttgart. These lectures took place at the “Nobel Institute” and were very well attended. They were mainly attended by teachers; only a small number of seats had been allocated to members of our society. The second lecture — that was on Thursday, November 24th — was preceded by a lecture on the Vidar branch in Kristiania.

On the 25th, I then had to give a public lecture in Kristiania, organized by the student body, on “The Paths to Supernatural Knowledge”. It is worth mentioning that the lecture was able to be held in the largest hall in Kristiania, which holds over 2000 people, and that this hall was full to the last seat. Considering that there may not be many people in Kristiania who understand German to any great extent, one must nevertheless come to the conclusion that the anthroposophical movement is currently expanding to some extent.

On Saturday, November 26, I had to give a lecture at the student body of Kristiania itself, as part of the weekly student gatherings held on Saturdays. The public lecture on the previous Friday was arranged by the student body, but was open to the public. This lecture on Saturday had the same topic, but was of course then treated for the student body and within the framework of student associations.

On Sunday we had a eurythmy performance at 1 p.m. in the Kristiania National Theatre. Our friends were a little anxious, because it was a risk to give a eurythmy performance in the National Theatre, and besides, the house holds 2400 people when it is fully occupied, I believe. But on this day, it was filled to capacity. Taking all the circumstances into account, the audience received this eurythmy performance with great friendliness.

At 6 p.m. the second event for the “Vidar branch” took place. That was on Sunday, November 27th. And on Monday morning we were inundated with a veritable flood of sewage from all possible newspapers in Kristiania. It presented the absolute opposite of the picture that could actually be gained from the previous day. I have already experienced very bad things from these pages, but what has been done here is pretty much one of the very worst newspaper diatribes that can be mustered.

I had to remind them that a long time ago, when the intention of presenting eurythmy to the public was expressed, I gave a lecture to our eurythmists in which I pointed out that if eurythmy was brought into the public eye, it would experience the very worst of abuse. And this prophecy has rarely been fulfilled in such a magnificent way as on that Monday and Tuesday. The things lasted for a long time, because some people ranted two or three times.

On Monday evening, the first public lecture on anthroposophy organized by our friends took place in the old university auditorium. It was well attended and very warmly received, and not the slightest hint of what had happened outside in journalism was to be noticed. Then, on Tuesday at noon, I was invited by the theological association in Kristiania to speak about the Christ problem in a university auditorium, and that same evening I gave the second anthroposophy lecture organized by our friends.

On Wednesday, the lecture on economic issues, “The Cardinal Question of Economic Life,” took place at the request of the State Economic Association, also in the university auditorium. This lecture was attended by both economic theorists and economic practitioners. This was followed, not in the hall, but at a supper that had been organized, by a lively discussion of the relevant economic issues. The topics of the previous days of anthroposophical lectures were on Monday: “The Foundations of Anthroposophy”, on Tuesday: “The Human Being in the Light of Anthroposophy”.

On Wednesday we also had a very special treat. There was a very excited debate about whether a second eurythmy performance should be organized after the way things had gone. I said: perhaps it would have been possible to discuss whether a second eurythmy performance should take place in a city that is not too big after all, considering that 2400 people had already seen it – if it hadn't been for the ranting. But as it was, it was self-evident that I, for one, could not do without the second performance, so that every effort had to be made to get the National Theater for the second time, and if it could not be obtained, then another theater would have to be taken. - Now the greatest efforts were really made.

In particular, our friend Ingerö has earned the greatest merit.

On Wednesday there was a meeting of the 'Theater Association'. Among others, the father of our friend Morgenstierne, who is a professor, belongs to it. When he came to the supper of the State Economic Association that evening, he declared, “I have been slaughtered.” It had been such an agitated meeting that he felt slaughtered, and rightly so. And now, of course, we were refused the theater.

I thought that we should now definitely take on a different theater. That happened, and rehearsals were to begin on Thursday. Then there was a fire at the power station. Kristiania was plunged into darkness, and of course the theater was in darkness all day, and we had to hold the rehearsals by candlelight, but of course we did not let that stop us. Of course, we couldn't do any light experiments, because it was dark. This darkness began on Friday. On Friday evening, my second public student lecture was to be held in the large university auditorium. It was very uncertain whether anyone would come at all, because it was simply impossible to illuminate the university auditorium. It didn't seem to me to be an obstacle either, and we boldly made the attempt. I arrived in the evening. It was difficult to pass through the corridors, one had to be guided by a candle light. Then the lecture was held in the packed University auditorium with three acetylene lights. The topic was: “On the Necessity of a Renewal of Culture”. The lecture was very well received. One could not notice anything of the newspaper ranting, because they had now smelled a rat and continued their ranting throughout the whole week. It was, however, typical that in the middle of the first week, for example, an article was published that was compiled from all the criticism of the “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” that had ever been published in German newspapers. It was a very select selection that was published. In response, our friend Morgenstierne sat down and wrote a reply. Another friend went to the editor and said: “It's all lies, how can you print such a thing?” He replied: “Yes, I don't know anything about the matter myself, I haven't read anything by Dr. Steiner, I don't know anything, but the article was sent to us from a proven source, and that's why I printed it.” — “Yes, but then you also have to print a reply.” — “Yes!”

Our friend Morgenstierne then sent the retort, the publication of which had been promised. The next day there was an even bigger rant, which took up almost the entire page, and the retort was printed in very small print at the back of the page in the classifieds section.

An employee of a more decent newspaper did, after all, report quite objectively, for example, about the pedagogical lectures and the public lecture. In general, the lectures were not even treated unobjectively.

Then Saturday came. A dress rehearsal had to be done with a specially compiled program for certain reasons that I don't want to discuss here. This dress rehearsal could only be carried out by candlelight, so there was no lighting test, and I said we would just have to wait until the electric light came back on. It came back on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and then the theater declared: We have to have the first rehearsal ourselves, because we've been waiting for it all these days. So we couldn't do the light test at 4 p.m., but only at 7 p.m. The performance was scheduled for 8 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., the doors were opened and the audience was let in. The performance was received in an extraordinarily friendly manner. The hall was not full; but that is only due to the fact that very few people could have considered that a theater might be lit in that particular neighborhood. But relatively speaking, the performance was not even poorly attended and, as I said, was received extremely warmly. On the other hand, the next day a review appeared in which it was said that it had been a scandalous success.

On Sunday I held the branch meeting for our members and that was the end of the campaign in Kristiania. There was then another eurythmy performance and then a branch event on Wednesday in Berlin. So these are the events that have taken place recently.

When I arrived here about three hours ago, I opened one of many letters by chance that was very interesting. Namely, three or four weeks ago a paper was published in Germany by a publisher in Hanover by a Dr. Michel called: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph, a Philosophical Execution”. I believe that this paper has even been reviewed in the Threefolding newspaper. The letter I received today has the following content:

Darmstadt, 14.11. 21, Saurbergstr. 66

Dear Mr. Steiner,

the publisher Paul Steegemann of Hanover announced in the latest issue of the German book trade journal, Börsenblatt, a pamphlet of mine with the title: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph; a philosophical execution”. This pamphlet does not and will not exist; I have not written it and will not write it. It is true that I promised Steegemann Publishers a collection of essays, which would include my article “The Anthroposophists” that appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. It is also true that I am opposed to what is referred to as anthroposophy and what was presented here as such a few months ago. But this brochure does not exist; I would not have chosen the crude title “Execution”, quite apart from the fact that I do not know those of your achievements that are most highly regarded by your followers. I would like to add with all due respect that I don't feel the need to get to know you, but I am so unhappy about the tasteless publicity that the publisher has done without my knowledge that I would like to distance myself from it in any case. The publisher also claims that I am from Keyserling's Wisdom School, which is also a blatant lie. I am sharing all this with you for the sake of truth and to get out of the false, distorted light that this kind of advertising casts on me.

Yours very sincerely

Wilhelm Michel

So you see, you can't even rely on the authors anymore, because the authors declare that they didn't write the books!

Now, another letter stated that one can still say with a clear conscience today that anthroposophy is nevertheless making its way; but the anger is also growing ever greater, precisely because it is making its way. These things are definitely connected. So another letter brought a larger number of signatures from professors at the [Copenhagen] University, inviting me to give anthroposophical lectures there. What will come of it all, I do not know at present.

It is indeed the case that the anthroposophical movement is making its way through the world, and above all, it can be seen everywhere that there is a lively interest in the various branches that have emerged from the anthroposophical movement. On the other hand, however, the opposition is growing monstrously. Just to mention one example of this opposition: when I arrived in Berlin before the trip to Kristiania, our friend Mr. Gantenbein came to me and said: “I have just received a telephone call from Stuttgart telephone conversation that on the 24th in Munich a lecture will be given by the director of the Haeckel Archive, Professor Schmidt, on the basis of documents and letters that are in the Haeckel Archive. Now Dr. Kolisko wanted to know – because he might want to intervene in the discussion in Munich – what kind of criminal act the letters I once wrote to Haeckel could represent. I said that, of course, I could not at that moment reconstruct every single sentence that I had written to Haeckel about 25 years ago, but he should go there and see for himself what was going on. Well, he went. I then received a report about the Munich meeting.

Professor Schmidt gave a lecture in which he did not dare to say much about anthroposophy itself, as I believe he said himself. Instead, he read out some passages from letters that I had written to Haeckel. I was then sent the copies of these letters, and it was an extraordinary interest to me to read them again, for one after another begins [something like this]: “Dear Professor! I must express my most sincere thanks for the latest of your works, which you have again sent me.

The letters contain essentially nothing but expressions of gratitude for the books Haeckel had sent me about himself. But two letters that were not from me were particularly serious. I still have not seen them; but they were written to Haeckel by a friend of mine in 1901, I believe, without my knowing anything about it. Haeckel had known me for quite some time, to the extent that he had given me almost all of his works, bit by bit. Now this friend wrote to him that I was doing very badly and had no money, and that he should use his influence to get me a lectureship. I knew nothing about it, otherwise I would have pointed out the folly to him. I only learned of this fact now. And on the side of one of the letters was written, “Steiner — Theosophist,” in Haeckel's own pencil, so I heard. That seemed to be the only point of complaint, because it was used to construct: Aha! He didn't have any money back then, so he became a Theosophist to make as much money as possible. - I don't know, though, whether it would have been possible to get out of this dilemma that way, because Theosophical leadership in Germany was entirely honorless.

So that was contrived. The meeting seems to have been extraordinarily instructive, because it was held in a monist alliance. The chairman seems to have been extraordinarily amazed at this outpouring of monistic wisdom and says that he certainly cannot comprehend how it came about that this was organized; he is in favor of hearing about anthroposophy first and foremost. Dr. Kolisko was invited to speak, I believe. But that is something that perhaps should not be pointed out, otherwise it will be rescinded.

As you can see, the whole affair seems to have been a terrible embarrassment, but at least it shows you the means that are being resorted to. You have probably been able to read in the Dreigliederungszeitung what the “Bund zur Abwehr der anthroposophischen Gefahr” (Federation for the Defence against the Anthroposophical Danger), which was founded in Darmstadt, has achieved. As I said, I just wanted to give you this one example of the particular way in which such things are now being done. I could tell you a great deal about the most diverse kinds of opposition. But it is already clearly visible today that things grow with the spread of the movement.

After my return from Kristiania, I received an article from the “Kölnische Zeitung”, in which a geologist speaks out in an extraordinarily dismissive manner against the way in which I arranged the geological writings for the Weimar Goethe Edition in the 1890s; he would have arranged them quite differently, and he finds it completely ungeological the way I arranged them.

I do have my particular opinion about this kind of execution by a university geologist, however; because in the first paragraph of this newspaper article, it says that it is indeed strange when a young man writes such writings about Goethe; but he admits – the person in question – that he does not understand them. Well, I think that it is not particularly valuable to pass judgment on the fundamentally rather secondary question of whether a Goethe essay will be included in the edition sooner or later; after all, one can have the most diverse views on this, because one bases one's judgment on the principles one has formed about Goethe.

And if someone cannot understand these principles, then their judgment is not to be trusted. But I would like to give such gentlemen a piece of advice: they should dispute most vehemently any judgment of mine about linguistics. Because after going back so far in the decades, one should just go back a little further and check my school notebooks in Wiener Neustadt. I can guarantee that these school notebooks always contained a large number of grammatical errors up to the age of 14, and that punctuation in particular was extremely poor. I therefore believe that one can draw the justified conclusion from this that it is completely impossible for me to make a valid judgment about anything linguistic today! It seems to me that the investigations will soon have to be driven into this quagmire.

It occurred to me, without me wanting to draw a comparison, that the poet Robert Hamerling published his high school teaching certificate in his memoirs. This certificate, which was issued by the enlightened high school teaching examination board when Robert Hamerling was to take his high school teaching qualification, contains the following passage: The candidate is eminently qualified to teach Greek and Latin, however, one cannot help but say that with regard to the German language and style, he can hardly meet the most basic requirements of a grammar school teacher of the lower classes. Such samples could indeed be collected in many ways. Those who have experience in this field know how these things actually come about, that is, how they arise from the mind, because that is the more important thing.

That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to tell you about the progress of our movement. I must repeatedly draw your attention to the fact that you must be fully aware that the opposition is growing ever greater and greater.

Today I would like to say a few words that could be a kind of continuation of the explanations I gave you before my trip. I would like to talk about how, in a sense, what I have said on various occasions about the Christ problem can be summarized. I would like to do this because a paper has recently been published that characterizes, as it were, “newer religious movements,” and among these also discusses anthroposophy. In this paper, one might say, the tone is actually quite benevolent. You see, I have given our friends in Kristiania some consolation for the terrible things that they too have had to endure in the newspapers. I said: If the newspaper reviews had been so one-sided as to bring them extraordinary praise, then I would have had to consider what is wrong with anthroposophy and what can be improved. But now, for some time, one can be encouraged again; because it would have been very bad if things had turned out differently.

So, a publication has appeared that expresses itself in an actually benevolent intention about the religious content of anthroposophy. It is said that it would be quite nice if the religious feeling of the present were to receive support from anthroposophy. But that cannot be the case, because then the religious movement would have to watch as anthroposophy points people to the higher worlds. The higher worlds would be pointed out from a different side than that of the appointed representatives of religion, and if that were to attract followers, they would not be followers of religion, but followers of anthroposophy, from which one must therefore conclude that the life of anthroposophy means the death of religion.

This sentence is included in the first part of these discussions as something special. And there it is, as with so much, referred to the Cosmic Christ. Of course, everything that can be said about gnosticism and the like is brought up again, and then it is said: To present the Christ as an extraterrestrial, cosmic being is an insult to anyone who feels religious.

Now, since this is actually being said from a benevolent side, benevolent in relation to anthroposophy, as well as in relation to religious renewal, I must confess that I found that the matter had to be considered: How is it that people who, after all, cannot change their minds but are nonetheless well-meaning, come to the conclusion that the Christology of Anthroposophy is even offensive to a Christian, as he should be according to the opinion of such public representatives - because the person in question who wrote the book is a professor of theology. So it is a matter of considering what is actually at the root of this.

My dear friends, first of all we must consider what we have always presented regarding the twofold experience, the Father-experience, that is, the experience of God permeating the world, and the Christ-experience as such, which, for example, is not separated by people like Harnack from the general experience of God, from the Father-experience. I have presented this to you. It can be shown, and this must actually be striven for in the present, that there must be two experiences in man: one that comes from a truly correct contemplation of nature and of the physical existence of man, and the other that comes from the soul to the experience of the Son. The two experiences must occur in man in a completely separate way, so that the Christ-experience is a special experience. But this is not the case with most of the present official representatives of the Christian denominations. In his book 'The Essence of Christianity', for example, Harnack says that Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father; so it should not be about having Christ or an image of Christ in the Gospels. The Gospels are not meant by rights to speak about the Christ, but only about what the Christ says about the Father.

This is extremely characteristic, because for anyone who can think impartially, Harnack's concept of Christ is denied the ability to be a Christianity at all. For there is no difference between the old teaching of Yahweh and Christology when it is said: the Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father. For then the Christ is merely the Father's teacher, and then we really have no difference between the Christ-Jesus of these theologians and the Jesus whom, for example, an ordinary secular historian, Ranke, describes. That is just “the simple man from Nazareth,” certainly a peak of historical human development, but just the simple man from Nazareth. Actually, there is nothing of the Mystery of Golgotha in

such a so-called Christian discussion. But the individual human being can have the separate Christ-experience in the present, especially if he feels the modern sense of self in the right way. But then, I would like to say, one has the Christ who is present and walking among us spiritually, and not yet the historical Christ-Jesus who went through the Mystery of Golgotha.

Now it is a matter of also understanding this Christ-Jesus historically. This can be done in the following way. One follows the historical development of humanity up to the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. You know that this is the fourth post-Atlantean period.

Now let us assume that I have to talk to you today about the historical development of humanity without the Mystery of Golgotha having taken place in the Pauline sense; then I would not be able to talk to you about anything other than the pale skull site of Golgotha. Because what happened at this pale skull site of Golgotha would not have a supersensible significance. The Christ could not be understood as a supermundane, cosmic being.

During this period, the preliminary experience of the I first occurred. This can also be proven philologically by examining the languages. However, the actual experience of the I for Western humanity in the various branches of the life of consciousness did not occur until the first third of the 15th century, but it spread from the fourth post-Atlantic period.

The peoples who lived before the mystery of Golgotha had, as you know, an ancient wisdom in the most ancient times. This primal wisdom has indeed taken on very different forms among different peoples. But, however it may have been differentiated in the most diverse ways, in religious terms it was a wisdom of the Father-God, and anyone today who, in complete impartiality, takes in what can be established about the primal wisdom of different peoples, what can be gleaned from the records and documents of the nations, even in the Vedas, which I have often discussed, one will find that one must have the deepest reverence for what appeared in the most ancient times as primordial wisdom in the development of mankind

and has always been directed by the mysteries to the appropriate heights. But now this ancient wisdom is gradually dying out, and it is diminishing to the same extent that the instinctive old way of consciousness is diminishing. But to the same extent, self-awareness is also emerging in humanity, and with it the claim to human freedom.

Why was it that ancient pre-Christian humanity could have a wisdom of God that still instills the deepest reverence in us today when we look at it impartially? Precisely because consciousness had not yet penetrated to egoity, to the I, because what man brought forth from his being, when he considered himself in connection with the environment, gave him the Father consciousness in the most diverse forms. I have said it before: one cannot become an atheist if one is completely healthy. Atheism can be traced back to some kind of physical deficiency. But because these ancient peoples had a certain divine inheritance, this father consciousness arose from their overall feeling as human beings, from their total feeling and from the intuitive wisdom that flowed from it. As I said, this faded towards the fourth post-Atlantic period.

Everything is individual when it is really considered impartially, not in the sense of today's inadequate scientific method. In the deepest sense, it points to what has just occurred as a break in human development in this fourth post-Atlantic period, for example between Greek and Latin-Roman development. I have already mentioned many things, and I could still characterize many more. I just want to draw attention to one thing: if you still learn Greek today, you have to give the letters names: Alpha, Beta and so on, while in Roman times the names for the letters have already been absorbed; it is now just an “alphabet”, A, B, C and so on.

This happened during the transition to the abstract nature of the Roman language, the Romance language, and as a result, the understanding that something was originally given with language that had an inner connection, and that with language, humans were given a gift from the genius of language at the same time, was actually lost. These things must be researched because, as I am only able to hint at today, we cannot arrive at a thorough didactics of language teaching, as it must be in a truly serious school, such as a Waldorf school, if we do not pursue serious language studies; today's studies are not serious if we do not understand what it means that we now take the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma and so on for granted, and merely refer to the Latin letters as letters: A, B, C and so on. Something of the genius of language was given to humanity, which I have to describe to you - as you know - as a real, actual being. In all kinds of orders one speaks of the “lost word”, but nowhere does one know what it is. It was simply with what we call the alphabet, if one simply pronounced the letters in succession, a world proclamation was given. Take for example the Greek Alpha. For anyone studying languages today, this is of the utmost importance. I hope that these language studies in particular can now be pursued in detail by Waldorf teachers, whom I have encouraged to do so, because we need these things in order to be able to use them practically in our teaching. If you form the word Alpha - but you have to take it fully - you have something that means “man”; and in “Beta” you have “house”. So that the word pronounced in the first two letters means: Man in his house. And then it continues through gamma and the other letters. And when you complete the alphabet, you get a deep meaning from the simple enumeration of the respective words that the letters mean.

This was later lost, completely disappeared in humanity, when the word that consists of all the letters of the alphabet. And today one speaks in “Freemason orders” of the “lost word”, but actually does not speak of something that really exists, because hardly anything suspects this reality.

But analyze the Greek alphabet and you will trace it back to the Hebrew: Aleph, Beth and so on, the alphabet always begins with: Man in his house. And then it continues. So world wisdom is revealed with the alphabet. Now, in the fourth post-Atlantic period, that which leads more and more to self-awareness emerged. It happened in stages, and I have already hinted at the important events that took place in the fourth Christian century, for example. However, as the sense of self emerged, something else emerged to the same extent. The I, the sense of self, that which the human being experiences by coming to full self-awareness, comes only from the physical body. Study everything else today, and you will receive influences from a supersensible existence, an existence from outside of life between birth and death. The sense of self that the human being has is a creation of what is experienced in the physical body between birth and death. In the next reflection, I will explain the full significance of self-awareness to you, but for now I would just like to mention it. However, the fact that the self-awareness of earthly man initially only comes from the physical body made those who were initiated through the mysteries in the fourth post-Atlantean period feel ill. They felt the culture was mentally ill. And that was a mystery view of the fourth post-Atlantic period: culture is mentally ill and needs a healer. This was deeply ingrained, and it is interesting to see how the Greek people, who were striving for health through and through, perceived this cultural illness.

You see, long, learned treatises have been written about the word “catharsis” associated with the mysteries. This was used to describe something that lives in the development of a tragedy by Aeschylus or Sophocles for the Greek tragedy. As I said, great scholarly treatises have been written about it. You know that from Lessing to the present day, speculations have been made about it; half-truths and quarter-truths have been found, but the right one has not been found. Lessing said: Fear and compassion should be stimulated, which in turn should be overcome. The soul should, so to speak, be healed of these passions by evoking them in this way.

But the most important thing is that “catharsis” is actually a medical term, and that it indicates that in Greece there was still an essential connection, let us say, for example, between Hippocrates and Aeschylus. The healthy Greek feeling sensed the cultural disease, and in the Aeschylus drama one sensed something like a healing. Therefore, one spoke in favor of the course, for the construction of the drama of catharsis, of the crisis that is overcome. One really spoke in medical terms of this catharsis. And if you look at historical development from this point of view, you will look with a special eye at the Essenes, especially at the therapists. Why did they call themselves “therapists”? Because they wanted to work on the recovery of the culture that had become ill.

And all this was preparation for the great healer, for Christ Jesus, for the actual savior. And it is not some superficiality, but is deeply rooted in the mystery knowledge of human development that the entry of the Mystery of Golgotha signifies a therapy for the historical development of humanity, and that if one were to speak of human development today without the Mystery of Golgotha having been there, one would have to say: human development is going downhill. One could only point to the bleaching skull place of Golgotha.

With full consciousness, it must be pointed out that the Mystery of Golgotha occurred at the right time and that it could not have come from the earth, but from outside the earth. For everything that had happened on earth in the development of humanity was at the stage in which the Greeks and the people of the Near East saw it, the therapists, until the “great therapist” came.

This actually leads to a correct and inward view of history. And from such a view of history, one is simply led to the historical event of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the historical Christ-Jesus. That is the way. This will be further explained next time.

But why does theology in particular oppose this extraterrestrial, this cosmic Christ? Why does theology say: That is insulting, that the Christ should be a sun being? Well, my dear friends, the reason for this is that theology itself has become materialistic. If we go back to the ancient wisdom, which was still instinctive, we see that people did not look up into the cosmic order and say: up there is the sun, which is a glowing ball of gas, but they looked up to the spiritual beings that were in the starry heavens. Whoever speaks of the being of the sun as the Christ does not speak of the material sun, but of the spiritual essence of the cosmos. We know how it is spoken of in theology today; there, too, one sees nothing but something that is calculated like a machine. And because extraterrestrial space is merely material — according to the view of such materialistic theologians —, anthroposophy, of course, makes the Christ, by declaring him to be a solar being, a merely material being as well.

So, because contemporary theology is so deeply infected by the materialism of the present day that it is taken for granted that when one speaks of the solar being, one is only talking about something material, it says: It is insulting. Because, isn't it true that anyone who, infected by conventional science, imagines a sun being coming to earth, imagines – and I don't mean to make a slip here, but I say this out of a desire to be understood – that something flies out of the sun and onto the earth, at most thinks of a shooting star. And so the theologian, based on his materialism, basically has the opinion: yes, when anthroposophy speaks of the Christ as a being of the sun that comes from the sun to the earth, it speaks of the Christ as a shooting star, a meteor. This can only come from materialism; people can no longer think in any other way than in material terms.

You have to go back to the elements if you want to understand at all why theologians might say that it is offensive when anthroposophy associates the Christ with an extraterrestrial being. Here you can see how contemporary theology is caught up in materialism, so to speak.

Now, I have tried to make it clear to you that Christ as the savior must be understood in a real, higher, medical sense. Of course, this will offend many theologians, because the fact that I have associated the word savior with the Heliand of German poetry, “Heliand,” has, it seems, deeply hurt Pastor Kully, who finds it extremely offensive and believes that it is as hollow as his own arguments. But I would like

emphasize: the benevolent theological writing I spoke to you about is not by Pastor Kully – lest you fall into the error of thinking it is – but from a slightly different source. From this, my dear friends, you can see that the Christology of anthroposophy can and must always be further deepened, because the present time demands that the Christ be understood again, that we can again rise to a real understanding of the Christ in the Jesus.

Report by Rudolf Steiner on the Berlin School of Spiritual Science

[My dear friends!]

Allow me to say a few words today about the course of the Berlin School of Spiritual Science and then, tomorrow, to conclude with a reflection that should be of particular interest to you as a further elaboration on this very topic.

The Berlin School of Spiritual Science had organized its program in a special way. The aim was to show the relationship between certain branches of life and science in the present day and the anthroposophical world view. Each day was to be devoted mainly to a particular branch of science or life. The week was organized so that it began on Sunday, which was to be devoted to inorganic natural science; Monday was to be devoted to organic natural science and medicine; Tuesday to philosophy; Wednesday to education; Thursday to economics; Friday to theology. Saturday should be devoted to linguistics, and then on Sunday the whole thing should come to a certain conclusion with a performance of eurythmy at the Deutsches Theater.

The program was so well thought out that each day was to begin with a short lecture by me. Only the first Sunday could not begin in this way, since I could not yet be in Berlin at that time. So on Monday I had to summarize both inorganic and organic science in my introductory words; then the day should have a unified character. After my introductory remarks, two more lectures took place in the morning; then there was a short break for refreshments, but – as had already been announced – no refreshments were available in the Singakademie rooms, and a discussion was scheduled to take place from 1 to 2 p.m. The last lecture of the morning was then to follow from 2 to 3 p.m. It was a bit of a strenuous program!

In the evening, there were lectures, some of which were held by me in the Philharmonie, and some of which were held by others in the rooms of the Berlin University. Every evening there was a lecture, and for the other lectures, except for mine, there was still some kind of discussion in the evening after these lectures. So the days were extremely full.

Now, the entire structure of the program can actually be called interesting, especially through the formulation that the individual 'daily programs had experienced. To some extent, each day had an overall title, and the formulation of these overall titles for the days is really interesting, because they reveal so much that is significant. If you go through these formulations of the daily programs, each individual day has something positive in its formulation, except for Friday, which was dedicated to theology.

This is significant, not so much in terms of an awareness of the times, but in the way the program formulators related to the development of anthroposophy on the part of those who formulated the program. One simply felt compelled to formulate the other daily programs in a positive way. And we only need to look at these formulations to find out what is significant.

Sunday, March 5: “From hostile mechanistics to true phenomenology” - so in the formulation of the program, the hope is expressed that through anthroposophy one will come to find a phenomenology as the basis of inorganic science.

The program for Monday is summarized even more positively: “Ways of anthroposophical human knowledge in biology and medicine”. And the program for Tuesday on philosophy is just as positive: “The foundation of anthroposophy from the philosophical consciousness of the present”.

The program for Wednesday was equally positive: “From modern pedagogical demands to their realization through anthroposophy” — so here, too, the idea is that there are such pedagogical

demands in the present that can be realized through anthroposophy.

Thursday, which was devoted to social science, had a very auspicious title in the overall formulation of the program, although what was presented was less auspicious. Thursday even had an extremely auspicious title that sounds very positive: “National Economic Outlooks”.

Saturday, which was devoted to linguistics, bore the title: “From dead linguistics to living linguistics”.

So you see, these title formulations are the basis for everything: the aim is to point out the path that leads from the present into the anthroposophical shaping of the spiritual path in question. One has an idea of how the individual disciplines take their starting point from the given scientific formulations of the present and run into certain other insights, which are to be given by anthroposophy — everywhere absolutely concrete ideas about possible paths. Only - as I said - Thursday has the extraordinarily promising title: “Outlook”, even “economic outlook”, which is an abstract formulation, but which, in its abstractness, points out that one does not want to go, but to leap.

If we then look at Friday in the general formulation of the daily program, it reads as follows: “The Decline of Religion in Contemporary Theology and the New Foundation through Anthroposophy”. - So here, first of all, it is formulated quite negatively: The decline of religion in contemporary theology, and the new foundation - so it is only pointed out, even in a negative way, that there is something like anthroposophy, and that through it theology and religion can experience a renewal. It is not shown in this title in such a concrete way how the path out of the present confusion can lead into the anthroposophical formation.

If you compare this with the formulation from Sunday, for example: 'From mechanistic materialism hostile to life to true phenomenology', you even have a very specific term for what is to come in the word 'phenomenology'. Likewise, in the word 'human knowledge' from Monday, you pointed to something very specific. In philosophy you pointed to the philosophical consciousness of the present, and so to something concrete; in education you pointed to the pedagogical demands of the present, and in linguistics you said, at least, that we must move from the study of dead languages to the study of living languages, and so you formulated something concrete too.

Now, it is extraordinarily significant that this entire university course, which essentially culminated both internally and externally in the Friday event, which basically – especially the feeling that arose – had a theological character, which, while otherwise extremely well attended, on Friday, the theological day, had an attendance such that it was “packed”, overcrowded —, [it is extremely significant] that this course, in the formulation of the day for the theological program, had something negative,

Of course, these formulations arose out of the circumstances of the moment, and the speakers tried in all honesty and sincerity to express these circumstances as they arose, on the one hand from an awareness of the present and on the other from an idea of what can become of this awareness of the present through anthroposophy.

If we then go through the individual days, we naturally encounter things that are mostly familiar to us. Sunday: From mechanistic materialism hostile to life to true phenomenology: The point here, then, is to point out how we should overcome all speculation about atomism, about a mechanistic view of inanimate nature, how we should come to a pure observation of what is present in phenomena, in appearances, how these appearances themselves should speak for themselves, how they themselves should provide their theory. So it is expressed in this formulation that one wants to pursue Goetheanism in natural science.

In organic natural science, it is then expressed that the entire scope of organic natural science must be based on knowledge of the human being, that it is therefore necessary not to study nature in its kingdoms in a fragmented way, as is currently the case, but that, above all, one should start out from getting to know the human being, and from there explore the other kingdoms of nature.

If we then look at philosophy, the question on Tuesday was how philosophical consciousness has reached an end of a kind. It is interesting to think of this formulation in connection with Hegelianism, for example. In his philosophy, which dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel said that all philosophy of the present is an end in itself, and that basically, in philosophy, one can only look back on how things have come about, but that further development is not possible.

Now, on this Tuesday, it should be shown how a beginning, a new beginning, can arise from the end of philosophy, if one allows this beginning in the anthroposophical sense.

In education, the aim was to show that all truly thinking people today actually make certain educational demands, but that these cannot be met by the pedagogy currently being developed. These demands, which are basically made by all thinking people, can only be met by anthroposophy.

In linguistics, it should be shown how language itself, as a living organism, should be understood in the context of the human being, and not merely from the dead records, as is the case with contemporary linguistics.

As for social science, it can only be said that Emil Leinhas, in an extraordinarily illuminating way, has said something quite significant about the monetary problem of the present day based on his sound knowledge; but, as you yourself may sometimes feel, not an awful lot of positive things can be said about the monetary problem of the present day. You will already feel this here in Switzerland, in this country with its almost supreme currency. But you will believe that not much positive can be said about the money problem when you cross the border! So it is true that not an enormous amount of positive things could be said. The next two lectures did not bring any such positive results either, and this national economic day in particular showed how, basically, the cultivation of the national economic within our anthroposophical movement is what has actually failed through and through. For we have basically not been able to bring it about, despite the fact that the necessity in this area has been emphasized time and again. We have not been able to bring it about that in economics, on the part of those who are involved in economic life itself, something truly future-proof would have been put forward; namely, something that would meet the extremely difficult demands of the present. And so, for this day, the title “Nationalökonomische Aussichten” was basically something of a dancing promise; but what the day then brought was a more or less limping follow-up to this dancing promise.

As for theology, the three titles of the lectures that followed my introductory words were just as interesting as the general formulation of the day's program. The first title of Licentiate Bock's lecture was: “The Decline of Religion into Psychologism”; the second of Licentiate Doctor Rittelmeyer was: “The Decline of Theology into Irrationalism”; and the third lecture by Doctor Geyer was: “The Decline of Theology into Historicism”. So we have been given a threefold description of the decline of theology and religion in these days.

In a sense, the situation of the time had naturally led to theologians speaking, who explained how they come to a dead end within their theology today, based on their particular experiences of thought and feeling. Basically, there was a tendency among theologians to show how they come to a dead end within the theology that is presented to them at the present time.

And if we then consider what has been presented in a positive way, what has been said this Friday can be summarized as follows: Theological consideration of religion – as Mr. Bock, the licentiate, was probably thinking – comes down to looking only at the spiritual experience that can be described as a religious experience, perhaps as an experience of God. It is found that among the various inner experiences of the soul, the human being also has the religious experience, the experience that in a certain respect points to a divine one; but that, if one is unbiased, one can say: Yes, you just have a subjective experience. You have something purely psychological. There is absolutely no guarantee that this experience corresponds to anything in the objective world. The subjective experience of God is not such in modern theology that it can lead to a real acceptance of God, let alone to a view of the essence of the divine in the world. It stifles, as it were, the religious element in the consciousness of man in the psychological fact: Yes, we need a religious life. But there is nothing that can provide the certainty that this need will somehow be satisfied. The psychological fact is there that man needs religion, but the present knows of no content of this religion. - The result of the first lecture by Licentiate Bock would be something like this.

Dr. Rittelmeyer then explained how theology had become tired of rationalism, how it had come to no longer want to formulate the essence of the divine in the world in thought, that it no longer wanted to say: this or that is the content of the divine that permeates and animates the world. Thought was to be excluded from theology. The rational, the one stemming from reason, should be eliminated, and the irrational, the one that excludes thought, should become the content of theology. So that in fact in theology one arrives at nothing but the most extreme abstractions. One no longer wants concrete thoughts, one wants the most extreme abstractions. One does not dare to say: the essence of God can be grasped by this or that thought. One dares only to say: the Being of God is the Unconditional, the Absolute. One pins down a completely indeterminate concept, the “irrational,” that which no reason can grasp.

Would it not be so, in every other area of life, it would be strange to characterize something so negatively. If someone were to ask, for example, “Who is the head of the Goetheanum?” – [And one would answer:] The board of directors is the one who is not the board of directors of any other institution. – One would not get any information about who the board of directors of the Goetheanum is. Of course, you don't get any information about it if you say: The ratio of the divine being consists in the fact that God is the irrational, that which cannot be grasped by reason. – It is all just negation.

Rittelmeyer then linked this to some of the things these contemporary irrationalists have to say. For example, how man behaves inwardly when he wants to rise to this God, who can only be grasped in an irrational way. How does he experience this rising? He experiences it in silence. This is not the silence of mystical experience, which can be very positive, but the absence of speech, the cessation of speaking to oneself inwardly in thought. It was then further explained how this silence should take place in worship. It is out of the absolute powerlessness to formulate anything at all, to take refuge in silence.

It was interesting to hear two gentlemen speak, a private lecturer and a pastor, who defended this irrationalism in turn in order to show that irrationalism is particularly prevalent in the present day. For example, one private lecturer said: Yes, that would be quite right, it would be nonsense, for example, to say that one could find God less in nature than in the spirit. Nature is no more distant from God than is the spirit. Knowledge of the spirit provides no more for God than does knowledge of nature, for God is precisely the absolute that breaks through everywhere. This was repeated very often: that God is the absolute that breaks through everywhere.

Theology... Faust would have said “unfortunately” not just once, but three times; Faust would have to be rewritten: I have now studied, alas, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine and, alas, alas, alas, also theology. So when one has to hear again and again: God is the absolute, which breaks through everywhere... one imagines it everywhere, and then it breaks through, breaks out... but it is precisely the indeterminate that breaks through everywhere! The last lecture was that of Dr. Geyer, who dealt with the decline of theology in historicism. Geyer tried to show how theology gradually came to have nothing creative of its own, but only to observe what had already been, always studying history, what had already been, in order to arrive at a content - but which naturally leads to the fact that at most one can say: In the past, people had a religious consciousness, but today they only have the opportunity to look at these different stages of religious consciousness in the past and choose something they still want to keep. Unfortunately, by making that choice, they are left with nothing of all that is served up to them from the different epochs of the past.

I myself began this day's program by noting that anthroposophy does not want to appear as a religion, that it wants to be a knowledge of supersensible worlds, and that, if theology wants to be fertilized by it, it may do so. Anthroposophy will, of course, say what can be said about the supersensible worlds, and it can wait to see what theologians can use from Anthroposophy for themselves.

For anyone who is able to see the big picture of the present situation, one deficiency has become very apparent today – but one that naturally arises from the circumstances. At least, if the topic of the day had been exhausted – as has been attempted with the other topics of the day and, with the exception of social science, has been achieved to a certain extent – a Catholic theologian should also have spoken. For all the lectures that have been given have been given solely from a Protestant perspective.

A Catholic theologian would have been in a completely different position from these three Protestant theologians. A Catholic theologian does not have a historically handed down theology, but a historically handed down and eternally valid theology, a theology that must be grasped in the present as vividly as it was grasped, let us say, in the third or second centuries of the Christian era. Of course, the councils and, in the eighteenth century, the Pope, who had become infallible, added many things. But these are individual dogmas, these are additions. But the whole essence of Catholic theology is something that, first of all, does not depend on the development of time, and that, in itself, through its own way of knowing, should have a perennial, an everlasting character.

Perhaps if a more progressive man had spoken about Catholic theology, it might have been possible to present the struggles of Catholic thinkers such as Cardinal Newman in an extraordinarily interesting way. If a less advanced Catholic theologian had spoken, he would have presented the essence of the eternal doctrine of salvation, that is, Catholic theology. Then questions of tremendous importance would have arisen. [For example] the question: What exactly is given in Catholic theology for today's man? In Catholic theology, as it appears today, there is undoubtedly nothing living for the present consciousness. But it was once something living. Its content is based entirely on the results of old spiritual knowledge, even if it is atavistic. What Catholic theology contains, say, about the fact of creation, of redemption, about the content of the Trinity, about all these things, these are real concepts, this is something that – only that it has content, which modern consciousness can no longer grasp, but instead dresses it up in abstract, incomprehensible dogmatics or does not dress it up at all, but accepts it as incomprehensible, dry dogmatics.

It was particularly the development of Catholic theology in the nineteenth century in such a way that it was no longer recognized what is contained in the dogmas. On the other hand, there is – or was, in the case of this university course in Berlin – an interesting experience.

On Friday, in my introduction, I said the following, based on my direct experience, which you already know: I said that the one who experiences what is in our natural environment and in what follows on from this natural environment comes, if he is not somehow inwardly crippled, to an awareness of the Father-God. Those who, during their lifetime, recognize the inadequacy of the Father-God and experience a kind of inner rebirth come to an experience of the Son-God, the God-Son. And then, in the same way, by progressing further, one comes to the spiritual experience.

Now a Protestant private lecturer, Lizentiat X., thought: Aha, there is the Trinity, you have to construct it. And he called it a construction, not realizing that there were experiences on which it was based... that was quite foreign to him. Well, those experiences on which the Catholic dogmas are based have become just as foreign to the modern consciousness of the nineteenth century.

These Catholic dogmas, of course, originally go back to spiritual realities. But they are no longer understood, they have become empty concepts. But in the nineteenth century, people wanted to get back to being able to revive a little externally what lives in Catholic theology. You are well aware that this urge to at least be able to understand a little of what lives in Catholic theology arose particularly under the pontificate of Leo XIII, hence the Catholic decree at that time, the Roman decree for all Catholic theologians to return to the study of Thomistic philosophy, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, because all later philosophy is no longer useful for grasping something like what lies in Catholic dogmas. All philosophy that followed Thomas Aquinas is only useful for understanding natural existence, for providing a foundation for the natural sciences, but not for understanding spiritual realities. These are indeed unknown even in the Catholic Church, but they are formulated in Catholic dogmas – they were formulated at a time when these spiritual realities were still known. For this purpose, all later post-Thomistic philosophy is no longer suitable. Therefore, when the need was felt to understand something of what lies in the Catholic dogmas, the renewal of the study of Thomistic was demanded, which is indeed the actual philosophical endeavor within Roman Catholicism today.

There are historical realities at the root of this. And if we compare what is actually necessary to gain access to spiritual things again, we can see that, of course, Thomistic theology alone is not enough to revive what is contained in the old dogmas that have become ossified in Rome. A completely different approach is needed.

Please just remember what a completely twisted view I put forward for such a contemporary literary historian before I left here, in the last lectures, where, by going beyond everything that is space and time, I was able to show you how Hamlet is a pupil of Faust, how Hamlet sat at the feet of Faust for ten years, during those ten years when Faust led his pupils by the nose straight and crooked, how Hamlet was one of those who were led by the nose straight and crooked and criss-cross at the time. Such connections, which are of course an abomination to the present-day literary historian – but then, almost nothing of significance can be said today in the intellectual field that would not be an abomination to the official representatives – is that it is almost the stigma of the real truth today that it is an abomination to the public representatives of real science... Well, if you take this for such a profane area, then you will see what is necessary to really come to that agility of mind that can provide a basis for grasping what is preserved in the dogmas. How one must go back to a completely different state of mind in order to enter into the way one lived in such dogmas is shown precisely by the development of Cardinal Newman.

In Berlin today, it is perhaps still taken for granted that such a university course only addresses Protestant points of view and disregards the Catholic point of view; but you still won't get a picture of what actually prevails there today if you are not somehow able to discuss the Catholic point of view, especially today, when we once again need to look at the whole world.

We have to get beyond just talking today. You know about parochial science and parochial politics. But there is also such a thing as a parochial worldview; it comes across very strongly when you see something like the event on Friday evening, when Dr. Theberat gave a lecture on the topic: “Atomistic and Realistic Consideration of Chemical Processes.” That is to say, Dr. Theberat, who is now employed at our research institute in Stuttgart, tried to show how atomism must be abandoned and how phenomenology must also be introduced into chemistry. Dr. Kurt Grelling then entered the debate. I do not want to talk about Dr. Kurt Grelling, who more or less follows the recipe: Yes, all sorts of things are said in anthroposophy, but all that is not yet probable to me. What is certain, however, is that 2 x 2 = 4, and one must hold to what is certain: 2 x 2 is 4, this is certain. He asserted this already last summer in the Stuttgart course and then even called in two university teachers to help him assert this, that 2 x 2 = 4, on a special evening.

Of course, one could not contradict him. I mean, I only want to hint symbolically at what he said; because 2 x 2 is really 4. I could not contradict him. I could not even contradict him when he said last Friday, again completely out of context: I had admitted in Stuttgart that 2 x 2 = 4. Of course, I cannot deny that. I don't just mean 2 x 2 is 4, but rather things that are just as valuable in the overall context, he put forward at the time... but actually I want to say something else with this. He then claimed: Yes, the question that is being put forward can be decided on the basis of phenomenology, it cannot be decided from the point of view of natural science, but only from the point of view of philosophy.

Now, I am not saying that this is just a Göttingen thing, but at least it is not thought in a cosmopolitan scientific way today, because in England, for example, one would not be able to make sense of a sentence like that. If someone says: This cannot be decided scientifically, this can only be decided philosophically - because this difference is something that is, isn't it, a parochial worldview. This formulation is only known within certain Central European circles.

In any case, when we are talking about such questions, we need a broader perspective today. And it is impossible, for example, to keep talking about the center, west and east – formulation of the Vienna Program: there is constant talk of the west and the east and the center, which I do not criticize, I think it is quite great-spirited when there is talk of the west and the east and the center – but I think you then have to broaden your concepts a bit, they then really have to span these areas. You cannot, of course, embrace the world from a limited point of view. Well, for example, something is missing in relation to the western development of religious life if one completely leaves out Catholicism. Because this western religious life has nothing in it of what one touches when one speaks only of Protestant theology. One does not even come to talk about how... let us say, for example, Puritanism in England or the High Church in England or things like that.

I am not putting all this forward as a criticism, because the things that have been put forward were, of course, excellent. But I would still like to talk in the narrower anthroposophical circle about what needs to be said in connection with all that has happened.

And then it would have become clear how current thinking is not at all able to approach what was once the source of the theological content. So that in Berlin there was no bridge between what modern Protestant theology is and what is now to come from Anthroposophy to enliven religious consciousness. There were only ever indications that this should come from anthroposophy. But how it should be developed was not actually discussed.

These are things that may give you an idea of the struggle on anthroposophical ground, which has now found its most beautiful expression in Berlin. It was clear from the participation of the most diverse circles in Berlin – the lectures were extremely well attended, even the morning lectures – and it was clear from the participation of wide circles that something is definitely alive in the anthroposophical movement, which strikes strongly and intensely at the consciousness of the present.

And sometimes we also did not hold back on our part in the sharpness of expression, which should be characteristic of what is. I remember, for example, with a certain inner joy, when on Saturday Dr. Karl Schubert, who was speaking within the framework of “Anthroposophy and Linguistics” and who also wanted to show how linguistics should play a role in the political life of thinkers and races, became spirited in the debate. He wanted to point out what linguistics is today when you look at it... and what it must become through anthroposophy. It was spirited when he then said: Yes, he had been to Berlin, studied linguistics with a wide variety of teachers, and then came to anthroposophy to enliven this linguistics... and only then did it become clear to him... and there he found what this present linguistics is: a dunghill! And then he banged on the table! Well, there was no lack of spirited expressions to characterize the present situation. So it was already strongly felt what one could feel. The opponents have not exactly... yes, spirited I can't really say, I don't want to say anything that — well, I won't say anything like that!

The evening events were such that one tried to give a picture of the anthroposophical content. It was particularly significant this time that both Dr. Stein and Dr. Schwebsch, two teachers at the Waldorf School, gave vivid pictures of the educational work in the Waldorf School itself.

I would like to say, between the lines, that one could experience many strange things. The whole course ended on Sunday, and I had to give the final evening lecture on Sunday, but the morning events ended with a eurythmy performance at the Deutsches Theater, in front of a full house, which was an extraordinarily successful event.

I hardly need to say that if you should come across any newspapers, you will read the opposite of what happened. But a gentleman, for example, who wrote an article in a Berlin paper that some consider to be pro-Anthroposophy... well, I don't want to comment on that – he then asked another paper, a large paper, if he could also write an article about this college course. They asked: pro or contra? He said, because he thought his article was pro: pro. They said: No, we only take contra.

So they don't care what anyone writes, they just buy “contra”! And of course you won't get any idea of what happened there if you get other reports from outside.

It is a pity that apart from this eurythmy performance at the German Theatre, and the short eurythmy performances on Thursday and Sunday, more eurythmy was not performed; for that might perhaps have led to the situation – along the lines of the Stuttgart Anthroposophical Congress – that the honored attendees would not have had to bear the burden of these packed days quite so heavily. Because I could well imagine that it was quite hard! You see, take any of the days, an average day, when there were no meetings for a number of people, well, the person who experienced everything heard five lectures and a discussion. That is a bit much for a person today: five lectures and a discussion in one day! There were actually two discussions on a normal day. So one had the opportunity to live in such thoughts from 9 a.m. to [3:00 p.m.] and then again from [8:00 p.m.] to about [10:30 p.m.]. Of course, it would have been much better if, in between, as was the case in Stuttgart, witty eurythmy lectures could have taken place.

Yes, I was in a city and had the opportunity to speak to a theologian. He said: We were at a theological meeting in Eisenach; they showed us something like eurythmy there! Well, it must have been something else, but that is what he thought. 'I don't know,' he said, 'what we theologians should make of it; we were all quite amazed, we didn't know how we came to see something like that. But on the whole the result is an extraordinarily significant one, and otherwise, I would say, the inner characteristics of the times presented themselves in an extraordinarily eloquent way. For example, at the theologians' conference, a gentleman asked to speak who once had to give a lecture on the whole field of anthroposophy in one evening; he came to the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag in Berlin that morning Berlin and bought, or rather was given, the books he needed to prepare for his evening lecture, in which he wanted to explain to a larger audience what anthroposophy is, because he was the one who had to give the lecture. Then the gentleman in question seems to have heard one of my philharmonic lectures in Berlin. He ranted terribly about it in a lecture he gave afterwards; among other things, he said that he had actually seen, when he looked around with the opera-goer during my lecture, that someone had even slept on individual benches. And on that theological morning, he spoke.

You couldn't really see the context of this discussion, neither with the topic of the day nor with what

what had been said, nor with anything else. I just kept hearing: “The Gospels shall greet us.” But I had no real idea how it related to the whole. Then he explained that the things had all been so significant that one must have the most ardent desire to unite the whole into one book in order to sell it. Yes, that is the essence of the present-day culture: essence.

I wanted to give you a kind of overview of what has been going on. I don't want to fail to mention that a very pleasing influence has emerged in Berlin, particularly within the German anthroposophical movement: the student influence. With a real inner devotion and with extraordinary zeal, one could see a part of the student body attached to anthroposophy. And that afternoon during the week, it was Friday, when I was with the students to discuss in their way what they wanted to know, that afternoon was a very beautiful part of this entire college course for me.

It is perhaps also worth mentioning that such an afternoon also took place in Leipzig – with a small group of university students devoted to anthroposophy. But the fact that, if one really wants it, a scientific discussion can take place between well-meaning people of current scientific practice and anthroposophy was demonstrated on that very afternoon in Leipzig, when the well-known anatomy professor Spalteholz was there and actually talked to me mainly about the relationship between current natural science and anthroposophy in front of the students. I believe that the students present learned an extraordinary amount from this conversation.

You can see from such a fact that it is actually quite unobjective reasons that official science, slandered and hereticized, is the one that is anthroposophical; while, if if someone were to be found who would deign to enter into a dispassionate discussion, such as Professor Spalteholz in Leipzig, then something very fruitful could come out of it, even if a full understanding is not reached. A complete understanding cannot yet be reached today because there is an abyss between the two sides. But at least a beginning can be made by saying in front of young people what can be said by both sides if we listen to each other. That is the essential thing, and that was the case on that Saturday, March 4, when a number of Leipzig students were with Professor Spalteholz and me to talk about anthroposophy and science. And in fact, many extremely important things were discussed.

Tomorrow we will then address a specific question. I just have to say that tomorrow evening will begin with an artistic eurythmy performance, in which new students will perform, supported by some older eurythmy performers. We will start with the eurythmy performance at [7:30] p.m., and then my lecture will follow.