The Rudolf Steiner Archive

I am very glad to be able to speak here again after a comparatively long absence. Those of you who were present at our meeting in Munich earlier this year¹ or have heard something about my Mystery Play, The Guardian of the Threshold, will have realised what the attitude of the soul must be if an adequate conception is to be acquired of the content of Spiritual Science or, let us say, of Occultism.

A great deal has been said previously about the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings. The aim of The Guardian of the Threshold was to show that the essential nature of these beings can be revealed only by studying them very gradually and from many different aspects. It is not enough to form a simple concept or give an ordinary definition of these beings—popular as such definitions are. My purpose was to show from as many different sides as possible, the part played by these beings in the lives of men. The Play will also have helped you to realise that there must be complete truthfulness and deep seriousness when speaking of the spiritual worlds. This, after all, has been the keynote of the lectures I have given here. It must be emphasised all the more strongly at the present time because there is so little recognition of the seriousness and value of genuine anthroposophical endeavours. If there is one thing that I have tried to emphasise in the lectures given over the years, it is that you should embark upon all your anthroposophical efforts in this spirit of truthfulness and earnestness, and become thoroughly conscious of their significance in world-existence as a whole, in the evolutionary process of humanity and in the spiritual content of our present age. It cannot be emphasised too often that the essence of Anthroposophy cannot be grasped with the help of a few simple concepts or a theory briefly propounded, let alone a programme. The forces of the whole soul must be involved. But life itself is a process of Becoming, of development. Someone might argue that he can hardly be expected to ally himself with an Anthroposophical Movement if he is immediately faced with a demand for self-development and told that he can only hope to penetrate slowly and gradually to the essence of Anthroposophy; he may ask how he can decide to join something for which he can prepare only slowly. The rejoinder to this would be that before a human being can reach the highest stage of development he already has in his heart and in his soul the sense of truth which has led mankind as a whole to strive for such development, and he need only devote himself open-mindedly to this sense of truth, with the will for truth which lies in the depths of his soul unless prejudices have led him astray. He must avoid empty theories and high-sounding programmes. Man is able to sense truth where it genuinely exists. Honest criticism is therefore always possible, even if someone is only at the very beginning of the path of attainment. This, however, does not preclude him from attributing supreme importance to anthroposophical endeavour.

In our present age there are many influences which divert men from the natural feeling for truth that is present in their souls. Over the years it has often been possible to indicate these misleading influences and I need not do it again today. My purpose is to emphasise how necessary it is—even if there is already some knowledge of occult science—to approach and study things again and again from constantly new sides. One example of what I mean is our study of the four Gospels. This autumn I brought these studies to a provisional conclusion with a course of lectures on the Gospel of St. Mark. These studies of the Gospels may be taken as a standard example of the way in which the great truths of existence must be approached from different sides. Each Gospel affords an opportunity to view the Mystery of Golgotha from a different angle, and indeed we cannot begin really to know anything essential about this Mystery until we have studied it from the four different viewpoints presented in the four Gospels.

In what way have our studies over the last ten or twelve years demonstrated this? Those of you who want to be clear about this need only turn to my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, the content of which was first given in the form of lectures, before the foundation of the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Anyone who seriously studies this book will find that it already contained the gist of what I have since said in the course of years, about the Mystery of Golgotha and the four Gospels. Nothing, however, would be more unjustified than to believe that by knowing the contents of that book you would ipso facto have an adequate understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. All the lectures given since the book appeared have been the natural outcome of that original spiritual study; nowhere are they at variance with what was then said. It has furthermore been possible to open up new ways for contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, thus enabling us to penetrate more and more deeply into its significance. The attempt has been made to substitute direct experience of the spiritual facts for concepts, theories and abstract speculations. And if, in spite of it all, a feeling of a certain lack still exists, this lack is due to something that is inevitable on the physical plane, namely, the time factor. Hence I have always assumed that you would have patience and wait for matters to develop gradually. This is also an indication of how what I have to say to you during this coming winter should be understood.

In the course of years we have spoken a great deal of the life between death and a new birth. The same subject will, however, be dealt with in the forthcoming lectures, the reason being that during this last summer and autumn it has been my task to undertake further spiritual research into this realm and to present an aspect of the subject which could not previously be dealt with. It is only now possible to consider certain matters which bring home the profound moral significance of the super-sensible truths pertaining to this realm. In addition to all other demands to which only very brief reference has been made, there is one which in this vain and arrogant age is a cause of offence to numbers of individuals. But we must not allow it to deter us from the earnestness and respect for truth that are due to our Movement. The demand will continue to be made that by dint of earnest, intimate efforts we shall learn to be receptive to knowledge brought from the spiritual world.

For some years now the relationship of human beings living on the physical plane to the spiritual worlds has changed from what it was through almost the whole of the nineteenth century. Until the last third of that century men had little access to the spiritual worlds; it was necessary for evolution that only little of the content of those worlds should flow into the human soul. But now we are living in an age when the soul need only be receptive and duly prepared and revelations from the spiritual worlds will be able to flow into it. Individual souls will become more and more receptive and, being aware of their task in the present age, they will find this inflow of spiritual knowledge to be a reality. Hence the further demand is made that anthroposophists shall not turn deaf ears to what can make its way into the soul today from the spiritual worlds. Before entering into the main theme of these lectures I want to speak of two characteristics of the spiritual life to which special attention must be paid.

Between death and the new birth a human being experiences the realities of the spiritual world in a very definite way. But he also experiences these realities through Initiation; he experiences them too if his soul is prepared during his life in the physical body in a way that enables him to participate in the spiritual worlds. Hence it is true to say that what takes place between death and the new birth—which is, in fact, existence in the spiritual world—can be revealed through Initiation.

Attention must be paid to two points which emerge from what has often been said here; they are essential not only to experience of the spiritual worlds but also to the right understanding of communications received from these worlds. The difference between conditions in the spiritual world and the physical world has often been emphasised, also the fact that when the soul enters the spiritual world it finds itself in a sphere in which it is essential to become accustomed to a great deal that is the exact opposite of conditions in the physical world. Here is one example: If, on the physical plane, something is to be brought about by us, we have to be active, to use our hands, to move our physical body from one place to another. Activity on our part is necessary if we are to bring about something in the physical world. In the spiritual worlds exactly the opposite holds good. I am speaking always of the present epoch. If something is to happen through us in the spiritual worlds, it must be achieved through our inner calm, our inner tranquillity; in the spiritual worlds the capacity to await events with tranquillity corresponds to busy activity on the physical plane. The less we bestir ourselves on the physical plane, the less we can bring about; the more active we are, the more can happen. In the spiritual world, the calmer our soul can become, the more all inner restlessness can be avoided, the more we shall be able to achieve. It is therefore essential to regard whatever comes to pass as something bestowed upon us by grace, something that comes to us as a blessing because we have deserved it as the fruit of inner tranquillity.

I have often said that anyone possessed of spiritual knowledge is aware that 1899 was a very significant year; it was the end of a period of 5,000 years in human history, the so-called Lesser Kali Yuga. Since that year it has become necessary to allow the spiritual to come to men in a way differing from what was previously usual. I will give you a concrete example. In the early twelfth century, a man named Norbert² founded a religious Order in the West. Before the idea of founding the Order came to him, Norbert was a loose-living man, full of sensuality and worldly impulses. One day something very unusual happened to him; he was struck by lightning. This did not prove fatal, but his whole being was transformed. There are many such examples in history. The inner connection between Norbert's physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego was changed by the force contained in the lightning. It was then that he founded his Order, and although, as in so many other cases, it failed to fulfil the aims of its founder, in many respects it did good at the time. Such ‘chance’ events, as they are called nowadays, have been numerous. But this was not a chance happening; it was an event of world-karma. The man was chosen to perform a task of special importance and to make this possible, particular bodily conditions had to be created. An outer event, an external influence, was necessary.

Since the year 1899 such influences on the souls of men must be purely inner influences, not exerted so definitely from outside. Not that there was an abrupt transition; but since the year 1899, influences exerted on the souls of men must more and more take effect inwardly. You may remember what I once said about Christian Rosenkreutz—that when he wishes to call a human soul to himself, it is a more inward call. Before 1899 such calls were made by means of outer events; since that year they have become more inward. Intercourse between human souls and the higher Hierarchies will become more and more dependent upon inner exertions, and men will have to apply the deepest, most intimate forces of their souls in order to maintain this intercourse with the Beings of the Hierarchies.

What I have just described to you as an incisive point in life on the physical plane has its counterpart in the spiritual world—visibly for one who is a seer—in much that has taken place between the Beings of the higher Hierarchies. At this time there were certain tasks which it was incumbent upon the Beings of the Hierarchies to carry out among themselves, but one particular condition must be noted. The Beings whose task in the spiritual worlds was to bring about the ending of Kali Yuga, needed something from our Earth, something taking place on our Earth. It was necessary that in certain souls who were sufficiently mature there should be knowledge of this change, or at least that such souls should be able to envisage it. For just as man on the physical plane needs a brain in order to develop consciousness, so do the Beings of the Hierarchies need human thoughts in which their deeds are reflected. Thus the world of men is also necessary for the spiritual world; it co-operates with the spiritual world and is an essential factor—but it must co-operate in the right way. Those who were ready previously or are ready now to participate in this activity from the human side, would not have been right then, nor would they be right now, to agitate in the way that is customary on the physical plane for the furtherance of something that is to take place in the spiritual world. We do not help the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies by busy activity on the physical plane, but primarily by having some measure of understanding of what is to happen; then, in restfulness and concentration of soul, we should await a revelation of the spiritual world. What we can contribute is the inner quietude we can achieve, the attitude of soul we can induce in ourselves to await this bestowal of grace.

Thus, paradoxical as it may seem, our activity in the higher worlds depends upon our own inner tranquillity; the calmer we can become, the more will the facts of the spiritual world be able to come to expression through us. Hence it is also necessary, if we are to participate effectively in a spiritual Movement, to be able to develop this mood of tranquillity. And in the Anthroposophical Movement it would be especially desirable for its adherents to endeavour to achieve this inner tranquillity, this consciousness of Grace in their attitude to the spiritual world.

Among the various activities in which man is engaged on the physical plane it is really only in the domain of artistic creation, or where there is a genuine striving for knowledge or for the advancement of a spiritual Movement, that these conditions hold good. An artist will assuredly not create the best work of which his gifts are capable if he is perpetually active and is impatient to make progress. He will produce his best work if he can wait for the moment when Grace is vouchsafed to him and if he can abstain from activity when the spirit is not speaking. And quite certainly no higher knowledge will be attained by one who attempts to formulate it out of concepts already familiar to him. Higher knowledge can be attained only by one who is able to wait quietly, with complete resignation, when confronted by a problem or riddle of existence, and who says to himself: I must wait until the answer comes to me like a flash of light from the spiritual worlds. Again, someone who rushes from one person to another, trying to convince them that some particular spiritual Movement is the only genuine one, will certainly not be setting about this in the right way; he should wait until the souls he approaches have recognised the urge in themselves to seek the truths of the spiritual world. That is how we should respond to any illumination shining down into our physical world; but it is particularly true of everything that man can himself bring about in the spiritual world. It may truly be said that even the most practical accomplishments in that realm depend upon the establishment of a certain state of tranquillity.

I want now to speak of so-called spiritual healing. Here again it is not the movements or manipulations carried out by the healer that are of prime importance; they are necessary, but only as preparation. The aim is to establish a condition of rest, of balance. Whatever is outwardly visible in a case of spiritual healing is only the preparation for what the healer is trying to do; it is the final result that is of importance. In such a case the situation is like weighing something on a pair of scales: first, we put in the one scale what we want to weigh; in the other scale we put a weight and this sets the beam moving to right and left. But it is only when equilibrium has been established that we can read the weight. Something similar is true of actions in the spiritual worlds.

In respect of knowledge, of perception, however, there is a difference. How does perception come about in everyday life on the physical plane? Everyone is aware that with the exception of certain spheres of the physical plane, objects present themselves to us from morning until evening during the waking life of day; from minute to minute new impressions are made upon us. It is in exceptional circumstances only that we, on our side, seek for impressions and do with objects what otherwise they do to us. This, however, is already near to being a searcher for knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is a different matter. We ourselves must set before our soul whatever is to be presented to it. Whereas we must be absolutely quiescent if anything is to come about, to happen through us in the spiritual world, we must be uninterruptedly active if we really desire to understand something in the spiritual world. Connected with this is the fact that many people who would like to be anthroposophists find that the knowledge we are trying to promote here is too baffling for them. Many of them complain: in Anthroposophy one has to be always learning, always pondering, always busy! But without such efforts it is not possible to acquire any understanding of the spiritual worlds. The soul must make strenuous efforts and contemplate everything from many sides. Mental pictures and concepts of the higher worlds must be developed through steady, tranquil work. In the physical world, if we want to have, say, a table, we must acquire it by active effort. But in the spiritual world, if we want to acquire something, we must develop the necessary tranquillity. If anything is to happen, it emerges from the twilight. But when it is a matter of knowing something, we must exert every possible effort to create the necessary Inspirations. If we are to ‘know’ something, effort is essential; the soul must be inwardly active, move from one Imagination to another, one Inspiration to another, one Intuition to another. We must create the whole structure; nothing will come to us that we have not ourselves produced in our search for knowledge. Thus conditions in the spiritual world are exactly the opposite of what holds good in the physical world.

I have had to give this introduction in order that we may agree together, firstly, as to how certain facts are discovered, but secondly, how they can be understood as more is said of them. In these lectures I shall deal less with the life immediately following death—known to us under the name of Kamaloka—the essential aspects of which are already familiar to you. We shall be more concerned to study from somewhat new points of view those periods in the life after death which follow the period of Kamaloka.

First of all it is important to describe the general character of that life. The first stage of higher knowledge is what may be called the ‘Imaginative’ life, or life filled with true, genuine visions. Just as in physical life we are surrounded by the world of colours, sounds, scents, tastes, mental pictures which we form for ourselves by means of our intellect, so in the spiritual world we are surrounded by ‘Imaginations’—which can also be called ‘visions’. But we must realise that these Imaginations or visions, when they are true in the spiritual sense, are not the imagery of dream but realities. Let us take a definite case.

When a human being has passed through the Gate of Death he comes into contact with those who died before him and with whom he was connected in some way during life. During the period between death and the new birth we are actually together with those who belong to us. Just as in the physical world we become aware of objects by seeing their colours, hearing their sounds and so on, in the same way we are surrounded after death, figuratively speaking, by a cloud of visions. Everything around us is vision; we ourselves are vision in that world just as here on Earth we are flesh and bone. But this vision is not a dream; we know that it is reality. When we encounter someone who is dead and with whom we previously had some connection, he too is ‘vision’; he is enveloped in a cloud of visions. But just as on the physical plane we know that the colour ‘red’ comes, let us say, from a red rose, on the spiritual plane we know that the ‘vision’ comes from the spiritual being of someone who passed through the gate of death before us. But here I must draw your attention to a particular aspect, especially as it is experienced by everyone who is living through this period after death. Here on the physical plane it may, for example, be the case that at least as far as we can judge, we ought to have loved some individual but have loved him too little; we have, in fact, deprived him of love or have hurt him in some way. In such circumstances, if we are not stony-hearted, the idea may occur to us that we must make reparation. When this idea comes to us it is possible to compensate for what has happened. On the physical plane we can modify the previously existing relationship but during the period immediately following Kamaloka, we cannot. From the very nature of the encounter we may well be aware that we have hurt the person in some way or deprived him of the love we ought to have shown him; we may also wish to make reparation, but we cannot. During this period all we can do is to continue the relationship which existed between us before death. We perceive what was amiss but for the time being we can do nothing to make amends. In this world of visions which envelops us like a cloud, we cannot alter anything. The relationship we had with an individual who died before us remains. This is often one of the more painful experiences also associated with Initiation. A person experiences much more deeply the significance of his relation to the physical plane than he was able to do with his eyes or his intellect, but for all that he cannot directly change anything. This, in fact, constitutes the pain and martyrdom of spiritual knowledge, in so far as it is self-knowledge and relates to our own life. After death, relationships between individuals remain and continue as they were during earthly life.

When recently this fact presented itself to my spiritual sight with tremendous force, something further occurred to me. During my life I have devoted a great deal of study to the works of Homer and have tried to understand many things contained in these ancient epics. On this particular occasion I was reminded of a certain passage. Homer, by the way, was called by the Greeks the ‘blind’ Homer, thus indicating his spiritual seership. In speaking of the realm through which men journey after death, Homer calls it the ‘realm of the Shades in which no change is possible’. Here once again I realised that we can rightly understand much that is contained in the great masterpieces and revelations of mankind only by drawing upon the very depths of spiritual knowledge. Much of what will lead to an understanding of humanity as a whole must depend upon a new recognition by men of those great ancestors whose souls were radiant with spiritual light. Any sensitive soul will be moved by the recognition that this ancient seer was able to write as he did only because the truth of the spiritual world shone into his soul. Here begins the true reverence for the divine-spiritual forces which stream through the world and especially through the hearts and souls of men. This attitude makes it possible to realise how the progress and development of the world are furthered. A very great deal that is true in the deepest sense is contained in the works of men whose gifts were on a level with those of Homer. But this truth which was once directly revealed to an ancient, dreamlike clairvoyance, has now been lost and must be regained on the path leading to spiritual knowledge.

In order to substantiate still further this example of what has been bestowed upon humanity by creative genius, I will now speak of something else as well. There was a certain truth which I strongly resisted when it first dawned upon me, which seemed to me to be paradoxical, but which through inner necessity I was eventually bound to recognise.

The spiritual investigation on which I was engaged at that time was also connected with the study of certain works of art. Among them was one which I had previously seen and studied although a particular aspect of it had not struck me before. I am speaking now of the Medici tombs in the Chapel designed and built in Florence by Michelangelo. Two members of the Medici family, of whom no more need be said at present, were to be immortalised in statues. But Michelangelo added four so-called ‘allegorical’ figures, named at his suggestion, ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’, ‘Day’ and ‘Night’. ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ were placed at the foot of one statue; ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’ at the foot of the other. Even if you have no particularly good photographs of these allegorical figures, you will easily be able to verify what I have to say about them.

We will begin with ‘Night’, the most famous of the four. In guide-books you can read that the postures of the limbs in the recumbent figure of ‘Night’ are unnatural, that no human being could sleep in that position and therefore the figure cannot be a good symbolic presentation of ‘Night’. But now let me say something else. Suppose we are looking at the allegorical figure of ‘Night’ with occult vision. We can then say to ourselves: when a human being is asleep, his Ego and astral body have left the physical and etheric bodies. It is conceivable that someone might visualise a particular posture which most accurately portrays that of the etheric body when the astral body and Ego have left. As we go about during the day our gestures and movements are conditioned by the fact that the astral body and Ego are within the physical and etheric bodies. But at night the astral body and Ego are outside and the etheric body alone is in the physical body. The etheric body then unfolds its own activity and mobility, and thus adopts a certain posture. The impression may well be that there is no more fitting portrayal of the free activity of the etheric body than that achieved by Michelangelo in this figure of ‘Night’. In point of fact, the movement is conveyed with such precision that no more appropriate presentation of the etheric body under such circumstances can be imagined.

Now let us turn to the figure of ‘Day’. Suppose we could induce in a human being a condition in which his astral and etheric bodies were as quiescent as possible and the Ego especially active. No posture could be more fitting for the activity of the Ego than that portrayed by Michelangelo in the figure of ‘Day’. The postures are not allegorical but drawn directly and realistically from life. The artist has succeeded in capturing as it were for earthly eternity the postures which in the evolutionary process most aptly express the activity of the Ego and the activity of the etheric body.

We come now to the other figures. First let us take that of ‘Evening’. If we think of how, in a healthily developed human being, the etheric body emerges and the physical body relaxes—as also happens drastically at death—but if we think, not of actual death but of the emergence of the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego from a man's physical body, we shall find that the posture then assumed by the physical body is accurately portrayed in the figure of ‘Evening’. Again, if we think of the activity of the astral body while there is diminished activity of the etheric body and Ego, we shall find the most precise representation in Michelangelo's figure of ‘Morning’. So on the one side we have the portrayals of the activity of the etheric body and of the Ego (in the figures of ‘Night’ and ‘Day’) and on the other side the portrayals of the physical and astral bodies (in the figures of ‘Evening’ and ‘Morning’).

As already said, at first I resisted this conclusion, but the more carefully one investigates the more one is compelled to accept it. What I have wanted to indicate here is how the artist is inspired by the spiritual world. Admittedly, in the case of Michelangelo the process was more or less unconscious but in spite of that his creations could only have been produced by the radiance of the spiritual world shining into the physical. Occultism does not lead to the destruction of works of art but on the contrary to a much deeper understanding of them; as a result. a great deal of what passes for art today will in the future no longer do so. A number of people may be disappointed but truth will be the gainer! I could well understand the foundation of the legend that has grown up in connection with the most elaborate of these figures. The legend is to the effect that when Michelangelo was alone with the figure of ‘Night’ in the Medici Chapel in Florence, he could make the figure rise up and walk. I will not go further into this, but when we know that this figure gives expression to the ‘life-body’, the significance of the legend is obvious.

The same applies in many cases—in that of Homer, for instance. Homer speaks of the spiritual realm, a realm of the Shades in which there can be no change or alteration. But when we study the conditions prevailing in the period of life following Kamaloka, we begin to have a new understanding of works of a divinely blessed man such as Homer. And a great deal will be similarly enriched through Spiritual Science.

Useful as it may be to indicate these things, they are not of prime importance in actual life. Of prime importance is the fact that mutual relationships are continually being formed between one human being and another. A man's attitude towards another individual will be very different if he detects a spiritual quality in him or thinks of human beings as pictured by a materialistic view of life. The sacred riddle that every human being should be to us can only be this to our feelings and perceptions when we have within our own soul something that is able to throw spiritual light upon the other soul. By deepening our contemplation of cosmic secrets—with which the secrets of human existence are connected—we shall learn to understand the nature of the man standing before us; we shall learn to silence our preconceptions and to feel and recognise the true qualities of the individual in question. The most important light that Spiritual Science can give will be the light it throws upon the human soul. Thereby sound social feelings, also those feelings of love which ought to prevail between human beings, will make their way into the world as a fruit of true spiritual knowledge. We shall recognise that our grasp of spiritual knowledge alone can help this fruit to grow and thrive. When Schopenhauer said: “To preach morality is easy; to establish morality is difficult”, he was giving expression to true insight. After all, it is not so very difficult to discover moral principles, neither is it difficult to preach morality. But to quicken the human soul at the point where spiritual knowledge can germinate and develop into true morality capable of sustaining life—that is what matters. Our attitude to spiritual knowledge can also establish within us the seeds of a truly human morality of the future. The morality of the future will either be built on the foundations of spiritual knowledge—or it will not be built at all!

Love of truth requires that we acknowledge these things; it requires us to deepen our anthroposophical life; and above all to bear in mind what has been said today as an introductory fact, namely, that whereas knowledge demands activity, action in the spiritual world demands of us inner tranquillity, in order that we may prove worthy of Grace. You will now be able to understand that during the period between death and the new birth, when we are confronting another being, we can realise through the activity we then unfold whether we have deprived him of love or done anything to him that we ought not to have done. But, as I have said, during this period we cannot induce the tranquillity of soul that is necessary if the wrong is to be righted. In the lectures this winter I shall be describing the period during which it is actually possible in the natural course of the life between death and the new birth, to establish conditions in which change can be made possible—in other words, when a person's karma can be influenced in a certain way. We must, however, carefully distinguish between the point of time we have just been considering and the later period between death and the new birth when the tasks are different.

It remains to be said that there are certain conditions which will enable a human being to live through his existence after death in a favourable or an unfavourable way. It will be found that the mode of existence of two or more human beings after the period immediately following their life in Kamaloka depends largely upon their moral disposition on Earth. Human beings who displayed good moral qualities on Earth will enjoy favourable conditions during the period immediately following Kamaloka; those who displayed defective morality will experience bad conditions.

I should like to sum up what I have been saying about the life after death in a kind of formula, although as our language is coined for the physical world and not for the spiritual world, it cannot be strictly exact. One can only try to make it as exact as possible. If, then, there has been a good moral quality in our soul, we shall become ‘sociable’ spirits and enjoy companionship with other spirits, with other human beings or with Spirits of the higher Hierarchies. The opposite is the case if a genuine moral quality has been lacking in us; we then become solitary spirits, spirits who find it extremely difficult to move away from the clouds of their visions. To feel thus isolated as a spiritual hermit is an essential cause of suffering after death. On the other hand it is characteristic of the companionship of which I have spoken, to be able to establish the connection with what is necessary for us. It takes a long time after death to live through this sphere which in occultism is called the Mercury-sphere.

The moral tone of the soul is naturally still decisive in the next sphere, the Venus-sphere; but new conditions then begin. In this sphere it is the religious disposition of the soul that is decisive. Individuals with a religious inner life will become sociable beings in the Venus-sphere, quite irrespective of the creed to which they belonged. On the other hand, individuals without any religious feelings are condemned in this sphere to complete spiritual self-absorption. Paradoxical though it may seem, I can only say that individuals with predominantly materialistic views and who scorn religious life, inevitably become spiritual hermits, each one living as it were confined in his own cell. Far from being an ironical comparison, it is true to say: all those who are supporters of ‘monistic religion’—that is to say, the opposite of true religion—will find themselves firmly imprisoned and be quite unable to find one another.

In this way the mistakes and errors committed by the soul in earthly life are corrected. On the physical plane errors are automatically corrected but in the life between death and the new birth, errors and mistakes on Earth. also our thoughts, become facts. In the process of Initiation too, thinking is a real fact and if we were able to perceive it, an erroneous thought would stand there before us, not only in all its ugliness but with all the destructive elements it contains. If people had no more than an inkling that many a thought signifies a destructive reality they would soon turn away from many of the thoughts circulating in Movements intent upon agitation. It is part of the martyrdom endured in the process of Initiation that thoughts gather around us and stand there like solidified, frozen masses, which we cannot in any way dislodge, as long as we are out of the body. If we have formed an erroneous thought and then pass out of the body, the thought is there and we cannot change it. To change it we must go back into the body. True, memory of it remains, but even an Initiate is only able to rectify it when he is in the physical body. Outside the body it stands there like a mountain. Only in this way can he become aware of the seriousness of the realities of life.

This will help you to understand that for certain karmic adjustments a return into the physical body is essential. The mistakes do indeed confront us during the life between death and the new birth; but the errors have to be corrected while we are in the physical body. In this way compensation is made in the subsequent life for what happened in the previous life. But what must be recognised in all its strength and fallaciousness stands there, unchangeable to begin with, as in the case of things in the spiritual world according to Homer. Such knowledge of the spiritual world must penetrate into our souls and become perception and feelings, and as feelings they form the basis for a new conception of life. A monistic Sunday sermon may expound any number of moral principles but as time will show, they will produce very little change, because in the way they are presented the concepts can have a real effect only when we recognise that for a certain period after death whatever is a burden on our karma will confront us as a direct reality. We recognise the burden but it remains as it is; we cannot change it now; all we can do is to recognise and accept the burden fully and deepen our nature accordingly.

The effect of such concepts upon our souls is that they enable us to have the true view of life. And then there will follow all that is necessary to further the progress of life along the paths laid down by those who are the spiritual leaders of mankind; we shall thus move forward towards the goals that are set before man and mankind.

• 1. From 25th to 31st August, 1912, eight lectures were given with the following general title: On Initiation, Eternity and the Passing Moment. On Spiritual Light and Darkness of Life.
• 2. St. Norbert, c. 1085–1134. In 1121 founded the Order of Norbertines. In 1126 he became Archbishop of Magdeburg.

First, I would like to thank the Vice Chancellor of this University, and you yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, for your friendly welcome. I hope that I can make myself understood, despite my inability to speak your language. Indeed, I apologize for my lack in that respect.

The theme that I shall present tonight and tomorrow night is the educational principles and methods based on anthroposophy. And so, here, right at the beginning, I must ask you not to look on the aims of anthroposophy as wishing to be in any way subversive or revolutionary—with respect either to scientific matters or any of the other many aspects of life where anthroposophy seeks to be productive.

On the contrary, anthroposophy seeks only to deepen and develop what has already been prepared by the recent spiritual culture of humanity. However, because of anthroposophy’s deepened insight into human life and knowledge of the universe, it necessarily looks for a corresponding deepening and insight in contemporary scientific thinking. Likewise, it also looks for different ways of working practically in life—different from more accustomed and conventional ways.

Because of this, anthroposophy has found itself opposed by representatives of the spirit of the day. But it does not want to become involved in hostilities of this kind, nor does it wish to engage in controversy. Rather, it aims to guide the fundamental achievements of modern civilization toward a fruitful goal. This is the case, above all, in the field of education. Apart from my small publication, The Education of the Child from the Viewpoint of Spiritual Science, published several years ago, I had no particular reason to publish a more detailed account of our educational views until, with the help of Emil Molt, the Waldorf school in Stuttgart was founded.

With the founding of the Waldorf school, anthroposophy’s contribution to the field of education entered the public domain. The Free Waldorf school itself is the outcome of longings that made themselves felt in many different parts of Central Europe after the end of the last, catastrophic war. One of the many topics discussed during that time was the realization that perhaps the most important of all social questions was about education. And, prompted by purely practical considerations, Emil Molt founded the Free Waldorf school, originally for the children of the employees of his Waldorf Astoria Factory. At first, therefore, we only had children whose parents were directly connected with Molt’s factory. During the last two years, however, children from different backgrounds have also entered the school. Hence, the Waldorf school in Stuttgart today educates children from a wide range of backgrounds and classes. All of these children can benefit from an education based on anthroposophy. In education, above all, anthroposophy does not wish to introduce revolutionary ideas, but seeks only to extend and supplement already existing achievements. To appreciate those, one need only draw attention to the contribution of the great educators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Anyone with education at heart can feel only enthusiasm for their comprehensive ideas and powerful principles. Yet, despite all of this, there remain urgent problems in our present education. As a result, not a year passes in which a longing for the renewal of education does not make itself felt in society.

Why should it be that, on one hand, we can be enthusiastic about the convincing educational ideas expressed by the great educators of our times, while, on the other, we experience a certain disenchantment and dissatisfaction in how education is carried out?

Let me give just one example. Pestalozzi has become world famous. He certainly belongs among the great educators of our time. Nevertheless, thinkers of Herbert Spencer’s caliber have pointed out in the strongest terms that, although one might be in full agreement with Pestalozzi’s educational principles, one cannot help realizing that the great expectations raised by them have not been fulfilled with their practical application. Decades ago, Spencer already concluded that despite Pestalozzi’s sound and even excellent pedagogical ideas, we are unable at present to apply his general principles in practical classroom situations. I wish to repeat, ladies and gentlemen, that it is not new ideas that anthroposophy wants to introduce. Anthroposophy is mainly concerned with actual teaching practice.

Just as the Waldorf school in Stuttgart grew out of the immediate needs of a given life situation, what exists today as anthroposophical pedagogy and the anthroposophical method of education is not a product of theories or abstract principles but grows out of the need to deal practically with human affairs. Anthroposophy feels confident of being able to offer specific contributions for solution of human problems, particularly in the realm of education. What, then, are the fundamentals of this anthroposophy?

Anthroposophy has frequently drawn hostility and opposition, not because of an understanding of what it seeks to accomplish for the world, but rather because of misconceptions regarding it. Those within anthroposophy fully understand such hostility. For, on the basis of natural science and the cultural achievements of our times, modern humanity generally believes itself to have found a unified conception of the world. Anthroposophy then steps in with a call to our contemporaries to think about themselves and the world in an apparently quite different way. The contradiction, however, is only apparent. But people think initially that the insights provided by anthroposophy cannot be reconciled with the claims made by natural science.

Today, the human physical and bodily constitution is being thoroughly studied, on solid grounds, following the admirable and exact methods of modern natural science. And, as far as the human soul is concerned, its existence is no longer generally denied. On the contrary, the number of those who deny the existence of the soul and speak of “human psychology without a soul,” as many did for a time, has already dwindled. Yet the soul itself is only observed by means of research into its physical aspects and by guesswork done on the basis of physical manifestations. Under such conditions, it is impossible to derive an educational practice, even with the best of theories and premises.

Thus, Herbert Spencer profoundly regrets the lack of a proper psychology for modern educational principles. But a true child psychology cannot possibly grow from the modern natural-scientific view of life. Anthroposophy, on the other had, believes that it is able to offer the basis for a true psychology, for real care of the human soul. However, it is a psychology, a care of the soul, that admittedly requires an approach very different from that of other contemporary psychological investigations.

It is all too easy to poke fun at anthroposophists who speak of other supersensible bodies, or sheaths, in addition to the physical body. It is often said that anthroposophy, when it speaks of the etheric body, which I also call the “body of formative forces,” has invented or built up some strange fantasy, vision, or illusion. What anthroposophy says, however, is simply that a human being possesses not only a sense-perceptible, physical body (that can be examined according to established medical practice and whose underlying natural laws can be grasped by our intellectual capacity to systematize manifold phenomena) but also an etheric body, or a body of formative forces, that is of a more refined nature than the physical body and—apart from the etheric body—a still higher and more refined member of the human being, called the astral body. In anthroposophy, furthermore, we also speak of a very special aspect of the human being, which is summarized only by each individual’s own self-awareness and is expressed by the word “I.”

At first, there seems to be little justification for speaking of these higher aspects of the human being. By way of introduction, however, I would like to show how in actual and practical life situations—which are the basis of our educational views—anthroposophy speaks about, for example, the human etheric body.

This etheric body is not a nebulous cloud that is somehow membered into the physical body and perhaps extends a little beyond it here and there. Initially, of course, it is possible to imagine it like this but in reality it appears quite differently to anyone using anthroposophical methods of observation. The etheric body, in fact, is primarily a kind of regulatory agency and points to something that belongs, not so much to the human spatial organization, but to something of the nature of a “time organism.”

When we study the human physical body, according to present day natural-scientific methods, we know that we can do so by studying its various organic parts—such as the liver, the stomach, or the heart—as separate entities. But we can also study those same organs from the viewpoint of their various functions and interrelationships within the whole human organism. We cannot understand certain areas of the human brain, for example, without knowing how they affect other organs, such as the liver, the stomach, and so on, effects that are instrumental in regulating the nourishment of those organs. We thus look upon the spatial, physical organism as having its own specific interrelationships. We see the physical organism as something in which single members affect each other in definite and determined ways.

Anthroposophy sees what it calls the human etheric body in the same way. It assigns to it an existence in time, but not in space as in the case of the physical body. What we call the human etheric body manifests itself at birth or, rather, conception and continues to develop through life until the point of death.

Disregarding the fact that a person can die before his or her natural life span has been reached, let us for the moment consider the normal course of a human life—in which case we may say that the etheric body continues its development through old age until the moment of death.

In what develops in this way, anthroposophical investigation sees an organic wholeness. Indeed, as the human spatial body is composed of various members—such as the head as the carrier of the brain, the chest organs as carriers of speech and breathing, and so on—so what manifests as the human etheric organization is likewise composed of various life periods, one following the other in the flow of time. We thus distinguish between the various component parts of the etheric body—which, as already stated, must be observed as existing in time and as consisting of spatially separated parts—by first considering the period from approximately a child’s birth to its change of teeth. We can see an important part of the etheric body in this life period, just as we can see the head or the lungs in the physical body. Thereafter, we see its second member lasting from the second dentition until puberty and, though less clearly differentiated, we can also distinguish further life periods during the subsequent course of life. Thus, for instance, at the twentieth year, a completely new quality in a person’s psychic and physical life begins to manifest. But, just as, for example, the cause of certain headaches can be traced to malfunctioning of the stomach or the liver, so can certain processes undergone in one’s twenties or even during later life be traced back to definite happenings during the time between birth and the change of teeth. Just as it is possible to see processes of digestion affecting processes occurring in the brain, so is it possible to see the effects of what happened during a child’s first seven years of life up, to the second dentition, expressed in the latest period of adult life.

When studying psychology, we generally find that only the present situation of a person’s soul life is observed. Characteristics of a child’s capacity of comprehension, memory, and so on are observed. Without wishing to neglect those aspects, students of anthroposophy must also ask themselves the following kind of question. If a child becomes subject to certain influences, say in the ninth year, how does that affect the deeper regions of his or her etheric psychic life and in what form will it re-emerge later on? I would like to illustrate this in more detail by giving you a practical example.

By means of our pedagogical approach, we can convey to a child still at a tender age a feeling of reverence and respect for what is sublime in the world. We can enhance that feeling into a religious mood through which a child can learn how to pray. I am purposely choosing a somewhat radical example of a moral nature. Thus, let us suppose that we guide a child so that it can let such a mood of soul flow into a sincere prayer. This mood will take possession of the child, entering the deeper regions of its consciousness. And, if we observe not only the present state of a person’s soul life but his or her whole psychic constitution as it develops up to the moment of death, we will find that what came into existence through the reverence felt by the praying child goes “underground” to be transmuted in the depths of the soul. At a certain point, perhaps not before the person’s thirties or forties, what was present in the devotional attitude of a praying child resurfaces as a power of blessing, emanating from the words spoken by such a person—especially when he or she addresses children.

In this way, we can study the whole human being in relation to his or her soul development. As we relate the physical to the spatial—for example, the stomach to the head—so can we relate and study through the course of a life what the power of prayer might have planted in a child, perhaps in the eighth or ninth year. We may see it re-emerge in older age as the power to bless, as a force of blessing, particularly when meeting the young. One could put this into the following words—unless one has learned to pray in childhood in a true and honest manner, one cannot spread an air of blessing in one’s forties or fifties.

I have purposely chosen this somewhat radical example and those among you who are not of a religious disposition will have to take it more in its formal meaning. Namely, what I wanted to point out was that, according to anthroposophical pedagogy, it is not just the present situation of a child’s soul life that must be considered; rather, the entire course of a human life must be included in one’s considerations. How such an attitude affects one’s pedagogical work will become plainly visible. Whatever a teacher or educator might be planning or preparing regarding any educational activity, there will always be the question in mind, what will be the consequences in later life of what I am doing now with the child? Such an attitude will stimulate an organic, that is, a living pedagogy.

It is so easy to feel tempted to teach children clearly defined and sharply contoured concepts representing strict and fixed definitions. If one does so, it is as if one were putting a young child’s arms or legs, which are destined to continue their growth freely until a certain age, into rigid fetters. Apart from looking after a child’s other physical needs, we must also ensure that its limbs grow naturally, unconstricted, especially while it is still at the growing stage. Similarly, we must plant into a child’s soul only concepts, ideas, feelings, and will impulses that, because they are not fixed into sharp and final contours, are capable of further development. Rigid concepts would have the effect of fettering a child’s soul life instead of allowing it to evolve freely and flexibly. Only by avoiding rigidity can we hope that what we plant into a child’s heart will emerge during later life in the right way.

What, then, are the essentials of an anthroposophically based education? They have to do with real insight into human nature. This is something that has become almost impossible on the basis of contemporary natural science and the scientific conception of the world. In saying this, I do not wish to imply any disregard for the achievements of psychology and pedagogy. These sciences are the necessary outcome of the spirit of our times. Within certain limits, they have their blessings. Anthroposophy has no wish to become embroiled in controversy here either. It seeks only to further the benefits that these sciences have created. On the other hand, we must also ask what the longing for scientific experimentation with children means. What does one seek to discover through experiments in children’s powers of comprehension, receptivity to sense impressions, memory, and even will? All of this shows only that, in our present civilization, the direct and elementary relationship of one soul to another has been weakened. For we resort today increasingly to external physical experimentation rather than to a natural and immediate rapport with the child, as was the case in earlier times. To counterbalance such experimental studies, we must create new awareness and knowledge of the child’s soul. This must be the basis of a healthy pedagogy. But, to do so, we must become thoroughly familiar with what I have already said about the course of an individual’s life. This means that we must have a clear perception of the first life period, which begins at birth or conception, and reaches a certain conclusion when the child exchanges its milk teeth.

To anyone with an unbiased sense of observation, a child appears completely changed at the time of the change of teeth—the child appears different, another being. Only if we can observe such a phenomenon, however, can we reach a real knowledge of human beings.

Our understanding of the higher principles of the world has not kept pace with what natural science demands of our understanding of the lower principles. I need only remind you of what science says about “latent heat.” This is heat contained by a physical substance without being outwardly detectable. But, when such a substance is subjected to certain outer conditions, the heat radiates outward, emitting what is then called “liberated heat.” Science today speaks of forces and interrelationships of substances in the inorganic realm, but scientists do not yet dare to use such exact methods to deal with phenomena in the human realm. Consequently, what is said of body, soul, and spirit remains abstract and leaves those three aspects of the human being standing beside one another, as it were, with no real interconnection. We can observe the child growing up until the change of teeth and, if we do so without preconceptions, we can detect how, just after this event, the child’s memory assumes a different character; how certain faculties and abilities of thinking begin to manifest; how memory works through more sharply delineated concepts, and so on. We can observe that the inner soul condition of the child undergoes a definite change after the second dentition. But what exactly happened in the child?

Today, I can only point in certain directions. Further details can be found with the help of natural science. When observing a child growing up from the earliest stage until the second teeth appear, one can discern the gradual manifestation of an inner quality, emerging from the depths and surfacing in the outer organization. One can see above all how, during those years, the head system develops. If we observe this development without preconceptions, we can detect a current flowing through the child, from below upward. At first, a young baby, in a state of helplessness, is unable to walk. It has to lie all the time and be carried everywhere. Then, as months pass, we observe a strong force of will, expressed in uncoordinated, jerky movements of the limbs, that gradually leads to the faculty of walking. That powerful force, working upward from the limb system, also works back upon the entire organization of the child.

And, if we make a proper investigation of the metamorphosis of the head, from the stage when the child has to lie all the time and be carried everywhere to the time when it is able to stand on its own legs and walk—which contemporary science also clearly shows us and is obvious physiologically, if we learn to look in the right direction—then we find how what manifests in the child’s limb system as the impulse for walking is related to the area of the brain that represents the will organization. We can put this into words as follows. As young children are learning to walk, they are developing in their brains—from below upward, from the lower limbs and in a certain way from the periphery toward the center—their will organization.

In other words: when learning to walk, a child develops the will organization of the brain through the will activity of its lower limbs.

If we now continue our observation of the growing child, we see the next important phase occur in the strengthening of the breathing organization. The breathing assumes what I should like to call a more individual constitution, just as the limb system did through the activity of walking. And this transformation and strengthening of the breathing—which one can observe physiologically—is expressed in the whole activity of speaking.

In this instance, there is again a streaming in the human organization from below upward. We can follow quite clearly what a young person integrates into the nervous system by means of language. We can see how, in learning to speak, ever greater inwardness of feeling begins to radiate outward. As a human being, learning to walk becomes integrated into the will sphere of the nervous system, so, in learning to speak, the child’s feeling life likewise becomes integrated.

A last stage can be seen in an occurrence that is least observable outwardly and that happens during the second dentition. Certain forces that had been active in the child’s organism, indwelling it, come to completion, for the child will not have another change of teeth. The coming of the second teeth reveals that forces that have been at work in the entire organism have come to the end of their task. And so, just as we see that a child’s will life is inwardly established through the ability to walk, and that a child’s feeling life is inwardly established by its learning to speak so, at the time of the change of teeth, around the seventh year, we see the faculty of mental picturing or thinking develop in a more or less individualized form that is no longer bound to the entire bodily organization, as previously.

These are interesting interrelationships that need to be studied more closely. They show how what I earlier called the etheric body works back into the physical body. What happens is that, with the change of teeth, a child integrates the rest of its organization into the head and the nerves.

We can talk about these things theoretically, but nothing is gained by that. Lately, we have become too accustomed to a kind of intellectualism, to certain forces of abstraction, when talking about scientific matters. What I described just now helps you to look at the growing human being not just intellectually: I have been trying to guide you to a more artistic way of observing growing human beings. This involves experiencing how every movement of a child’s limbs is integrated into its will organization and how feeling is integrated as the child learns to speak. It is wonderful to see, for example, what happens when someone—perhaps the mother or another—is with the child when it learns to speak the vowels. A quality corresponding to the soul being of the adult who is in the child’s presence flows into the child’s feeling through these vowels. On the other hand, everything that stimulates the child to perform its own movements in relation to the external world—such as finding the right relationship to warmth or coldness—leads to the speaking of consonants. It is wonderful to see how one part of the human organism, say moving of limbs or language, works back into another part. As teachers, we meet a child of school age when his or her second teeth are gradually appearing. Just at this time we can see how a force (not unlike latent heat) is liberated from the general growth process of the organism: what previously was at work within the organism is now active in the child’s soul life. When we experience all of this, we cannot but feel inspired by what is happening before our eyes.

But these things must not be grasped with the intellect; they must be absorbed with one’s whole being. If we do this, then a concrete, artistic sense will pervade our observations of the growing child. Anthroposophy offers practical guidance in recognizing the spirit as it manifests in outer, material processes. Anthroposophy does not want to lead people into any kind of mystical “cloud cuckoo land.” It wants to follow the spirit working in matter. In order to be able to do this—to follow the spirit in its creativity, its effectiveness—anthroposophy must stand on firm ground and requires the involvement of whole human beings. In bringing anthroposophy into the field of education, we do not wish to be dogmatic. The Waldorf school is not meant to be an ideological school. It is meant to be a school where what we can gain through anthroposophy with living inwardness can flow into practical teaching methods and actual teaching skills.

What anthroposophy gives as a conception of the world and an understanding of life assigns a special role to the teachers and educators in our school.

Here and there, a certain faith in life beyond death has remained alive in our present culture and civilization. On the other hand, knowledge of human life beyond death up to a new birth on earth has become completely lost.

Anthroposophical research makes it clear that we must speak of human pre-existence, of a soul-spiritual existence before birth. It shows how this can rightly illumine embryology. Today, one considers embryology as if what a human being brought with him into earthly life were merely a matter of heredity, of the physical effects of forces stemming from the child’s ancestors. This is quite understandable and we do not wish to remonstrate against such an attitude. In accordance with accepted modern methods, research is done into how the human germ develops in the maternal body. Researchers try to trace in the bodies of the mother and the father, in the parents’ bodies, the forces that manifest in the child and so on. But things are just not like that. What is actually happening in the parents’ bodies is not a process of construction but, to begin with, one of destruction. Initially, there is a return of the material processes to a state of chaos. And what plays into the body of an expectant mother is the entire cosmos itself.

If one has the necessary basis of observation, one can perceive how the embryo, especially during the first months of pregnancy, is formed not only by the forces of heredity, but by the entire cosmos. The maternal body is in truth the matrix for what is formed through cosmic forces, out of a state of chaos, into the human embryo.

It is quite possible to study these things on the basis of the existing knowledge in physiology, but we will in time regard them from an entirely different viewpoint. We would consider it sheer folly if a physicist claimed, “Here is a magnetic needle, one end of which points north while the opposite end points south: we must look for the force activating the needle within the space of the compass needle itself.” That would be considered nonsense in physics. To explain the phenomenon, we must consider the whole earth. We say that the whole earth acts as a kind of magnet, attracting one end of the needle from its north pole and the other from its south pole. In the direction seeking of the compass needle, we observe only one part of a whole complex phenomenon; to understand the whole phenomenon, we must go far beyond the physical boundary of the needle itself. The exact sciences have not yet shown a similar attitude in their investigations of human beings. When studying a most important process, such as the formation of the embryo, the attitude is as limited as if one were to seek the motivating force of a compass needle within the needle itself. That would be considered folly in physics. When we try to discover the forces forming the embryo within the physical boundaries of human beings, we behave just as if we were trying to find the forces moving a compass needle within the physical needle itself. To find the forces forming the human embryo, we must look into the entire cosmos. What works in this way into the embryo is directly linked to the soul-spiritual being of the one to be born as it descends from the soul-spiritual worlds into physical existence.

Here, anthroposophy shows us—however paradoxical it might sound—that, at first, the soul-spiritual part of the human being has least connection with the organization of the head. As a baby begins its earthly existence, its prenatal spirit and soul are linked to the rest of the organism excluding the head. The head is a kind of picture of the cosmos but, at the same time, it is the most material part of the body. One could say that at the beginning of human life, the head is least the carrier of the prenatal soul-spiritual life that has come down to begin life on earth.

Those who observe what takes place in a growing child from an anthroposophical point of view see that soul-spiritual qualities, at first concealed in the child, come to the surface in every facial expression, in the entire physiognomy, and in the expression of the child’s eyes. They also see how those soul-spiritual elements manifest initially in the development of the limb movements—from crawling to the child’s free walking—and next in the impulse to speak, which is closely connected with the respiratory system. They then see how these elements work in the child’s organism to bring forth the second teeth. They see, too, how the forces of spirit and soul work upward from below, importing from the outer world what must be taken in unconsciously at first, in order to integrate it then into the most material part of the human being—the organization of the head in thinking, feeling, and willing.

To observe the growing human being in this way, with a scientific artistic eye, indicates the kind of relationship to children that is required if we, their teachers, are to fulfill our tasks adequately as full human beings. A very special inner feeling is engendered when teachers believe that their task is to assist in charming from the child what divine and spiritual beings have sent down from the spiritual world. This task is indeed something that can be brought to new life through anthroposophy.

In our languages, we have a word, an important word, closely allied to the hopes and longings of many people. The word is “immortality.” But we will see human life in the right way only after we have a word as fitting for life’s beginning as we have for its ending—a word that can become as generally accepted and as commonly used as the word “immortality” (undyingness)—perhaps something like “unbornness.” Only if we have such a word will we be able to grasp the full, eternal nature of the human being. Only then will we experience a holy awe and reverence for what lives in the child through the ever creating and working spirit, streaming from below upward. During the first seven years, from birth to the second dentition, the child’s soul, together with the spiritual counterpart received from the life before birth, shapes and develops the physical body. At this time, too, the child is most directly linked to its environment.

There is only one word that adequately conveys the mutual relationship of the child to its surroundings at this delicate time of life when thinking, feeling and willing become integrated into the organs—and that word is: imitation. During the first period of life, a human being is an imitator par excellence. With regard to a child’s upbringing, this calls forth one all-important principle: when you are around a child, only behave in ways that that child can safely imitate. The impulse to imitate depends on the child’s close relationship to its surroundings in which imponderables of soul and spirit play their part.

One cannot communicate with children during these first seven years with admonitions or reprimands. A child of that age cannot learn simply on the authority of a grownup. It learns through imitation. Only if we understand that can we understand a child properly.

Strange things happen—of which I shall give an example that I have given before—when one does not understand this. One day, a father comes saying, “I am so unhappy. My boy, who was always such a good boy, has committed a theft.” How should such a case be considered? One asks the worried parent, “How old is your boy and what has he stolen?” The answer comes, “Oh, he is five years old. Until now, he has been such a good child, but yesterday he stole money from his mother. He took it out of the cupboard and bought sweets with it. He did not even eat them himself, but shared them with other boys and girls in the street.”

In a case like this, one’s response should probably go as follows. “Your boy has not stolen. Most likely, what happened was that he saw his mother every morning taking money from her cupboard to do the shopping for the household. The child’s nature is to imitate others, and so the boy did what he had seen his mother do. The concept of stealing is not appropriate in this case. What is appropriate is that—whenever we are in the presence of our children—we do only what they can safely imitate (whether in deeds, gestures, language, or even thought).”

If one knows how to observe such things, one knows that a child imitates in the most subtle, intimate ways. Anyone who acts pedagogically in the manner I have indicated discovers that whatever a child of that age does is based on imitation—even facial expressions. Such imitation continues until a child sheds its milk teeth. Until then, a child’s relationship to the surrounding world is extremely direct and real. Children of this age are not yet capable of perceiving with their senses and then judging their perceptions. All of this still remains an undifferentiated process. The child perceives with its senses and, simultaneously, this perception becomes a judgment; and the judgment simultaneously passes into a feeling and a will impulse. They are all one and the same process.

In other words, the child is entirely immersed in the currents of life and has not yet extracted itself from them.

The shedding of the milk teeth marks the first occurrence of this. The forces that had been active in the lower regions of the organism and—following the appearance of the second teeth—are no longer needed there, then manifest as forces in the child’s soul-spiritual sphere. At this point, the child enters the second period of life, which begins with the second dentition and ends in puberty. During this second period, the soul and spiritual life of the child becomes liberated, as—under given outer conditions previously cited—latent warmth is liberated. Before this period, we must look in the inner organism, in the organic forming of the physical organism, for the child’s soul and spirit.

This is the right way to explore the relationship between body and soul. Principles and relationships of all kinds are being expounded today in theory. According to one, the soul affects the body; according to another, everything that happens in the soul is only an effect of the body. The most frequently held opinion is so-called “psychophysical parallelism,” meaning that both types of process—soul-spiritual as well as physical-bodily ones—may be observed side by side. We can speculate at length about the relationship of spirit to body and body to spirit but, if we only speculate and do not engage in careful observation, we will not get beyond mere abstractions. We must not limit our observations to present conditions alone. We must say to ourselves, the forces that we witness as the child’s soul spiritual element during the period from the seventh to about the fourteenth year are the same ones that worked before in the lower organism in a hidden or latent way. We must seek in the child’s soul and spirit what is at work in the child from birth to the change of teeth and between the change of teeth and puberty. If we do this, we will gain a realistic idea of the relationship between soul and spirit on one side and the physical-bodily processes on the other.

Observe physical processes up to the second dentition and you will find the effects of soul and spirit. But, if you wish to observe the soul and spirit in its own right, then observe a child from the change of teeth until the coming of puberty. Do not proceed by saying, “Here is the body and the soul is somewhere within it; now I wish to find its effects.” No, we must now leave the spatial element altogether and enter the dimension of time. If we do so, we shall find a true, realistic relationship between body and soul, a relationship that leads to fruitful ideas for life. We shall learn, from a deeper point of view, how to care for a child’s physical health before the change of teeth, so that the child’s psychic and spiritual health can manifest appropriately afterward, during the second life period, from the change of teeth to puberty. Similarly, the health of the stomach reveals itself—in the time organism; that is, the etheric or body of formative forces—in the healthy condition of the head. That is the point.

And, if we want to study how to deal with the forces that are released from the physical organism between the change of teeth and puberty—and we are here dealing with one of the most important periods of a child’s life, let us call it the time of school duties—I must say, first of all, that they are formative forces, liberated formative forces, that have been building up the human organism, plastically and musically. We must treat them accordingly. Hence, initially, we must not treat them intellectually. To treat the formerly formative forces, which are now soul-spiritual forces, artistically, not intellectually, is the basic demand of anthroposophical pedagogy.

The essence of Waldorf education is to make education into an art—the art of the right treatment of children, if I may use the expression. A teacher must be an artist, for it is the teacher’s task to deal in the right way with the forces that previously shaped the child’s organism. Such forces need to be treated artistically—no matter which subject the teacher is to introduce to children entering the Waldorf school. Practically, this means that we begin not with reading but with writing—but learning to write must in no way be an intellectual pursuit. We begin by letting our young pupils draw and paint patterns and forms that are attuned to their will lives. Indeed, watching these lessons, many people would feel them to be rather a strange approach to this fundamental subject!

Each teacher is given complete freedom. We do not insist on a fixed pedagogical dogma but, instead, we introduce our teachers to the whole spirit of anthroposophical pedagogical principles and methods. For instance, if you were to enter a first grade class, you might see how one teacher has his or her pupils move their arms in the air to given rhythms. Eventually each pupil will then draw these on paper in the simplest form. Hence, out of the configuration of the physical organism—that is, out of the sphere of the children’s will—we elicit something that quite naturally assumes an artistic form and we gradually transform such patterns into the forms of letters. In this way, learning to write avoids all abstraction. Rather, writing arises in the same way as it originally entered human evolution. First, there was picture-writing, which was a direct result of outer reality. Then, gradually, this changed into our written symbols, which have become completely abstract. Thus, beginning with a pictorial element, we lead into the modern alphabet, which speaks to the intellect. Only after having first taught writing out of such artistic activities do we introduce reading. If teachers approach writing and reading in this way, working from an artistic realm and meeting the child with artistic intentions, they are able to appeal above all to a child’s forces of will. It is out of the will forces that, fundamentally speaking, all psychological and intellectual development must unfold. But, moving from writing to reading, a teacher is aware of moving from what is primarily a willing activity to one that has more of a feeling quality. The children’s thinking, for its part, can be trained by dealing with numbers in arithmetic.

If teachers are able to follow a child’s whole soul-spiritual configuration in detail as each child first draws single figures, which leads to formation of letters and then to writing words that are also read—and if they are able to pursue this whole process with anthroposophical insight and observation of growing human beings—then a true practice of teaching will emerge.

Only now can we see the importance of applying an artistic approach during the first years of school. Everything that is brought to a child through music in a sensible and appropriate way will show itself later as initiative. If we restrict a child’s assimilation of the musical element appropriate to the seventh to eighth year, we are laming the development of that child’s initiative, especially in later life. A true teacher of our time must never lose sight of the whole complex of such interconnections. There are many other things—we shall have to say more about them later—that must be observed not only year by year but week by week during the life period from the change of teeth to puberty.

There is one moment of special importance, approximately halfway through the second life period; that is, roughly between the ninth and tenth years. This is a point in a child’s development that teachers need to observe particularly carefully. If one has attained real insight into human development and is able to observe the time organism or etheric body, as I have described it, throughout the course of human life, one knows how, in old age, when a person is inclined to look back over his or her life down to early childhood days, among the many memory pictures that emerge, there emerge particularly vividly the pictures of teachers and other influential figures of the ninth and tenth years.

These more intimate details of life tend to be overlooked by natural-scientific methods of research that concentrate on more external phenomena. Unfortunately, not much attention is paid to what happens to a child—earlier in one child, later in another—approximately between the ninth and tenth years. What enters a child’s unconscious then emerges again vividly in old age, creating either happiness or pain, and generating either an enlivening or a deadening effect. This is an exact observation. It is neither fantasy nor mere theory. It is a realization that is of immense importance for the teacher. At this age, a child has specific needs that, if heeded, help bring about a definite relationship between the pupil and the teacher.

A teacher simply has to observe the child at this age to sense how a more or less innate and unspoken question lives in the child’s soul at this time, a question that can never be put into actual words. And so, if the child cannot ask the question directly, it is up to the teacher to bring about suitable conditions for a constructive resolution of this situation.

What is actually happening here?

One would hardly expect a person who, in the 1890’s [1894], wrote a book entitled The Philosophy of Freedom to advocate the principle of authority on any conservative or reactionary grounds. Yet, from the standpoint of child development alone, it must be said that, just as up to the change of teeth a child is a being who imitates, so, after this event, a child needs naturally to look up to the authority of the teacher and educator. This requires of the teacher the ability to command natural respect, so that a pupil accepts truths coming from the teacher simply because of the child’s loving respect, not on the strength of the child’s own judgments. A great deal depends on that.

Again, this is a case in which we need to have had personal experience. We must know from experience what it means for a child’s whole life—and for the constitution of a person’s soul—when children hear people talk of a highly respected member of their family, whom they have not yet met, but about whom all members of the household speak in hushed reverential tones as a wise, good, or for any other reason highly esteemed family member. The moment then arrives when the child is to be introduced to such a person for the first time. The child feels overcome by deep awe. He or she hardly dares open the door to enter into the presence of such a personality. Such a child feels too shy to touch the person’s hand. If we have lived through such an experience, if our souls have been deepened in childhood in this way, then we know that this event created a lasting impression and entered the very depths of our consciousness, to resurface at a later age. This kind of experience must become the keynote of the relationship between the teacher and the child. Between the change of teeth and puberty, a child should willingly accept whatever the teacher says on the strength of such a natural sense of authority.

An understanding of this direct elemental relationship can help a teacher become a real artist in the sense that I have already indicated.

During this same period, however, another feeling also lives in the child, often only dimly and vaguely felt. This is the feeling that those who are the objects of such authority must themselves also look up to something higher. A natural outcome of this direct, tangible relationship between the teacher and the child is the child’s awareness of the teacher’s own religious feelings and of the way in which the teacher relates to the metaphysical world-all. Such imponderables must not be overlooked in teaching and education. People of materialistic outlook usually believe that whatever affects children reaches them only through words or outer actions. Little do they know that quite other forces are at work in children!

Let us consider something which occasionally happens. Let us assume that a teacher thinks “I—as teacher—am an intelligent person, but my pupils are very ignorant. If I want to communicate a feeling for the immortality of the human soul to my students, I can think, for instance, of what happens when a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis. I can compare this event, this picture, with what happens when a person dies. Thus I can say to my children, ‘Just as the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis, so, after death, the immortal soul leaves the physical body.’ Such a comparison, I am certain, offers a useful simile for the child’s benefit.”

But if the picture—the simile—is chosen with an attitude of mental superiority on the part of the teacher, we find that it does not touch the pupils at all and, soon after hearing it, they forget all about it, because the teacher did not believe in the truth of his simile.

Anthroposophy teaches us to believe in such a picture and I can assure you that, for me, the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis is not a simile that I have invented. For me, the butterfly emerging out of the chrysalis is a revelation on a lower plane of what on a higher level represents the immortality of the human soul. As far as I am concerned, it is not I who created this picture out of my own reasoning; rather, it is the world itself that reveals the processes of nature in the emergence of a butterfly. That is what this picture means to me. I believe with every fibre of my soul that it represents a truth placed by the gods themselves before our eyes. I do not imagine that, compared with the child, I am wiser and the chid more foolish. I believe in the truth of this picture with the same earnestness that I wish to awaken in the child. If a teacher teaches with such an attitude, the child will remember it for the rest of his or her life.

Unseen supersensible—or shall we say imponderable—forces are at work here. It is not the words that we speak to children that matter, but what we ourselves are—and above all what we are when we are dealing with our children. This is especially important during the period between the ninth and tenth years, for it is during this time that the child feels the underlying background out of which a teacher’s words are spoken. Goethe said: “Consider well the what, but consider more the how.” A child can see whether an adult’s words express a genuine relationship with the supersensible world or whether they are spoken with a materialistic attitude—the words have a different “ring.” The child experiences a difference of quality between the two approaches. During this period between the ninth and tenth years, children need to feel, if only subconsciously, that as they look up to the authority of their teachers, their teacher likewise looks up to what no longer is outwardly visible. Then, through the relationship of teacher to child, a feeling for other people becomes transformed into a religious experience.

This, in turn, is linked to other matters—for example, the child’s ability to differentiate itself from its surroundings. This too is an inner change, requiring a change of approach toward the subjects taught. We shall speak of that tomorrow. In the meantime, one can see how important it is that certain moods of soul—certain soul conditions—form an intimate part of the theory and the practice of education.

When the plans for founding the Waldorf school in Stuttgart were nearing realization, the question of how to form the hearts and the souls of teachers so that they entered their classrooms and greeted their children in the right spirit was considered most important. I value my task of having to guide this school enormously. I also value the fact that, when I have been able to be there in person, the attitude about which I have been speaking has been much in evidence among the teaching staff, however varied the individual form of expression. Having heard what I have had to tell you, you now will realize the significance of a question that I always ask, not in the same words but in different ways each time, either during festive school occasions or when visiting different classes. The question is, “Children, do you love your teachers?” And the children respond “Yes!” in chorus with a sincere enthusiasm that reveals the truth of their answer. Breathing through all of those children’s souls, one can feel the existence of a bond of deep inner affection between teachers and pupils and that the children’s feeling for the authority of the teacher has become a matter of course. Such natural authority is meant to form the essence of our educational practice during these years of childhood.

Waldorf pedagogy is thus built not only upon principles and educational axioms—of which, thanks to the work of the great pedagogues, there are plenty in existence already—but, above all, upon the pedagogical skills in practical classroom situations, that is, the way each individual teacher handles his or her class. Such skill is made possible by what anthroposophy unfolds in the human soul and in the human heart. What we strive for is a pedagogy that is truly an art, an art arising from educational methods and principles founded on anthroposophy.

Of course, with such aims today, one must be prepared to make certain compromises. Hence, when the Waldorf school was opened, I had to come to the following arrangement with the school authorities. In a memorandum, worked out when the school was founded, I stipulated that our pupils should attain standards of learning comparable to those reached in other schools by the age of nine, so that, if they wanted, they would be able to transfer into the same class in another school. But, during the intervening years—that is, from when they entered school around six to the age of nine—I asserted our complete freedom to use teaching time according to our own methods and pedagogical point of view. The same arrangement was offered to pupils who stayed in the school through the age of twelve. Because they had reached the standards of learning generally expected at that age, they were again given the possibility of entering the appropriate classes in other schools.

The same thing happens again when our pupils reach puberty; that is, when they reach school-leaving age. But what happens in between is left entirely to our discretion. Hence we are able to ensure that it unfolds out of our anthroposophical understanding of human beings, just as our curriculum and educational aims do, which are likewise created entirely out of the child’s nature. And we try of course to realize these aims while leaving scope for individual differences. Even in comparatively large classes, the individuality of each single pupil is still allowed to play its proper part.

Tomorrow, we shall see what an incisive point of time the twelfth year is.

There is obviously a certain kind of perfection in education that will be attained only when we are no longer restricted by such compromises—when we are given complete freedom to deal with pupils all of the way from the change of teeth to puberty. Tomorrow, I shall indicate how this could be done. All the same, since life itself offered us the opportunity to do so, an attempt had to be made. Anthroposophy never seeks to demonstrate a theory—this always tends toward intellectuality—but seeks to engage directly in the fullness of practical life. It seeks to reveal something that will expand the scope of human beings and call into play the full potential of each individual. Certainly, in general terms, such demands have been made before. The what is known; with the help of anthroposophy, we must find the how. Today, I was able to give you a few indications regarding children up to the ninth year or so. When we meet again tomorrow, I shall speak in greater detail about the education of our children during the succeeding years.

We have to consider in these coming days one of the most important and significant fields of our Anthroposophical study of life. We are often reproached for our inclination towards the study of far-distant cosmic developments in their connection with man; it is said that we like to lift ourselves into spiritual worlds, too frequently only considering the far-distant events of the past and the far-reaching perspective of the future, and that we disregard a sphere which concerns man most intimately—the sphere of human morals and human ethics.

It is true that this, the realm of human morals, must be looked upon as the most essential of all. But what must be said in answer to the reproach that we are less concerned with this important field of man's soul-life and social life than with more distant spheres, is that when we realise the significance and range of anthroposophical life and feeling we are only able to approach this subject with the deepest reverence, for it concerns man very closely indeed; and we realise that, if it is to be considered in the right way, it requires the most earnest and serious preparation. The above reproach might perhaps be stated in the following words: What is the use of making deep studies of the universe? Why talk about numerous reincarnations, or the complicated conditions of karma, when surely the most important thing in life is what a certain wise man after he had attained the summit of this life, and when after a life of rich wisdom he had grown so weak and ill that he had to be carried about, repeated again and again to his followers: “Children, love one another!”

These words were uttered by John the Evangelist when he was an old man, and it has often been said that in these four words, “Children, love one another!” is contained the extract of the deepest and most practical moral wisdom. Hence many might say: “What more is wanted, provided these good, sublime and moral ideals can be so simply fulfilled as in the sense of the words of the Evangelist John?”

When to the above statement one adds that it is sufficient for people to know that they ought to love one another, one thing is lost sight of, namely, the circumstance that he who uttered these words did so at the close of a long life of wisdom, a life which included the writing of the most profound and important of the Gospels. A man is only justified in saying anything so simple at the end of a rich life of wisdom. But one who is not in that position must first, by going deeply into the foundations of the secrets of the world, earn the right to utter the highest moral truths in such a simple manner.

Trivial as is the oft-repeated assertion, “If the same thing is said by two persons it never is the same,” it is especially applicable to the words we have quoted. When someone who simply declines to know or understand anything about the mysteries of the Cosmos says: “It is quite a simple matter to describe the highest moral life,” and uses the words: “Children, love one another,” it is quite different from when the evangelist John utters these words, at the close of such a rich life of wisdom. For this reason, he who understands these words of St. John ought to draw from them quite a different conclusion from that usually drawn. The conclusion should be that one has first of all to be silent about such profoundly significant words, and that they may only be uttered when one has gone through the necessary preparation and reached the necessary maturity.

Now after we have made this statement—which it is quite certain many will take earnestly to heart—something quite different, which is of the deepest importance will come to our mind. Someone might say: “It may be the case that the deep significance of moral principles can only be understood when the goal of all wisdom is reached, man uses them, nevertheless, all the time. How could some moral community or social work be carried on if one had to wait for a knowledge of the highest moral principles till the end of a life of striving for wisdom? Morals are most necessary for human social life; and now it is asserted that moral principles can only be obtained at the end of long striving after wisdom.” A person might therefore reasonably say that he would doubt the wise arrangement of the world if this were so; if that which is most necessary could only be gained after the goal of human effort had been attained.

Life itself gives us, the true answer to what has just been said. You need only compare two facts which, in one form or another, are no doubt well known to you and you will at once perceive that the one can be right as well as the other; firstly, that we attain to the, highest moral principles and their understanding only at the conclusion of the effort after wisdom, and secondly, that moral and social communities and activities cannot exist without ethics or morals. You see this at once if you bear in mind two facts with which you are most certainly acquainted in one form or another. You may have known a man who was highly developed intellectually, he may have possessed not only a clear intellectual grasp of natural science, but he may also have understood many occult and spiritual truths both theoretically and practically and yet you may have known that such a person was not particularly moral. Who has not seen people clever and highly intellectual, going morally astray? And who has not also experienced the other fact, from which much may be learned! You, doubtless have known someone with a very restricted outlook, with limited intellect and knowing but little, who being in service brought up not her own but other people's children. From their earliest days she has probably assisted with their education and development and perhaps to the day of her death sacrificed to these children all she had in a selfless loving way and with the utmost devotion; yet if one had brought to her the moral principles that one had gained from the highest sources of wisdom, she would not, in all probability, have been particularly interested; she would probably have found them useless and incomprehensible. On the other hand her moral actions had accomplished more than mere recognition of moral principles. In such cases we feel that we must bow in reverence before that which streams out of the heart into life and creates an infinite amount of good.

Facts of such a nature often answer the riddles of life far more clearly than theoretical explanations, for we say to ourselves that a wise Providence, in order to impart to the world moral actions, moral activities, has not waited until people have discovered moral principles. There is in fact, to begin with—if we disregard unmoral actions, the basis of which we shall get to know in these lectures—something contained in the human soul as a divine heritage, something given to us as original morality which may be called “instinctive morality” and it is this which makes it possible for humanity to wait until it can fathom moral principles.

But perhaps it is quite unnecessary to trouble much about investigating moral principles! Might it not be said that it is best if people trust to their original moral instincts and do not perplex themselves with theoretical explanations about morals? These lectures are to show that this is not the case. They are to show that, at least in the present epoch of humanity, we must seek for anthroposophical morals and that these morals must be exercised as a duty which comes as the fruit of all our anthroposophical science and practice.

The philosopher, Schopenhauer, in spite of much that is entirely erroneous in his philosophy, made this very true statement regarding the principles of morality. “To preach morals is easy, but to give them a foundation is difficult.” This statement is very true, for there is scarcely anything easier than to pronounce in a manner appealing to the commonest principles of human feeling and perception, what a person ought to do or leave undone in order that he may be a good man. Many people no doubt are offended when it is asserted that this is easy, but it is easy, and one who knows life, and knows the world, will not doubt that scarcely anything has been spoken about so much as the right principles of ethical action, and the man who speaks upon general ethical principles meets with almost universal approval. One might say it pleases listening minds, for they feel they can agree in an unqualified manner with what the speaker says when he discourses on the very commonest principles of human morality.

Notwithstanding this, morals are certainly not established by ethical teachings or moral sermons. Truly not. If morals could thus be founded there would be no immorality at the present day, for one might say that the whole of humanity would be overflowing with moral activities. For undoubtedly everyone has the opportunity of hearing the finest moral principles, since people are so fond of preaching them. But to know what one ought to do and what is morally right is of least importance compared with the fact that there should be within us impulses which, through their inward strength, their inward power, are themselves converted into moral actions, and thus express themselves externally. It is well known that ethical sermons do not produce this result. A moral foundation is laid when a man is guided to the source whence he must draw the impulses which shall supply him with forces leading to ethical activity.

How difficult these forces are to find, is shown by the simple fact that innumerable attempts have been made, for example, from the philosophic side, to found a system of ethics, a code of morals. How many different answers exist in the world to the questions: “What is goodness?”——“What is virtue?” Put together what the philosophers have said, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and passing on through the Epicureans, the Stoics, the NeoPlatonists, the whole series down to modern philosophical opinions; put together all that has been said from Plato to Herbert Spencer upon the nature of Goodness and Virtue and you will see how many different attempts have been made to penetrate to the sources of moral life and impulse.

I hope in these lectures to show that it is only by delving into the occult secrets of life that it becomes possible, to penetrate not only to moral teachings, but to moral impulses, to the moral sources of life itself.

A single glance will show us that this moral principle in the world is by no means such a simple matter as might be supposed from a certain convenient standpoint. Let us for the moment take no notice of what is usually spoken of as “moral,” but consider certain spheres of human life from which we may perhaps be able to obtain a great deal towards a moral conception of life.

Not the least among the many things learned from spiritual science is the knowledge that most manifold conceptions and impulses have held good among various peoples in different parts of the earth. In comparing two sections of humanity which at first seem separated, one can consider the sacred life of ancient India, and observe how it has gradually developed up to the present day. One knows that what was characteristic of the India of primeval times is still true at the present day. The feelings, the thoughts and conceptions have been maintained that we find in this region in ancient times. It is remarkable that in these civilisations there have been preserved an image of primeval times, and when we consider what has been maintained up to our own day we are looking, so to say, at the same time into the remote past.

Now we do not progress very far in our understanding of the different peoples on earth if we begin by only applying our own moral standards. For this reason let us for the moment exclude what might be said about the moral things of those times and only inquire: What has developed from these characteristics of venerable ancient Indian civilisation?

We find, to begin with, what may be described as “devotion to the spiritual,” most highly honoured and held sacred. This devotion to the spiritual was the more highly valued and counted sacred, the more the human being was able to, sink into himself, to live quietly within himself, and, apart from all that man can attain on the physical plane—to direct the best in him to the spiritual worlds. We find this cultivation, this dedication of the soul to the foundations of existence as the highest duty of those who belonged or belong to the highest caste of Indian life, the Brahmins.

Nothing impresses the moral feelings of the Indian people more than this turning to the Divine-Spiritual with a devotion which forgets everything physical; an intensely deep introspection and renunciation of self. The moral life of this people is permeated by a devotion which controls every thought and action. This is apparent from the fact that those who belonged to other castes looked upon it as natural, especially in ancient times, that the caste of religious life and devotion and the life of ritual should be considered as something apart and worthy of reverence. That which underlies this cannot be understood by means of the common principles of morality laid down by philosophy, for at the period when these feelings and impulses developed in ancient India they were impossible among other peoples. In order that these tendencies could develop with such intensity both the temperament and fundamental character of the Indian people were required. As civilisation proceeded, emanating from India they spread abroad over the rest of the earth. If we wish to understand what is meant by the Divine-Spiritual we must go to this original source.

Let us now turn our attention away from this people and direct it towards Europe. Let us consider the peoples of Europe before Christianity had affected European culture very much, when it had only begun to spread in the West. You all know that Christianity spreading into Europe from the East and South was confronted by the peoples of Europe, who possessed certain tendencies, a definite inner worth and definite forces. One who studies with spiritual means the history of the introduction of Christianity into Central Europe and also here in the North, knows at what cost the balance was struck between this or that Christian impulse and what was brought to meet it from Northern and Central Europe.

And now let us inquire—as we have already done in the case of the Indian people—“What were the most characteristic moral forces brought to Christianity as a moral possession, a moral heritage, by the peoples whose successors form the present European population, especially the population of the North, Central Europe and England?” We need only mention a single one of the principal virtues, and we know at once that we are expressing something which is truly characteristic of these Northern and Mid-European peoples.—With the word “valour,” or “bravery,” we have named the chief virtue brought by the Europeans to Christianity; and the whole of the personal human force was exercised in order to actualise in the physical world what the human being intends from his innermost impulse. Intrinsically the further we go back to ancient times the more we find this to be the case—the other virtues are consequent upon this.

If we examine real valour in its fundamental quality, we find that it consists of an inner fullness of life which is practically inexhaustible, and this fullness of life was the most salient characteristic among the ancient peoples of Europe. Ancient Europeans possessed within them more valour than they could use for themselves. Quite instinctively, they followed the impulse to spend that of which they had a superabundance. One might even say that they were wasteful in pouring out their moral wealth, their fitness, and ability into the physical world. It was really as if among the ancient people of Northern Europe each one had brought with him a superfluity of force which was more than he needed for his own personal use; this he was therefore able to pour forth in an excess of prodigality and to use it for his warlike deeds. Modern ideas now consider these self-same warlike deeds, which were the outcome of ancient virtue, to be a relic of the past, and in fact they are classed as vices; but the man of ancient Europe used them in a chivalrous, magnanimous manner. Generous actions were characteristic of the peoples of ancient Europe, just as actions springing from devotion were characteristic of the people of ancient India.

Principles, theoretical moral axioms, would have been useless to the peoples of ancient Europe, for they would have evinced little understanding for them. Preaching moral sermons to a man of ancient Europe would have been like giving one who does not like reckoning, the advice that he ought to write down his receipts and expenditures with great accuracy. If he does not like this, the simple fact remains that he need not keep accounts, for he possesses enough for his expenditure, and can do without careful book-keeping if he has an inexhaustible supply. This circumstance is not unimportant. Theoretically it holds good with regard to what the human being considers of value in life, regarding personal energy and ability, and it also applies to the moral feelings of the inhabitants of ancient Europe. Each one had brought with him a divine legacy, as it were; he felt himself to be full of it, and spent it in the service of his family, his clan or his people. That was their mode of active trading and working.

We have now characterised two great sections of humanity which, were quite different from one another, for the feeling of contemplation natural to the Indians did not exist among Europeans. For, this reason it was difficult for Christianity to bring a feeling of devotion to the latter people, for their character and predispositions were entirely different. And now after considering these things—putting aside all the objections which might be raised from the standpoint of a moral concept—let us enquire into the moral effect. It does not require much reflection to know that this moral effect was extremely great when these two ways of looking at the world, these two trends of feeling met in their purest form. The world has gained infinitely much by that which could only be obtained through the existence of a people like the ancient Indians, among whom all feeling was directed to devotion to the Highest. Infinitely much it has also gained from the valiant deeds, of the European peoples of early pre-Christian times. Both these qualities had to co-operate, and together they yielded a certain moral effect. We shall see how the effect of the ancient Indian virtue as well as that of the ancient Germanic peoples can still be found to-day; how it has benefited not only a part but the whole of humanity, and we shall see how it still exists in all that men look up to as the highest.

So without further discussion, we may assert that something which produces this moral effect for humanity is good. Doubtless, in both streams of civilisation it must be so. But if, we were to ask: what is “goodness”? we are confronted once more by a puzzling question. What is the “good” which has been active in each of these cases? I do not wish to give you moral sermons, for this I do not consider my task. It is much more my task to bring before you the facts which lead us to an anthroposophical morality. For this reason I have thus far brought before you two systems of known facts, concerning which I ask nothing except that you should note that the fact of devotion and the fact of bravery produce definite moral effects in the evolution of humanity. Let us now turn our attention to other ages. If you look at the life of the present day with its moral impulses you will naturally say: “We cannot practise to-day—at least not in Europe—what the purest ideal of India demands, for European civilisation cannot be carried on with Indian devotionalism”; but just as little would it be possible to attain to our present civilisation, with the ancient praiseworthy valour of the people of Europe. It at once becomes evident that deep in the innermost part of the ethical, feelings of the European peoples there is something else. We must therefore search out that something more in order to be able to answer the question: What is goodness? What is virtue?

I have often pointed out that we have to distinguish between the period we call the Graeco-Latin or fourth post-Atlantean age of civilisation and the one we call the fifth, in which we live at the present time. What I have now to say regarding the nature of morality is really intended to characterise the origin of the fifth post-Atlantean age. Let us begin with something which, as it is taken from poetry and legend you may consider open to dispute; but still it is significant of the way in which fresh moral impulses became active and how they flowed into mankind when the development of the fifth age gradually set in.

There was a poet who lived at the end of the 12th century and beginning of 13th century. He died in the year 1213, and was called Hartmann von Aue. He wrote his most important poem, entitled “Poor Henry,” in accordance with the way of thinking and feeling prevalent in his day. This poem particularly addresses what was thought about certain moral impulses among certain peoples in certain circles. Its substance is as follows:—Poor Henry once lived as a rich knight—for originally he was not poor Henry but a duly installed knight—who did not take into account that the things of the physical world decay and are temporary; he lived only for the day and thereby rapidly produced bad karma. He was thus stricken with a form of leprosy; he went to the most celebrated physicians in the world but none of them could help him, so considering his life at an end he sold all his worldly possessions; His disease preventing intercourse with his fellows he lived apart on a solitary farm, well taken care of by an old devoted servant and daughter. One day the daughter and the whole household heard that one thing alone could help the knight who had this destiny. No physician, no medicines could help him, only when a pure virgin out of pure love sacrificed her life for him would his health be restored. In spite of all the exhortations of her parents and of the knight Henry himself, something came over the daughter which made her feel that it was imperative she should sacrifice herself. She went with the knight to Salerno, the most celebrated school of medicine of the day. She did not fear what the physicians required of her; she was ready to sacrifice her life. But at the last moment the knight refused to allow it, he prevented it and returned home with her. The poem then tells us that when the knight returned home, he actually began to recover and that he lived for a long time and spent a happy old age with the one who had determined to save him.

Well, to begin with, you may say that this is a poem, and we need not take literally the things here spoken of. But the matter becomes different when we compare what Hartmann von Aue, the poet of the Middle Ages, wrote at that time in his Poor Henry" with something that really happened, as is well known. We may compare what Hartmann wrote with the life of Francis of Assisi, who was born in the year 1182 and lived in Italy.

In order to describe, the moral nature contained in the personality of Francis of Assisi, let us consider the matter as it appears to the spiritual investigator or occultist, even though we may be looked upon as foolish and superstitious. These things must be taken seriously, because at that period of transition they were producing such momentous effects.

We know that Francis of Assisi was the son of the Italian merchant Bernardone, and his wife. Bernardone travelled a great deal in France, where he carried on his business. We also know that the father of Francis of Assisi was a man who set great store on outer appearances. His mother was a woman possessing the virtue of piety, having fine qualities of heart, and living devoutly according to her religious feelings. Now the things recounted in the form of legends about the birth and life of Francis of Assisi are entirely in agreement with occult facts. Although occult facts are frequently hidden by history in pictures and legends, these legends still correspond with them. Thus it is quite true that before the birth of Francis of Assisi quite a number of persons knew through revelation that an important personality was about to be born. Historical records show that one of the many people who dreamt—that is, who saw in prophetic vision—that an important personality was about to be born, was Saint Hildegarde. At this point I must emphasise once more the truth of these facts, which can be corroborated by investigations into the Akashic Record. She dreamt that there appeared to her a woman whose face was smeared and covered with blood, and this woman said to her: "The birds have their nests here upon earth, the foxes too have their holes, but at the present time I have nothing, not even a stick upon which I can lean." When Hildegarde awakened from this dream, she knew this personality represented the true form of Christianity. And many other persons dreamt in a similar manner. From the knowledge at their disposal they saw that the outer order and institution of the church was unfitted to be a receptacle, a covering, for the true Christianity.

One day, while Francis of Assisi's father was on business in France—this, again, is a fact—a pilgrim went to Pica's house, to the mother of Francis of Assisi, and said to her: “The child you are expecting must not be brought into the world in this house, where there is abundance; you must bring him to birth in the stable, for he must lie upon straw and so follow after his Master!” This was actually said to the mother of Francis of Assisi; and it is not legend but truth that as the father was in France on business the mother was able to carry this out, so that the birth of Francis of Assisi actually took place in a stable and upon straw.

Another thing is also true: Some time after the child was born a remarkable man came into the little town, a man who had never been seen in that neighbourhood before and was never seen there again. He went through the streets again and again saying "An important person has been born in this town." And those whose visionary life was still active also heard the ringing of bells at the time of the birth of Francis of Assisi.

Besides these few details a whole series of phenomena might be adduced, but we shall content ourselves with the above, which are only mentioned in order to show how significantly everything was concentrated from the spiritual world, regarding the advent of a single personality in that age.

All this becomes especially interesting when in addition we consider something else. The mother had the peculiar impression that the child ought to be called “John” and he was therefore given this name. However, when the father returned from France where he had done good business, he changed it and gave his son the name of Francis, as he wished to commemorate his successful journey. But originally the child was called John.

Now we need only draw attention to a few details from the life of this, remarkable man, especially from his youth. What sort of a person was Francis of Assisi as a youth? He was one who conducted himself like a descendant of the old Germanic knights, and this need not appear remarkable when we consider how peoples had intermingled after the immigrations from the North. Brave, warlike, filled with the ideal of winning honour and fame with the weapons of war; it was this which existed as a heritage, as a racial characteristic in the personality of Francis of Assisi.

There appeared in him more externally, one might say, the qualities which existed more as an inward quality of soul in the ancient Germans, for Francis of Assisi was a “spendthrift.” He squandered the possessions of his father, who was at that time a rich man. He gave freely to all his comrades and playfellows. No wonder that on all the childish warlike expeditions he was chosen as leader by his comrades, and that he was looked upon as a truly warlike boy, for he was known as such throughout the whole town. Now there were all sorts of quarrels between the youths of the towns of Assisi and Perugia; he also took part in these and it came about that on one occasion he and his comrades were taken prisoners. He not only bore his captivity patiently and in a knightly way, but he encouraged all the others to do the same until a year later they were able to return home.

Afterwards, when in the service of chivalry, a necessary expedition was going to be undertaken against Naples, he had a vision in a dream. He saw a great palace and everywhere weapons and shields. Up to the time of his dream he had only seen all kinds of cloth in his father's house and place of business. So he said to himself, this is a summons for me to become a soldier, and he thereupon decided to join the expedition. On the way there and still more distinctly after he had joined the expedition, he had spiritual impressions. He heard something like a voice which said “Go no further, you have wrongly interpreted the dream picture which is very important to you. Go back to Assisi and you shall there hear the right interpretation!”

He obeyed these words, went back to Assisi, and behold, he had something like an inner dialogue with a being who spoke to him spiritually and said, “Not in external service have you to seek your knighthood. You are destined to transform all the forces at your disposal into powers of the soul, into weapons forged for your use. All the weapons you saw in the palace signify the spiritual weapons of mercy, compassion and love. The shields signify the reasoning powers which you have to exercise to stand firmly in the trials of a life spent in deeds of mercy, compassion and love.” Then followed a short though dangerous illness, from which, however, he recovered. After that he passed through something like a retrospection of the whole of his life and in this he lived, for several days. The young knight who in his boldest dreams had only longed to become a great warrior was transformed into a man who now most earnestly sought all the impulses of mercy, compassion and love. All the forces he had thought of using in the service of the physical world were transformed into moral impulses of the inner life.

Here we see how a moral impulse evolves in a single personality. It is important that we should study a great moral impulse, for though the individual cannot always raise himself to the greatest ethical heights, yet he can only learn of them where he sees them most radically expressed and acting with the greatest forcefulness. It is precisely by turning our attention to the greatest and most characteristic manifestations of moral impulses, and then by considering the lesser ones in their light that we can attain to a correct view of moral impulses active in life.

But what happened next to Francis of Assisi? It is not necessary to describe the disputes with his father when he became prodigal in an entirely different manner. His father's home was well known for its lavish hospitality and wastefulness—for that reason his father could understand his son's extravagance, but he could not understand him after the radical change he had undergone, when he laid aside his best clothes and even his necessities and gave them to those in need. Nor could he understand his son's frame of mind, when he said, “How remarkable it is that those through whom in the West Christianity has received so much are so little respected,” and then Francis of Assisi made a pilgrimage to Rome and laid a large sum of money on the graves of the Apostles Peter and Paul. These things his father did not understand. I need not describe the discussions which then took place; I need only point out that in them were concentrated all the moral impulses of Francis of Assisi. These concentrated impulses had then transformed his bravery into soul-forces, they had developed in such a manner that in his meditations they produced a special conception, and appeared to him as the Cross and upon it the Saviour. Under these conditions he felt an inner personal relationship to the Cross and the Christ, and from this there came to him the forces through which he could immeasurably increase the moral impulses which now flowed through him.

He found a remarkable use for that which now developed in him. At that time the horrors of leprosy had invaded many parts of Europe. The church had discovered a strange cure for these lepers who were then so numerous. The priests would call the lepers and say to them: " You are stricken with this disease in this life, but inasmuch as you are lost to this life, you have been won for God, you are dedicated to God." And the lepers were then sent away to places far removed from mankind, where, lonely and shunned, they had to spend the remainder of their lives.

I do not blame this kind of cure. They knew no better. But Francis of Assisi knew a better one. I mention this, because from actual experience it will lead us to moral sources. You will see in our next lectures why we are now mentioning these things. These moral impulses led Francis of Assisi to search out lepers everywhere, and not to be afraid of going about among them. And actually the leprosy which none of the remedial agents at that time could cure, which made it necessary that these people should be thrust out of human society, this leprosy was healed in numberless cases by Francis of Assisi, because he went to these people with the power which he possessed through moral impulses, which made him fear nothing; it rather gave him courage not only carefully to cleanse their wounds, but to live with the lepers, to nurse them conscientiously, yea, to kiss them and permeate them with his love.

The healing of Poor Henry by the daughter of his faithful servant, is not merely a poetic story, it expresses what actually occurred in a great number of cases at that time through the historically well-known personality of Francis of Assisi. Observe what really took place. In a human being, in Francis of Assisi, there was a tremendous store of psychic life, in the shape of something which we have found in the ancient peoples of Europe as bravery and valour, which had been transformed into soul and spirit, and afterwards acted psychically and spiritually. Just as in ancient times that which had expressed itself as courage and valour led to personal expenditure of force, and manifested itself in Francis of Assisi in his younger days as extravagance, so it now led him to become prodigal of moral forces. He was full to overflowing with moral force, and this actually passed over to those to whom he turned his love.

Now try to realise that this moral force is a reality, just as much a reality as the air we breathe and without which we cannot live. It is a reality which flooded the whole being of Francis of Assisi, and streamed from him into all hearts to which he dedicated himself, for Francis of Assisi was prodigal of abundance of force which streamed forth from him, and this is something which has streamed into and intermingled with the whole of the mature life of Europe, which has changed into a soul force, and thus worked, as it were, in the world of external reality.

Try to reflect upon these facts which at first may apparently have nothing to do with the actual question of morality; try to grasp what is contained in the devotion of the Indian and the valour of the Norseman; reflect upon the healing effect of such moral forces as were exercised by Francis of Assisi and then in our next lecture we shall be able to speak about real, moral impulses and we shall see that it is not merely words which give rise to morality, but realities working in the soul.

Exoteric Christianity is to be found in the Gospels and as they have been interpreted through history; esoteric, inner Christianity is the living teaching of the Risen Christ: resurrection. Today it lies in the resurrection of thinking: how dead thoughts can be awakened to life in the form of moral impulses.

The story of the evolution of humanity is preserved in ancient records mostly either of a religious or philosophical character. But it must be emphasised that as well as these records which have had a deep and good influence upon mankind through the ages, there exists what we may call esoteric knowledge.

Wherever the deeper aspects of human knowledge and human thought have been studied, a distinction has always been made between exoteric teaching (concerned with the more external side of things) and esoteric teaching which is accessible only to those who have undergone the necessary inner preparation. And so in the case of Christianity itself, especially in respect of the spiritual kernel of Christianity—the Mystery of Golgotha—a distinction must also be made between exoteric and esoteric knowledge. The exoteric teaching is contained in the Gospels and is there for all the world; but side by side with this exoteric teaching there has always been an esoteric Christianity, available to those who have prepared their minds and hearts to receive it.

In this esoteric Christianity the teaching of greatest moment is that concerning the communion between the Risen Christ—the Christ Who has passed through death—and those of His disciples who were able to understand Him. The Gospels, as you know, make only brief references to this. What the Gospels say of this communion between Christ after His Resurrection and His disciples does indeed enable them to surmise that something of the deepest import to earthly evolution came to pass through the Resurrection; but unless the step is taken into the realm of esoteric teaching, the words can be little more than indications.

The avowal of Paul, of course, is of the greatest importance, for Paul testifies that he was only able to believe in Christ after He had appeared to him at Damascus. Paul knew then, with absolute conviction: Christ had passed through death and in His life now, after death, is united with earthly evolution. We must reflect upon the significance of the testimony which came from Paul when, through the event at Damascus, the reality of the Living Christ was revealed to him.

Why was it that before the vision at Damascus Paul or Saul as he then was—could not be convinced of the reality of the Christ?

We must understand what it meant to Paul—who to a certain extent had been initiated into the secret doctrines of the Hebrews—to learn that Christ Jesus had been condemned to a death of shame by crucifixion. It was, at first, impossible for Paul to conceive that the old prophecies could have been fulfilled by one who had been condemned by human law to this shameful death. Until the revelation came to him at Damascus, the fact that Jesus of Nazareth had suffered the shame of crucifixion was for Paul conclusive proof that He could not have been the Messiah. It was only after the revelation at Damascus that conviction came to Paul concerning the Mystery of Golgotha, notwithstanding the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, or rather, the Being indwelling the body of Jesus of Nazareth, had experienced a death of shame on the Cross.

It was of immeasurable significance that Paul should have proclaimed his conviction of the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha. Traditions that were still extant during the first centuries of Christendom are, of course, no longer available. At most they have survived in the form of fragments in the possession of a few isolated secret societies, where they are not understood. Anything that goes beyond the very sparse traditions concerning Christ after the Mystery of Golgotha must be rediscovered to-day through anthroposophical Spiritual Science. We have again to discover how Christ spoke after the Resurrection. What was the nature of the teaching given by Him to those disciples with whom He was in communion but of whom the Gospels make no mention? The Gospel story concerning the disciples who met Christ on the way to Emmaus, or concerning the host of disciples, has always been clothed in a form of tradition adapted for naive and simple minds incapable of understanding the esoteric truths. Going further, we must ask: What was the teaching given by Christ after the Resurrection to his initiated disciples? Before we can begin to understand this, we must think of the nature of the human soul as it was in very ancient times and of the change brought about by the Mystery of Golgotha.

A most important truth concerning the earliest periods in the evolution of earthly humanity and one which it is exceeding difficult for the modern mind to understand, is that the first human beings who lived on the Earth had no knowledge or science in the form familiar to us to-day. Because of their faculties of atavistic clairvoyance, these early men were able to receive the wisdom of the Gods. This means that it was actually possible for humanity to be taught by Divine Beings who descended spiritually to the Earth from the realm of the higher Hierarchies and who then imparted spiritual teaching to the souls of men. Those who received such teaching—for the most part they were men who had been initiated in the Mysteries—were able, through their Initiation, to live in a state of remoteness from earthly affairs; the soul lived to a great extent outside the body. In this state of consciousness men were not dependent upon oral conversation or instruction; they were able to receive communications from the Gods in a spiritual way. Nor did they receive these teachings in a condition of consciousness resembling dream-life as we know it to-day. They entered into living, spiritual communion with Divine Beings, receiving the wisdom imparted by these Beings. This wisdom consisted of teachings given by the Gods to man in regard to the sojourn of the human soul in the Divine-Spiritual world before the descent into an earthly body. The experiences of the soul before descent into a physical body through conception—such was the substance of the teaching imparted to human beings in the state of consciousness I have described. And the feeling arose in these men that they were only being reminded of something. As they received the teachings of the Gods they felt that they were being reminded of what they themselves had experienced before birth, or rather, before conception, the world of soul-and-spirit.

In Plato's writings there are still echoes of these things. And so to-day we can look back to a Divine-Spiritual wisdom once received by men on the Earth from the Gods themselves.

This wisdom was of a very special character. Strange as it will seem to you to-day, the earliest dwellers on the Earth knew nothing of death—just as a child knows nothing of death. Those men who received the teachings of the Gods and who then passed them on to others also possessing the faculty of atavistic clairvoyance—such men knew quite consciously that their souls had come down from Divine-Spiritual worlds, had entered into physical bodies and would in time pass out of these bodies. They regarded this as the onward flow of the life of soul-and-spirit. Birth and death seemed to them to be a metamorphoses, not a beginning and end.

Speaking figuratively, we should say: In those times man saw how the human soul can develop onwards and he felt that earthly life was only a section of the onflowing stream of the life of soul-and-spirit. Two given points within this stream were not regarded as any kind of beginning or end. It is, of course, true that man saw other human beings around him, die. You will not accuse me of comparing these early men with animals, for although their outward appearance was not entirely dissimilar from that of animals, the soul-and-spirit within them was on a very much loftier level.—I have spoken of this many times—As little as an animal to-day understands death when it sees another animal lying dead, as little did the men of those early times understand death, for they could only conceive of an onflowing stream of soul-and-spirit. Death belonged to Maya, to the great Illusion, and made no particular impression on them. They knew life and life only—not death, although it was there before their eyes. In their life of soul-and-spirit they were not involved in death. They saw human life only from within, stretching beyond death into the spiritual world. Birth and death were of no significance to life. They knew only life; they did not know death.

Little by little, men emerged from this state of consciousness. Following the evolution and progress of humanity from the earliest epochs to about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, we may say: men were learning more and more to know the reality of death. Death was something that made an impression upon them. Their souls became entangled with death, and a question arose within them: What becomes of the soul when the human being passes though death?

In the very earliest times, men were not faced with the question of death as an ending. At most they enquired about the nature of the change that took place. They asked: Is it the breath that goes out of a man and then streams onwards, bearing the soul to Eternity? Or they formed some other picture of the life of soul-and-spirit in its onward flow. They pondered about this but never about death as an ending.

It was only when the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha drew near that men began, for the first time, to feel that there is a significance in death, that earthly life has indeed an ending. Naturally, this question was not formulated in philosophical or scientific terms; it was more like a feeling, a perceptive experience—an experience necessary in earthly life because reason and intellect were to become an essential part of human evolution. Intellect, however, is dependent upon the fact that the human being can die.

It was necessary, then, for the human being to be involved in death, to know death. The ancient epochs, when men knew nothing of death, were all unintellectual. Ideas were inspired from the spiritual world, not ‘thought out.’ There was no intellect as we know it. But intellect had to take root and this is possible only because the human being can die, only because he has within him perpetually the forces of death. In a physical sense we may say: Death can only set in when certain salts, that is to say, certain dead, mineral substances deposit themselves in the brain as well as in the other parts of the human organism. In the brain there is a constant tendency towards the depositing of salts, towards a process of bone-formation that has been arrested before completion. So that all the time the brain has the tendency towards death.

Humanity had, however, to be impregnated with death. Outer acquaintance with death, realisation that death plays an important part in human existence, was simply a consequence of this necessity. If human beings had remained as they were in ancient times when they had no real knowledge of death, they would never have been able to develop intellect—for intellect is only possible in a world where death holds sway.

So it is when viewed from the standpoint of the human world. But the matter may also be viewed from the side of the higher Hierarchies, and presented in the following way.—

The Beings of the higher Hierarchies have within them the forces which fashioned Saturn, Sun and Moon¹ and finally the Earth. If the higher Hierarchies had, as it were, been holding council among themselves before the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on Earth, they would have said: “We have been able to build up the Earth from Saturn, Sun and Moon. But if the Earth were to contain only what we have been able to incorporate from Saturn, Sun and Moon, no beings could develop who, knowing death, are able to unfold intellect. We, the higher Hierarchies, are unable to bring forth an Earth from the Moon embodiment—an Earth on which men know nothing of death and therefore cannot unfold the faculty of intellect. We, the Hierarchies, cannot so fashion the Earth that it will produce the forces necessary for the development of intellect in man. For this purpose we must allow another Being to enter, a Being whose path of development has been different from ours. Ahriman is a Being who does not belong to our hierarchy. He enters the stream of evolution by a different path. If we tolerate Ahriman, if we allow him to participate in the process of the Earth's evolution, he will bring death, and with death, intellect; the seeds of death and of intellect will then be implanted in the being of man ... Ahriman is acquainted with death; he is interwoven with the Earth, because his paths have connected him with earthly evolution. Ahriman is a knower of death; therefore he is also the Ruler of intellect.”

The Gods were obliged—if such a word is permissible—to enter into dealings with Ahriman, realising that without Ahriman there could be no progress in evolution. But—so said the Gods—if Ahriman is received into the stream of evolution to become the Ruler of death and therewith also of the intellect, the Earth will fall away from us; Ahriman, whose only interest is to intellectualise the whole Earth, will demand the Earth for himself.

The Gods were confronted with this dilemma that their dominion over the Earth might be usurped by Ahriman. There remained only one possibility, namely, that the Gods themselves should acquire knowledge of something inaccessible to them in their own worlds—worlds untouched by Ahriman; that they, the Gods, should learn of death as it takes place on Earth through One sent by them, through the Christ. It was necessary for a God to die upon the Earth, moreover for that death to be the result of the erring ways of men and not the decree of Divine wisdom. Human error would take root if Ahriman alone held sway. It was necessary for a God to pass though death and to be victorious over death.

The Mystery of Golgotha signified for the Gods an enrichment of wisdom, an enrichment gained from the experience of death. If no Divine Being had passed through death, the Earth would have been wholly intellectualised without ever entering into the evolution originally ordained for it by the Gods.

In very ancient times men had no knowledge of death. But at some point it was necessary for them to face the realisation: death, and intellect together with death, brings us into a stream of evolution quite other than that from which we have proceeded.

To His initiated disciples Christ taught that He had come from a world wherein there was no knowledge of death; that He had suffered death upon the Earth and had gained the victory over death.

When this connection of the earthly world with the Divine world is understood, intellect can be led back to spirituality. Such, approximately, was the substance of the esoteric teaching given by the Risen Christ to His initiated disciples: it was a teaching concerning death—death as seen from the arena of the Divine world.

To have insight into the depths of this esoteric teaching, we must realise that the following is known to one who understands the whole sweep of the evolution of mankind.—The Gods have gained the victory over Ahriman inasmuch as they have made his forces useful to the Earth but have also blunted his power in that they themselves acquired knowledge of death through the Christ. The Gods indeed allowed Ahriman to become part of earthly evolution but in that they have made use of him, they have prevented him from maintaining his dominion to the end.

Those who have knowledge of Ahriman as he has been since the Mystery of Golgotha and as he was before that Event, realise that he waits for the moment when he can invade, not only the unconscious, subconscious regions of man's life—which as you know from the book Occult Science, have been open to Ahriman's influence since the time of Atlantis—but also the spheres of man's consciousness. Using words of human language to describe the will of a God, it may be said: Ahriman has waited eagerly for the opportunity to carry his influence into the conscious life of man. It was an astonishment to him that he had not previously known of the resolution of the Gods to send the Christ down to the Earth—the Divine Being who passed through death. Ahriman was not thereby deprived of the possibility of intervention, but the edge of his power was broken.

Since then, Ahriman seizes every opportunity of confining man to the operations of the intellect alone. Nor has he yet relinquished the hope that he will succeed.

What would this mean? If Ahriman were to succeed in imbuing man with the conviction—to the exclusion of all others—that he can only exist in a physical body, that as a being of soul-and-spirit he is inseparable from his body, then the human soul would be so possessed by the idea of death that Ahriman could easily fulfil his aims. This is Ahriman's constant hope. And it may be said that from the forties to the end of the nineteenth century, his heart rejoiced—although to speak of a ‘heart’ in the case of Ahriman is merely a figure of speech—for in the rampant materialism of that period he might well hope for the establishment of his rulership on Earth. (Please remember that I am using expressions of ordinary language here, although for such themes others should really be found).—A measure of success in this direction was indeed indicated by the fact that during the nineteenth century, Theology itself became materialistic. I have already said that Theology has become ‘unchristian,’ mentioning that Overbeck, a theologian living in Basle, has written a book in which he has tried to prove that modern Theology can no longer truly be called Christian. In this domain, too, there was reason for Ahriman's hopes to rise.

Opposition to Ahriman really exists to-day only in such teachings as are contained in Anthroposophy. When, through Anthroposophy, man once again realises that the soul and the Spirit are independent of the bodily nature, then Ahriman must begin to abandon hope. Once again, the battle waged by Christ against Ahriman is possible. An indication is contained in the Gospel story of the Temptation, but these things can only fully be understood when it is realised that the more important rôle in ancient times was played by Lucifer and that Ahriman has only acquired the influence upon human consciousness since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. He had of course an influence upon humanity before then but not, properly speaking, upon human consciousness.

Looking deeply into the human heart, we can only say: The most important point in the evolution of earthly humanity is that at which man learns to know that there is a power in the Christ Impulse through which, if he makes it his own, he can overcome the forces of death within him.

And so the Hierarchies belonging to Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth drew Ahriman into Earth-evolution but restricted his claims for domination in that his forces were used to serve the purposes of evolution. In a sense, Ahriman was forced into the stream of Earth-evolution. Without him the Gods would not have been able to introduce intellectuality into humanity, but if the edge of his dominion had not been broken by the Deed of Christ, Ahriman would have intellectualised the whole Earth inwardly and materialised it outwardly. The Mystery of Golgotha is to be regarded not merely as an inner, mystical experience, but as an external event which must not, however, be presented in the same light as other events recorded in history. The Ahrimanic impulse entered into earthly evolution and at the same time—in a certain sense—was overcome.

And so, as a result of the Mystery of Golgotha, we have to think of a war between Gods, and this also formed part of the esoteric teachings communicated by Christ to His initiated pupils after the Resurrection. In describing this early, esoteric Christianity it must be recalled that in ancient times human beings were aware of their connection with the Divine worlds, with the worlds of the Gods. They knew of these worlds through revelations. But concerning death they could receive no communication, because in the worlds of the Gods there was no death. Moreover for human beings themselves there was no death in the real sense, for they knew only of the onward-flowing life of soul-and-spirit as revealed to them in the sacred institutions of the Mysteries. Gradually, however, the significance of death began to dawn upon human consciousness. It was possible for men to acquire the strength to wait for Christ Who was the victor over death.—Such is the inner aspect of the process of evolution.

The substance of the esoteric teachings given by Christ to His initiated disciples was that in what came to pass on Golgotha, super-earthly happenings were reflected, namely, the relationships between the worlds of the Gods belonging to Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth as they had been hitherto, and Ahriman. The purport of this esoteric Christianity was that the Cross on Golgotha must not be regarded as an expression of earthly conditions but is of significance for the whole Cosmos.

A picture may help us to feel our way into the substance of this esoteric Christianity.—Suppose that two of Christ's disciples, absorbing more and more of the esoteric teaching and finding all doubt vanishing, were talking together. The one might have spoken to the other as follows.—Christ our Teacher has come down from those worlds of which the ancient wisdom tells. Men knew the Gods but those Gods could not speak of death. If we had remained at that stage, we could never have known anything of the nature of death. The Gods had perforce to send a Divine Being down to the Earth, in order that through one of themselves they might learn the nature of death. The deed which the Gods were obliged to perform in order to lead earthly evolution it its fulfilment—of this we are being taught by Christ after His resurrection. If we cleave to Him we learn of many things hitherto unknown to man. We are being taught of deeds performed by the Gods behind the scenes of world-existence in order truly to further evolution on the Earth. We are taught that the Gods have introduced the forces of Ahriman but by turning these forces to the service of man have averted his destruction. ...

The esoteric teaching given by the Risen Christ to His initiated pupils was deeply and profoundly moving. Such pupils might also have said: Interwoven as we now are with death, we should know nothing whatever of the Gods if Christ had not died, and now, since His Resurrection, is telling us how the Gods have come to experience death. We should have passed over into an age when all knowledge of the Gods would have vanished. The Gods have looked for a way by which means they could speak to us again. And this way was through the Mystery of Golgotha ...

The great realisation which came to the disciples from this esoteric Christianity was that men have again drawn near to the Divine worlds after having departed from them. In the early days of Christendom the disciples and pupils were permeated through and through with this teaching. And many a man of whom history gives only sparse and superficial particulars was the bearer of knowledge that could only be his because he had either received teaching himself from the Risen Christ or had been in contact with others who had received it.—So it was in the earliest days of the Christian era.

As time went on, all this became externalised—externalised in the sense that the earliest messengers of Christianity attached great importance to being able to say that their own teacher had himself been a pupil of a pupil of one of the Apostles. And so it went on. A teacher had meant one who had come into personal contact with an Apostle—with one, therefore, who had known the Lord Himself after the Resurrection.

In those earlier centuries, weight was still attached to this living continuity, but in the form in which the tradition came down to a later humanity, it was already externalised, presented as bald, historical data. In essence, however, the tradition leads back to what I have just described. The inculcation of intellectualism—a process which really began about the fourth or fifth century after the Mystery of Golgotha and received its great impulse in the fifteenth century, at the dawn of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch—this evolution of intellect entailed the loss of the old wisdom whereby these things could be understood, and the new form of wisdom was still undeveloped. For centuries the essence and substance of esoteric Christianity was, as it were, forgotten by mankind.

As I have said, fragments exist in certain secret societies whose members, at any rate in modern times, do not understand to what they refer. In reality, such fragments refer to teachings imparted by the Risen Christ to certain of His initiated pupils.

Assume for a moment that there had been no regeneration of the old Hebrew doctrine through Christianity. In that case the conviction held so firmly by Paul before his vision at Damascus would have become universal. Paul was acquainted with the ancient Hebraic doctrine. In its original form it had been Divine revelation, received spiritually by men in very ancient times, and it was then preserved as Holy Writ. Among the Hebrews there were learnéd scribes who knew from this Holy Writ what was still preserved of the old Divine wisdom. From these scribes came the judgment by which Christ Jesus was condemned to death. And so the mind of a man like Paul, while he was still Saul, turned to the ancient Divine wisdom preserved by the learnéd scribes of his day who well knew all that it signified to men. Paul said to himself: The scribes are men of eminence, of great learning; judgment derived on their authority from the Divine wisdom could only be lawful judgment. An innocent man condemned to be crucified ... it is impossible, utterly impossible in all the circumstances leading to the condemnation of Christ Jesus! Such was the attitude of Paul.

It was only the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, influenced instinctively as he was by an altogether different mentality, who could speak the momentous word: ‘What is Truth?’ While Paul was Saul, it was impossible even to imagine that there might be no truth in the execution of a lawful judgment. The hard-won conviction which was to arise in Paul was that truth once proceeding from the Gods could become error among men, that truth had been turned by men into such flagrant error that One in Whom there was no guilt at all had been crucified.

Saul could have no other thought than that the primeval wisdom of the Gods was contained in the wisdom of the Hebrew scribes living at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. In such wisdom there could only be truth ... . While Paul was still Saul, he argued that if indeed it were Christ, the Messiah, Who suffered death by crucifixion, gross error must have entered into the flow of his primeval wisdom; for only error could have brought about the death of Christ on the Cross. Divine truth must therefore have become error among men.

Naturally, Saul could only be convinced by the fact itself. Christ Himself and He alone could convince him, when He appeared to him at Damascus. What did this signify for Saul? It signified that the judgment had not been derived from the wisdom of the Gods but that the forces of Ahriman had found entrance. And so there came to Paul the realisation that the evolution of humanity had fallen into the grip of a foe and that his foe is the source of error on the Earth.

In that his foe brings the intellect to man, he also brings the possibility of error which, in its most extreme form, becomes the error responsible for the crucifixion of One Who was without sin. The conviction that the guiltless One could be brought to the Cross had to arise before it was possible for men to understand the path by which Ahriman entered the stream of evolution and to realise that the Mystery of Golgotha is a super-sensible, super-earthly event in the process of the development of the ‘I,’ the Ego, within the human being.

Esotericism is by no means identical with simple forms of mysticism. To argue that mysticism and esotericism are one and the same denotes gross misunderstanding. Esotericism is always a recognition of facts in the spiritual world, facts which lie behind the veil of matter. And it is behind the veil of matter that the balance has been established between the Divine world and the realm of Ahriman—established by the death of Christ Jesus on the Cross.

Only into a world where the being of man is laid hold of by the Ahrimanic powers can error enter in such magnitude as to lead to the Crucifixion—such was the thought arising in the mind of Paul. And now, having been seized by this conviction, recognition of the truth of esoteric Christianity came to him for the first time.

In this sense, Paul was truly an Initiate. But under the influence of intellectualism this Initiation-knowledge gradually faded away and we need to-day to acquire again a knowledge of esoteric Christianity, to realise that there is more in Christianity than the exoteric truths of which the Gospels do indeed awaken perception. Esoteric Christianity is seldom spoken of in our times. But humanity must find its way back to that of which there is practically no documentary evidence and which must be reached through anthroposophical Spiritual Science, namely, the teachings given by Christ Himself after the Resurrection to His initiated disciples—teaching that He could only give after passing through an experience which he could not have undergone in the world of the Gods; for until the time of the Mystery of Golgotha there was no death in the Divine worlds. Until then, no Divine Being had passed through death. Christ is the First-Born, He Who passed through death, having come from the realm of the Hierarchies of Saturn, Sun and Moon who are interwoven with Earth-evolution.

The absorption of death into life—that is the secret of Golgotha. Previously, men had known life—life without death. Now they learned to know death as a constituent of life, as an experience which gives strength to life. The sense of life was feebler in times when humanity had no real knowledge of death; there must be inner strength and robustness in life if men are to pass through death and yet live. In this respect, too, death and intellect are related. Before men were obliged to wrestle with intellect, a comparatively feeble sense of life was sufficient. The men of olden times received their knowledge of the Divine world in pictures, in revelations; inwardly they did not die. And because the flow of life continued they could smile at death. Even among the Greeks it was said: The agéd are blessed because with the dulling of their senses they are unaware of the approach of death. This was the last vestige of a view of the world of which death formed no part.

We in modern times have the faculty of intellect; but intellect makes us inwardly cold, inwardly dead; it paralyses us. In the operations of the intellect we are not alive in the real sense. Try to feel what this means: when man is thinking he does not truly live; he pours out his life into empty, intellectual forms and he needs a strong, robust sense of life if these dead forms are to be quickened to creative life in that region where moral impulses spring from the force of pure thinking, and where in the operations of pure thinking we understand the reality of freedom, of free spiritual activity. In the book, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, I have tried to deal with this subject. The book really amounts to a moral philosophy, indicating how dead thoughts, when filled with life, may be led to their resurrection as moral impulses. To this extent, such a philosophy is essentially Christian.

I have tried in this lecture to place before you certain aspects of esoteric Christianity. In these days where there is so much controversy with regard to the exoteric, historical aspect of Christianity, it is more than ever necessary to point to the esoteric teachings. I hope that these things will not lightly be passed over, but studied with due realisation of their significance. In speaking of such matters one is always aware of the difficulty of clothing them in the abstract words of modern language. That is why I have tried rather to awaken a feeling for these things, by giving you pictures of inner processes in the life of human beings, leading on to the esoteric significance of the Mystery of Golgotha in the evolution of mankind as a whole.

• 1. The three earlier embodiments of the Earth. See An Outline of Occult Science.

Eight days ago today, I tried to explain from a certain point of view why European culture is now standing at the edge of an abyss, why it is moving towards its own decline. It is undoubtedly of the greatest importance in the present time to acquire a full consciousness of the forces of decline that are at work in this European culture. It is precisely on this point that we must not allow ourselves to be under any kind of illusion, because it is precisely the pursuit of illusions that has brought us to the present European situation, the pursuit of illusions that have always been an outgrowth of real practice, and yet they are nothing more than illusions, because they are drawn from very narrow experiential contours, from very narrow experiential surfaces, and because they disregard a truly pervasive experience. But it would be a very false kind of view to think that a critique of these facts is enough. There can be no question that a mere critique of these things is enough today. Rather, one must see what the actual historical context is. For in a certain sense, one will recognize through this historical context that a temporary decline of European culture, at least according to the current trends of this culture, is a necessity, a completely lawful necessity. And one will arrive at the reconstruction only by recognizing this necessity and not by stopping at a mere criticism. But, as I said, one must also have the inner honesty to really want to go beyond illusions. Illusions are comfortable for our momentary life, but often they are destructive for the real further development of humanity. And today I would like to present a certain reflection to you, which will be, so to speak, a kind of résumé of what has been inwardly acquired here on spiritual scientific ground over the years, and which may be suitable to lead beyond such illusions of the present and to the realities. What we must always remember when we look impartially and without prejudice at the real character of our contemporary culture is that this culture is based entirely on the kind of thinking, feeling and sensing that can flow from the scientific world view. This scientific world view has produced great and powerful advances for humanity in the right environment, and it would be highly foolish to somehow disavow or disown these great and powerful advances for humanity. Only he who fully recognizes it, who, from this side, stands fully on scientific ground, has a right, as I have said many times, to look at the other, which a scientific world view cannot give. What natural science gives us, what it basically seeks solely and exclusively, is a world view that encompasses nature, that encompasses everything that one brings into one's soul when one surveys nature with one's senses and when one forms intellectual combinations from the individual sensory perceptions. It is precisely through its separation from the human being, through the separation of everything that arises from human nature itself, that this scientific world view has grown. You will find a more detailed discussion of this in my two books 'The Human Riddle' and 'The Soul Riddle'.

On the other hand, however, it must also be recognized that everything that can be gained in this way from a scientific point of view, however exact it may be – and its exactness should not be underestimated – cannot provide any information about the actual nature of the human being. The reasons for this can also be found in the two books just mentioned. But I will emphasize only one point here: Those who believe that they can gain something from mere observation of nature in the future, something that also makes man himself understandable, they believe that by perfecting scientific methods they will be able to understand not only the dead, the inanimate, but also, one day, the living. They simply think: So far, it has only been possible to understand physical and chemical laws by scientific means, that is, to understand what was in the dead material; but it is believed that by continuing this kind of investigation, it will be possible to understand the structure of the living from its components, and then the living will have been grasped in a scientific way. The opposite is truly the case. Those who look into the very thing that makes natural science methods great – and they are great – know that they are great because they are limited to understanding the dead, the inorganic, and that the more they perfect themselves, the more they will distance themselves from an understanding of the living. This means that the more we advance on the terrain of natural science, the more the living world eludes our research, and with it the first step towards understanding the human being. In today's reflection, I would like to mention a few things about the fact that this is not just a scientific matter in the present day, not just a theoretical matter, but that it is a cultural matter today. And I would like to start from certain historical facts. When we look back at ancient ways of shaping worldviews, when we look back at what lived on as the legacy of even older worldviews, what lived in Egyptian culture or in the Chaldean- Assyrian-Babylonian culture, not to mention what lived as an old heritage in ancient Indian culture, it is difficult for people today to see through this old way of knowing from their own inner being. We have wonderful research in this field by Assyriologists and Egyptologists, but all this research is not enough to present anything other than the individual facts to human observation. They are not enough to revive the essence of the ancient way of knowing in us. We have sought precisely this on anthroposophical ground, and there the present man will have to free himself from many a prejudice that, as I said, necessarily adheres to him today with a certain regularity. What confronts today's man when he delves into pre-Christian worldviews, that appears to him quite naturally and understandably as something that he can only consider to be overcome, that he can only regard as the expression of a childlike stage of human culture. As I said, for the modern man this is not only understandable, but even self-evident. But for the one who, through a certain inner spiritual development, as you will find indicated in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”, is able to survey the facts brought up by Assyriologists and Egyptologists with regard to the question: How did the human soul actually relate to the universe in theory and practice in ancient times? It becomes clear that what lived at that time emerged from a completely different inner soul condition, that it was not merely something childlike, but simply a completely different kind of knowledge. And because it is so very different, because it is based on something so very different from the way we actually look at the world, it appears to man as a childish level of culture or as wild superstition. For those ancient beliefs, man was much more a part of the cosmos, of the universe, than he is today for his beliefs. Today, we may find it laughable what ancient peoples said about the connection between man and the universe. But it is no longer laughable when we ourselves penetrate certain secrets through a new kind of research, which cannot be revealed by the scientific world view.

Of course, it is strange for today's man to hear or read that these ancient people saw a connection between the individual forces of our planetary system and what takes place in man himself, or that they saw a connection between the position of the sun in relation to the individual images of the zodiac and, in turn, what takes place in man. Today, people can imagine that their existence is dependent on the composition of the air in a particular area, on the nature of the soil and also on the social order in which they live, but they can no longer imagine a more far-reaching dependence of man on the great processes of the universe. These great cosmic processes have become for him only the object of mathematical-mechanical consideration. This has been the case ever since modern times have selected from the even more comprehensive world picture of the Kep/er that which is subject only to mathematical-mechanical consideration. Indeed, one can say that, to a certain extent, beneath the surface of human culture, which is considered to be the appropriate one for today, there are all sorts of things that are reminiscent of those old views. What is happening today with the revival of old views about the connection between man and the universe. We see the flourishing of astrological and theosophical endeavors, and so on. All these endeavors, as I have often explained here in detail, are nothing more than the very unintelligent old traditions that have sunk below the level of human education required for today. At best, they are wild amateurish attempts driven by people who may feel that there is still a truth, that there are secrets behind what can be scientifically researched, but who do not want to engage with what can arise from the human powers of the present time itself. We must not see the revival of old pre-Christian truths as a goal for our present culture, and the more we try to keep reviving the old, the more we harm real progress. We must be able to ruthlessly reject what, in the guise of sectarianism, stubbornly reigns under the cover of actual culture, otherwise we will not acquire the right in this day and age to cultivate the real science of the spirit alongside natural science.

But we must look at it as it is, precisely because it must be overcome. We must look impartially and without prejudice at what the ancients had as the content of their knowledge. Today, those who reheat things in the way just described treat the matter rather amateurishly. The ancient people realized, for example, that in the innermost part of their soul they felt differently, simply subconsciously differently than usual, when Saturn, Jupiter or Mars were above their heads, especially at their zenith, and that they felt differently in their soul than usual when Venus or Mercury were invisibly below the horizon. From these inner experiences they said to themselves: There is an effect of the upper planets. And by the effect of the superior planets on man he understood that which radiates from Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, which he simply experienced, which he knew, just as we know when a gust of wind strikes us on the side. Mankind has simply lost this feeling. He knew that the radiations of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are strongest when these three planets are visibly above the horizon. And he knew that the strongest effect on his human organism comes from Venus and Mercury when these planets are below the horizon. Thus, the world, with which he thought of the human being in context, was divided into an upper world, the world of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars - which this upper world was for him, even when Venus and Mercury were visible above the horizon , for he said to himself: above the horizon these two planets do not have their actual effect - and into the lower world, which for him was realized in the outer space, when the two planets together, Mercury and Venus, were below the horizon.

In short, man thought of himself in connection with the whole universe. Today we already fail to consider ourselves in connection with the very nearest part of our universe. Just think about it: the air that you just inhaled, which is working in your organism, will soon be outside of your organism again. That is, what is outside is inside afterwards, what is inside now is outside afterwards. You can only seemingly separate yourself from the outside world by taking the boundary of your skin for reality. But you are in reality nothing more than a piece of this outside world. Because what is inside you now will later be outside, and what is outside will later be inside you. We hardly pay attention to this. In any case, we do not use this eminent, meaningful fact to examine our knowledge. The ancient man thought of this dependence as being further extended because he was of a finer sensitivity, because he could perceive other things than inhaling and exhaling, which today's man also hardly pays attention to. Just as the modern human being can still feel part of the earth's atmosphere when breathing – but only if they reflect a little – so the ancient human being felt part of the whole of the universe that they could see. He thought that everything outside of him in the universe was an effect in the human being, which is why he called it the microcosm. And he thought that everything that manifested itself in this microcosm had a corresponding counterpart somewhere in the great universe, the macrocosm.

The sentence “The microcosm corresponds to the macrocosm” is often spoken today. But as it is spoken today, it is a mere phrase. It is only a phrase if it is not based on the living inner feeling that underlay the more sensitive perception of the ancient human being and that today's human being no longer has. A wonderful picture emerges of the connection between the individual and the universe, whether it is seen as superstition or as ancient wisdom, as ancient science. A wonderful picture emerges when we consider what lies in this ancient wisdom, or in this ancient “superstition” if you will, as the real secrets of man. Now, historically, the matter is as follows. Even in the eighteenth century, and to some extent into the nineteenth, there was, though below the surface of academic science, a continuing tradition of this ancient wisdom, or, for that matter, ancient superstition, in what is called education. There could not have been such spirits as Paracelsus, as Jakob Böhme, not even as Taler or Eckardt or Valentin Weigel, if there had not been this continuous old tradition. These masters would have been quite impossible. But the strange thing is that human receptivity becomes dulled for these old things, the further the nineteenth century progresses. As I said, in the beginning of the nineteenth century much had still been preserved. Then human receptivity, human capacity for these things dulled. And the consciousness of the earlier man: I stand as a man not alone on my two legs or on the soles of my feet, but I stand as a member of the whole universe – this consciousness was no longer present for newer humanity from the depths from which it had blossomed in ancient times. Hence the necessity in world history that today's human being, out of his or her own perception, regards what has been handed down to him from earlier times as an old superstition, as a childlike view of human development. This is what is so misunderstood today: that the human being also lives in a real development with regard to his cognitive faculty. It is remarkable how in this field people do not notice the contradictions in which they live. On the one hand, everyone today speaks of development on the basis of Darwinism, but little is said about the development of the human being itself. That our way of looking at the world did not come into being with the emergence of humanity, but is a product of development, is something that is theoretically admitted; but as soon as it comes to practically living with such a truth, one does not want to stand on the ground of this truth today.

But now the question arises: What is actually real in this old world view in the face of our present way of knowing, what is actually real in these things? The actual reality of these things is that we simply had to make progress in the realm of the dead universe, the mechanical-physical-chemical universe. The progress we have made in the last three to four centuries, and increasingly in the nineteenth century, would not have been possible if the old way of looking at things had continued to be propagated. Those things are properly understood by those who see through them, I might say, at their nodal points.

The mid-nineteenth century is such a turning point in human development. At the end of the 1850s, a whole series of human advances coincided, which, in their peculiar relationship to one another, show us what was actually important and essential and not yet recognized in this mid-nineteenth century within human development. Certain things escape the human observer in this field because they are not considered general education. The fact that a book on “Psycho-Physics” was published by Gustav Theodor Fechner in 1858 usually escapes the observer in this field because it is not considered general education. But anyone who delves into the human development in a subtle way will see that this psychophysics expresses a fundamental trait of the whole modern way of looking at the world. Psycho-physics: seeing the psychic only through the external physical manifestations, that is contained in this book as a special trait in a spirited way; because Gustav Theodor Fechner was a very spirited man.

A second event that coincides with this year is the discovery of spectral analysis by Kirchhoff and Bunsen, which is intended to prove the unity of the universe in a substantial way by looking out into the universe through spectral analysis, that is, if one only looks outward through a human mode of knowledge that is diametrically opposed, or rather, polarically opposed to the view that I characterized to you earlier as feeling oneself to be standing within the whole universe. Spectral analysis sees the material unity; the old world view was merely based on the spiritual unity with the entire cosmos. Here you have two important advances of recent times, which clearly point to what shows the turnaround in the newer view of knowledge. And not without inner connection, held together by the inner nature of man, other phenomena then arise with such appearances. Just take the following. I do not know how many people have made a clear observation on this point; but anyone who has made an effort, who does not speak offhand about these things, but wants to speak from experience, could make the following observation: In 1859, the time when spectral analysis came about and when Fechner's “Psycho-Physics” was published, one could observe that it was the secular year of Schiller's birth, what was said about Schiller at the unveiling of the various Schiller monuments and what was said at the Schiller festivals in 1859. Now, anyone observing these things can really notice how, especially in the secular year, the old veneration of Schiller in the speeches that are held turns into empty phrases, how it no longer exists in its original elementary liveliness, how Schiller's idealism fades and what is still said about Schiller becomes a phrase.

And again, at the same time, the first, so to speak, standard work appears, the first work setting the tone for materialist historical research, Karl Marx's book on political economy. This coincides with many other phenomena. The threads that run through the development of modern humanity become entangled. And once one has occupied oneself with the old view of humanity, as it still existed at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, even the standard-bearers of the French Revolution were concerned with it, and followed the progress of this old view of humanity into the nineteenth century, one sees a dying away, one sees how these sparks fade away. Our friend Sellin recently published a German translation of the works of Lomz and Claude de Saint-Martin, entitled God, Man, and the World. I believe that as many people as possible should read the book and that as many people as possible should be honest enough to admit that they don't really understand a single sentence in its true basis as it appears in this book. Those who have some knowledge of spiritual science, which in turn draws on spiritual principles in a modern way, will have some idea of what is really present in Saint-Martin. But with the education of humanity today, one should be honest about it, one must regard what is in Saint-Martin as pure nonsense. That one is not honest in such matters, that one believes one understands things that are old, is precisely the dishonesty in today's human thinking. |

And what has this stage of development of humanity brought about? Precisely the necessity to delve into the mechanical-physical-chemical world order. It is hardly possible to imagine anything more impossible than to come to today's physics or mechanics or chemistry from the point of view of the world view cultivated by Jakob Böhme, or by Paracelsus or Saint-Martin. That is impossible. It is impossible to lump everything together. Humanity had to discard for a time the completely different way of thinking that it had in order to make progress in the physical, chemical and mechanical fields, which is urgently needed for the development of humanity.

But these advances lie in the knowledge of the inanimate, the dead. And it must be emphasized again and again that the scientific world view has grown precisely because it has developed the exact, the powerful, the admirable method for the knowledge of the dead. But what did this mean that had to be temporarily lost for man? Today, this knowledge of the dead lives not only in the conception of nature. In every newspaper article, in general education, it permeates the thought form of people, so that they understand everything according to the pattern of natural science and can no longer do otherwise than to look at everything that is in the world for them according to the pattern of natural science, as if natural science could give the only reality and as if everything that is to be put into reality should also be permeated with a natural scientific way of thinking. But now this natural scientific way of thinking, which is so great in the field of natural science itself, has a certain effect when it is expressed in other human lives. It makes, not in the first generation, perhaps not even in the second, not the researcher himself, but only in the student and in those who then transform the scientific knowledge into world views, it makes anti-social, it justifies anti-social impulses. We must not ignore the fact that it is the consequence of permeating our entire soul with scientific views that we develop anti-social drives, in some dishonest, illusionary way, because that which allows us to penetrate the secrets of nature best removes us from the perception of our neighbor, the human being. And no matter how often we say, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself', if we allow only scientific views to permeate our entire human soul, then antisocial instincts arise in us, which make this sentence, or all sentences of brotherhood, a mere phrase. And so it happens that the call for social order arises at a time when, from another side, the most anti-social instincts are emerging. This is the most significant thing in our time, and the honest person today must look at it urgently. In this examination, one must not be distracted by anything, by clinging to old views, by inflammatory behavior from this or that side. Here, at this point, one must see honestly and straightforwardly. And that is the real inner reason why it is impossible to make progress in the present time without a spiritual renewal, without a recognition of the spiritual world from within the innermost human being. In the course of human evolution, the abilities have been lost that, through observation of the external world, make man appear to himself as a member of the universe. We must rebuild a spiritual world from within. The anthroposophical world view sets itself the task of creating the basis for a truly social shaping of the newer human order. Certainly, it would be very out of place today to speak of cultivating only the inner being; that would be a kind of refined inner egoism. Today one must speak of how the outer institutions must be rebuilt. But we must always bear in mind that we would not make progress in the best-organized institutions if people did not acquire the ability to rebuild a spiritual world from within.

I have tried to make a start at rebuilding a spiritual world from within and presenting it in a popular way in my books “The Riddle of Man” and “The Riddle of Souls”. In the book 'Riddles of the Soul', I pointed out for the first time that if a person really looks at himself inwardly, he is not the chaotic unity that those who today only want to recognize human nature in the corpse, that is, in the dead, speak of. What the human being really is – a head organism, a rhythmic or thoracic organism and a limb organism. The more exact connections can be found in the appendix to my book Von Seelenrätseln (The Riddle of the Soul). the tripartite structure of the human frame, which has been established with all the progress of modern science, must become one of the starting-points for a true conception of man in the future. We must come to realize the great difference that lies within us when we consider ourselves as head, chest and limb people, with everything that is connected with the limbs, namely as sexual organs, which are always only inward extensions of the limb organs, and also as the actual metabolic organs.

When we see the human being as a threefold creature, we understand its higher unity for the first time, whereas today's conventional natural science throws everything into confusion in the human being. For once we have laid the foundation for this view of the threefold nature of the human being, we understand the human being in turn as standing in the universe, but now not as a spatial being, but as a temporal being. And that is what makes the great difference between our way of knowing and the present one. Here Goetheanism has created the elementary basis, here one must continue to research along the path of Goetheanism, and then one comes to a real knowledge of the human being. Then one looks at the human being as he presents himself to us as a being with a head, so that one is able to look insightfully at this form, at this shaping of the head. Then one can see that the formation of the human head is completely connected with embryology and one sees that the embryology of the human being starts from the formation of the head, and the other formations, the other organ formations, are actually added more or less secondarily, in form. But then one also finds that the human head is connected in a completely different way to what a person, when they say “I”, as the chest human being, who is essentially a rhythmic human being. In the head is the most perfect human organization, one might say, from the very beginning of the formation of the human embryo. The head is rounded like the universe itself, and what is not rounding in the head is only different from rounding because it is supposed to be connected with the rest of the organism. The head has a certain independence, except that certain qualities of the head then extend to the other limbs of the human organism, because the whole is a unity, and because what I say about the formation of the head is only developed to an extreme degree in the head, but is metamorphosically repeated in the other limbs of the human being; to speak in Goethean terms: If the head represents, so to speak, in the highest morphological perfection what wants to be realized in man out of inner foundations, then the human being with limbs represents what, I would say, is only rudimentarily humanly formed in man, what gives the human form the least perfection. And the thoracic man is in the thick of it. The thoracic man actually lives through the rhythmic movements, because basically everything in the human being is rhythmically moved. And I have, I would like to say, indicated a most striking rhythm in the development of mankind in earlier lectures. Today's humanity considers such things to be coincidental. But if it considers these things to be coincidental, then that will lead humanity even further into ruinous thinking. I have told you: if you take the number of breaths in one minute, the remarkable thing is that you get a certain rhythm in the number of breaths for one day, for twenty-four hours, and that in twenty-four hours you take as many breaths as you experience 'days in the normal course of a human life if you live to be about seventy-two years old. And that this is the same number as the number of a so-called Platonic solar year, the number of those years in which the sun apparently passes through the entire zodiac.

This is only a small part of the rhythmic process in which the human being lives through his breathing-chest process in the whole universe. The human being is this threefold being. And now, as we contemplate this threefold nature of man, we are standing at the starting point of a realization that I need only hint at today, because basically we have spoken about the details so often; today we have looked at them in relation to their morphological unity. We are at the starting point of a scientific realization that is clearly presented to people: The formation of the head is a consequence of what the human being has gone through before coming into physical existence through birth or conception. The forces that the human being has gone through in the spiritual life before coming into physical existence through conception live in the formation of the head. In all that lives in the formation of the chest, lives that which the human being can experience and develop here between birth and death. And in the formation of the limbs lives the metamorphosed disposition to what man is post mortem, after death, in the spiritual life. That which was actually driven out of the consciousness of European humanity by the Ecumenical Council of 869, the pre-existence of the human soul, which also provides a real insight into the post-existence, will be scientifically proven when people have only first familiarized themselves with the corresponding habits of thought. Then it will be only a step to the realization of repeated earth-lives, of which we have often enough spoken. But all this knowledge must be built up from within. What the old man built out of the contemplation of the universe and its connection with it, because he still had a higher sensitivity, the modern man must build up from within through a strong inner power, which he can acquire in the way I have described in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. And these powers, which the individual can only acquire through knowledge, will be developed socially if we pursue such a science of man that allows us to recognize the soul and spirit in the physical. But not in such a way that we prattle about it in mere phrases. For everything that today's philosophy talks about the soul and spirit is a prattle in mere phrases. One only speaks of realities when one can say: Look at your head, it is the reflection, the mirror image of a prenatal spiritual development. — There you have a real fact, only then does one have the right to speak of these things in terms of the modern world view. Only when one can say: “Your limbs show the transformed pre-formation for the brain formation of the next life on earth” – only then is one standing on solid ground. Then one can speak about these things in concrete terms. And this way of thinking, which, because everything is connected in the human soul, will in turn instill social instincts into humanity. And from this, social feeling will arise. For between the old world view, which relates to space, and the new world view, which relates to time, stands the impulse that has entered humanity as the impulse of Christianity, which means, as it were: away from the outer, mere spatial view – it steers towards the innermost nature of man. But we must not stop at merely directing attention to the confused and chaotic feeling; we must let a concrete world-view shine forth out of this feeling, but a world-view that now places the human being in time within the universe.

We stand in the present between these two things. We have lost the old spatial view, and out of social and human suffering must be born the newer temporal view of the development of man. And Europe has so far devoted itself entirely to the declining spatial view. This Europe must learn to absorb the view of the times. This is the fork in the road that European civilization has taken so far, and at this fork in the road we must decide whether we want to rush headlong into destruction or whether we want to awaken European civilization to a new life. Many speak of destruction; only a few dare to speak of a new life. But individual voices sound strangely out of what is known as European civilization.

The most decadent part of this European civilization is, as I have often explained in detail, in the Romance culture. The Treaty of Versailles is only the last convulsion of the declining Romance culture, which is unconsciously felt, which behaves like a reality in the world for the last time, while inwardly it has long been doomed. But this downfall gives rise to strange intellectual blossoms. And I would like to say that anyone who sees through human development inwardly breathes a sigh of relief when confronted with something like a recent book on art by Benedetto Croce. Benedetto Croce gave four lectures on art in Texas, not in Europe. The first is called “What is Art?” and in this lecture there is a sentence that is nothing more than the essence of a comprehensive Romanesque view of art, that is, an artistic view that emerges from decadent Romanism like the dawning of a new era, like a new plant rises from the rotting plant seed.

“But in the history of thought this attempt has often been made consciously and methodically” - he is referring to the attempt to understand art through today's thinking, and he regards this attempt as a futile one - “starting with the ‘canons’ that Greek and Renaissance artists and theorists for the beauty of bodies, from the speculations about the geometric and arithmetic relationships that are said to be found in figures and sounds, to the investigations of nineteenth-century aesthetes, for example Fechner's, and to the “communications” that the ignorant are in the habit of presenting at the congresses of philosophers, psychologists and naturalists of our day on the relationships of physical phenomena to art.

When I spoke in Munich of the living comprehension of art, of an understanding of art that disregards this understanding of art through dead scientific knowledge, at first, of course, everyone objected. But Croce continues: “If one asks why art cannot be a physical fact, the first answer is” – please listen now! “physical facts have no reality, while art, to which so many devote their whole lives and which fills everyone with divine joy, is supremely real. Therefore it cannot be a physical, that is, unreal fact."

Now I ask you to look in spirit at the perplexed face of European philistinism, that perplexed face, from which one must say: Yes, but everything that is out there in space is real, art is unreal. And here a person, with the finest artistic sensibilities, cries out to you: Art cannot be a physical fact because physical facts are unreal and art must lead precisely to reality.

This is something that must be reversed in a certain respect. And beyond art lies that which is attained on a path whose first elementary steps I have described in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. There is the living contemplation of the true world, of true reality. But it is a great thing to see how a man like Croce already senses that art is more real than what the honest philistine recognizes as the only reality. Because at bottom, when he sees a man killed in a drama, this philistine would like to say: Well, thank God it is not real. Such things show the strong clash between the old and the necessary new, and it will certainly be art, on whose ground the most powerful struggles in the present must take place. For the view that has taken its model only from the dead, the view that has led to such great triumphs in natural science, also sails in social life towards a mere shaping of a dead man, one that must perish. Marxism is built according to the pattern of natural science. He wants to understand the social order as one understands the external natural order. What has he achieved? A beautiful, magnificent, ingenious critique of the modern economic order. But he is faced with the impossibility of putting something in the place of this modern economic order that he has criticized. And anyone who can delve into the question: What kind of structure could be achieved through Marxism, through the living out of Marxism? he will say: Nothing, only destruction, realized criticism, that is, destruction is the only thing that could be achieved. Isn't it strange that where the extreme consequence of Marxism has been drawn for the external life, in Eastern Europe and Russia, a strange criticism emerges, a criticism that could really draw the last consequences of Marxism, that life in the way it had to as a consequence of Marxism, and if it then only comes across such things in a strange way through experience, as stated in my book 'The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Present and Future Life'. For in the “Key Points” you can find that what actually lives on in individual ideas in Marxism is nothing other than the legacy of the bourgeois world view.

Everywhere people are dealing with a dead world view when they want to build something out of Marxism. And isn't it strange when a critic of what is happening in Russia says the strange sentences: “We relied on the help of bourgeois specialists who were thoroughly imbued with bourgeois psychology and who betrayed us and will continue to betray us for years to come. Nevertheless, it would be childish to pose the question in the sense of whether we could build communism only with purely communist hands and without the help of bourgeois specialists.” And further: ‘Without the heritage of capitalist culture, we cannot build socialism. Communism cannot be built on anything other than what capitalism has left us.’

That means: we carry over the bourgeois philistines simply because we have no real content for communism. Now, a strange confession: communism can only be built on the legacy of what capitalism has left behind. And further: “Practically we have to create a communist society with the hands of our enemies,” that is, with bourgeois hands. That is, we have to establish an inverted class society; that is, not to abolish a class state, but to turn into helots those who were formerly at the top. “Practically we have to create a communist society with the hands of our enemies. This seems to be a contradiction, perhaps even an insoluble contradiction. » Please listen to the sentence as it is! «In reality, however, only in this way can the task of building communism be solved.

So it seems to be an insoluble contradiction, but in reality only with the help of this insoluble contradiction can the building of communism be solved.

And further: “This presented enormous difficulties, but only in this way could they be solved. The organizational, creative, joint work must drive the bourgeois specialists into a corner so that they are forced to march in the ranks of the proletariat, however much they resist it and however much they may fight against it step by step. We must educate them to a high level as technical and cultural forces in order to keep them for ourselves and to turn the uncultivated and wild capitalist country into a communist cultural country.

Now, this is a dry statement of what must be done if a new idea, a new spirit, is not to be born: the only way forward is to continue to work with the legacy of capitalist culture. But since the mode of thinking extends only to the dead, this can only lead to the annihilation of European civilization. And this annihilation, which is coming from the East, will surely come and spread to the West if a new way of thinking does not take hold in European humanity, if people are not able to look at reality quite differently than it has been looked at for the last three to four centuries, and, at its culmination, in today's world.

Now let us ask ourselves: What about the one whose inheritance is to be taken up? What about that? We have just heard a voice about how the East is to be built on the heritage of the Old; for until now it has been built entirely on the heritage of the Old. There is still no new thing for the outside world, which must first come out of a renewal of the spirit. But what has the old brought about in terms of spirituality? This can be seen from the symptoms. I recently spoke in Heilbronn. I do not care what the line-shagger says about my lecture, that is not the point, but this line-shagger finds it appropriate to express the current world view in a short, concise sentence. He says: “The banality of his whole presentation, which is strongly reminiscent of American propaganda, was most clearly demonstrated by the way he incorporated the old slogans of the French Revolution – liberty, equality, fraternity – into his tripartite structure.”

So, in today's civilization, there is the possibility that it will be spoken out of: liberty, equality, fraternity are hits, are old hits. Let this sink into your souls, let it sink into your hearts. As Hamlet said, “Writing tablet, writing tablet! That a man can always smile and smile and still be a scoundrel!” Write this down in your soul: in today's culture, there is the possibility to call freedom, equality, fraternity “old hits”! And then one wonders where the impulses for the downfall of this culture lie? Don't be too comfortable, my dear friends, don't be casual! Tell people that this is possible, that the noblest goods of humanity are being dragged through the mud these days by what calls itself “European education”. Then you will perhaps be able to convey this spiritual after all, if you can only make it clear to people what they are oversleeping in their souls. For today people read right over these things, they take them for granted. But these things must be looked at. And until it is seen how strong the impulses of decline are, how trivial that is which has finally sailed into this world war catastrophe, there will be no salvation. And if there is to be salvation, it will only be possible if it emerges from humanity's renewed immersion in its spiritual depths. We cannot see the goal in a mere rehashing of old spirituality today. We must today inwardly muster the strength to create a new spirituality. The destiny of Europe depends on this: either this new spirituality, or Europe will become a tomb with regard to its culture! There is no third way, and for one or the other humanity must decide. Either into ruin, or courageously into the new spirituality!

During these last days we have taken leave of a dear friend and loyal collaborator who has left the physical plane, Herman Joachim. He could be seen here in our circle practically every week during the war years. When we contemplate the event of death of someone near to us—filled with sentiments engendered by knowledge which we seek through spiritual science—we may find through this event also our own relation to the spiritual world. We look back on the one hand to the time we were privileged to share with him, but we also look forward into that world which is receiving the soul of the one with whom we were together. We remain united with him, for the bonds that bind us together are spiritual and cannot be severed through the event of physical death.

The name Herman Joachim is like a beacon, throwing its light far and wide, ahead of the one we have lost as far as the physical plane is concerned. It is a name that is very much connected with the development of art in the 19th century; particularly in the sphere of aesthetic interpretation of music. Indeed there is no need for me to explain here what this name stands for in recent cultural achievements. However, if Herman Joachim—who has gone into the spiritual world with all his incomparable and beautiful qualities—had come among us as someone unknown, even then, those whose good fortune it was to know him and share with him their endeavours, would have counted him among the most valuable personalities of their lives. The strength of his personality, the greatness and radiance of his soul would ensure it.

There came to expression in his human relationships with others a cultural artistic quality of a high order, passed on to him from his father. One could say that on the one hand this artistic influence came to expression in everything Herman Joachim thought and did, but it was carried and enhanced by the spirituality of his own will, his own feelings and by his striving for spiritual insight. While his father's great influence held sway in the blood so was there something in Herman Joachim's spiritual makeup which had a beautiful beginning in his life by the fact that Herman Grimm—this distinguished and unique representative of Central European cultural life—held his hand in blessing over him when a child. For Herman Grimm was godfather to Herman Joachim. I was very pleased to learn this as you will understand after the many things I have said, especially in this circle, in appreciation of Herman Grimm's contributions to cultural life in recent times. When a dear friend of his, the unique personality Walter Robert Tornow died, Herman Grimm wrote: “He departs from the society of the living and is received into the society of the dead. One feels one ought to announce to the dead just who it is that joins their ranks.” Herman Grimm did not intend these words to apply only to the one for whom he spoke them. He meant them in the sense that they express a feeling which is present in human beings in general, when someone near departs from the physical into the spiritual world.

When we look back to characteristic experiences which we were privileged to share with someone who has died, then these experiences become windows through which we can follow the further life of a now infinite being. For every human individuality is an infinite being and the experiences we shared can be compared to windows through which we look out on an unlimited landscape. However there are moments in a human life which are of special significance, it is then possible to look deeper into a human individuality. In such moments the secrets of the spiritual world reveal themselves with particular power. It is also in such moments that much of what in ordinary life is the goal of noble, intense striving, is revealed in comprehensive thought pictures permeated with feeling.

I venture to describe a moment of this kind because I consider it symptomatic of Herman Joachim. He had been connected with our movement for years when in Cologne, not long after we had become personally acquainted, we had a conversation. During this conversation it was revealed to me how this man had related his innermost soul to the spiritual powers which live and weave through the cosmos.—Perhaps I can put it in these words: I was able to recognize that he had discovered that there is an important link between responsible human souls and those Divine-spiritual powers whose wisdom governs worlds. In significant moments of his life an individual may come face to face with these powers. In such moments when he puts to himself the question: How do I unite with the world-guiding spiritual powers that are revealed to my inner sight? How can it become possible for me to think of myself as a responsible link in the world's spiritual guidance which, in my innermost self, I know I am meant to be?—Thus it was revealed to me what Herman Joachim consciously felt and experienced with all the deep seriousness of his being in such moments when man's relation to the spiritual world becomes manifest to him.

Herman Joachim had gone through many difficulties. When this endless calamity under which we all suffer broke out^* it brought him great hardship. He was in Paris where he had lived for years and where he had found his dear life companion. But now his duty obliged him to return to his former profession as a German officer. Nevertheless it was a duty with which he also had a deep inner connection. He had already fulfilled his task as officer on important occasions, doing his duty not only with expertise but with compassion and self-sacrifice. There are many who have grateful memories because they have benefitted from the true humaneness and social friendliness with which he fulfilled his calling. For myself I often remember the conversations we had during these three years of grief and human suffering, conversations in which he revealed himself as a man who was able to follow with far-reaching understanding the events of our time. There was no question of his objective judgement being clouded by thoughts of either hatred or love for the one or the other side. His intelligent assessment made him fully aware of the gravity of the situation facing us all. Nevertheless, because of his trust in the spiritual guidance of the world he was full of hope and confidence.

Herman Joachim belongs to those who accept spiritual science in a completely matter-of-fact way as something self-evident; while at the same time this matter-of-factness protects them from superficial surrender to anything of a spiritualistic nature. Such souls are not easily led astray into what can be the greatest danger: fanciful illusions and the like. After all, such illusions have their roots in a certain self-indulgent egoism. Herman Joachim had no inclination whatever towards egotistical mysticism but all the more towards great ideals, towards powerful, effective ideas of spiritual science.

He was always concerned about what each individual can do in his own situation in life, to make spiritual science effective. As a member of the Freemasons he had looked carefully into the nature of masonic practices and had resolved to do all he could to bring the life of spiritual knowledge into masonic formalism. His high position within Freemasonry enabled him to make his own, to an exceptional degree, all the profound but now formalized and rigidified knowledge accumulated over centuries. Just because of his high position he saw the possibility to bring the life and spiritual power which can only come from spiritual science into this rigidified knowledge. His aim was to enable it to enter rightly into the stream of human culture. Anyone who is aware how hard he worked towards this goal during these difficult years, how he pursued it with earnestness and integrity; anyone who realizes the strength of his will and the volume of his work in this sphere will also know how much the physical plane has lost with Herman Joachim.—I am often reminded in cases like this of someone, regarded as belonging to the intelligentsia, who is recorded as saying: No man is irreplaceable; if one goes, another steps forward to take his place. It is obvious that such an expression reveals a gross ignorance of real life; for real life shows in fact the opposite. The truth is rather that in regard to what a man accomplishes in life no one can be replaced. This truth strikes us all the more in exceptional cases such as the present one. The death of Herman Joachim strongly reminds us of the working of karma in human life. Only an understanding of human karma, the comprehension of the great karmic questions of destiny, enables us to come to terms with the death of someone, at a comparatively early age, leaving behind an important and necessary life task.

I have followed day by day the soul of our dear friend slowly leaving this realm, in which he was to accomplish so much, and entering another realm where we can find him only through the strength of our spirit, a realm from which he will be an even stronger helper than before. During this time of taking leave I was strongly aware of something else; namely, that human beings themselves demand the necessity of karma; demand it with all their inner courage and strength of spirit. It becomes evident to one's inner sight when experiencing a death of this kind. In these circumstances things must often be spoken of which can be spoken of only in our circles, but then, it is also within our spiritual movement, that human beings can find the great strength which reaches beyond death, the strength that encompasses both life and death.

Herman Joachim's soul stands clearly before me. So it stood clearly before me when, out of his own free will, he took on a spiritual task. And it comes vividly before me how he is taking hold of this task now. His death is revealed to me as something he freely chose because, from that other world his soul is able to work more actively and with stronger forces; forces more appropriate to what is necessary. Under these circumstances one may even speak of the death of an individual as a necessity, as a duty, at a quite specific moment. I know that not everyone will find what I am saying a consoling or a strengthening thought; but I also know that there are souls today to whom these thoughts can be a support when they are faced with the kind of difficulties which in our time must be endured with pain and sorrow, difficulties that one comes up against when trying to solve important and necessary tasks, difficulties that arise from the fact that we are in the physical world, incarnated in physical bodies in a materialistic environment. Yet in all our pain and sorrow we may gradually come to value the thought that death, as far as the physical plane is concerned, was chosen by someone in order to be better able to fulfill his task.

We may balance this thought against the pain which our dear friend, the wife of Herman Joachim, is suffering. We may balance it against the pain we ourselves feel over our dear friend, we may attempt to enoble our pain by thinking of him in the light of a sublime thought such as the one I have just put before you. This thought may not ease or tone down the pain, but its spiritual insight can shine like a sun into the pain and illumine our understanding for the necessity that governs man, the necessity of human destiny. Thus the event of the death of someone near to us can become an experience which brings us into contact with the spiritual world. For if our thoughts about him strengthen our soul's propensity towards the realms in which the departed sojourns then we shall not lose him; we shall remain actively united with him. Furthermore, if we grasp the full implication of the thought that someone who loved his life more than most, nevertheless accepted death because of an iron necessity, then that thought will truly express our spiritual-scientific view of the world. If we honor our friend in this way we shall remain united with him. And his life companion, left here on the physical plane, shall know that we remain united with her in thoughts of the loved one; that we, her friends, remain close to her.

The death of our dear friend Herman Joachim is one of several bereavements suffered within our society during this difficult time, one which was for me especially sad, one I have not yet been able to speak about. The great personal loss and close involvement prevents me from touching on many aspects of this bereavement.

A great many of those present will remember with love a dear and loyal member whom we have also lost from the physical plane in recent months, Olga von Sivers, the sister of Marie Steiner. She was not a personality one would come to know immediately at first encounter; she was a thoroughly modest and unassuming person. But my dear friends, setting aside the pain Marie Steiner and I suffer over this irreplaceable loss I venture to say something else about Olga von Sivers. She belongs to those among us who, from the beginning, went straight to the root of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. She took it up with deep understanding and warmth of soul. When Olga von Sivers devoted herself to such matters she did so with her whole being for that was her nature. And she was indeed a human being in the fullest sense as everyone connected with her will know. She strongly rejected everything which nowadays, as a kind of mystical Theosophy, distorts man's inner path and leads spiritual life into wrong channels. She had a keen sense of discernment when it came to distinguishing between those spiritual impulses which belong to our time and advance man's inner progress; and others which arise from quite different impulses. The latter are often disguised as theosophical or other mystical striving. Olga von Sivers is an outstanding example of someone taking hold, in a fundamental way, of the spiritual truths which we in our movement especially strive to attain. Despite her full participation in our work it was not in her nature to neglect or disregard in any way the many and often difficult duties imposed upon her by external life. She absorbed the content of spiritual science from the start with complete understanding and was able to pass it on to others. Whenever this was granted her she undertook the task in exemplary fashion. She knew how to endow the ideas she conveyed to others with the kindness and enormous good will of her nature.

Her work continued also when she was separated from us by the frontiers which today so often and so cruelly come between human beings who are close to one another. But no frontiers prevented her from working for our cause also in regions which are now, in Central Europe, considered to be enemy country. She knew tragic experiences, all the horror of this frightful war in which she carried out truly humanitarian work right up to her last illness. She never thought of herself but was always working for others whom the horrors of war had brought into her care. She carried on this Samaritan work in the noblest sense, permeating all she did with the fruits of what she herself had accomplished within our spiritual movement. Although she is closely related to me I venture to speak with deep feeling about this aspect of Olga von Sivers, who, ever since the founding of our movement was a self-sacrificing member. To Marie Steiner and myself it was a beautiful thought that she should be physically with us once more when better times had replaced our bleak present. But here too iron necessity decided otherwise.

This again is a case when death of someone near can clarify and illumine life if we seek to understand it with spiritual insight. Certainly there are things in our society which are open to criticism, often they are things which the society itself brings to light. But we also see all around us other things which are direct results of the strength that flows through our Anthroposophical Movement, things which belong to our most beautiful, loftiest and significant experiences. Today I venture to speak of examples of this kind.

Many of you will also remember someone who, though she did not belong to this branch, I would nevertheless like to remember today because, together with her sisters she often did appear here and will be known to many of you: our Johanna Arnold who not long ago went from the physical plane into the spiritual world. One of her sisters who was equally a loyal and devoted member of our movement died two years ago.

I have in these days been working on a pamphlet to answer the spiteful attacks on our movement by professor Max Dessoir, and I constantly come across statements to the effect that I know nothing of science and that my supporters have to renounce all thoughts of their own.—Well, a personality like Johanna Arnold is a living proof that such statements coming from this ignorant professor are utter lies. Johanna Arnold's deep devotion to spiritual science contributed to the nobility of her life and also to the nobility with which she died. She is indeed a living proof that the most valuable people are among those who recognize and cultivate spiritual science. Her life brought many trials but it was also a life that developed strength of personality and brought out all the greatness of her soul. During the years in our movement she was a vigorous supporter in her branch and neighbouring circles. She did in fact, together with others, a most valuable work throughout the Rhine region. One of the others was Frau Maud Künstler who also died recently. She too was much appreciated and was also intimately connected with our movement.

Not only in her work within our movement did Johanna Arnold give evidence of her strong vigorous character. At the age of seven she, with great courage, saved her older sister from drowning. Part of her life was spent in England. She gave ample proof that not only is life a great teacher but it can also make a soul strong and powerful. Moreover in her case life revealed to her the divine spiritual for which the human soul longs. Through her inner mobility and strength Johanna Arnold became a benefactress to the Anthroposophists whose leader she was. To us who saw the extent of her commitment to our movement she became a dear friend. During these last years since the beginning of this dreadful war—in her attempt to understand what is happening to mankind—Johanna Arnold would ask me significant questions. She was constantly occupied with the thought as to the real meaning of this most difficult trial of the human race and concerned about what each one of us can do in order to go through it in a positive way. None of the daily occurrences of the war escaped her notice. But she was also able to see them in their wider context, bringing them into relation with mankind's spiritual evolution in general. In her attempt to solve the riddle of mankind she made a close study of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Robert Hamerling.

There are indeed many examples in our movement which can show how spiritual science affects man's whole life, his way of working, his inner development. And Johanna Arnold is a living proof, if such is required, that it is a blatant lie to say that individual thought must be renounced in our movement. She was looked up to as an example by those who knew her, not only through her devotion and loyalty to our spiritual-scientific movement but also because she sought through earnest independent thinking, to fathom the secrets of man's existence.—I am personally grateful to all those who so beautifully expressed their appreciation at the funeral of our friend. Her sister who is with us today has witnessed within a short time the death of Johanna Arnold as well as that of another sister; to her we would say that we shall remain united with her in loyal thoughts of those who have gone from her side into the spiritual world. We shall cherish their memory and retain a living connection with them.

These thoughts concerning departed friends, linked as they are with sorrowful experiences, also belong to our studies—using the word here free from all pedantry. We know that for the human soul there is survival and new beginning, but does the same apply to the many hopes and expectations we witness that come to nothing especially in our times? Why is it, we may ask, that even those who have a measure of insight into mankind's evolution nurture unjustified hopes and expectations? The answer is that we must nurture them, for they are forces, effective forces. Any doubt we may have as to whether they will be fulfilled should not prevent us from cherishing them because while we do they act as forces and produce effects whether they are fulfilled or not. We must accept it if, for the time being, they come to nothing. How gladly we set our hopes on many a person when he shows the first signs of warm understanding for the spiritual world. One has such hopes despite the fact that in our materialistic age they are often shattered. In recent lectures I have described deeper reasons as to why such hopes are shattered.

In this connection we must be clear that what we call human courage, which we see today in such abundance in many spheres of external life, is very seldom found in relation to spiritual life. This is why the personalities I spoke of today are really models even in regard to more external aspects of our society and movement. It is dawning on many people today that materialism will not do. But what I have often referred to as man's love of ease prevents them from committing themselves to spiritual science. Yet nothing else can save human civilization from plunging into disaster. There are people who are often quite near the point of crossing the threshold into spiritual science; that they do not is basically due to indolence. It is love of ease that prevents them from making their soul receptive and pliable enough to grasp ideas that quite concretely explain the spiritual world. There are many today who enthuse in general about the mystical unity of worlds, vaguely declaring that science alone does not explain everything; faith must come to its aid. But the courage to penetrate earnestly into the descriptions and explanations of the spiritual world that lies at the foundation of the sense world, that courage is greatly lacking.

Last winter I spoke about Hermann Bahr, about his path of knowledge. His latest books, “Expressionism” and the novel “Ascension,” suggested that he was at the point of becoming conscious of the spiritual world. There is no doubt that despite his vacillations and changes of direction he was at last striving towards the spirit. But his very latest writing which he has just sent me is very curious. Its title is “Reason and Knowledge”^* and it deals with the way modern humanity, in contrast to former times, relies more on reason when seeking spiritual insight, when trying to understand the World Order. Hermann Bahr begins by asking what reason has achieved. In the 18th Century, striving to develop reason was synonymous with so-called enlightenment which also played a decisive role in the 19th Century. He begins by saying that: “Before the war the West imagined that its peoples shared a feeling of community. They were cosmopolitans or else ‘good’ Europeans. There was the glittering world of millionaires, there were the dilettante and the aesthetes and also the international set, the uprooted vagabonds, spending their lives in sleeping cars and in grand hotels by the sea. And there were the proud communities of scientists and artists. Furthermore we had people's rights, we had humanitarianism. Internationally we shared the fruits of industry, commerce, money, thoughts, taste, morals and humour. All the nations in the West had aims and goals in common. They even thought they had also a means in common by which to attain these shared goals: the means of human reason! The hope was that, through united effort and human reason, mankind would attain what was perhaps beyond the reach of single individuals: ultimate truth. We have been robbed of all this by the war; it has all vanished.”

Thus Hermann Bahr, looking at the state of the world, concludes that modern man places a one-sided emphasis on reason. He recalls an interesting episode in Goethe's life. In Bohemia Goethe observed a strangely shaped mountain, the Kammerbühl and he concluded that the mountain must be of volcanic origin. He was convinced it had been formed in an ancient volcanic eruption. But others did not share his view; they presumed the mountain had originated through sedimentation which had been driven upwards by the force of water. Goethe was unable to convince these people that his assumption was the right one. He felt an inner impulse which convinced him that the mountain was of volcanic origin. The others were equally certain it had come about through sedimentation. This argument suggested to Hermann Bahr that impulses, quite different from reason, influence man's judgments; he saw them as impulses at work behind reason. Hermann Bahr concedes that not everyone is a Goethe; nevertheless, it seems to him that while people think they are following reason they are in fact determined by impulses. Earlier, in the Middle Ages, people were exhorted to have faith, to base their thoughts about the world on faith. But faith has become a mere phrase, it has lost its influence except in aspects of life in which science plays no role. Thus to Hermann Bahr man seems to be determined by his impulses. He asks: What kind of impulses are at work in modern man? He goes on to enumerate some impulses and emotions which delude people into believing they are following solely their reason. He says that Americans for example have a particularly strong impulse towards pragmatism. They want what is useful and practical, hence the famous pragmatism of William James.¹⁴ However Hermann Bahr now asks: What has come of this urge toward the useful? He is of the opinion that: “there are two main urges in Western man.” He then points to the much quoted expression that in the Middle Ages science was the handmaid of Theology; looking at modern culture he concludes that reason is certainly not the handmaid to Theology, rather has it become the handmaid of Greed. He then goes into still deeper problems; the individual, he says, cannot exist by himself, he must live in a community. This community is the State in which the individual has his place. This observation inevitably leads Hermann Bahr to ask if, here again, are not emotions the determining factors within the various States? At this point he attempts to link a spiritual element to the individual human soul. This spiritual element he tries to find first in Goethe and Kant; and he finally comes to the following thought: We see inner impulses at work in our lower life, impulses which draw reason along with them. It is therefore not reason which proves to us whether something is true or untrue. We judge things according to our inner impulses, according to what we want them to be. Thus Goethe wanted the Kammerbühl to be of volcanic origin while his opponents wanted it produced by sedimentation. Hermann Bahr came to the conclusion that there must be impulses in man other than those which stem from the lower nature. This thought brings him to the idea of Genius. What is done by a genius is also done out of impulse, but not a lower one. A genius is someone who is influenced by an element of a cosmic nature. However, the word genius almost makes Hermann Bahr split hairs. He consults Grimm's dictionary to get to the bottom of what the word Genius means; he familiarizes himself with what Goethe, Schiller, the Romantics and others, meant by it. He comes to see that the word genius cannot be applied indiscriminately. For example, if it is used to denote the highest impulse in the pursuit of knowledge then all professors would claim to be geniuses and there would be as many of them to venerate as there were professors. Hermann Bahr had no wish for that, so he looks for another way out. He comes to the conclusion that Goethe was quite right in applying the word genius only to a few special individuals. If applicable only to a few then it cannot be considered as an impulse for scientific endeavour. In short Hermann Bahr reaches a point where he senses that the soul of man has a connection with the spiritual world. He says: “You may tear me to pieces but I cannot explain the logical connection between the impact on the human soul of the hymn: ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ (‘Come Holy Ghost’) and the meaning of genius in the Goethean sense. The connection is there and is sublime, powerful and real, yet I cannot explain it.”

However, there is one thing that Herman Bahr does want to explain; namely, that relying merely on reason does not help; reason as such, he says, does not lead man to truth. He rejects what in the age of enlightenment had been seen as the supremacy of reason, had been seen as reason's ability to explain everything observed and investigated. He wants to dethrone reason for in his view it has become subservient to external trade and technology and it simply follows man's impulses.

One thing these inner impulses of man do demonstrate is how a man like Hermann Bahr is able to reach the portal of spiritual science and then, because of lack of initiative to get to grips with spiritual science he holds back. He remains at the point of view that reason on its own is helpless, faith must step in to guide it. Thus the impulses that are to guide man must come, not from his lower nature but from God. He must receive them through faith. Knowledge must be guided by faith, reason alone can attain nothing. Hermann Bahr makes great effort to find confirmation of this idea. For example he makes an interesting reference to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi¹⁵ who in a letter once expressed the perceptive idea that when it comes to the human soul's ability to grasp truth it is as if it were capable of elasticity, of expansion. This is a very ingenious idea of Jacobi's. I expressed the same thing somewhat differently in my Philosophy of Freedom where I spoke of an organism of thought, wherein one thought grows out of the preceding one. Whenever one arrives at the "elasticity" of man's inner nature, thinking continues, through its own power, the line of thought. When this happens one is experiencing the power of the spirit in one's own soul. Both Jacobi and Hermann Bahr point to the fact that something of a spiritual nature lives and acts in the human soul. What is so remarkable about Hermann Bahr is that he attempts to find in man the higher, the divine man, by demonstrating that reason is subservient to faith. In so doing he denies validity to the very impulse, i.e., reason that governs modern scientific endeavour.

One impulse Hermann Bahr does not discover: the Christ impulse which lives, or at least can live, in modern man. He points to Christ in only one place—two other places where he mentions Christ have no significance—and what he says there does not come from him but is a quotation from Pascal.¹⁶ It comes from Cascali “Pensus” when he says that “we human beings only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; that we know life and death only through Jesus Christ; through ourselves alone we know nothing either of our life or our death; nothing of either God or ourselves.”—Here Pascal is pointing to an impulse that comes from within man yet does not stem from himself; i.e. the Christ impulse. To understand it a sense of history is needed, for it has only been on earth since the Mystery of Golgotha.

Thus Hermann Bahr gets no further than Harnack and others. He comes as far as the idea of a universal God who speaks through nature, but not to a living understanding of Christ. This, once more, is an example of someone who is striving for truth yet cannot find the Christ and is unaware that he does not find Him. Hermann Bahr is at pains to show that throughout the evolution of the world man's striving is in evidence. He says beautiful things about Greek and Roman culture and even about Mohammed. The only thing he leaves out is the Mystery of Golgotha. He speaks of Christianity only in a reference to St. Augustine. But no amount of preoccupation with reason and the like can lead to Christ; it can lead only to a universal God. Christ, the God who descended from cosmic heights into earthly life, lives in us as truly as our own highest being lives in us. As Pascal indicated, we can attain knowledge of life and death; of God and ourselves only through being permeated by Christ. This truth can be recognized and understood only through spiritual science.

Goethe did pave the way to spiritual science. But when Hermann Bahr—in order to justify why he finally turned to faith—tries to explain the value of all kinds of statements by Goethe, all he says is: “It will not be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge the teaching of the Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.” Here we see the influence of an external power which at present clearly indicates its intention to increase that power. Yet people remain deaf and blind to the signs of the times; they let what can explain the signs of the times pass them by. Hermann Bahr in his own way is well able to read these signs. He knows of the many things that induce modern man to say things like: “It will not be necessary for me to testify that I acknowledge the teachings of the Vatican and the views of Goethe and Kant.” It is a supreme example of how indolence can make a man come to a standstill in his endeavour. I love Hermann Bahr and have no wish to say anything against him. I only want to indicate what in such a characteristic way can influence a talented and significant personality of our time.

It is easy enough to blame reason, much can be said against it. It can be accused of not leading man to truth. However, blaming reason simply shows that the matter has not been thought through. Sufficient exploration will reveal that it is only when reason is permeated by Ahriman that it leads away from truth. Similarly if faith is permeated by Lucifer it also leads away from truth. Faith is in danger of being saturated with Lucifer, reason with Ahriman. But neither faith nor reason as such lead to untruth or error. In the religious sense they are gifts of God to man. When they follow their rightful path they will lead to truth, never to either error or untruth. Deeper insight reveals how Ahriman comes to insinuate himself into reason and bring about confusion. This knowledge can be obtained however, only by penetrating into the actual spiritual world. To do this requires one to make the effort to grasp the ideas, the descriptions which depict the spiritual world. If man persists in living in arid abstractions he sins against reason and remains ignorant of the fact that through the development of reason in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch man's ‘I’ is to enter the consciousness soul. People talk about man's relation to the spirit like the blind talk about colors. However, no matter how much the ignorant accuse one of contradictions—when speaking from the point of view of spiritual science—it is essential, as already explained, to stand by the results obtained when the spirit is investigated by spiritual means. One has a personal responsibility for the spirit.

This is the kind of responsibility I was able to speak about earlier in connection with special personalities whose example illustrates man's greatness when he feels responsible, not only for his actions, but also for his thoughts and feelings. By contrast you here have someone with no feeling of responsibility; without trying to discover what the present needs, he links onto influences in man's evolution which belong in the past. Consequently Hermann Bahr can say: “If anyone is interested in the path that led me to God, he may refer to my publication ‘Taking Stock’ and ‘Expressionism’ but I must ask the reader not to generalize my personal experiences; they have helped me but may not necessarily help others” and “Should the reader come upon any passage which deviates from the fundamental issue I must ask him to balance it against my good intentions. Any unfortunate ambiguous phrase caused by negligence is against my will and to my regret.” In other words if one simply accepts whatever decree that goes out from the Vatican there is no need to be personally responsible for one's actions.

It may be a good thing when someone openly and sincerely makes such a confession. However what it implies could not be further from the attitude of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. What Hermann Bahr is confessing actually expresses a fundamental condition demanded by that spiritual stream which is again trying to assert itself. A condition one could sum up by saying: “The authority of the Vatican decrees what the world in general should believe and profess. And I concede from the start that what as a single individual I hold dear, my belief, my view of things are not the concern of the world in general. I may add my voice but only to the extent it finds approval with the Vatican.”

I do not know to what extent it is still fashionable to make confessions of this kind. What I do know is that spiritual science must rest on its own independent research and take full responsibility for that research. It must also accept disillusions and shattered hopes no matter how often they occur, also when they are, as in the case of Hermann Bahr, completely unexpected.

• *. The first World War
• *. “Vernunft and Wissenschaft”
• 14. William James 1842–1910 American Philosopher, founder of Pragmatism
• 15. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi 1743–1819 Philosopher and Novelist.
• 16. Blaise Pascal 1623–1662 French Natural Philosopher

We have heard that the human soul was once endowed with a kind of primeval wisdom, that this wisdom gradually faded away and is now no longer accessible. Consequently with respect to their knowledge, people feel thrown back more and more upon what is presented to them by physical existence. By “knowledge” I do not mean only science in the accepted sense, but the knowledge that is consciously applied by the soul in the ordinary affairs of life.

The question will naturally arise: how did this ancient wisdom actually come into being? Here I must touch upon a new aspect of matters we have often considered from other angles.

Let us look back to the time when human beings began in the real sense to be citizens of the earth, when as beings of soul and spirit they came down to the earth, surrounded themselves with its forces and became earthly beings. If human beings had simply descended to the earth with the qualities inherent in their own nature, evolution would have taken quite a different course through the various epochs of culture. But having made the descent, human beings would have been obliged to establish a relationship with the surrounding world, to acquire earthly knowledge—I will not say through clairvoyance in the proper sense—but through instincts imbued with a certain measure of clairvoyance. The acquisition of this earthly knowledge would have been a very slow and gradual process and for long ages people would have remained ineffectual, childish beings. By our own time they would, it is true, have succeeded in developing a constitution of soul and body compatible with humanness, but they would never have reached the spiritual heights they have actually attained. That they were able to achieve this evolution in a way other than by passing through all the stages of childhood is due to the intervention in earthly evolution of the luciferic beings. We know from recent lectures that the Lucifer individuality himself incarnated in Asia in a certain epoch of pre-Christian times, and that the original pagan wisdom to which many historical data bear witness proceeded from this being. But the luciferic beings have from the very beginning been associated in some way with the evolution of humanity.

I beg you earnestly—although I know that such requests are of little avail-not to adopt a philistine attitude when mention is made of luciferic beings. Even among anthroposophists there is still the tendency to say: “That is certainly luciferic. At all costs let us avoid it, reject it!” But these things have to be considered in many different aspects and it must always be remembered that the whole of the old pagan wisdom emanated from a luciferic source. The subject is one that calls for deep and serious study.

The farther back we go in the evolution of humanity, the more do we find certain individuals who through the qualities attained in earlier incarnations were sufficiently mature to apprehend the treasures of wisdom possessed by the luciferic beings. Think, for example, of the seven Holy Rishis of ancient India. When Indians interpreted the wisdom of the Holy Rishis, they knew, if they had been initiated into these things, that the teachers of the Rishis were luciferic beings. For what the luciferic beings brought with them into earth evolution was, above all, the world of thought, of intellectualistic thought pervading culture, the world of reason in the highest sense of the word—the world of wisdom. And going back to the primeval origins of human existence, we find that the sources of pagan wisdom always lie with luciferic beings.

It may be asked: How is this possible? We must realize that human beings would have remained children had they not received from the Mysteries the constant instruction that emanated from luciferic beings. Those who possessed the knowledge and the inherited, primeval wisdom wherewith to foster the progress and education of humankind were not—like a modern philistine—fearful of receiving this wisdom from luciferic sources. They took upon themselves the obligation incumbent upon everyone to whom luciferic beings impart knowledge from spiritual realms. The obligation—for so it may be called, although such words do not always convey the exact meaning—was to use this luciferic, cosmic wisdom rightly, for the good of earth evolution. The difference between the “good” wisdom and the purely luciferic wisdom—which so far as content is concerned is exactly the same—is that the “good” wisdom is in hands other than those of the luciferic beings. That is the essential point. It is not a question of there being one wisdom that can be neatly packed away in some chamber of the soul and make a person virtuous! The wisdom of worlds is uniform, the only difference being whether it is in the hands of wise people who use it for good, whether it is in the hands of the Angeloi or Archangeloi, or whether it is in the hands of Lucifer and his hosts. In olden times the wisdom needed for the progress of humanity could be obtained only from a luciferic source; hence the initiates were obliged to receive it from that source and at the same time to take upon themselves the obligation not to yield to the aspirations of the luciferic beings.

Lucifer's intention was to convey the wisdom to humanity in such a way that it would induce people to abandon the path of earth evolution and take a path leading to a super-earthly sphere, a sphere aloof from the earth. The luciferic beings inculcated their wisdom into human beings but their desire was that it would make them turn away from the earth, without passing through earthly evolution. Lucifer wants to abandon the earth to its fate, to win humankind for a kingdom alien to the kingdom of Christ.

The sages of olden time who received the primeval wisdom from the hands of Lucifer had, as I said, to pledge themselves not to yield to his wishes but to use the wisdom for the good of earth evolution. And that, in essence, was what was accomplished through the pre-Christian Mysteries. If it be asked what it was that humanity received through these Mysteries, through the influence of the luciferic beings who, in postAtlantean times, still inspired certain personalities like the Rishis of India and sent their messengers to the earth—the answer is that human beings received the rudiments of what has developed in the course of evolution into the faculties of speech and of thinking. Speaking and thinking are, in their origins, luciferic, but were drawn away from the grip of Lucifer by the sages of old. If you are really intent upon fleeing, from Lucifer, then you must make up your minds to be dumb in the future, and not to think!

These things are part of the initiation science which must gradually come within the ken of humanity, although on account of the kind of education that has now been current for centuries in the civilized world, people shrink from such truths. The caricatured figure of Lucifer and Ahriman—the medieval devil—is constantly before their minds and they have been allowed to grow up in this philistine atmosphere for so long that even today they shudder at the thought of approaching treasures of wisdom that are intimately and deeply connected with evolution. It is much pleasanter to say: “If I protect myself from the devil, if I give myself to Christ with the simple-heartedness of a child, I shall be blessed, and my soul will find salvation.” But in its deep foundations, human life is by no means such a simple matter. And it is essential for the future of human evolution that these things we are now discussing shall not be withheld. It must be known that the art of speaking and the art of thinking have become part of evolution only because they were received through the mediation of Lucifer. The luciferic element can still be observed in thinking. Speech, which has for long ages been differentiated and adapted to earthly needs, has already been assailed by Ahriman. It is he who has brought about different tongues on earth. Whereas the luciferic tendency is always toward unification, the fundamental tendency of the ahrimanic principle is differentiation. What would thinking be if it were not luciferic?

If thinking were not luciferic, human beings on the earth would be like one whose thought was utterly non-luciferic, namely Goethe. Goethe was one of those who, in a certain respect, deliberately set out to confront and defy the luciferic powers. That, however, makes it essential to keep constant hold of the concrete, individual reality. The moment you generalize or unify—at that moment you are nearing luciferic thinking. If you were to contemplate each human individual, each single plant, each single animal, each single stone in itself alone, having in mind the one, single object, not classifying into genera and species, not generalizing in your thought—then you would be little prone to luciferic thinking. But anyone who was to attempt such a thing, even as a child, would never get beyond the lowest class in any modern school.

The fact of the matter is that the universal thinking implicit in pagan wisdom has gradually been exhausted. The human constitution is such that this luciferic principle of unification can no longer be of much real service to people on earth. This has been counteracted by the fact that the God-created nature of the human being has followed in the wake of earth evolution, has become related to, allied with the earth. And because this is so, through their own inherent nature, people are less allied with the luciferic element which always tends to draw them away from the earth.

But woe betide if humanity were simply to draw away from the luciferic element without putting something different in its place. That would bring nothing but evil. For then human beings would grow together with the earth, that is to say with the particular territory on earth where they are born; and cultural life would become completely specialized, completely differentiated. We can already see this tendency developing. It has taken root most markedly since the beginning of the nineteenth century; but the tendency to split up into smaller groups has been all too apparent as a result of the catastrophic world war. Chauvinism is more and more gaining the upper hand until it will finally lead people to split up to such an extent that at last a group will embrace only one single human being! Things could come to the point where individual human beings would again split into right and left, and be at war within themselves; left would be at loggerheads with right. Such tendencies are even now evident in the evolution of humankind. To combat this, a counterweight must be created; and this counterweight can only be created if, like the old wisdom inherent in paganism, a new wisdom, acquired by the free resolve and will of human beings, is infused into earthly culture. This new wisdom must again be Initiation wisdom.

And here we come to a chapter that must not be withheld from modern knowledge If, in the future, people were to do nothing themselves toward acquiring a new wisdom, then, without their consciousness, the whole of culture would become ahrimanic, and it would be easy for the influences issuing from Ahriman's incarnation to permeate all civilization on the earth. Precautions must therefore be taken in regard to the streams by which the ahrimanic form of culture is furthered. What would be the result if people were to follow the strong inclination they have today to let things drift on as they are, without understanding and guiding into right channels those streams which lead to an ahrimanic culture? As soon as Ahriman incarnates at the destined time in the West, the whole of culture would be impregnated with his forces. What else would come in his train? Through certain stupendous acts he would bring to humanity all the clairvoyant knowledge which until then can be acquired only by dint of intense labor and effort. People could live on as materialists, they could eat and drink—as much as may be left after the war!—and there would be no need for any spiritual efforts. The ahrimanic streams would continue their unimpeded course. When Ahriman incarnates in the West at the appointed time, he would establish a great occult school for the practice of magic arts of the greatest grandeur, and what otherwise can be acquired only by strenuous effort would be poured over humankind.

Let it never be imagined that Ahriman will appear as a kind of hoaxer, playing mischievous tricks on human beings. No, indeed! Lovers of ease who refuse to have anything to do with spiritual science would fall prey to his magic, for by means of these stupendous magic arts he would be able to make great numbers of human beings into seers—but in such a way that the clairvoyance of each individual would be strictly differentiated. What one person would see, a second and a third would not see. Confusion would prevail and in spite of being made receptive to clairvoyant wisdom, people would inevitably fall into strife on account of the sheer diversity of their visions. Ultimately, however, they would all be satisfied with their own particular vision, for each of them would be able to see into the spiritual world. In this way all culture on the earth would fall prey to Ahriman. Human beings would succumb to Ahriman simply through not having acquired by their own efforts what Ahriman is ready and able to give them. No more evil advice could be given than to say: “Stay just as you are! Ahriman will make all of you clairvoyant if you so desire. And you will desire it because Ahriman's power will be very great.” But the result would be the establishment of Ahriman's kingdom on earth and the overthrow of everything achieved hitherto by human culture; all the disastrous tendencies unconsciously cherished by humankind today would take effect.

Our concern is that the wisdom of the future—a clairvoyant wisdom—shall be rescued from the clutches of Ahriman. Again let it be repeated that there is only one book of wisdom, not two kinds of wisdom. The issue is whether this wisdom is in the hands of Ahriman or of Christ. It cannot come into the hands of Christ unless people fight for it. And they can only fight for it by telling themselves that by their own efforts they must assimilate the content of spiritual science before the time of Ahriman s appearance on earth.

That, you see, is the cosmic task of spiritual science. It consists in preventing knowledge from becoming—or remaining ahrimanic. A good way of playing into Ahriman s hands is to exclude everything of the nature of knowledge from denominational religion and to insist that simple faith is enough. If people cling to this simple faith, they condemn their soul to stagnation and then the wisdom that must be rescued from Ahriman cannot find entry. The point is not whether people do or do not simply receive the wisdom of the future but whether they work upon it; and those who do must take upon themselves the solemn duty of saving earthly culture for Christ, just as the ancient Rishis and initiates pledged themselves not to yield to Lucifer's proviso that humankind be enticed away from the earth.

The root of the matter is that for the wisdom of the future too, a struggle is necessary, a struggle similar to that waged against Lucifer by the ancient initiates through whose intermediary the faculties of speech and of thinking were transmitted to humanity. Just as it devolved upon the initiates of the primeval wisdom to wrest from Lucifer that which has become human reason, human intellect, so the insight which is to develop in the future into the inner realities of things must be wrested from the ahrimanic powers. Such are the issues—and these issues play strongly into life itself.

I recently read some notes written shortly before his death by one who was a friend of the anthroposophical movement. He had been wounded in the war and lay for a long time in hospital where, in the course of the operations performed on him, he had many a glimpse into the spiritual world. The last lines he wrote contain a remarkable passage, describing a vision which came to him not long before his death. In this last experience, the atmosphere around him became, as he expresses it, like dense granite, weighing upon his soul. Such an impression can be understood in the light of the knowledge that we have to battle for the wisdom of the future; for the ahrimanic powers do not allow this wisdom to be wrested from them without a struggle. Let it not be thought that wisdom can be attained through blissful visions. Real wisdom has to be acquired “in travail and suffering.” What I have just told you about the dying man is a very good picture of such suffering, for in this struggle for the wisdom of the future, one of the most frequent experiences is that the world is pressing in upon us, as though the air had suddenly frozen into granite. It is possible to know why this is so. We have only to remember that it is the endeavor of the ahrimanic powers to reduce the earth to a state of complete rigidification. Their victory would be won if they succeeded in bringing earth, water, and air into this rigidified state. Were that to happen, the earth could not again acquire the Saturn warmth from which it proceeded and which must be regained in the Vulcan epoch; and to prevent this is the aim of the ahrimanic powers. A trend which has an important bearing on this is the lack of enthusiasm in human souls at the present time for the content of spiritual science. If this lack of enthusiasm were to persist, the first impulse toward the rigidification of the earth would emanate from human souls themselves, from their apathy, their indolence and love of ease. If you reflect that this rigidification is the aim of the Ahrimanic powers, you will not be surprised that compression, the feeling that life is becoming granite-like, is one of the experiences that must be undergone in the struggle for the wisdom of the future.

But remember that people today can prepare themselves to look into the spiritual world by apprehending with their healthy human reason what spiritual science has to offer. The effort applied in study that lets itself be guided by healthy human reason can be part of the struggle which leads eventually to vision of the spiritual world. Many tendencies will have to be overcome, but for people of today the fundamental difficulty is that when they want to understand spiritual science they have to battle against their own granite-like skulls. If the human skull were less hard, less granite-like, spiritual science would be far more widely accepted at the present time. Infinitely more effective than any philistine avoidance of the ahrimanic powers would be to battle against Ahriman through sincere, genuine study of the content of spiritual science. For then human beings would gradually come to perceive spiritually the danger that must otherwise befall the earth physically, of being rigidified into granite-like density.

And so it must be emphasized that the wisdom of the future can be attained only through privations, travail, and pain; it must be attained by enduring the attendant sufferings of body and soul for the sake of the salvation of human evolution. Therefore the unwavering principle should be never to let oneself be deterred by suffering from the pursuit of this wisdom. So far as the external life of humankind is concerned, what is needed is that in the future the danger of the frozen rigidification—which, to begin with, would manifest in the moral sphere—shall be removed from the earth. But this can happen only if people envisage spiritually, feel inwardly and counter with their will, what would otherwise become physical reality.

At bottom, it is simply due to faint heartedness that people today are unwilling to approach spiritual science. They are not conscious of this, but it is so, nevertheless; they are fearful of the difficulties that will have to be encountered on every hand. When people come to spiritual science they so often speak of the need for “upliftment.” By this they usually mean a sense of comfort and inner well-being. But that cannot be offered, for it would simply lull them into stupor and draw them away from the light they need. What is essential is that from now onward, knowledge of the driving forces of evolution must not be withheld from humankind. It must be realized that in very truth the human being is balanced as it were between the luciferic and the ahrimanic powers, and that the Christ has become a companion of human beings, leading them, first away from the battle with Lucifer, and then into the battle with Ahriman.

The evolution of humanity must be understood in the light of these facts. One who presents secrets of cosmic existence in the way that must be done in spiritual science is often laughed to scorn, for example about the use of the principle of the number seven—as you will find in my book Theosophy. But you will notice that people do not laugh when the rainbow is described as sevenfold, or the scale—tonic, second, third, and so on, up to the octave which is a repetition of the tonic. In the physical world these things are accepted, but not when it comes to the spiritual. What must be regained here is something that was implicit in the old pagan wisdom. A last glimmer of this pagan wisdom in regard to a matter like the principle of the number seven is to be found in the Pythagorean school—which was actually a Mystery school. You can read about Pythagoras today in any text book; but you will never find any understanding of the reason why he based the world order on number. The reason was because in the ancient wisdom everything was based on number. And a last glimmer of insight into the wisdom contained in numbers still survived when Pythagoras founded his school. Other branches of the ancient wisdom survived much longer, some indeed until the sixth and seventh centuries of the Christian era. Up to that time many true things about the higher worlds are said in the sphere of what is called natural philosophy. And then, gradually, this primeval intelligence in humankind ran dry—if I may use this expression.

Let us picture some orthodox representative of modern learning sitting in a corner and saying: “What nonsense these anthroposophists talk! What do they mean by asserting that the primeval wisdom has run dry? Wonderful, epoch-making results have been achieved, above all during the last few centuries, and are still being achieved. There may have been a temporary halt in 1914, but at any rate up to then marvels were accomplished!” But if you look candidly and without bias at what has been achieved most recently, you will arrive at the following conclusion. Admittedly, masses of notes have been collected—masses of scientific and historical data. This kind of collecting has become the fashion. Countless experiments have been made and described. But now ask yourselves: Are there any fundamentally new ideas in all that this modern age has produced? New ideas, new conceptions were given by individual spirits like Goethe but Goethe has not been understood. If you study recent findings of natural science or historical research, it will be clear to you that, with respect to ideas, there is nothing new. Certainly, Darwin made journeys, described many things he saw on these journeys and gathered it all into an idea. But if you grasp the idea of evolution in its details, as idea, you will find it in the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. So too you will find the fundamental principles of modern natural science in Aristotle-that is to say in the pre-Christian era. These ideas are treasures of the primeval wisdom—springing from a luciferic source. But the primeval wisdom has run dry, and something new in the form of insight into the spiritual world must be attained. A certain willingness on the part of humanity is necessary to undertake the labor entailed by really new ideas. And humankind today is sorely in need of new ideas, especially concerning the realm and the life of the soul. Fundamentally, all that science tells us in regard to the soul amounts to nothing more than a collection of words. What is taught in the lecture halls about thinking, feeling, and willing is simply a matter of words thrown out spasmodically. It amounts to little more than the sounds of the words. There is hardly the beginning of an attempt to take seriously anything that is really new.

In this connection one may have curious experiences! Some time ago I was invited to speak to a “Schopenhauer Society” in Dresden. I thought to myself: Yes—a Schopenhauer society—that must surely be something out of the ordinary! So I tried to show how the contrast between sleeping and waking, between waking up and going to sleep is to be understood in the psychological sense, how the soul is involved. I spoke of something I have recently mentioned to you, namely, that a zero-point is there at the moments of falling asleep and waking up, that sleep is not merely a cessation of the waking state, but bears the same relation to the waking state as debts bear to assets.

If you were to search through modern psychology you would not find the slightest trace of any attempt to get to the root of these far-reaching matters. After the lecture, in a “discussion” as it was called, certain learned members of the audience got up to speak. One of these philosophers made a really splendid statement, to the following effect. He said: “What we have been hearing could not possibly be a concern of serious science. Serious science has other, very different matters with which to occupy itself. We can know nothing of what has just been put before us so plausibly; none of it is a concern of human cognition. Moreover we have known it all for a long time.” In other words, therefore: what we cannot know is something with which we have long been familiar!

Now contradictions do exist, but contradictions of this kind exist only in the heads of present-day scholars! If someone says that certain things cannot be known, that they are not objects of human cognition—well and good, that is his opinion. But if he says in the same breath that he has known all about them for a long time, then there is an obvious contradiction. Erudite scholars of today often have a habit of placing two diametrically opposite opinions side by side in this way.

This kind of thinking has a great deal to do with the present situation. An individual—thanks to the Divine Powers and also, be it remembered, to Lucifer and Ahriman—is often able to form a fairly sound judgment of these things; but when it comes to presenting them to the world—that is a different matter altogether. Many people are willing to embark upon the study of spiritual science provided they find a society of rather sectarian tendencies in which they can take refuge. But when they have to face the world and present something of which the world itself possesses evidence, everything is apt to go up in smoke and they become veritable philistines. And then Ahriman's progress is greatly furthered.

We have heard that the human soul was once endowed with a kind of primeval wisdom, that this wisdom gradually faded away and is now no longer accessible. Consequently in respect of their knowledge, men feel thrown back more and more upon what is presented to them by physical existence. By “knowledge” I do not only mean science in the accepted sense, but the knowledge that is consciously applied by the soul in the ordinary affairs of life.

The question will naturally arise: how did this ancient wisdom actually come into being? Here I must touch upon a new aspect of matters we have often considered from other angles.

Let us look back to the time when man began in the real sense to be a citizen of the earth, when as a being of soul-and-spirit he came down to the earth, surrounded himself with its forces and became an earthly being. If he had simply descended to the earth with the qualities inherent in his own nature, evolution would have taken quite a different course through the various epochs of culture. But having made the descent, man would have been obliged to establish relationship with the surrounding world, to acquire earthly knowledge—I will not say through clairvoyance in the proper sense—but through instincts imbued with a certain measure of clairvoyance. The acquisition of this earthly knowledge would have been a very slow and gradual process and for long ages men would have remained ineffectual, childish beings. By our own time they would, it is true, have succeeded in developing a constitution of soul and body compatible with manhood, but they would never have reached the spiritual heights they have actually attained. That they were able to achieve this evolution in a way other than by passing through all the stages of childhood, is due to the intervention in earthly evolution of the Luciferic beings. We know from recent lectures that the Lucifer-individuality himself incarnated in Asia in a certain epoch of pre-Christian times, and that the original Pagan wisdom to which many historical data bear witness, proceeded from this Being. But the Luciferic beings have from the very beginning been associated in some way with the evolution of humanity.

I beg you earnestly—although I know that such requests are of little avail—not to adopt a philistine attitude when mention is made of Luciferic beings. Even among anthroposophists there is still the tendency to say: “That is certainly Luciferic. At all costs let us avoid it, reject it!” But these things have to be considered in many different aspects and it must always be remembered that the whole of the old Pagan wisdom emanated from a Luciferic source. The subject is one that calls for deep and serious study.

The farther back we go in the evolution of humanity, the more do we find certain individuals who through the qualities attained in earlier incarnations were sufficiently mature to apprehend the treasures of wisdom possessed by the Luciferic beings Think, for example, of the seven Holy Rishis of ancient India.—When an Indian interpreted the wisdom of the Holy Rishis, he knew, if he had been initiated into these things, that the Teachers of the Rishis were Luciferic beings. For what the Luciferic beings brought with them into earth-evolution was, above all, the world of thought, of intellectualistic thought pervading culture, the world of reason in the highest sense of the word—the world of wisdom. And going back to the primeval origins of human existence, we find that the sources of Pagan wisdom always lie with Luciferic beings.

It may be asked: How is this possible? We must realise that man would have remained a child had he not received from the Mysteries the constant instruction that emanated from Luciferic beings. Those who possessed the knowledge and the inherited, primeval wisdom wherewith to foster the progress and education of mankind, were not—like a modern philistine—fearful of receiving this wisdom from Luciferic sources. They took upon themselves the obligation incumbent upon everyone to whom Luciferic beings impart knowledge from spiritual realms. The obligation—for so it may be called, although such words do not always convey the exact meaning—was to use this Luciferic, cosmic wisdom rightly, for the good of earth-evolution. The difference between the “good” wisdom and the purely Luciferic wisdom—which so far as content is concerned is exactly the same—is that the “good” wisdom is in hands other than those of the Luciferic beings. That is the essential point. It is not a question of there being one wisdom that can be neatly packed away in some chamber of the soul and make a man virtuous! The wisdom of worlds is uniform, the only difference being whether it is in the hands of wise men who use it for good, whether it is in the hands of the Angeloi or Archangeloi, or whether it is in the hands of Lucifer and his hosts. In olden times the wisdom needed for the progress of humanity could be obtained only from a Luciferic source; hence the Initiates were obliged to receive it from that source and at the same time to take upon themselves the obligation not to yield to the aspirations of the Luciferic beings.

Lucifer's intention was to convey the wisdom to men in such a way that it would induce them to abandon the path of earth-evolution and take a path leading to a super-earthly sphere, a sphere aloof from the earth. The Luciferic beings inculcated their wisdom into man but their desire was that it would make him turn away from the earth, without passing through earthly evolution. Lucifer wants to abandon the earth to its fate, to win mankind for a kingdom alien to the kingdom of Christ.

The wise men of olden time who received the primeval wisdom from the hands of Lucifer had, as I said, to pledge themselves not to yield to his wishes but to use the wisdom for the good of earth-evolution. And that, in essence, was what was accomplished through the pre-Christian Mysteries. If it be asked what it was that humanity received through these Mysteries, through the influence of the Luciferic beings who, in post-Atlantean times, still inspired certain personalities like the Rishis of India and sent their messengers to the earth—the answer is that man received the rudiments of what has developed in the course of evolution into the faculties of speech and of thinking. Speaking and thinking are, in their origins, Luciferic, but were drawn away from the grip of Lucifer by the wise men of old.—If you are really intent upon fleeing from Lucifer, then you must make up your minds to be dumb in the future, and not to think !

These things are part of the Initiation-science which must gradually come within the ken of humanity, although on account of the kind of education that has now been current for centuries in the civilised world, men shrink from such truths. The caricatured figure of Lucifer and Ahriman—the medieval devil—is constantly before their minds and they have been allowed to grow up in this philistine atmosphere for so long that even to-day they shudder at the thought of approaching treasures of wisdom that are intimately and deeply connected with evolution. It is much pleasanter to say: “If I protect myself from the devil, if I give myself to Christ with the simple-heartedness of a child, I shall be blessed, and my soul will find salvation.”—But in its deep foundations, human life is by no means such a simple matter. And it is essential for the future of human evolution that these things we are now discussing shall not be withheld from mankind. It must be known that the art of speaking and the art of thinking have become part of evolution only because they were received through the mediation of Lucifer. The Luciferic element can still be observed in thinking. Speech, which has for long ages been differentiated and adapted to earthly needs, has already been assailed by Ahriman. It is he who has brought about differentiation, who has degraded the one, cosmic speech into the different tongues on earth. Whereas the Luciferic tendency is always towards unification, the fundamental tendency of the Ahrimanic principle is differentiation.—What would thinking be if it were not Luciferic?

If thinking were not Luciferic, human beings on the earth would be like one whose thought was utterly non-Luciferic, namely Goethe. Goethe was one of those who, in a certain respect, deliberately set out to confront and defy the Luciferic powers. That, however, makes it essential to keep constant hold of the concrete, individual reality. The moment you generalise or unify—at that moment you are nearing Luciferic thinking. If you were to contemplate each human individual, each single plant, each single animal, each single stone in itself alone, having in mind the one, single object, not classifying into genera and species, not generalising in your thought—then you would be little prone to Luciferic thinking. But anyone who were to attempt such a thing, even as a child, would never get beyond the lowest class in any modern school.

The fact of the matter is that the universal thinking implicit in Pagan wisdom has gradually been exhausted. Man's constitution is such that this Luciferic principle of unification can no longer be of much real service to him on earth. This has been counteracted by the fact that the God-created nature of man has followed in the wake of earth-evolution, has become related to, allied with the earth. And because this is so, through his own inherent nature man is less allied with the Luciferic element which always tends to draw him away from the earth.

But woe betide if man were simply to draw away from the Luciferic element without putting something different in its place. That would bring nothing but evil. For then man would grow together with the earth, that is to say with the particular territory on earth where he is born; and his cultural life would become completely specialised, completely differentiated. We can already see this tendency developing. It has taken root most markedly since the beginning of the nineteenth century; but the tendency to split up into smaller and smaller groups has been all too apparent as a result of the catastrophic world war. Chauvinism is more and more gaining the upper hand until it will finally lead men to split up to such an extent that at last a group will embrace only one single human being! Things could come to the point where individual men would again split into right and left, and be at war within themselves; left would be at loggerheads with right. Such tendencies are even now evident in the evolution of mankind. To combat this, a counterweight must be created; and this counterweight can only be created if, like the old wisdom inherent in Paganism, a new wisdom, acquired by the free resolve and will of man, is infused into earthly culture. This new wisdom must again be an Initiation-wisdom.

And here we come to a chapter that must not be withheld from the knowledge of modern man. If, in the future, man were to do nothing himself towards acquiring a new wisdom, then, unconsciously to him, the whole of culture would become Ahrimanic, and it would be easy for the influences issuing from Ahriman's incarnation to permeate all civilisation on the earth. Precautions must therefore be taken in regard to the streams by which the Ahrimanic form of culture is furthered. What would be the result if men were to follow the strong inclination they have to-day to let things drift on as they are, without understanding and guiding into right channels those streams which lead to an Ahrimanic culture?—As soon as Ahriman incarnates at the destined time in the West, the whole of culture would be impregnated with his forces. What else would come in his train? Through certain stupendous arts he would bring to man all the clairvoyant knowledge which until then can be acquired only by dint of intense labour and effort. Men could live on as materialists, they could eat and drink—as much as may be left after the war!—and there would be no need, for any spiritual efforts. The Ahrimanic streams would continue their unimpeded course. When Ahriman incarnates in the West at the appointed time, he would establish a great occult school for the practice of magic arts of the greatest grandeur, and what otherwise can be acquired only by strenuous effort would be poured over mankind.

Let it never be imagined that Ahriman will appear as a kind of hoaxer, playing mischievous tricks on human beings. No, indeed ! Lovers of ease who refuse to have anything to do with spiritual science, would fall prey to his magic, for by means of these stupendous magic arts he would be able to make great numbers of human beings into seers—but in such a way that the clairvoyance of each individual would be strictly differentiated. What one person would see, a second and a third would not see. Confusion would prevail and in spite of being made receptive to clairvoyant wisdom, men would inevitably fall into strife on account of the sheer diversity of their visions. Ultimately, however, they would all be satisfied with their own particular vision, for each of them would be able to see into the spiritual world. In this way all culture on the earth would fall prey to Ahriman. Men would succumb to Ahriman simply through not having acquired by their own efforts what Ahriman is ready and able to give them. No more evil advice could be given than to say: “Stay just as you are! Ahriman will make all of you clairvoyant if you so desire. And you will desire it because Ahriman's power will be very great.”—But the result would be the establishment of Ahriman's kingdom on earth and the overthrow of everything achieved hitherto by human culture; all the disastrous tendencies unconsciously cherished by mankind to-day would take effect.

Our concern is that the wisdom of the future—a clairvoyant wisdom—shall be rescued from the clutches of Ahriman. Again let it be repeated that there is only one book of wisdom, not two kinds of wisdom. The issue is whether this wisdom is in the hands of Ahriman or of Christ. It cannot come into the hands of Christ unless men fight for it. And they can only fight for it by telling themselves that by their own efforts they must assimilate the content of spiritual science before the time of Ahriman's appearance on earth.

That, you see, is the cosmic task of spiritual science. It consists in preventing knowledge from becoming—or remaining—Ahrimanic. A good way of playing into Ahriman's hands is to exclude everything of the nature of knowledge from denominational religion and to insist that simple faith is enough. If a man clings to this simple faith, he condemns his soul to stagnation and then the wisdom that must be rescued from Ahriman cannot find entry. The point is not whether men do or do not simply receive the wisdom of the future but whether they work upon it; and those who do must take upon themselves the solemn duty of saving earthly culture for Christ, just as the ancient Rishis and Initiates pledged themselves not to yield to Lucifer's proviso that mankind be enticed away from the earth.

The root of the matter is that for the wisdom of the future too, a struggle is necessary, a struggle similar to that waged against Lucifer by the ancient Initiates through whose intermediary the faculties of speech and of thinking were transmitted to men. Just as it devolved upon the Initiates of the primeval wisdom to wrest from Lucifer that which has become human reason, human intellect, so the insight which is to develop in the future into the inner realities of things must be wrested from the Ahrimanic powers. Such are the issues—and these issues play strongly into life itself.

I recently read some notes written shortly before his death by one who was a friend of the Anthroposophical Movement. He had been wounded in the war and lay for a long time in hospital where, in the course of the operations performed on him, he had many a glimpse into the spiritual world. The last lines he wrote contain a remarkable passage, describing a vision which came to him not long before his death. In this last experience, the atmosphere around him became, as he expresses it, like dense granite, weighing upon his soul. Such an impression can be understood in the light of the knowledge that we have to battle for the wisdom of the future; for the Ahrimanic powers do not allow this wisdom to be wrested from them without a struggle. Let it not be thought that wisdom can be attained through blissful visions. Real wisdom has to be acquired “in travail and suffering”. What I have just told you about the dying man is a very good picture of such suffering, for in this struggle for the wisdom of the future, one of the most frequent experiences is that the world is pressing in upon us, as though the air had suddenly frozen into granite. It is possible to know why this is so. We have only to remember that it is the endeavour of the Ahrimanic powers to reduce the earth to a state of complete rigidification. Their victory would be won if they succeeded in bringing earth, water and air into this rigidified state. Were that to happen, the earth could not again acquire the Saturn-warmth from which it proceeded and which must be regained in the Vulcan epoch; and to prevent this is the aim of the Ahrimanic powers. A trend which has an important bearing on this is the lack of enthusiasm in human souls at the present time for the content of spiritual science. If this lack of enthusiasm were to persist, the first impulse towards the rigidification of the earth would emanate from the souls of men themselves, from their apathy, their indolence and love of ease. If you reflect that this rigidification is the aim of the Ahrimanic powers, you will not be surprised that compression, the feeling that life is becoming granite-like, is one of the experiences that must be undergone in the struggle for the wisdom of the future.

But remember that men to-day can prepare themselves to look into the spiritual world by apprehending with their healthy human reason what spiritual science has to offer. The effort applied in study that lets itself be guided by healthy human reason can be part of the struggle which leads eventually to vision of the spiritual world. Many tendencies will have to be overcome, but for men of to-day the fundamental difficulty is that when they want to understand spiritual science they have to battle against their own granite-like skulls. If the human skull were less hard, less granite-like, spiritual science would be far more widely accepted at the present time. Infinitely more effective than any philistine avoidance of the Ahrimanic powers would be to battle against Ahriman through sincere, genuine study of the content of spiritual science. For then man would gradually come to perceive spiritually the danger that must otherwise befall the earth physically, of being rigidified into granite-like density.

And so it must be emphasised that the wisdom of the future can be attained only through privations, travail and pain; it must be attained by enduring the attendant sufferings of body and soul for the sake of the salvation of human evolution. Therefore the unwavering principle should be, never to let oneself be deterred by suffering from the pursuit of this wisdom. So far as the external life of mankind is concerned, what is needed is that in the future the danger of the frozen rigidification—which, to begin with, would manifest in the moral sphere—shall be removed from the earth. But this can happen only if men envisage spiritually, feel inwardly and counter with their will, what would otherwise become physical reality.

At bottom, it is simply due to faint-heartedness that men to-day are unwilling to approach spiritual science. They are not conscious of this, but it is so, nevertheless; they are fearful of the difficulties that will have to be encountered on every hand. When people come to spiritual science they so often speak of the need for “upliftment”. By this they usually mean a sense of comfort and inner well-being. But that cannot be offered, for it would simply lull them into stupor and draw them away from the light they need. What is essential is that from now onwards, knowledge of the driving forces of evolution must not be withheld from mankind. It must be realised that in very truth the human being is balanced as it were between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic powers, and that the Christ has become a companion of men, leading them, first, away from the battle with Lucifer, and then into the battle with Ahriman.

The evolution of humanity must be understood in the light of these facts. One who presents secrets of cosmic existence in the way that must be done in spiritual science, is often laughed to scorn, for example about the use of the principle of the number seven—as you will find in my book Theosophy. But you will notice that people do not laugh when the rainbow is described as sevenfold, or the scale—tonic, second, third and so on, up to the octave which is a repetition of the tonic. In the physical world these things are accepted, but not when it comes to the spiritual. What must be regained here is something that was implicit in the old Pagan wisdom. A last glimmer of this Pagan wisdom in regard to a matter like the principle of the number seven, is to be found in the Pythagorean School—which was actually a Mystery-school. You can read about Pythagoras to-day in any text-book; but you will never find any understanding of the reason why he based the World-Order on number. The reason was because in the ancient wisdom everything was based on number. And a last glimmer of insight into the wisdom contained in numbers still survived when Pythagoras founded his School. Other branches of the ancient wisdom survived much longer, some indeed until the sixth and seventh centuries of the Christian era. Up to that time many true things about the higher worlds are said in the sphere of what is called natural philosophy. And then, gradually, this primeval intelligence in mankind ran dry—if I may use this expression.

Let us picture some orthodox representative of modern learning sitting in a corner and saying: “What nonsense these anthroposophists talk! What do they mean by asserting that the primeval wisdom has run dry? Wonderful, epoch-making results have been achieved, above all during the last few centuries, and are still being achieved. There may have been a temporary halt in 1914, but at any rate up to then marvels were accomplished!”—But if you look candidly and without bias at what has been achieved most recently, you will arrive at the following conclusion.—Admittedly, masses of notes have been collected—masses of scientific and historical data. This kind of collecting has become the fashion. Countless experiments have been made and described. But now ask yourselves: Are there any fundamentally new ideas in all that this modern age has produced? New ideas, new conceptions were given by individual spirits like Goethe—but Goethe has not been understood. If you study recent findings of natural science or historical research, it will be clear to you that, in respect of ideas, there is nothing new. Certainly, Darwin made journeys, described many things he saw on these journeys and gathered it all into an idea. But if you grasp the idea of evolution in its details, as idea, you will find it in the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. So too you will find the fundamental principles of modern natural science in Aristotle—that is to say in the pre-Christian era. These ideas are treasures of the primeval wisdom—springing from a Luciferic source. But the primeval wisdom has run dry, and something new in the form of insight into the spiritual world must be attained. A certain willingness on the part of man is necessary to undertake the labour entailed by really new ideas. And mankind to-day is sorely in need of new ideas, especially concerning the realm and the life of the soul. Fundamentally, all that science tells us in regard to the soul amounts to nothing more than a collection of words. What is taught in the lecture-halls about thinking, feeling and willing, is simply a matter of words thrown out spasmodically. It amounts to little more than the sounds of the words. There is hardly the beginning of an attempt to take seriously anything that is really new.

In this connection one may have curious experiences! Some time ago I was invited to speak to a “Schopenhauer Society” in Dresden. I thought to myself: Yes—a Schopenhauer Society—that must surely be something out of the ordinary! So I tried to show how the contrast between sleeping and waking, between waking up and going to sleep is to be understood in the psychological sense, how the soul is involved. I spoke of something I have recently mentioned to you, namely, that a zero-point is there at the moments of falling asleep and waking up, that sleep is not merely a cessation of the waking state, but bears the same relation to the waking state as debts bear to assets.

If you were to search through modern psychology you would not find the slightest trace of any attempt to get to the root of these far-reaching matters.—After the lecture, in a “discussion” as it was called, certain learned members of the audience got up to speak. One of these philosophers made a really splendid statement, to the following effect. He said: “What we have been hearing could not possibly be a concern of serious science. Serious science has other, very different matters with which to occupy itself. Man can know nothing of what has just been put before us so plausibly; none of it is a concern of human cognition. Moreover we have known it all for a long time.”—In other words, therefore: what we cannot know is something with which we have long been familiar!

Now contradictions do exist, but contradictions of this kind exist only in the heads of present-day scholars! If someone says that certain things cannot be known, that they are not objects of human cognition—well and good, that is his opinion. But if he says in the same breath that he has known all about them for a long time, then there is an obvious contradiction. Erudite scholars of to-day often have a habit of placing two diametrically opposite opinions side by side in this way.

This kind of thinking has a great deal to do with the present situation. An individual—thanks to the Divine Powers and also, be it remembered, to Lucifer and Ahriman—is often able to form a fairly sound judgment of these things; but when it comes to presenting them to the world—that is a different matter altogether. Many people are willing to embark upon the study of spiritual science provided they find a society of rather sectarian tendencies in which they can take refuge. But when they have to face the world and present something of which the world itself possesses evidence, everything is apt to go up in smoke and they become veritable philistines.—And then Ahriman's progress is greatly furthered.

In my first lecture, which I gave here in Amsterdam on the 19th of this month, I tried to explain how spiritual science oriented towards anthroposophy fits into present-day civilization. This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which today already has an artistically executed outer place of care in the Free University for Spiritual Science, the Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel in Switzerland, wants to add supersensible knowledge through exact spiritual scientific methods to the tremendous, great results of natural scientific knowledge, which it fully recognizes. And in my last lecture here on February 19, I took the liberty of pointing out that in the present time, numerous souls long for knowledge that is just as securely based as the knowledge that is considered scientific today, but precisely knowledge that extends to the realms of the world with which the eternal in the human soul is connected.

I pointed out that these supersensible insights can only be attained by developing certain abilities that are present in the human soul. These abilities are, however, still unknown to broad sections of our educated society today. Yet it is precisely this ignorance of these abilities that is the cause of the catastrophic developments of our time, which are apparent to everyone.

If we want to approach what is meant here by spiritual science, we must first start from what I called 'intellectual modesty' in my lecture on February 19. This intellectual modesty will be regarded as a paradox in our own time, which is particularly proud of its intellectuality. But anyone who wants to penetrate into the supersensible worlds — to which the human soul with its essential being does, after all, belong — needs this starting point of intellectual modesty. And I would like to repeat the parable, which I already used the other day to point out this intellectual modesty, because I have to assume that, due to the change of venue, a large number of the audience gathered here today were not present at my first lecture.

If we have a five-year-old child in front of us and we give him a volume of Shakespeare, he will play with it, perhaps tear it up, but in any case not do what is appropriate for the volume of Shakespeare. But if the child has lived for another ten or fifteen years, then those abilities that were previously latent in the child's soul will have been developed through education and instruction; he will now read the volume of Shakespeare. The child has ascended to a higher level of human existence, has become a different being after fifteen to twenty years.

If you really want to penetrate into the supersensible world, you have to be able to say to yourself: Perhaps as an adult you are in the same position as the five-year-old child in relation to the volume of Shakespeare, with regard to nature with its secrets and its deeper laws, and perhaps there are forces within the soul that first have to be brought out. If we seriously approach these slumbering powers and abilities in our soul with this intellectual modesty as adults, we will develop higher insights than the ordinary ones of everyday life and ordinary science.

First of all, the faculty in the human soul must be developed, which in ordinary life we know as the ability to remember. Through this ability to remember, we bring coherence into our lives. Through this ability to remember, our soul conjures up images of what we have experienced up to a very early age in childhood. This ability to remember makes permanent what would otherwise flash by as a mere idea. If we could only surrender ourselves to the outside world, if we would only surrender ourselves to ideas of the events and experiences that flash by, our whole soul life would be different. If one now further develops what is present in memory as lasting images, then one attains a quite different capacity for knowledge. And one can develop this through methods that I have described in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”, in my “Occult Science” and in other of my writings. One can develop this through certain processes of meditation and concentration, through a devoted resting on certain easily comprehensible ideas, which must not be reminiscences, must not be based on any kind of auto-suggestion; therefore they must be easily comprehensible.

One must rest with the whole structure of one's soul on such ideas. And these studies, which the true spiritual researcher must make regarding the knowledge of the supersensible worlds, are no easier than the studies one does in the clinic, in the physics or chemistry laboratory, or in the observatory, and they by no means take less time. This meditation, this concentrating with the whole power of the soul on certain ideas, which one does continually and on which one rests, must be continued for years. The powers of knowledge that lie dormant deep within the soul, of which the human being has no other idea, must be brought up. When they are brought up, one is able to perceive, through these higher powers of knowledge, that which surrounds us just as the physical-sensory world surrounds us. At first one perceives one's own experiences, but not as the vague stream of consciousness that goes back to just before birth, where the memory fragments emerge. Rather, one perceives the whole panorama of what one has gone through in this life since birth, like a unified, all-at-once present life panorama. And when one gets to know this, one experiences what it means to live in one's soul outside of the body. Materialism usually claims – and at first glance it seems justified – that all ordinary thinking, all ordinary remembering, all ordinary feeling and willing is bound to the physical body. But in ordinary life, this feeling, this willing, this thinking is interrupted. Every day, through sleep, that which is the ordinary soul life bound to the body is interrupted. People do not feel deeply enough the significance of the riddle associated with falling asleep, sleeping and waking up again. After all, the human being must be present in sleep, otherwise he would have to arise anew each time he woke up. But one only learns to recognize the form in which the human being is present in sleep by doing the exercises, some of which I have mentioned here.

When you are actually able to imagine mentally in such a way that you do not use your external eyes, do not use other senses, and do not use the ordinary mind that is connected to the brain, but only the purely spiritual-soul - and you achieve this when you develop the ability to remember in the way I have described it - then one comes to know that from the moment of falling asleep until the moment of waking up, the human being does indeed exist as a spiritual-soul entity outside of his body and that only the desire to return to his body then asserts itself. And this desire, which obscures consciousness.

Anyone who develops their powers of recollection as I have described will be able to behave exactly like the sleeping person – that is, not to perceive with the senses, not to combine the sensory perceptions with the mind – only to be fully conscious. He knows the spiritual soul independently of the body. This also enables him to recognize this spiritual soul before birth or conception and after death in its true essence and in connection with the rest of the supersensible world.

And if, in addition, he further develops a second soul power that is also present in ordinary life, namely the power of love, if he makes the power of love a power of knowledge, then the human being gets to know the images, which he otherwise experiences as a supersensible panorama, in their direct reality as well.

Today I would like to draw attention to something that is, in the most eminent sense, a link in a life practice that must interest all people. I would like to draw attention to the way in which anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, as I am referring to here, can enrich the art of education and teaching.

What do you actually gain from such a spiritual science, the methods of which I have now very briefly outlined? Above all, one acquires a real knowledge of the human being. Without being able to see into the supersensible, it is indeed impossible to have knowledge of the human being. After all, the human being is not only the outer physical organization, about which the outer scientific world view gives us such great, powerful, and insufficiently appreciated insights. Man is also soul and spirit. Man harbors within himself the eternal core of his being, which passes through births and deaths, which has a consciousness after death, because then he has no desire for the body, which lies in bed during sleep and after which he has desire during sleep, which his consciousness in ordinary sleep extinguishes.

When this physical body is discarded at death, the human being attains an all the more clear consciousness because it is not extinguished by any desire for a body. Through all this and much more, which I do not wish to describe now but which you can read about in my writings, the human being attains true knowledge of the human being. And only out of real knowledge of the human being can true teaching and true educational art arise.

We have tried to address this area of practical life in the Waldorf School founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart, which I run and whose pedagogy and didactics flow entirely from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Firstly, the attitude of the teaching staff is such that something is brought into the classroom with every lesson, with every new morning, which turns teaching and educating into a kind of spiritual service. Does it not mean something special when we know through anthroposophical spiritual science that this human being, who reveals himself to us so wonderfully in the growing child, has descended from the spiritual worlds through conception or birth? If this is a true realization, if it is conveyed through anthroposophical spiritual science, then we face the developing human being, the child, in such a way that we have a task entrusted to us from the spiritual worlds. Then we see how the eternal, which has descended from spiritual worlds, works its way out of the initially indeterminate physiognomic features and the indeterminate movements of the child from day to day, from week to week, from year to year, with ever greater certainty. We see the spiritual soul at work on the physical development of the human being.

This is not the place for a careless criticism of what pedagogical geniuses have produced over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. Certainly, some beautiful principles have been expressed with regard to pedagogy. For example, it is rightly emphasized that pedagogy has such principles as “one should not graft anything from the outside into children; one should draw everything one wants to introduce to children from their own abilities and capacities”. Quite right, an excellent principle – but abstract and theoretical. And so, by far the greatest part of our life practice confronts us in abstractions, in theoretical programs. For what is needed to carry out something like this, to extract from individuality what the child should develop within itself, requires real knowledge of the human being. Knowledge of the human being that goes into all the depths of the human being. But the science that has existed in modern civilization so far, despite its great triumphs, cannot have such knowledge of the human being.

I would now like to show you very specific things that will help you to see how this spiritual science, as it is meant here, can achieve real knowledge of the human being. There is a cheap saying that is thoughtlessly repeated over and over again: “Nature does not make leaps!” In fact, nature is constantly making leaps, and this expression is only thoughtless, as I said. Think of a plant: it develops green leaves, then it makes the leap to the calyx, then the leap to the colored petals, the stamens, and so on. And so it is with all life. It is just a phrase to say that nature does not make leaps. And so it is especially in human life. We have in human life, when we can observe it uninhibitedly through the impulses that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science provides, clearly distinct life epochs. The first life epoch goes from birth to the change of teeth, around the age of seven. It ends, then, with the year in which we start sending children to primary school. If one has the necessary insight and impartiality of observation, if one gets into the habit of observing life only at a higher level in the same way that one would otherwise observe at the lowest level in the natural sciences, one can sharply characterize the major differences between the first and second phases of human life. The first phase of life ends with the change of teeth, the second with sexual maturity. Both phases of life are quite distinct from one another. The first phase shows us the child as an imitative being. Even in play, the child is an imitative being. Of course, some believe that a certain imaginative being is formed during play. This is also the case, but if you study play in its deepest essence, you will perceive the moments of imitation everywhere, especially in children's play. And in connection with this play, I would like to remark right away how tremendously important knowledge of the human being, knowledge of the human being in relation to his totality, is for an education and pedagogical art that is full of life and truly engages with the world.

You see, every child plays differently. Anyone with an unbiased sense of observation can tell exactly how one child plays and how another child plays. Even if the difference is not a big one – you have to be a psychologist to be able to observe something like this if you want to become an educator at all. But if you can do that, then you have to relate the different ways of playing to a completely different epoch of a person's life. In terms of observing human beings, the natural sciences are such that they only rank what is nearest to what is nearest. But you won't get very far with that. What can be observed in children's play does not remain in the next phase of life. The child is turned to other things, that is, in the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. Even if it continues to play, the actual play age is no longer as characteristic as it used to be. What the play passions are withdraws into the depths of the soul and only comes to light again at a much later age: in the second half of the twenties, when the human being is supposed to enter into practical life. Some adapt themselves with great skill to the tasks of fate, while others become dreamers far removed from the world. The way in which a person can adapt to practical life in these years can be fully explained if one knows how the person played at the age of four, five, six, or seven.

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for the pedagogue and educator to guide the child's play; to observe what the child wants to express and to guide what should not be expressed, because it would make the child awkward in later life. For when we guide play in the right way at the earliest age, we give the child something for life practice, as it develops in the twenties. The whole life of a human being is interrelated, and what we plant in the child's soul in youth only comes to light much later in life in the most diverse metamorphoses. Only a total knowledge of the human being, as provided by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, can truly see through the connections that lie as far apart as the twenties and childhood, as well as the finding of one's way into practical life and the play instincts; only such spiritual science can see so deeply into life. This will give you an idea of the scope of human knowledge that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science wants to work with in order to develop a pedagogical art.

I said that the child is an imitative being until about the age of seven. And I do not say the number seven out of some mystical inclination, but because the change of teeth is actually an important event in the child's overall development. The child learns the particular nature of his movements, and also his speech, through imitation; he even develops the form of his thoughts in this way. Because the connection between the child's environment and the child itself depends not only on external factors but also on imponderables, parents or educators who live in the child's environment must be clear about how the child adapts to what the adults around him do, not only externally – not only what they speak – but also what they feel, what they sense, what they think. It is usually not believed in our materialistic age that there is also a difference in terms of the child's education, whether we indulge in noble or ignoble thoughts in the presence of the child, because we see the connections in life only in terms of external material entities, and not in terms of how things are connected internally by imponderables. This can be seen if one really observes life according to its internal structures.

I would like to give an example of what is actually important in such matters: a father once came to me and complained bitterly – and I could give many similar examples – that his five-year-old boy had stolen something. He was very unhappy about it. I said: Let's see if the five-year-old boy really has stolen. – I had the case described to me. What had actually happened? The boy had taken some money out of the drawer where his mother kept her pennies, which she always needed for her daily needs. He had not even done it out of selfishness, but had distributed the money among other children. I said to the father: The child did not steal, but what the mother always does, the child also considers right to do, because at the age of five she is still very much an imitative being. We must be aware of this: we do not influence children through admonitions, through commandments, but only through what we do in their environment.

And we can only arrive at a sound judgment of the child's entire soul configuration if we know that this soul configuration of the child will change significantly with the change of teeth. The mere imitation is replaced by the mental behavior towards the environment as a self-evident authority. And we are dealing with this desire of the child for the self-evident authority of the teacher, the educator or whoever else is around the child throughout the entire school period. One only has to know what it means for the whole of life if, in this childhood from the seventh to the fifteenth year, one has looked up with a real, great inner awe to those who, as adults, were around with educational authority were around, that what we thought was true and false emerged from the way these educators saw true and false; from what was the standard of true and false for the educators. We enter into the human, not into some abstraction, when we want to distinguish true and false, good and evil in this childhood age.

You will not believe that I advocate this necessity – that all teaching and education between the ages of seven and fifteen should also be based on unquestioning authority – out of some kind of preference for conservative or reactionary ideas when I tell you that as early as 1892 I wrote a small pamphlet in which I firmly presented the individual freedom of the human being as a basic social requirement. But no one can become a truly free human being, no one can find the right social relationship with their fellow human beings in freedom if they have not recognized an authority beside them between the ages of seven and fifteen, and from this authority learned to shape the standard for right and wrong, good and evil, in order to only later arrive at their own standard of intellectual or other purely internal, autonomous judgment.

And then the soul of the child at this age is still so constituted that it is still completely merged with its surroundings. Only when we come to the end of this phase of life, which falls in the twelfth or thirteenth year, do we see that the child is clearly different from its surroundings, that it knows that the I is within and nature is without. Of course, self-awareness is present in the very earliest childhood, but it is more of a feeling. If you want to educate properly, you need to know that an extraordinarily important point in a child's development lies between the ages of nine and ten and a half. It is the point where the child becomes so absorbed inwardly that it learns to distinguish itself from nature and the rest of the external world. Before this point, which is a strong turning point in human life, the child basically sees his surroundings in images, because they are still connected to his own inner life, in images that are often symbolic. He thinks about his surroundings in a symbolic way. Later, a different era begins. The child differentiates between nature and the external environment. It is of immense importance that the educator is able to assess this point in life, which occurs a little later for one child and a little earlier for another, in the right way. For how the teacher and educator behaves in the right way between the ninth and tenth year – fatherly, friendly, lovingly guiding the child over this Rubicon – that means an incursion into human life that is lasting for the whole of the following existence until physical death. Whether a person has a zest for life in the decisive moments or carries inner soul barrenness through life depends in many respects - though not in every respect - on how the teacher and educator has behaved towards the child between the ages of nine and ten and a half. Sometimes it is a matter of simply finding the right word at the right moment when a boy or girl meets you in the corridor and asks a question, or of making the right expression when you answer. The art of education is not something that can be learned or taught in the abstract – any more than painting or sculpting or any other art can. Rather, it is something that is based on an infinite number of details that arise from the rhythm of the soul. This sense of rhythm is derived from anthroposophical spiritual science.

It is also important to distinguish between what we need to teach children before and after this important point in their lives between nine and a half and ten and a half years of age. Above all, we must bear in mind that in our present, advanced civilization, we have something that has become external, abstract and symbolic. Go back to ancient civilizations, take any pictographic writing, and what was grasped by the senses was fixed. This was made into an image with which the human being was connected, with which the human being lived through feeling and emotion. Today, however, all this has become a symbol. We must not introduce reading and writing to the child as something alien, because it wants to grow together with its environment before the age of nine; we must not teach it from that abstract level, as is the case today. In Waldorf schools, we begin teaching in an artistic way by letting the child draw, even paint, the forms that arise out of the fullness of humanity. We let the child do this at first, and then, when we guide the child further in this drawing-painting way, we develop the letter forms, the writing, from this drawing. We proceed from the artistic, and from the artistic we first bring out writing and then reading. In this way we really correspond to what lies within the child.

It is not a matter of saying in some abstract way in education that one should only bring out what is in the child. One must know how to do it practically, how to really meet human nature. Anthroposophical spiritual science is never theory, but always real practice. That is what enables it to develop such an art of education.

What I have said about authority can also make us aware of something else that may perhaps seem paradoxical to you. In today's materialistic age, an enormous amount of emphasis is placed on so-called illustrative instruction. To anyone who understands the true nature of the child, it is a terrible thing to see the abstract calculating machines and all the things that children are often subjected to today. Today, children are expected to understand everything immediately. The aim is to organize teaching in such a way that nothing goes beyond the usual eight- or nine-year-old understanding. It seems extraordinarily scientific. But believe me, ladies and gentlemen, even a person with thorough anthroposophical knowledge can grasp the obviousness of such a principle just as well as those who defend such principles today as something that should be taken for granted. But what is self-evident is that, above all, between the ages of seven and fourteen, the child must have its memory and sense of authority developed in a healthy way, as I have just described.

Those who only want vividness and vividness that is adapted to the child's understanding do not know the following: they do not know what it means for the whole of life if, let us say in the eighth or ninth year or in the tenth to fifteenth year, one has taken something on the authority of the teacher; because the revered authoritative personality tells one, one considers it to be true. It is still beyond the horizon, but it is absorbed into the soul. Perhaps it is only in the thirty-fifth or fortieth year that it is taken out again. What one has already had in one's memory is now understood through the power that has matured. This awareness of having matured, this awareness of being able to bring something up, refreshes and invigorates the soul's strength in a way that is not appreciated in ordinary life, whereas it deserts the soul if one wants to tailor everything to the understanding of the child in the eighth, ninth, twelfth year. This is something that must be said today, because people, out of their materialistic cleverness, are no longer able to see what is natural, right and essential in such matters.

And from the foundations of human nature, from what seeks to develop from week to week, from year to year, the curriculum of such a school is derived, as it is the Waldorf School. This curriculum arises entirely from the knowledge of the essence of man. It is not an abstract curriculum, but something that underlies the pedagogy of this school, just as painting can do for the painter, sculpting for the sculptor.

Here, I have described to you how anthroposophically oriented spiritual science enters into practical life from the fields of education and teaching. But just think about what kind of spiritual life would be needed if such educational and teaching practices were to really take hold! We are accustomed to seeing this spiritual life only as an appendix to the state, perhaps as an appendix to economic life. We are accustomed today to having the most important part of intellectual life, namely the teaching and education system, prescribed by the state. What anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must now assert for modern civilization, based on a truly penetrating knowledge of teaching and educational methods that are based on true human knowledge, is that intellectual life, teaching and education must be placed in its own free administration. I would like to be quite specific: teachers and educators should not only teach and educate, but they should also have the entire administration of teaching and education in their hands, freely and independently of the state and economic life. From the lowest elementary school up to the highest teaching institutions, every teacher and educator should be so busy teaching that there is still enough time left for them to also be administrators of the teaching and education system. And only those who are still actively involved in teaching and education, the real teachers and educators in any field, not those who have become civil servants and are no longer involved in education, should also be the administrators of the education system. Nothing should be spoken into the teaching and education system except what also speaks into knowledge and art and religious world view. People do not want to recognize that what was necessary for one period of historical development, and perhaps extraordinarily good, does not apply to every period of history. When the modern era dawned, with its centralized state, it was a good and self-evident thing that the old confessional administrations should be relieved of the schools. At that time, it was a blessing for the development of humanity. But now we have arrived at a point in human development where this cannot continue; where what the state could do for the school system has been exhausted and where the free spiritual life, the spiritual life that draws from real spiritual sources, wants the independent administration of the school system.

Here the school question, the question of education, touches directly on the great social question, on everything that is the very essence of the social question. You see, regarding the social question, many people think that the essence of it lies in external institutions, that one only has to look at these external institutions to recognize the social question, that one has to work on these external institutions to do something for the social question. Those who have really come to know life cannot think this way. I have come to know proletarian thinking. I had the opportunity to do so not only in my own youth, but also because I worked for many years as a teacher of various subjects at a workers' education school and saw what actually lives in the broadest strata of the proletariat, which basically only emerged as a class, as a social stratum, through modern technology.

There it is not the external institutions, not even the bread-and-butter questions, from which the actual social question arises; there it is the state of mind, which is connected with the fact that the kind of intellectual life that has developed among the leading classes over the last three to four centuries has passed over to the broad masses of the proletariat like a kind of religion. I have seen this world view arise from materialistic principles in serious people, in deeply-rooted souls who were part of the bourgeoisie, who belonged to the leading classes, and I have learned the following: They said to themselves: Take the external scientific world view seriously; look at how it shows how the Earth developed from some kind of nebulous state through purely natural necessities to its present stage and how the various living beings have gradually developed along with it up to the point of humans. And a time will come again when either glaciation or heat death will occur to the earth – one may imagine it either way – but then the great churchyard will be there. What will have become of that which man must surely see as the noblest in human nature, which arises within him as moral ideals, as religious impulses, as art, as science? I have known people who seriously asked themselves this question, while the majority of modern people thoughtlessly juxtapose these two worlds, the world of external natural necessity and the world of what is actually humanly valuable, of moral ideals, of religious convictions, of knowledge, of artistic creation. Then serious souls say to themselves: Yes, man becomes aware of that which wells up from the soul; but that is an illusion, it is like smoke rising from the material basis. But one day the great churchyard will be there, and what we call the great ideals will have disappeared and faded away. - I have come to know the tragedy and pessimism that deeply inclined people have come to. But I also witnessed how this world view then penetrated into the proletarian soul and how a word was encountered that has a tremendous impact but denotes many things. If one understands how it lives in the proletarian soul, then one knows a lot about the foundations of contemporary civilization and its social issues. The word “ideology” lives in the souls of proletarians. What these proletarian souls know as intellectual life, as custom, law, science, art and religion, they call a superstructure above the production processes, which are historically the only real thing for them. This is the legacy of the world view that I have just described as tragic and that the proletarian souls, the millions of souls, have desolate.

One may appear an idealist today if one seeks the actual proletarian question in what the terrible word ideology expresses. But these idealists will be right. And those who believe that they have a monopoly on human wisdom and the routine of life will see history marching over them. This 'ideology' means that the souls of these masses remain desolate, have no connection with the living spirit – just as the leading classes do not either, who prevent this science from reaching the proletarians.

And here I may say something that should make clear to you the essential task and mission of Dornach, of the Goetheanum in Dornach, in the present age of civilization. Many people today realize that enlightenment and science must be brought to the broad masses. People's libraries and people's colleges are being founded, and all kinds of other things, in order to bring the science that is in our universities and our secondary schools to the people. Dornach cannot go along with this. Dornach wants to do what was the purpose of that autumn course that we held in the fall of 1920 and which we will repeat at Easter on a smaller scale, in keeping with our modest circumstances. The aim was to fertilize the individual sciences from the perspective of spiritual science. Thirty lecturers from all branches of science, including industrialists, merchants and artists, presented at this autumn course to show how all branches of science, art and life can be fertilized by this spiritual science. The aim is to renew science. The aim is to bring the spiritual into the sciences, to bring in a spirit that does not arise from a culture of the head but from the fullness of the human being.

That, then, is the purpose of the Goetheanum in Dornach: that a new spirit be brought into the colleges, only then will it be able to become popular. - One wants to bring the spirit of our college into the people - can one not see in modern civilization what use this spirit has been to those who have it? This spirit must be renewed. It is not that the schools must spread education among the people, but that a spiritual education must first be brought into the schools. That is the point in which Dornach differs from all other efforts along these lines today. For in this field people are thoroughly convinced that they are very free-thinking, but that they have a terrible belief in authority when it comes to conventional science. I say this not out of disdain for modern scientific thinking, but out of decades of engagement with all branches of this thinking. We need to work towards the liberation of spiritual life and thus the liberation of the school and education system, just as the state was once forced to take on teaching and education and wrest them from the old denominations.

I know what objections can be raised to developing a free spiritual life as the first link in the tripartite social organism. But when people express their fear that people would then not send their children to these free schools, it means looking at the matter wrongly. The question is not whether people voluntarily send their children to school or not, but rather that a free system of teaching and education is a necessity for humanity today and that one must then ensure that children go to school despite this. This should not be seen as an objection to a free spiritual life, but should merely lead to a consideration of how to get the children of negligent or unscrupulous parents into school despite a free spiritual life. This is the first link in the impulse of the threefold social organism, as formulated by the anthroposophical world view, to move towards possible solutions to social issues: a free spiritual life, administered by spiritual workers alone.

One can find logically slighted terms that teach all sorts of things in defense of this necessary freedom of spiritual life, as well as to attack it and condemn it. But that is not the issue. Anthroposophy proceeds everywhere from life practice and life observation. Those who know what a real spiritual science will mean to humanity also know how necessary the liberation of spiritual life is. People speak of ideology because spiritual life consists of abstractions, because they have no concept that an idea, that which lives in the soul, is something other than the image of something, because they no longer know that the old religions have given to man, that living spirit lives in every human being, that man with his eternal belongs to the living spirit and not only in his soul live abstract images. A living spiritual world that fills us inwardly and connects us with the eternal is not an ideology. It is the rise of ideology that has led to the catastrophes of our time. But a school and education system that aims to bring the living spirit into humanity must be a school system that is as free as the one I have described. This free school system appears to me as something that must be understood in the most eminent sense as a necessity of modern humanity - provided that it is sincere about human salvation and human progress.

Therefore, I consider it – I say this without wanting to agitate – as absolutely necessary to eliminate many of the forces of decline in our modern civilization by means of forces of ascent, that something be created on the broadest international basis, such as what I would call a world school association. This world school association would have to include all nations and the broadest circles of people. These people must be aware that a free spiritual life is to be created. It is of no use at all if people think that our Waldorf School in Stuttgart is something practical that one must see for a few hours or for a few weeks. To want to see something that arises out of a whole spiritual life is like cutting out a piece of the Sistine Madonna to get an idea of the whole picture. You cannot learn anything about the spirit of the Waldorf School by sitting in on lessons, but by getting to know anthroposophy, the anthroposophical spiritual science that lives in every teacher, in every lesson, in the children, and that also lives in the school reports. I would like to briefly describe how we at the Waldorf School gradually get to know each child, despite the fact that we also have large classes. We do not give them grades, certificates that say “almost satisfactory”, “hardly sufficient” - that is all nonsense. You cannot grade like that. Rather, we give the children a true description of their character, which holds up a mirror to them for the whole of the following year, and a saying that has been chosen from the depths of our souls. We have also seen the value that these reports have for Waldorf school children. So we have experienced what the anthroposophical spirit has brought to this Waldorf school.

But we do not want as many Winkel schools as possible to be established along the lines of the Waldorf School. Rather, we want the widest possible international recognition that the old idea of basing the school system only on the state must be fought. We must strive to force the state to allow the free spiritual life to create its own free schools. We do not want to establish isolated schools by the grace of the state; we will not lend a hand to this, but what is necessary is an understanding of the kind of alliance of peoples that would lie spiritually in a world school association. This would bring people together across the wide expanse of the earth in a great, a gigantic task.

This is what I want to say first about the first link of the threefold social organism. I can only touch on the other links, because they belong to life in other areas. Over the last four to five centuries, we have developed the unified state in today's civilized world. On the one hand, it has absorbed intellectual life with the school and education system; it has also absorbed economic life, at least to a large extent. And social democracy, of course, strives to use the entire state, the state framework, to basically set up a kind of barracked economy, whereby all economic freedom and individuality is destroyed, as we see in Trotskyism, in Leninism, precisely in what has become there, what is happening there in such a terrible way in Eastern Europe and as far as Asia, causing humanity to convulse. The point is that people learn how certain things are necessary for humanity today.

Economic life has its own conditions, just as intellectual life has its own. Anyone who, like me, has spent thirty years, half of his life, in Austria, which was precisely the experimental country for the work of the socially destructive forces – which is why Austria became the first victim of this world catastrophe – anyone who has lived in Austria with open eyes could see as early as the 1970s how it was rushing towards its end. I can refer to an example of how this country worked its way into decline on a large scale. In the 1970s, they also wanted to democratize parliament. How did they do that? They set up four constituencies: the constituency of the large landowners, the constituency of the chambers of commerce, the constituency of the cities, markets and industrial towns, and the constituency of the rural communities. All economic interests were drawn into parliament. The representatives of mere economic interests in four curiae were to make the decisions for everything concerning the state. They made them, of course, according to economic interests. As a result, neither the legitimate state interests nor the economic interests were given their due.

I could give you hundreds and hundreds of reasons that would show you that just as intellectual life must be separated from actual state life on the one hand, economic life must also be separated on the other. Just as intellectual life must be organized for the completely free human being and the administration of free human beings, economic life must be organized according to the associative principle.

What does that mean, an associative principle? Well, today we already have a striving for the formation of consumer associations. People who consume join together. And we have a movement in which people from the most diverse circles who produce join together. But ultimately we actually only have a surrogate, composed of consumers and producers. Only when production is organized according to need, not the barometer of profit, when the interrelations between consumers and producers are guided by those people who are experts in the various branches of the economy, when we we strive for totality in relation to spiritual life, but never in economic life, where we are in contact with people in other sectors, as soon as we take this seriously, the associative principle will be introduced into economic life. Association will not be organization. Although I have spent some of my life in Germany, the word 'organization' has a terrible connotation for me, and it was in Germany that I first experienced what it means to want to organize everything possible. You achieve terrible things when you always want to organize from a central point. Association is not organization. There the individualities remain in full effect, join together, so that through the union a collective judgment comes about. You can read more about this in my book “The Crux of the Social Question” and in the book “In Ausführung der Dreigliederung” (In the Execution of the Threefold Order), which summarizes a number of articles that I have published in the Stuttgart journal “Die Dreigliederung”, which is published by the Bund für Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus.

In it, I showed how these associations can be formed out of real practical economic life; how these associations will lead to fair pricing, to tolerable pricing. Whereas today we only have random pricing, it will be a matter of pricing that really arises from associative cooperation between consumers and producers. For in economic life, the price question is the central question of the whole economic existence. Those who do not realize that prices must be regulated above all by associations and not by statistics or the like, but by the living interaction in associations, do not know what is important. There is no need to be afraid of bureaucracy; it will certainly not be greater than it is today. But the fact that the same people who are involved in practical business life will also be the leaders will simplify the whole process. And everyone will receive enough when they produce something for themselves and their families, for the other things they have to provide for, until they have produced the same product again. Roughly speaking: if I make a pair of boots, I must receive enough for it to make another pair of boots. This is not to be laid down in some utopian way, but will be the final result when the associations are in existence as I have described them in my book, The Core of the Social Question. The essential thing about this impulse of the threefold social organism is that it contains nothing utopian, but is born entirely out of practical life and the demands of the time. Knowledge of the subject and expertise must guide spiritual life; knowledge of the subject and professional ability must guide economic life in associations that combine to form a large world economic association independent of national borders.

With regard to the spiritual and economic life, majority decisions are an absurdity; everything must develop out of expertise and professional competence. Majority decisions, real democracy, is only possible for those matters in which every person is competent. There is a wide range of political and legal matters that then remain between a free spiritual life and an economic life based on the principle of association. These are all those matters in which every mature person faces the other as an equal in parliamentary life, where all the questions are decided that then remain by themselves from economic life and spiritual life.

Strangely enough, the experts have objected that they understand that in the tripartite social organism there must be free spiritual life and associative economic life, but then there is nothing left for state life. — This is very characteristic. Modern state life has absorbed so much of the economic and intellectual life, even in terms of ideas, that it has not developed the most important things, so that experts have no idea what tasks state life can perform.

What I have presented to you today is only a sketch. It is further developed in the books mentioned. But it is basically linked to the most intense historical necessities.

We see the great human ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity radiating from the 18th century into our own. How could we not feel what lies in these three great human impulses! And yet, there were clever people in the course of the 19th century who showed irrefutably that freedom, equality and fraternity cannot coexist in a unified state. Thus, on the one hand, we have the strange phenomenon that our hearts beat faster when we hear about these three great human ideals, when we feel them inwardly, but on the other hand, the clever statesman - and I say this quite without irony - can prove that these three ideals are incompatible in the unified state. What is the reason for this? The reason is that in the eighteenth century people felt that liberty, equality and fraternity were incontrovertible ideals and impulses of humanity. But they were still under the illusion that everything had to be done by the unified state. Today we must mature to the threefold social organism. Only in it will liberty, equality and fraternity be truly realized. In a free spiritual life, which I hope can really be brought to light by a world school association, real freedom for people will prevail. In the state life, which stands between the free spiritual life and economic life, everything will be built on equality; in its administration there will only be those things in which every mature person is competent and can face another mature person as an equal. In economic life, consumer and producer interests will join together in associations, find a balance and ultimately culminate in a pricing structure that respects people.

We will have an opportunity to incorporate the three great ideals of human development if we free ourselves from the suggestion of the unitary state by striving for: freedom in the spiritual life, equality in the state life or political or legal life - the second link in the social organism - and fraternity in the associatively organized economic life, which results from the objectivity of production and consumption.

Freedom in spiritual life, equality in state life, fraternity in economic life: only this gives the three greatest social ideals of humanity – freedom, equality, fraternity – their proper meaning.

Emil Bock: To show what is desired, it is perhaps better if the questions received in writing are asked personally.

Rudolf Steiner: There remains the question from yesterday about women. Perhaps I will first speak a little about this question, which was asked yesterday in relation to the participation of women in the movement we are dealing with here.

Now, I believe that the time has indeed come when women should participate in all branches of public life on an equal footing. So there should be no doubt that the entry of women into this movement is justified and that women should be treated the same as men. I would just like to say that it would be necessary to make this clear. That has been the great disappointment so far, that the entry of women into the movements in which they have succeeded in entering has not actually been noticed, at most it has been noticed in relation to some externalities, to subordinate things, but not actually in relation to the cultural nuances. You will all have experienced the deep disappointment when a woman even entered the German Reichstag and absolutely no kind of change resulted from a woman's participation.

I already pointed out yesterday that years ago I said to a woman's rights activist, Gabriele Reuter, who was moderate in one sense but very active in another direction, that women must bring their own character into the movements and not find their way into what is already given by the culture of the past, which is above all a male culture. As you know, Bebel once explained that there is a reason why women do not actually intervene in such a way that their intervention is noticed as a shade [in cultural life], which is justified in theory within Darwinism, but is strange in view of reality. He said that it is self-evident that every being, when it enters the world, must first adapt to the circumstances, and since women have not had the opportunity to adapt to the circumstances so far, one must first wait until a certain time has passed. If women then had the opportunity to discard their old inherited traits, then the adaptation would have been better executed. At present, women are still too much influenced by their inherited traits. Well, my dear friends, in the future, inheritance in women will not be any different than it is today, namely that they also descend from a father and a mother, just like their brothers, so that in this respect, there is obviously no inheritance through generations and no [necessary] adaptation. That is self-evident. So in the main it is just a matter of mere words.

On the other hand, it is of course very important to consider that precisely for such an area as religious life, an extraordinary enrichment can occur if women bring their particular nature to it. Although women have not [so far] thrown their share into the movements they have joined, this nature has nevertheless been noticed within the modern emancipation efforts of women. The point is that women have a different way of thinking. It is therefore entirely possible for women to achieve a certain more congenial understanding of things that cannot be expressed in sharply defined concepts because then they would not correspond to reality. So women's ability to grasp things is readily given. It is extremely difficult for a man to grasp things without sharply contoured concepts; this makes it difficult for him to find his way into such areas where female concepts are needed. So it is that women will have to play a major role in the spiritualization of our culture. She will only have to try to assert sharply that which is her own, with less sharply defined concepts, and not simply imitate the conceptual contours of men, for example in their studies. We would have gained something if, for example, in medicine or in other branches, in philology and so on, where women have begun to work, we could have seen that women, with their greater mobility, with their greater adaptability, would really have made a difference. As a rule, female physicians are such that in their thoughts they are really a copy of what they have learned, even more so than men. So it is necessary that these qualities [of women] be brought into the field sharply, but on the other hand, precisely because of these qualities, women need an extraordinary self-criticism. Women are more subjective or at least more inclined to subjectivity than men. A man, for example, has more sense of the fact that one must be convinced of the truth of a matter that one asserts. It will be much easier for a woman to judge according to subjective feeling. This will be important here because a woman, when she participates in this movement, will probably be able to discern the emotional coloring of what is to be given with extraordinary subtlety. But she will have difficulties when it comes to really asserting a will rooted in the objective, and it is precisely this will factor that comes into play strongly. In the case of man, the fact is that he can generally be characterized in such a way that the greater part of his intellect is used to enter into the organism in an organizing way; hence, I might say, he retains for his psychic life an intellect that is indeed sharp but not mobile. His will enters less into his organism, hence he has a strong will. In women, it is the case that the will enters into the organism more, and the intellect less. The female body is less intellectual, less constructed with the intellect in mind than the male body; therefore, in general, despite the greater mobility of the intellect, or perhaps because of it, women are endowed with a greater measure of concepts, with broader concepts, and even with a greater number of concepts than men. It will be found that within this movement woman will present things in such a way that one has more of a feeling of the spiritual, and that man, in this movement, will present things in such a way that one has more of a feeling of firmness; but when the two really work together, then something extraordinarily harmonious can come out, especially in community life.

Of course, when discussing such things, one speaks in generalities. There is no other way to do it, because the things one discusses must be more directive than something that is already based on observation. On the whole, however, it can be said that it is possible for a woman to develop a strong sense of responsibility through a strong self-education when she enters this movement, because the lack of a sense of responsibility is something that could certainly be observed where women have entered more spiritual movements in recent times. It is, for example, the case that a man is much more likely to be persuaded to keep something secret than a woman, who, if she has a female friend, is extremely quick to consider that friend as being completely trustworthy and then to divulge the matter to just one person, even though there are also numerous old women among men. This is simply a phenomenon that one has to experience and which carries a great, great deal of weight. So the sense of responsibility is something that will have to be particularly developed. It could be observed, for example, in medicine, how particularly the finer operations, eye operations and the like, can be performed much more precisely, better and more skillfully by women than by men. This will also be the case in the spiritual realm, and it will become apparent in the cult that women will truly be able to carry out the cult in a very special way, that they will also be able to empathize much more easily when performing the cult. On the other hand, something else has become apparent. I need only remind you that at the head of the Theosophical Society there stood for many years a woman, Annie Besant, who has a very skilled hand for many things, especially in the treatment of external matters, but who, on the other hand, is inclined to a very particular vanity. This is something that must then be developed: a keen sense of self-discipline to overcome vanity and ambition. In all this, women are much more easily tempted, both externally and internally, than men.

All these things ultimately lead to the fact that woman is in a certain way less constant, that she very easily swings between these two you have seen, Ahriman on the one hand, Lucifer on the other. Man naturally swings in rhythm from one to the other, but woman swings with extraordinary agility and very frequently in such a way that the equilibrium becomes very unstable. This must be taken into account, and I could go on in this matter, but it is not really necessary. The question must practically be answered in such a way that today there can be no doubt that women must be able to participate in such movements, but that they must practice the necessary self-education for such movements. It must be said that women must participate out of the general course of human development. You see, until the 15th century, the development of man was such that he had then reached the so-called intellectual or emotional soul. In relation to the intellectual or emotional soul, man and woman are very different. Therefore, it could not be otherwise than that within this period of time, woman was excluded from certain things, and where these old customs have been retained, for example in Freemasonry, women are still excluded today. This is based on traditions, and this can be seen in the cult of Freemasonry itself. That women as such have absolutely equal rights is not recognized by legitimate Freemasonry. It is the case that the cult of Freemasonry is such that it could not be practised in common [with women].

But since the middle of the 15th century, we have been developing more and more towards the unfolding of the consciousness soul, and in relation to the consciousness soul, such a differentiation no longer exists; the qualities of both sides [of man and woman] flow entirely into a unified configuration. It is, of course, not correct when, within certain movements that also take the position of reincarnation, one repeatedly finds that women – with rare exceptions – when they list their past incarnations – which of course is mostly fantasy – then list only women, while men list only men. These are, of course, things that are based on fantasy. It is of course the case that the successive earthly lives are experienced in different genders.

So that is what I have to say first about such a matter, which is always problematic and must always be unsatisfactory, with regard to the position of women. Do you (to Gertrud Spörri) have anything else in particular in this direction that you would like to discuss?

Gertrud Spörri: I would like to ask whether a woman today has the opportunity to found independent communities herself.

Rudolf Steiner: Whether a woman today has the opportunity to establish independent communities? Yes, you know, I believe that women will not only have the opportunity to found independent communities, but that it will sometimes even be relatively easy for women to found independent communities. They just have to be sustainable, that is, women will have to prove themselves. She will be able to found communities relatively easily, but she will have to reflect on what is a little sensational, a little novel, and so on. But we must not exclude these latter things just because we are afraid of them; we must rise above them. I am rather afraid that at first it could go for the world as it has gone for the anthroposophical movement, where, in newspaper reports, when there is an anthroposophical lecture somewhere, it is usually calculated that there are so many women in it and only very few men. In general, this has also been the case in reality, in that women are much more easily able to found groups, circles and so on. So that does make itself felt. I have always said that when it was emphasized that there were often more women than men, it was not the women's fault. They were quite right to do so, but if the men find it necessary to play cards and therefore stay away, then it is the men's fault. It does not testify to a strongly developed spirit in men, but to a backwardness in men. You have to be clear about that. Now, this sometimes occurs in an extremely disturbing way in the anthroposophical movement, in that women quickly find their way into it, but sometimes the depth of their finding their way in is lacking because the active, the will element, is missing. Therefore, when forming a community, a wise self-education of this element of knowledge and, in the beginning, a certain reserved element will be called for, I think. Perhaps it will be a matter of tact and then has to develop in cooperation with the central leadership, so that in the beginning women do not found ninety percent of the communities and only ten percent the men. Yes, you could experience that under certain circumstances, and it would not be wise if it happened that way. But that we have to fear that women will be less successful than men in founding communities is not something I think will happen. It will certainly not be the case that the women's churches would be attended only by women, that is, more than is now the case with the men's churches, because some churches are indeed attended by a majority of women; so nothing special needs to change there. We must be quite aware that in Central Europe, where it is a matter of attributing to women alone the ability to bring a certain kind of divine revelation from the supersensible world into the sensory world, only a light veil lies over the old conditions with regard to the things at issue here. The WALA principle is something that is absolutely true here and that, when it is resurrected in a dignified way, is not something that needs to be looked at with a jaundiced eye.

But there are a whole bunch of questions here.

Gernot Weißhardt: How can the priest achieve a life together with the dead?

Hubert Sondermann: I would like to ask about meditation or intercession for the benefit of the deceased.

Rudolf Steiner: In what way would you like to know about this question?

Hubert Sondermann: How this intercession can be justified and how it can be practiced. Then about the funeral ritual...

Rudolf Steiner: We will discuss the funeral ritual tomorrow.

Well, for spiritual scientific-anthroposophical research, it turns out that the human being is still connected to the physical-earthly conditions after death and that one can imagine this connection in a very specific way because one can observe it. However, it must be clear that life here on earth in relation to life after death is often something like a cause in relation to an effect. Let us assume that a family man has died, he was a materialist, but he led a life otherwise that he, for example, was very much absorbed in his love for his children. In the beginning there is a certain difficulty for those who are left behind to approach the soul of the dead person with prayers or meditations, because the dead person initially only perceives what he experienced up to his death, so that he perceives, let's say, his wife and children insofar as their life developed up to the moment he died. A wall opens up to the present experiences, to the present being of the bereaved, so that it is extremely difficult for the deceased to experience the connection with his relatives in the immediate present. It seems as if he can only get to this particular point in time, and then it stops; it is like a memory that has been torn away. But this shows, of course, that it has a meaning how the soul's attitude towards the spiritual world [in life] has been. You cannot be materialistic or spiritual without consequences for life after death. In people who are spiritually minded, it is immediately apparent [after death] that they can have an immediate connection with those who have remained behind. Now today, the human being's ability to experience anything supernatural is extremely coarse. People can hardly develop any kind of feeling for the numerous influences from the spiritual world, so that the real connection with the dead, which many seek and which is quite possible – not in the sense of an ordinary trivial interpretation, of course – is made more difficult. One can help oneself to strengthen and increase the sensitivity for these things through meditation, for example in the following direction: Imagine that you have decided to go out on a certain day, let's say at 11 o'clock; now someone comes and delays you by half an hour. Afterwards you discover that if you had left half an hour earlier, you would have found a ride, for example, and then you hear that everyone was killed in the accident – so you would have been killed too. I believe it is absolutely certain that a great many people did not die in the Paris disaster these days because they were prevented from doing so. Don't you read the newspapers? A large number of people have been killed in the Paris subway. When you think about such things, you will see how extraordinarily little man, in judging his life, takes into account the things from which he is protected. We live for the moment and only pay attention to what happens to us. We never perceive what we are protected from. Of course, it is difficult to prove something positively when you live in the spiritual world. I have already pointed out the following: Suppose I advise someone who is ill – let's say he is 40 years old – not to drink wine and not to eat meat. He dies at 48; now people say: He died young, even though he didn't eat meat or drink wine for the last eight years. But who can say whether he wouldn't have died at 44 if he had eaten meat and drunk wine? What people so carelessly call 'proving' is extraordinarily difficult when it comes to things in the supersensible world, but precisely reflecting on such things increases our sensitivity to the intrusion of the supersensible world into the sensual world. I only mention this because there can still be very little understanding of this relationship with the dead today, especially in the West. Of course, this does not prevent us from cultivating this relationship with the dead in such a way, and it is particularly effective if we cultivate this relationship with the dead in such a way that we try to live in such thoughts in which the dead can also easily live, and these are never abstract thoughts. The more abstract a thought is, the less the dead person can have such a thought in common with us.

These things are all very difficult to express when I am trying to make myself understood. For example, there are no nouns for the dead; the dead do not know non-nouns, which are the most abstract words. They still know verbs, but mainly those that are spoken from the heart. That is tangible for them. Then he can experience what is specifically vivid. So if you immerse yourself in something that you experienced with the dead person in all concreteness here on earth, let's say you remember that you were on a walk with him, he picked up an ear of corn, he spoke something —, and you remember it down to the smallest nuance, then the dead person can have the thought [with you]. All these are preparations for developing a relationship with the dead. We can then also read out loud to the dead person everything that relates to the spiritual world, as I always call it. If we simply imagine in a concrete way that the dead person is present and we read something, but as I said, it must relate to the spiritual world, then he can develop a connection with us. I would feel untrue if I did not first communicate these things, which are concrete observations of spiritual science, to you, because then you will know that the assertions of spiritual science with regard to the dead refer to concrete things. One also has the possibility of bringing about the turning to the dead especially by supporting what the dead person takes with him in a spiritual relationship.

I can tell you that it is extremely important to relate to the dead person in the following way: Immediately after death, right away, the person experiences a streaming memory of their life here, which does not proceed like an ordinary memory because, as I said, it is much more fluid, but it contains everything specific in this memory picture. If we then inwardly say something to the dead person that is in this memory picture, then that is an element, a force, which can now also contribute to his particular well-being, which will particularly satisfy him. All this shows you that we as people on earth can do something to come into a special relationship with the dead. From this you can see that anthroposophical spiritual science must definitely speak of the fact that everything we feel inwardly for the dead is something real. A funeral ritual, for example, is something absolutely real. In a similar way to how we initiate something for life here between birth and death through a baptismal ritual. We give something to the dead when we direct our thoughts to them, thoughts that are multiplied a hundredfold in the community, not just added up, but multiplied many times over. What is directed to the dead in this way is something that falls into the dead person's field of vision and enriches the dead inwardly. Just don't say that we are interfering with their karma. If you gave someone 500 marks – I don't know how much that is worth today – so that he could make an Italian journey and visit the art galleries in Italy, that was not at all an unlawful interference with his karma; it was something perfectly permissible, although it has something to do with his karma. And so it is also not an unlawful interference with karma when we do something for the dead. It is indeed an embellishment, an elevation, an enrichment for the life of the 'dead, when thoughts or actions or the like, clothed in ritual, flow from us to the dead, but it must remain the intercourse with the dead in the inner life of the soul.

A great deal of nonsense has been done with spiritualism, also in other respects. In recent times, in particular, communication with the dead through spiritualism has been brought into a terrible situation. You know that spiritist séances are mainly used to communicate with the dead. Now, of course, most of what comes to light in spiritist séances is false, but despite all the falsity, there remains a certain residue that should not be cultivated, because it is something that always brings a person down, not up. If a person does not develop in a higher world, but allows the ordinary world to enter deeper into himself, a kind of pathological relationship with the spiritual world can arise. This is, as a rule, also the case with mediums, who very often succeed in approaching the dead through suggestion. You will understand that all kinds of illusions must arise. It is, of course, absolute nonsense to believe that the dead are able to use speech and writing in the way that is manifested in spoken or even written communications. That is, of course, complete nonsense. What comes to light is only transformed by the medium. Imagine that we were all sitting here together in peace, when the floor opened up and a menagerie of lions came up into this room. Imagine that vividly! Just as it would look here if a menagerie of lions came up through a floor opening, so it is for the dead when we enter their realm in a spiritualistic way with all that we are as human beings here. It is an entirely accurate image. The dead suffer as a result if the contact is real. It is irresponsible what can be achieved through spiritualism.

Communication with the dead must remain entirely within the soul realm. In this context, it is only ever appropriate to address prayers to the dead when there is a tendency to find a bridge to the dead, and that meditation, ritual acts and so on are also directed towards the dead, so that one can relate to the dead on a spiritual level. In this way, both the world in which the dead find themselves and the world in which the living find themselves are served; that is, those who are living on earth; for much of what people, without having a real idea of its origin, summarize in the word “genius” is in reality an inspiration from the dead, who find their way into the thoughts of men. So what we develop in relation to the dead in cult, in prayer, in meditation, these are absolutely justified things.

A participant: This raises the question of whether the grave is a particularly favorable place to get in touch with the dead. Or is it not the case that shortly after the dead person is buried, there is no longer a special place here to get in touch with the dead person?

Rudolf Steiner: In general, I can say that when thinking of the dead, when praying for the dead, the place plays an extraordinarily small role. It can indeed happen that the dead person has a strong longing for earthly life, then he would develop a certain longing for the place and also have a point of reference for being met there, if I may say so, where he was last thought of in community. It could be that way roundabout, but apart from that, one cannot say that the place, or even the place where someone is buried, has a great influence on what we can do for the dead. It is indeed the case, is it not, that in the festivals of the dead, especially in the All Souls' festivals, in a certain way the dead are almost brought to their graves, but that is actually something more for the living than for the dead. Here I must again take up the thought I expressed earlier. The dead man does indeed reach out to the living in his effectiveness, and we can certainly say: the dead man takes part in the world, as we take part in the most eminent sense in the spiritual world, and it can have a certain significance for the living when they develop their memories and their thoughts at the grave, in connection with the grave. This was naturally the case with the martyrs, the so-called saints. In the early centuries of Christianity, worship was performed at the graves primarily not for the sake of the dead, but for the sake of those who had been left behind. The altar still has the form of a grave, and this is a relic of the time when the service of the supersensible was already a kind of cult of the ancestors; and this is how it must be judged in the early times of Christianity. It is more for the living than for the dead.

A participant: Does time play a role here? And what about the requiem?

Rudolf Steiner: The funeral service is essentially one of the things that can be done ritually for the dead. Now it is the case that the funeral service should of course be read soon after the “death, and that is also good because the etheric body and the astral body still interact then. The etheric body is discarded very soon after death, so that the requiem, if it falls into the time when the person still has his etheric body or at least has not discarded it for long, still has a very strong subjective meaning for him.

Regarding the other question, I would like to ask you to take into consideration that a person, on the one hand, has to consider the objective facts and, on the other hand, his or her ability to perceive. Certainly, if someone died thirty years ago, he or she is no longer as intimately connected to the earth as if he or she died three days ago, that is certain. But there is a connection, and it is only a question of the fact that after thirty years it is difficult for a person here to establish the connection. I cannot find that it does not coincide a little with earthly development, because I have met a great many people in whom the first intense pain, which may have been stormy in expression, after they lost someone, was very subdued after thirty years, but I have never met anyone in whom the pain would have increased. Circumstances arise in the lives of those who have been left behind that are quite contrary to the fact that in later years the connecting bridge can still be as lively as in previous years. But if someone asks me whether the dead person comes out of the earthly sphere completely after thirty years or after an even longer time, then I must always say no; there can be no question of that. The world is such that everything is together in it; it is quite the case that we could just as easily perform rituals or ceremonies for the dead after thirty or fifty years as we could earlier. This is to be firmly held.

A participant: In this context, I would like to ask for an explanation of the passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 29.

Rudolf Steiner: “What do those who are baptized for the dead do? If the dead do not rise, why are they baptized for the dead?” — What kind of question is that?

A participant: Whether baptism is thought to influence the state of the dead.

Rudolf Steiner: What kind of influence do you mean?

A participant: Whether there is any influence at all and if so, what kind. This passage is completely unclear to me.

Rudolf Steiner: What do those who get baptized for the dead do if the dead do not rise at all? – Is it not the question of resurrection for you? Well, it is not, because here it is a matter of the idea of resurrection being the underlying assumption, and then of our taking it very seriously that the dead person has a relationship with the living, with those living here on earth. If the dead person has an ongoing life, then this life is modified in the most diverse ways, and if his life was such in Christ, then the connection that remains with the dead person is indeed a strengthening element for us. We can therefore say the following: Let us assume that we have known someone who was particularly significant in some way. I do not want to talk about spiritual or psychological qualities, but only about a significant person who has died and with whom we ourselves have a living connection in the way we can, emotionally, in thought.

I will start from something else first. You will gain extraordinary strength if you develop a living pedagogy, namely strength that can be used to make children receptive to certain admonitions when you educate, as it were, in the name of a dead person. If you just have the strength to do that, for example, to walk around the classroom and bring this connection with the dead person to life within you, it will give you the strength to make the children receptive to admonitions. In this way, you will also gain a special strength for the rite for that which is to be attained through baptism – baptism is emphasized here because it aims to lead the person into the Christian community – if you gain strength through the dead. It is natural that this is cited by the founder of Christianity, for the reason that all of Christianity, including dead Christianity, should work in the continuation of Christianity, so that all those who have gone out of the world through death should be co-helpers in properly guiding those who are born into the Christian community. That is what I would like to summarize.

A participant: [On what do the relations between the living and the dead depend?]

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, according to the experiences one can have, it is the case that the most real relationships emerge when they are built on real relationships in life before death. In general, if I may express it this way, dying is as follows: when the individual dies, he steps out of his physical shell, and what he has experienced in the physical shell is often the cause of what he then experiences [as an effect after death]. That is just the way it is: after death, he is dependent on what he has experienced in the physical shell. What he can experience through the physical shell falls away, he acquires other perceptual abilities, but he slips out of the shell, so to speak. It is the same with the relationships that a person has entered into with other people in life; these relationships have developed, they are mediated through our physical existence here, but when we slip out of the shell, the relationships continue. If one can have experiences in this area, one really has to say: the more concrete the relationships were in life, the more concrete the relationships are with the dead person.

But there is something else to consider. Above all, it must be considered that relationships are formed between the dead person and a new birth itself. So the person then develops new perceptions, but he forms emotional relationships, so that when the person comes down from the pre-existent life with human relationships – and in fact our real human relationships are much greater than we actually believe – one cannot say that the general relationship that is developed through such things as you have in mind would be completely fruitless. It is true that, for example, the members of a church community also establish relationships for their afterlife, but the other things are by no means fruitless, that much can be said. Such things can really only be determined from experience, but the concrete aspect plays a much greater role.

Johannes Perthel: Can we expect in the present or in the immediate future that a religious movement, including ritual, as mentioned, is possible in the proletariat?

A participant: What about the difference between city and country?

Rudolf Steiner: In this respect, we have indeed had a certain experience. Was it not necessary for me to follow a call to Stuttgart in April 1919 and to advocate there in Germany for the threefold social order movement, just as the view of the threefold structure of the social organism arose for me from the foundations of experience to be cultivated through spiritual science? I had to regard it absolutely as something that was a task for precisely this point in time. Before I left Switzerland, a man came to me who wanted to sign the appeal I had written and said that I must tell him more than was in the appeal. The Kernpunkte had not yet appeared at that time. He thought that something must arise that could be counted on, something like the second German revolution. I asked him: Do you therefore count on the second German revolution? — He counted the one of November 1918 as the first. And just as one revolution followed another in Russia, so he counted on a second revolution and thought that I held the view that threefolding should fall into it. I told him at the time: Yes, a large number of people believe that threefolding will indeed have a rapid effect after all the events of the times. It simply has to be tried. Because if I were to say that it cannot have a rapid effect, it would not be done, and then it will not be possible to prove to anyone that if it had been done, it would have had a very good effect for the benefit of all humanity. I told him: Just as one can overlook something in an ordinary context, so can some things also escape one in a spiritual field. There may be factors that make a second German revolution promising, but I do not believe at all in an acute second revolution, but in a continuity that would make it impossible to count on a second revolution as a serious factor. I do not believe that there is any real basis for such things.

Well, the development of the years has also proved this view right, and the result was that, at first, the threefold order progressed relatively quickly. Then it faltered, and obstacles arose from various sides, which I do not want to discuss with you now. On the other hand, a certain connection with the proletariat has been created precisely through the threefolding movement, and this connection has brought anthroposophy into the proletariat in a way that would not otherwise have been possible. I would like to say that anthroposophy has remained, and that threefolding has passed by the proletariat. It has been shown that there is a very strong interest among the urban proletariat in getting to know these things.

I have already mentioned another thing to you. If we had not been able to give anthroposophical religious education in the Waldorf school, always in harmony with the parents' views, never against them, the vast majority [of children] would have been left without religious education. With anthroposophical religious education, it is the case that the teachers say: We can't keep up, we are not able to have a sufficient number of teachers [for religious education]. It might even look a bit malicious if I were to say that the other RE teachers sometimes express their displeasure: Yes, if they keep it up like this, all the children will run away from us. But we can't help it, the blame must lie with someone, I won't say who, but I think it lies with someone else. So you see again that there is actually a strong pull in the direction that can come into the world through anthroposophy.

So I am not at all worried about the urban population. I believe that the communities you will be able to found will indeed attract a large influx of people from the proletariat in particular. Experience shows this quite clearly, and the whole constitution of the proletarian soul today shows it, as one has experienced in the last time. It is really the case that the proletariat today is something different than it was in 1914. If you grasp it in the right way, it is very accessible to a religious deepening, it is really longing for it.

The situation is more difficult, however, with the rural population, but with the rural population it is more difficult in all areas. The rural population is very stubborn, very conservative and will in fact hardly be won over to a reasonable further development in any other way than by the fact that those who are their leaders gradually become reasonable, which of course causes terrible difficulties with certain sides. Today, one must actually say that it would be relatively easy to make progress with the led — I mean, as a general phenomenon — if only the leaders would bite, but they are so terribly comfortable. With regard to the rural population, the leaders would just have to bite, we would have to overcome the leaders' complacency. Then the question of the rural population would also be solved, because it will quickly be solved if the question is resolved there as a pastor. In the cities, pastors will be forced to be progressive because the churches will gradually remain empty. In the countryside, it is a matter of winning over the leaders.

Now, my dear friends, I cannot interfere in this matter given our situation here, because it is a question of how quickly it will be possible for those who are actually, I do not want to say for a hasty, but for an energetic approach, in the real sense, that is, future pastors, to be able to shape the leadership in their own way. That is what one has to say about it. Is your question going in a different direction?

A participant: I would like to ask whether it is to be expected that these new cult forms will find immediate appeal among the proletariat?

Rudolf Steiner: That is quite certain. It is only important to know how to treat the proletariat. Of course — as can also be seen from the first chapter of my 'Key Points' — the qualities that have developed in the souls of the proletariat today are essentially the heirlooms of bourgeois qualities from the last centuries. The proletarian today shows no other characteristics than those he has inherited from the bourgeois. If the bourgeois has become pedantic, the proletarian has become even more pedantic; if the bourgeois has become philistine, the proletarian has become even more philistine; if the bourgeois has become materialistic, the proletarian has become even more materialistic, and so on. The dislike of ritual and ceremony that you find among the proletariat today is nothing more than the continuation of that dislike that has gradually developed in the bourgeoisie. It is also a matter of our really being able to appeal from the external to the internal, and here it must be said: anyone who looks a little deeper into the course of human development knows that, as the social question stands today, it cannot be overcome by anything other than a serious religious renewal, and that can only be found through the ceremonial. You do not even get around to developing what you need to get into the proletarian soul without the ceremonial. But the ceremonial must be honest. Here imponderables play a great role. If the ceremonial is not honest, it is impossible to bring it to bear. If it is honest, it takes the lead. I would like to say that it is not necessary to be blunt, but the ceremonial must be honest.

You see, in this respect one must say: the ceremonial acts have gradually become so externalized that of course the proletarian today has only a smile for everything ceremonial. But let something come along that is honest, that is what it should be, then you will get through to people, even to the proletarian soul, perhaps even to this first of all.

Hubert Sondermann: May I ask from which side we could approach the soul of the countryman with what we want and where, so to speak, the key can be found, where we can unlock it.

Rudolf Steiner: This cannot be done theoretically, but must be taken as I have said it. We must be clear about the fact that the countryman, the farmer, is conservative, and that what is rigid in him is extremely difficult to get out of him, and this is much more common today than it used to be. I think that can be seen in a relatively short time. In the 1980s, it was still relatively easy to bring people over from the Roman Catholic Church to the Old Catholic Church. Today, it is almost unthinkable.

Constantin Neuhaus: The good elements no longer come at all.

Rudolf Steiner: The general effect is that receptivity has actually been lost in a relatively short time, especially in the countryside to an eminent degree. In the countryside, things can only improve if we work indirectly through the priesthood. If we are able to found a community in the countryside, even if it is still small, and if this community is there and the priest really works in a priestly way, then he can gradually have this community, but of course he must be prepared for the fact that the real issue is to overcome the leaders. Of course, they cannot do anything with the people of Arlesheim as long as Pastor Kully is there. It is clear that we are talking here about the leaders. The path that can be taken at all will be to first found communities in larger towns and then to simply try to have a convincing effect on people, so that a kind of further development takes place through the pastor himself. The moment you succeed in conquering any district as a leader, it will happen. You always have to see that it does not depend on individual souls, especially not in the compact rural communities. But attempts must be made everywhere, and it will be a matter of overcoming the leaders there.

A participant: I think we will have difficulties because in the countryside religious life is lived much less consciously. I don't think that many people in the countryside are really searching, but religiosity is more traditional, it is a movement that happens by itself. We can expect much more of a person who is searching hard than of people who are only in the religious life because of tradition. Is there any hope of success here, of raising religious life in the countryside out of the sphere of tradition and into the sphere of consciousness, or is that expecting too much?

Rudolf Steiner: Please bear in mind that what you describe is only a contemporary phenomenon. Just think of the time of the peasant revolts, which were entirely religious in character. The phenomenon you describe is actually much more connected with other things in the present than merely with religious things. If you want to present anthroposophy in Regensburg and there are farmers in the audience, they will naturally come and stamp on the ground: You have nothing to say to us here, our pastor has to say that to us, and you have to shut up! —- But this is connected with the fact that today, as a result of liberalism, of man's development towards freedom, there is an enormous belief in authority, not only in the religious field, but everywhere. We have acquired this belief in authority particularly by becoming more and more liberal people. It is because liberalism has spread that we have forfeited our freedom. This is a somewhat radical statement, but it is already proving true in the most diverse areas. This has much more to do with the things that are otherwise present in life than with religious matters. Just try to imagine what would happen if a truly free spiritual life were to take hold. A free spiritual life, where, for example, the school is completely autonomous and self-sufficient, where what is done in the school is, I might say, direct revelation from the spirit, then, of course, you come to the point where, through the free spiritual life, you overcome the leading personalities with their authorities. This is something that comes to the fore most strongly in things that develop in other areas than in the religious sphere, especially in the countryside, because in the countryside the principle of authority cannot be overcome as easily in all areas as it can in cities. But I do not wish to say that religious life is unconscious in the countryside for that very reason. It is simply that everything is more rigid and submerged in what the modern age has brought forth.

A participant: [Isn't the rural population particularly receptive to cults?]

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, certainly for the introduction of cults. The moment you appear with the cult, you will win the heart of the countryman much more easily than with a teaching; that is quite certain. The Catholic Church spread Christianity initially not so much through teaching as through cult, even if the teaching has flowed into external forms.

A participant: Wherever the remains of cults still exist, the position of the priest is different – a position of authority – and this makes it easier for the priest to gain access to the lives of the rural population. My only fear is whether the priest has the necessary expert knowledge to intervene and take the lead in all these areas.

Rudolf Steiner: Which priest?

A participant: The pastor in the countryside. If all the threads come together there, can he really do it?

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, why do you think it can't be done?

A participant: Because we have become too unworldly as a result of our education.

Rudolf Steiner: This is indeed essentially overcome by a free spiritual life, as I think it is in the sense of the threefold social organism - that is, in the educational sphere according to the model of the Waldorf School through education in the free spiritual life. Don't we see the worst consequences actually coming from the lack of freedom in the spiritual life, that is, I mean now from the lack of social freedom. Just think, it was not so very long ago that there was a real and serious debate about whether or not to tolerate the Jesuits in the German Reich. Now, it is outrageous to even discuss the spiritual life from a political point of view. You will not expect me to have even a single hair left to praise the Jesuits, of course, but politically speaking, no kind of spiritual movement should be oppressed in any way if we want to advance in the general spiritual life. What have they achieved by politically fighting Jesuitism in Germany? To the same extent that they fought Jesuitism politically, to that same extent did its capacities increase from another side. Jesuitism is very astute; it has extraordinarily significant people working within it. If you want to fight it, you also have to develop sharp mental abilities. I must say that any kind of oppression of the free intellectual life leads to an oppression of the intellectual life in general. We should never think of using political measures to bind or restrict our opponents in the field of intellectual life, or anything of the sort; only in this way is it possible to really move forward. I think that when intellectual life sheds all the dark sides that still remain, for example specialization – which can be completely shed in anthroposophical education – then the pastor will actually be able to be the leader that he must be. There is simply no other way in the rural communities out there. There is no other possibility for the pastor than to really be involved in all matters concerning the community – I also want to talk about community building – he simply must be. One cannot say “he will be”, but one can say: he must be. We must say with Fichte: Man kann, was er soll, and when he says: ich kann nicht, so will er nicht. That should be our motto.

Christian Geyer: I would like to make a small suggestion. Unfortunately, some of us have to leave. It was originally planned that the course would last until tomorrow, and some will not be able to attend the continuation. I don't know if it is immodest of me to ask if you could at least give a rough outline of how the creed will be formulated.

Rudolf Steiner: Tomorrow. It is no longer possible for us to continue. Tomorrow, yes.