The Rudolf Steiner Archive

About a Series of Anthroposophical Events in Prague

[ 1 ] It is with great satisfaction that I have just returned from the work I was able to do in the service of anthroposophy in Prague. A beautiful stream of serious enthusiasm and eager devotion to the anthroposophical cause on the part of our Prague friends greeted my task for the days from March 28 to April 5. The execution of the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum requires that I now express the esoteric basis of anthroposophy more emphatically through what I have to communicate. And this tone has found a warm response among our friends. On behalf of the Anthroposophical Society and representing the Executive Council at the Goetheanum, I would like to express my warmest thanks to the active members of the Czechoslovakian Society. The kind words of farewell spoken at the end of the last general meeting by the highly esteemed scholar, who is an ornament to the Society, and then by the long-standing, loyal member of the Central Executive Committee of the Czechoslovakian National Society, who has worked selflessly for our cause, still ring in my ears.

[ 2 ] On March 28, I was able to speak about “Researching the Spiritual World as Anthroposophy” in my first public lecture. My task was to express how the spiritual world reveals itself to the soul's eye, which becomes aware of supersensible vision. In the course of the lecture, I sought to indicate the necessity of transforming initiation, which in the ancient mystery centers had made an impact on civilizations in the character of earlier stages of human development, into something similar in the spirit of the new age. — In the members' lectures on March 29, March 29, 30, 31, and April 5, I spoke introductory about the transformation of the Anthroposophical Society through the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum, and then about the shaping of karmic connections through successive earth lives, about the formation of karma through life between death and a new birth, then about the effect of karma in the earthly life of human beings, and further on individual human destinies, especially those concerning personalities who have intervened in the historical development of humanity. On April 1, I gave a public lecture on “Moral Life Formation through Anthroposophy.” I endeavored to show how anthroposophical insights have a moral effect because their acquisition is linked to the development of moral qualities. A person's moral life depends on their moral insight, their moral understanding of other people, and their moral strength. Now, imaginative perception can only be developed on the basis of moral insight, receptivity to inspiration only through practice in moral understanding, and intuition only through the cultivation of moral strength. This is why communicated imaginations stimulate moral insight in the recipient, inspirations stimulate moral understanding, and intuitions stimulate moral strength. In communicating such insights, we therefore approach the source of morality within the human being. On April 2, I was able to speak on “Eurythmic Art.” I characterized eurythmy as visible singing and visible speech, presenting the musical as the revelation of the human being insofar as it lives itself out separately from the other realms of nature, and the linguistic insofar as it seeks integration into the earthly environment. The eurythmic movement forms for the musical on the one hand and for the linguistic on the other arise from this position of the human being in the world. — On April 3, it was my task in the public lecture on “Contemporary Science and Anthroposophy,” I had to show how anthroposophy does not oppose true science, but faithfully accepts its findings in order to present, on the basis of these findings, what is effective in the sensory world for both natural science and cultural science in connection with the spiritual forces at work within it. I explained how, precisely by taking scientific findings very seriously, the insights gained through Spiritual Science are justified by these findings themselves. I endeavored to to make this clear through the views of Spiritual Science on the human nervous system, on heart activity and blood circulation, on the threefold division of the human being into the sensory-nervous, the rhythmic, and the metabolic-limb systems, as well as in the field of cultural studies through the knowledge of how the human being has changed in the course of historical development. On April 4, I spoke about “Education and teaching based on a true understanding of human nature.” I pointed out the demands placed on pedagogy and didactics by the fact that human beings go through stages from birth to the change of teeth, and from there to sexual maturity, with very specific requirements for experience. My thanks go to our member of the Central Board of the Czechoslovak National Society, who took the great trouble to translate my lecture into Czech in three paragraphs. At a general meeting held on March 30, our friends constituted the National Society in Czechoslovakia by establishing the statutes with which this society commits itself to the work of the Goetheanum and with which it intends to guide its own work.

[ 3 ] An integral part of the event were the eurythmy performances on March 30 and April 6, as well as the examples of eurythmic art included in my lecture on April 2. Ms. Marie Steiner, who recited at all three events, had carefully designed the programs of the eurythmy performances so that the audience could experience the current stage of development of eurythmy. These eurythmy performances were such that the participants and organizers came away with the feeling that there was a pleasant atmosphere and receptiveness in the theater on March 30 and April 6 and in the concert hall (on April 2).

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

[ 14 ] 23. Passing through the gate of death, man goes out into the spiritual world, in that he feels falling away from him all the impressions and contents of soul which he received during earthly life through the bodily senses and the brain. His consciousness then has before it in an all-embracing picture-tableau the whole content of life which, during his earthly wanderings, entered as pictureless thoughts into his memory, or which—remaining unnoticed by the earthly consciousness—nevertheless made a subconscious impression on his soul. After a very few days these pictures grow faint and fade away. When they have altogether vanished, he knows that he has laid aside his etheric body too; for in the etheric body he can recognise the bearer of these pictures.

[ 15 ] 24. Having laid aside the etheric body, man has the astral body and the Ego as the members of his being still remaining to him. The astral body, so long as it is with him, brings to his consciousness all that during earthly life was the unconscious content of the soul when at rest in sleep. This content includes the judgements instilled into the astral body by Spirit-beings of a higher World during the periods of sleep—judgements which remain concealed from earthly consciousness. Man now lives through his earthly life a second time, yet so, that the content of his soul is now the judgement of his thought and action from the standpoint of the Spirit-world. He lives it through in backward order: first the last night, then the last but one, and so on.

[ 16 ] 25. This judgement of his life, which man experiences in the astral body after passing through the gate of death, lasts as long as the sum-total of the times he spent during his earthly life in sleep.