The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XXXV
[ 1 ] The beginning of my anthroposophic activity belongs to a time when there was a sense of dissatisfaction among many persons with the tendencies in knowledge characterizing the immediately preceding period. There was a desire to find a way out of that realm of being in which men were shut up by reason of the fact that only what was grasped by means of mechanistic ideas was allowed to pass as “sure” knowledge. These endeavours of many contemporaries toward a form of spiritual knowledge came very close to me. Biologists such as Oskar Hertwig – who began as a student under Haeckel but had then abandoned Darwinism because, according to his opinion, the impulse which this theory recognized could give no explanation of the organic process of becoming – were to me personalities in whom was revealed the longing of the age for knowledge.
[ 2 ] But I felt that a heavy burden rested upon all this longing. This burden was the ripe fruit of the belief that only what can be investigated in the realm of the senses by means of mass, number, and weight can be recognized as knowledge. Man dared not unfold an active inner process of thought in order thereby to live in closer contact with reality as one experiences reality through the senses. Thus the situation continued to be such that men said: “With the means which have been used hitherto in interpreting even the higher forms of reality, such as the organic, we can advance no further.” But when men ought to have reached something positive, when they ought to have said what is at work in the activities of life, they moved about in indeterminate ideas.
In those who were attempting to escape from the mechanistic explanation of the world there was chiefly lacking the courage to admit that whoever wished to overcome that mechanism must also overcome the habits of thought which have led to it. Such a confession as the time needed would not come forth. This should have been the confession: – With one's orientation towards the senses one penetrates into what is mechanistic. In the second half of the century men had accustomed themselves to this orientation. Now that the mechanistic leaves men unsatisfied they should not desire to penetrate into the higher realms with the same orientation. The senses in man are self-unfolding, but the unfolding which the senses undergo will never enable one to perceive anything save the mechanistic. If one wishes to know more, then out of oneself one must give to the deeper-lying forces of knowledge a form which nature gives to the forces of the senses. The forces of knowledge for the mechanistic are in themselves awake; those for the higher forms of reality must be awakened.
[ 3 ] This self-confession on the part of the endeavour to attain knowledge appeared to me to be a necessity of the time.
[ 4 ] I felt happy when I became aware of spokesmen for this. So there lives in beautiful memory within me a visit in Jena. I had to deliver lectures in Weimar on anthroposophical themes. There was also arranged a lecture to a smaller group in Jena. After this I happened to be with a very little group. There was a desire to discuss what theosophy had to say. In this group was Max Scheler, who was at that time a dozent1Scholar. in philosophy in Jena. In a verbal statement of what he had felt in my lecture he soon began our discussion; and I felt at once the profound characteristic which dominated in his striving after knowledge. It was with inner tolerance that he met my view, – the very tolerance which is necessary for one who desires really to know.
[ 5 ] We discussed the confirmation of spiritual knowledge on the basis of theories of cognition. We talked of the problem as to how the penetration into spiritual reality on the one side must be established on foundations of the theory of cognition, just as that into the sense-world must be on the other side.
[ 6 ] Scheler's mode of thought made an agreeable impression upon me. Even till the present I have followed his way of knowledge with the deepest interest. Inner satisfaction was always my feeling when I could again meet – very seldom, unfortunately – the man who at that time became so congenial to me.
[ 7 ] Such experiences were important for me. Every time that these occurred there was an inner need to test anew the certainty of my own way of knowledge. And in these constantly recurring tests the forces were evolved which then embraced wider and wider spheres of spiritual existence.
[ 8 ] Two results had now come from my anthroposophic work: first my books published to the whole world, and secondly a great number of lectures which were at first to be considered as privately printed and to be sold only to members of the Theosophical (later the Anthroposophical) Society. These were really reports on the lectures more or less well made and which I, for lack of time, could not correct. It would have pleased me best if spoken words had remained spoken words. But the members wished the printed copies. So this came about. If I had then had time to correct the reports, the restriction “for members only” would not have been necessary. For more than a year now, this restriction has been allowed to lapse.
[ 9 ] At this point in my life story it is necessary to say, first of all, how the two things – my published books and this privately printed matter – combine into that which I elaborated as anthroposophy.
[ 10 ] Whoever wishes to trace my inner struggle and labour to set anthroposophy before the consciousness of the present age must do this on the basis of the writings published for general circulation. In these I explained myself in connection with all which is present in the striving of this age for knowledge. Here there was given what more and more took form for me in “spiritual perception,” what became the structure of anthroposophy – in a form incomplete, to be sure, from many points of view.
[ 11 ] Together with this purpose, however, of building up anthroposophy and thereby serving only that which results when one has information from the world of spirit to give to the modern culture world, there now appeared the other demand – to face fully whatever was manifested in the membership as the need of their souls or their longing for the spirit.
Most of all was there a strong inclination to hear the Gospels and the biblical writings generally set forth in that which had appeared as the anthroposophic light. Persons wished to attend courses of lectures on these revelations given to mankind.
[ 12 ] While internal courses of lectures were held in the sense then required, something else arose in consequence. Only members attended these courses. These were acquainted with the elementary information coming from anthroposophy. It was possible to speak to them as to persons advanced in the realm of anthroposophy. The manner of these internal lectures was such as it would not have been in writings intended wholly for the public.
[ 13 ] In internal groups I dared to speak about things in a manner which I should have been obliged to shape quite differently for a public presentation if from the first these things had been designed for such an audience.
[ 14 ] Thus in the two things, the public and the private writings, there was really something derived from two different bases. All the public writings are the result of what struggled and laboured within me; in the privately printed matter the Society itself shares in the struggle and labour. I hear of the strivings in the soul-life of the membership, and through my vital living within what I thus hear the bearing of the course is determined.
[ 15 ] Nothing has ever been said which was not to the utmost degree an actual result of the developing anthroposophy. There can be no discussion of any concession whatever to preconceptions or to previous experiences of the members. Whoever reads this privately printed material can take it in the fullest sense as that which anthroposophy has to say. Therefore it was possible without hesitation – when accusations became too insistent in this direction – to depart from the plan of circulating this printed matter among the members alone. Only it will be necessary to remember there are errors in the lectures which I did not revise.
[ 16 ] The right to an opinion in regard to the content of such privately printed material can naturally be admitted only in the case of one who knows what is taken as the pre-requisite basis of this judgment. For most of those pamphlets such a pre-requisite will be at least the anthroposophic knowledge of man and of the cosmos, in so far as its nature is set forth in anthroposophy, and of that which is found in this information as “anthroposophic history” as it is taken from the spiritual world.
Chapter XXXV
[ 1 ] Der Beginn meiner anthroposophischen Betätigung fällt in eine Zeit, in der bei Vielen eine Unbefriedigtheit mit den Erkenntnisrichtungen der unmittelbar vorangehenden Zeit vorhanden war. Man wollte einen Weg aus demjenigen Seinsgebiete herausfinden, in das man sich dadurch abgeschlossen hatte, daß man als «sichere» Erkenntnis nur gelten gelassen hatte, was mit mechanistischen Ideen erfaßt werden kann. Mir gingen diese Bestrebungen mancher Zeitgenossen nach einer Art von Geist-Erkenntnis recht nahe. Biologen wie Oskar Hertwig, der als Schüler von Haeckel begonnen, dann aber den Darwinismus verlassen hatte, weil nach seiner Ansicht die Impulse, die dieser kennt, keine Erklärung des organischen Werdens abgeben können, waren für mich Persönlichkeiten, in denen sich mir das Erkenntnis-Sehnen der Zeit offenbarte.
[ 2 ] Aber ich empfand, wie auf all diesem Sehnen ein Druck lastete. Der Glaube, man dürfe als Wissen nur ansehen, was mit Maß, Zahl und Gewicht im Reich der Sinne erforscht werden kann, hat diesen Druck als sein Ergebnis gezeitigt. Man wagte nicht, ein innerlich aktives Denken zu entfalten, um durch dieses die Wirklichkeit näher zu erleben, als man sie mit den Sinnen erlebt. So blieb es denn dabei, daß man sagte: mit den Mitteln, die man bisher zur Erklärung auch der höheren Wirklichkeitsformen wie der organischen angewendet hat, geht es nicht weiter. Aber wenn man dann zu Positivem kommen sollte, wenn man sagen sollte, was in der Lebenstätigkeit wirkt, da bewegte man sich in unbestimmten Ideen. Es fehlte bei denjenigen, die aus der mechanistischen Welterklärung herausstrebten, zumeist der Mut, sich zu gestehen: wer diesen Mechanismus überwinden will, der muß auch die Denkgewohnheiten überwinden, die zu ihm geführt haben. Ein Geständnis wollte nicht erscheinen, das die Zeit gebraucht hätte. Es ist dieses: mit der Orientierung auf die Sinne hin dringt man in das ein, was mechanistisch ist. Man hat sich in der zweiten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts an diese Orientierung gewöhnt. Man sollte jetzt, da das Mechanistische unbefriedigt läßt, nicht mit derselben Orientierung in höhere Gebiete dringen wollen. - Die Sinne im Menschen geben sich ihre Entfaltung selbst. Mit dem, was sie sich so geben, wird man aber niemals etwas anderes als das Mechanische schauen. Will man mehr erkennen, so muß man von sich aus den tiefer liegenden Erkenntniskräften eine Gestalt geben, die den Sinnes-Kräften die Natur gibt. Die Erkenntniskräfte für das Mechanische sind durch sich selbst wach; diejenigen für die höheren Wirklichkeitsformen müssen geweckt werden.
[ 3 ] Dieses Selbst-Geständnis des Erkenntnisstrebens erschien mir als eine Zeit-Notwendigkeit.
[ 4 ] Ich fühlte mich glücklich, wo ich Ansätze dazu wahrnahm. So lebt in schönster Erinnerung in mir ein Besuch in Jena. Ich hatte in Weimar Vorträge über anthroposophische Themen zu halten. Es wurde auch ein Vortrag in kleinerem Kreise in Jena veranlaßt. Nach demselben gab es noch ein Zusammensein mit einem ganz kleinen Kreise. Man wollte über dasjenige diskutieren, was Theosophie zu sagen hatte. In diesem Kreise war Max Scheler, der damals in Jena als Dozent für Philosophie wirkte. In eine Erörterung über dasjenige, was er an meinen Ausführungen empfand, lief bald die Diskussion ein. Und ich empfand sogleich den tieferen Zug, der in seinem Erkenntnisstreben waltete. Es war innere Toleranz, die er meiner Anschauung entgegenbrachte. Diejenige Toleranz, die für denjenigen notwendig ist, der wirklich erkennen will.
[ 5 ] Wir diskutierten über die erkenntnistheoretische Rechtfertigung des Geist-Erkennens. Wir sprachen über das Problem, wie sich das Eindringen in die Geistwirklichkeit nach der einen Seite ebenso erkenntnistheoretisch müsse begründen lassen, wie dasjenige in die Sinnes-Wirklichkeit nach der andern Seite.
[ 6 ] Schelers Art, zu denken, machte auf mich einen genialischen Eindruck. Und bis heute verfolge ich seinen Erkenntnisweg mit dem tiefsten Interesse. Innige Befriedigung gewährte es mir immer, wenn ich - leider ganz selten - dem Manne, der mir damals so sympathisch geworden war, wieder begegnen konnte.
[ 7 ] Für mich waren solche Erlebnisse bedeutsam. Jedesmal, wenn sie kamen, war wieder eine innere Notwendigkeit da, die Sicherheit des eigenen Erkenntnisweges aufs neue zu prüfen. Und in diesem immer wiederkehrenden Prüfen entfalten sich die Kräfte, die dann auch immer weitere Gebiete des geistigen Daseins erschließen.
[ 8 ] Es liegen nun aus meinem anthroposophischen Wirken zwei Ergebnisse vor; erstens meine vor aller Welt veröffentlichten Bücher, zweitens eine große Reihe von Kursen, die zunächst als Privatdruck gedacht und verkäuflich nur an Mitglieder der Theosophischen (später Anthroposophischen) Gesellschaft sein sollten. Es waren dies Nachschriften, die bei den Vorträgen mehr oder weniger gut gemacht worden sind und die - wegen mangelnder Zeit - nicht von mir korrigiert werden konnten. Mir wäre es am liebsten gewesen, wenn mündlich gesprochenes Wort mündlich gesprochenes Wort geblieben wäre. Aber die Mitglieder wollten den Privatdruck der Kurse. Und so kam er zustande. Hätte ich Zeit gehabt, die Dinge zu korrigieren, so hätte vom Anfange an die Einschränkung «Nur für Mitglieder» nicht zu bestehen gebraucht. Jetzt ist sie seit mehr als einem Jahre ja fallen gelassen.
[ 9 ] Hier in meinem «Lebensgang» ist notwendig, vor allem zu sagen, wie sich die beiden: meine veröffentlichten Bücher und diese Privatdrucke in das einfügen, was ich als Anthroposophie ausarbeitete.
[ 10 ] Wer mein eigenes inneres Ringen und Arbeiten für das Hinstellen der Anthroposophie vor das Bewußtsein der gegenwärtigen Zeit verfolgen will, der muß das an Hand der allgemein veröffentlichten Schriften tun. In ihnen setzte ich mich auch mit alle dem auseinander, was an Erkenntnisstreben in der Zeit vorhanden ist. Da ist gegeben, was sich mir in «geistigem Schauen» immer mehr gestaltete, was zum Gebäude der Anthroposophie - allerdings in vieler Hinsicht in unvollkommener Art - wurde.
[ 11 ] Neben diese Forderung, die «Anthroposophie» aufzubauen und dabei nur dem zu dienen, was sich ergab, wenn man Mitteilungen aus der Geist-Welt der allgemeinen Bildungswelt von heute zu übergeben hat, trat nun aber die andere, auch dem voll entgegenzukommen, was aus der Mitgliedschaft heraus als Seelenbedürfnis, als Geistessehnsucht sich offenbarte. Da war vor allem eine starke Neigung vorhanden, die Evangelien und den Schrift4nhalt der Bibel überhaupt in dem Lichte dargestellt zu hören, das sich als das anthroposophische ergeben hatte. Man wollte in Kursen über diese der Menschheit gegebenen Offenbarungen hören.
[ 12 ] Indem interne Vortragskurse im Sinne dieser Forderung gehalten wurden, kam dazu noch ein anderes. Bei diesen Vorträgen waren nur Mitglieder. Sie waren mit den Anfangs-Mitteilungen aus Anthroposophie bekannt. Man konnte zu ihnen eben so sprechen, wie zu Vorgeschrittenen auf dem Gebiete der Anthroposophie. Die Haltung dieser internen Vorträge war eine solche, wie sie eben in Schriften nicht sein konnte, die ganz für die Öffentlichkeit bestimmt waren.
[ 13 ] Ich durfte in internen Kreisen in einer Art über Dinge sprechen, die ich für die öffentliche Darstellung, wenn sie für sie von Anfang an bestimmt gewesen wären, hätte anders gestalten müssen.
[ 14 ] So liegt in der Zweiheit, den öffentlichen und den privaten Schriften, in der Tat etwas vor, das aus zwei verschiedenen Untergründen stammt. Die ganz öffentlichen Schriften sind das Ergebnis dessen, was in mir rang und arbeitete; in den Privatdrucken ringt und arbeitet die Gesellschaft mit. Ich höre auf die Schwingungen im Seelenleben der Mitgliedschaft, und in meinem lebendigen Drinnenleben in dem, was ich da höre, entsteht die Haltung der Vorträge.
[ 15 ] Es ist nirgends auch nur in geringstem Maße etwas gesagt, was nicht reinstes Ergebnis der sich aufbauenden Anthroposophie wäre. Von irgend einer Konzession an Vorurteile oder Vorempfindungen der Mitgliedschaft kann nicht die Rede sein. Wer diese Privatdrucke liest, kann sie im vollsten Sinne eben als das nehmen, was Anthroposophie zu sagen hat. Deshalb konnte ja auch ohne Bedenken, als die Anklagen nach dieser Richtung zu drängend wurden, von der Einrichtung abgegangen werden, diese Drucke nur im Kreise der Mitgliedschaft zu verbreiten. Es wird eben nur hingenommen werden müssen, daß in den von mir nicht nachgesehenen Vorlagen sich Fehlerhaftes findet.
[ 16 ] Ein Urteil über den Inhalt eines solchen Privatdruckes wird ja allerdings nur demjenigen zugestanden werden können, der kennt, was als Urteils-Voraussetzung angenommen wird. Und das ist für die allermeisten dieser Drucke mindestens die anthroposophische Erkenntnis des Menschen, des Kosmos, insofern sein Wesen in der Anthroposophie dargestellt wird, und dessen, was als « anthroposophische Geschichte» in den Mitteilungen aus der Geist-Welt sich findet.
Chapter XXXV
[ 1 ] The beginning of my anthroposophical work came at a time when many people were dissatisfied with the directions of knowledge of the immediately preceding period. They wanted to find a way out of the realm of being into which they had closed themselves by accepting as "certain" knowledge only that which could be grasped with mechanistic ideas. These aspirations of some contemporaries for a kind of knowledge of the spirit were very close to my heart. Biologists such as Oskar Hertwig, who began as a student of Haeckel but then abandoned Darwinism because, in his view, the impulses known to the latter could not provide an explanation of organic development, were personalities in whom the desire for knowledge of the time was revealed to me.
[ 2 ] But I felt a pressure weighing on all this longing. The belief that one should only regard as knowledge that which can be researched with measure, number and weight in the realm of the senses has produced this pressure as its result. One did not dare to develop an inwardly active way of thinking in order to experience reality more closely through it than one experiences it with the senses. So it remained the case that one said: with the means that one has used so far to explain even the higher forms of reality, such as the organic, one cannot go any further. But if we were then to arrive at something positive, if we were to say what works in life activity, then we were moving in vague ideas. Those who strove to get out of the mechanistic explanation of the world usually lacked the courage to admit to themselves that if they wanted to overcome this mechanism, they also had to overcome the habits of thought that had led to it. A confession that would have taken time did not want to appear. It is this: with the orientation towards the senses, one penetrates that which is mechanistic. We became accustomed to this orientation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Now that the mechanistic leaves us unsatisfied, we should not want to penetrate into higher realms with the same orientation. - The senses in man give themselves their own development. With what they give themselves in this way, however, one will never see anything other than the mechanical. If we want to recognize more, we must give the deeper powers of cognition a form of their own accord, which gives nature to the powers of the senses. The powers of cognition for the mechanical are awake by themselves; those for the higher forms of reality must be awakened.
[ 3 ] This self-confession of the striving for knowledge seemed to me to be a necessity of the time.
[ 4 ] I felt happy where I perceived the beginnings of it. A visit to Jena lives in my fondest memory. I had to give lectures on anthroposophical topics in Weimar. A lecture was also arranged in a smaller circle in Jena. After the lecture there was a meeting with a very small group. They wanted to discuss what Theosophy had to say. In this circle was Max Scheler, who was a lecturer in philosophy in Jena at the time. The discussion soon turned to what he felt about my remarks. And I immediately sensed the deeper trait in his quest for knowledge. It was inner tolerance that he showed towards my views. The tolerance that is necessary for those who really want to know.
[ 5 ] We discussed the epistemological justification of spirit cognition. We talked about the problem of how the penetration into spiritual reality on the one hand must be epistemologically justified in the same way as the penetration into sensory reality on the other hand.
[ 6 ] Scheler's way of thinking made an ingenious impression on me. And to this day I follow his path of knowledge with the deepest interest. It always gave me deep satisfaction when - unfortunately very rarely - I was able to meet the man who had become so likeable to me back then.
[ 7 ] Such experiences were significant for me. Every time they came, there was an inner necessity to re-examine the certainty of my own path of knowledge. And in this recurring testing, the forces unfold that then open up ever wider areas of spiritual existence.
[ 8 ] There are now two results from my anthroposophical work; firstly, my books published before the whole world, and secondly, a large series of courses that were initially intended as a private publication and were only to be sold to members of the Theosophical (later Anthroposophical) Society. These were transcripts that were more or less well done during the lectures and which - due to lack of time - could not be corrected by me. I would have preferred it if words spoken orally had remained words spoken orally. But the members wanted the courses to be printed privately. And that's how it came about. If I had had time to correct things, there would have been no need for the "members only" restriction from the outset. Now it has been dropped for more than a year.
[ 9 ] Here in my "course of life" it is necessary to say above all how the two: my published books and these private prints fit into what I developed as anthroposophy.
[ 10 ] Whoever wants to follow my own inner struggle and work for the presentation of anthroposophy to the consciousness of the present time must do so by means of the generally published writings. In them I also deal with all the striving for knowledge that is present at the time. There is given what increasingly took shape for me in "spiritual seeing", which became the building of anthroposophy - albeit in many respects in an imperfect way.
[ 11 ] In addition to this demand to build up "anthroposophy" and to serve only that which arose when messages from the spirit world had to be passed on to the general educational world of today, there was now the other demand to fully accommodate that which emerged from membership as a need of the soul, as a longing for the spirit. Above all, there was a strong inclination to hear the Gospels and the scriptural content of the Bible in general presented in the light that had emerged as anthroposophical. People wanted to hear about these revelations given to humanity in courses.
[ 12 ] In addition to the internal lecture courses held in line with this demand, there was another. Only members attended these lectures. They were familiar with the initial messages from Anthroposophy. It was possible to speak to them in the same way as to those advanced in the field of anthroposophy. The attitude of these internal lectures was such as could not be found in writings intended entirely for the public.
[ 13 ] I was allowed to speak in internal circles about things which, if they had been intended for public presentation from the beginning, I would have had to present differently.
[ 14 ] So in the duality, the public and the private writings, there is in fact something that comes from two different backgrounds. The entirely public writings are the result of that which wrestled and worked within me; in the private prints, society wrestles and works with me. I listen to the vibrations in the soul life of the membership, and in my living inner life in what I hear there, the attitude of the lectures emerges.
[ 15 ] Nothing is said anywhere that is not the purest result of the anthroposophy that is being built up. There can be no question of any concession to the prejudices or preconceptions of the membership. Anyone who reads these private prints can take them in the fullest sense as what anthroposophy has to say. That is why, when the accusations in this direction became too pressing, it was possible without hesitation to abandon the institution of distributing these prints only within the circle of the membership. It will just have to be accepted that there are errors in the documents I have not checked.
[ 16 ] A judgment about the content of such a private print can only be granted to those who know what is assumed as a prerequisite for judgment. And for the vast majority of these prints, this is at least the anthroposophical knowledge of man, of the cosmos, insofar as its essence is presented in anthroposophy, and of what is found as "anthroposophical history" in the messages from the spirit world.