The Search for the New Isis, Divine Sophia
GA 202
26 December 1920, Dornach
Lecture IV
We will remind ourselves of some of the things we have been considering during the last few days. I have spoken of the significant facts that within the compass of the story of the Mystery of Golgotha we have, on the one hand, the proclamation to the simple shepherds and on the other to the Magi from the East, men who according to the ideas prevailing in those times had reached the highest wisdom that it was possible to attain. The Mystery proclaimed itself to the Magi out of the stars and the secrets which were read from the stars. The same was revealed to the unlearned, simple shepherds out of the kind of clairvoyance which could arise in those times in men of piety of heart. I said that these powers were the last remnants of faculties of vision which in much earlier times were normal in humanity and which in the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha still existed in their final phase among exceptional men, both learned and unlearned. It may therefore be said: At the time when the last remnants of ancient faculties of vision still existed in individual man, faculties capable of grasping the super-sensible aspect of the Event of Golgotha, that Event actually took place on the earth.
Once again let us describe these forms of knowledge. On the one side we have the shepherds. They experience through their naive, instinctive visions, what is happening in the world of men. Such inner visions were due, as I told you, to the forces of the earth which work into the human being. These forces of the earth do not only work into the lower kingdoms but also within the human being. Modern men, especially those living at the present time, no longer have direct inner experiences of these earthly forces which rise as it were out of the earth and then appear as inner visions. But the further we go back in evolution the more we find these inner visions, visions which in their whole configuration and form differ according to the varying climatic conditions, the different regions of the earth, and so forth. What can be discovered externally in this connection is, however, in many ways deceptive, for the men of olden times were wanderers. The faculties of inner knowledge coming to them from the forces of the earth, developed in some region or territory and then, because of the migrations of the peoples and stocks to other territories, were propagated through heredity. It cannot always be said, therefore, that these inner visions were connected directly with the territory where they appeared in men. Just as the animal world has a certain form in a specific part of the earth—in the animals this is expressed more in the outer growth and shape, in the mode of life, etc.—so, when human beings were still closely connected with the forces of nature, they were united in their inner characteristics with the inner forces of the earth. These inner forces of the earth are not, of course, completely independent of the forces of the universe. During his life between birth and death, the human being is given over to these forces of the earth, that is to say, he is given over to them in his physical body and etheric body, not in his astral body and Ego. In his physical body and etheric body man is given over to the forces that are active in the earth kingdoms below him. And as in olden times man was much more dependent upon the physical and etheric bodies than he is today, the workings of the earth within him expressed themselves more in his consciousness and there was within him a certain instinctive activity in his understanding of the world of human beings, of the planet earth and especially of the animal world. In those olden days men had a definite picture, a definite Imagination of every species of animal. Of this Imagination we ourselves have retained only the abstract notion of the ‘species.’ We speak of the wolf-species, the tiger-species, and so forth, and this is the last, abstract remnant of the living pictures that were present in olden times in instinctive vision and perception. Nor was man's relationship to his fellow-men the abstract feeling that it is today when we pass them by without really getting to know and understand them. Through the forces living within him and through his common karma, a definite picture, a definite perception of his fellow-man arose in a man as a concrete, naive Imagination.
Within this ancient humanity there was also living perception of what concerned the earth as a whole planet or—at least it was so among many peoples—the territories on which they dwelt. It was an inward perception of the planet earth, of happenings in the world of men as they expressed themselves in the social life, and also of happenings in the animal world. Our ordinary sense-perception then developed out of this inner faculty. This inward perception, these visionary pictures have in the modern age come entirely to the surface of the senses. They have become the mode of perception that is idolised in natural science where men are only willing to believe what the intellect combines out of the sense-perceptions. This sense-perception with which we view the material world is the descendant of what we find when we study ancient times in human evolution with real insight, undeluded by the phantasmagoria of modern psychology or anthropology. The old inner vision has become our external perception of today.
The other kind of knowledge, represented by the wisdom of the Magi from the East, has become abstract. It has gone the opposite way. Inner vision went to the surface and became our sense-perception. The faculty of outward perception, expressed in the imaginative, instinctive knowledge of the world of the stars and its secrets, in the ancient astronomy which also reckoned with numbers and—to use the platonic term—‘geometrised’ with figures, this form of perception which saw a living mathematics being fulfilled in the cosmos and to which every star was a spiritual reality has gone the opposite way. The other kind of perception went to the surface of the senses and became what we call our empirical knowledge. The external perception of olden times withdrew inwards, into the human being, and became abstract mathematics, abstract mechanics or phoronomy—the mathematical-mechanistic knowledge that arises from within us.
Thus in perception based on the senses and in our mathematical view of the world we have the abstract legacies of old, instinctive visions of mankind. Since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the last remnants of these ancient visions have disappeared, unintelligible as this fact will be to ordinary anthropology. Among the majority of peoples on the earth they had already disappeared much earlier; for we must go back many thousands of years, to very, very early times before what became the Egypto-Chaldean and Greek cultures proceeded from the Turanian highlands, if we want really to understand the nature of these primeval faculties of vision in man. Yet their last remnants still exist in Christian tradition as in the vision of the shepherds, who, through instinctive, imaginative clairvoyance came to know of a mighty event, and in the vision of the wise men from the East whose wisdom of the stars revealed the same thing. The very last remnants of these ancient modes of perception are given us as a wonderful landmark in our study of evolution. Since the Mystery of Golgotha there has been an increasingly general growth of the modern mode of perception which was already being prepared for in Greek culture; for the one does not pass abruptly into the other, these things are prepared for and die down again. What became intensive only in the modern age, revealing itself since the middle of the 15th century and reaching its zenith in the 19th, although it was last clearly present in the 18th century, especially in the West of Europe—this was prepared for in Greek culture. The ancient spirit-filled vision of the heavens has become abstract mathematics and mechanics. We look at the heavens in the sense of Galileo and Kepler, as if they were intelligible as a mere object of mathematics and mechanics, and what we call perceptions are limited to what the senses alone transmit to us. The power of perception born of the whole being of man which was instinctive in primeval times has become inactive.
It has often been said that humanity must become able once again to unfold real visions.. The mathematical and mechanical knowledge which arise in the inner being must once again be developed to Imagination. The sense-world which becomes the object of speculation and gives rise to all kinds of theories about the sense-processes, wave-vibrations and the like, must again be filled with the perceptions of Inspiration. Thereby men will find the link with their own origin, with the spiritual which is their own true being. We have evolved mathematical conceptions and external sense-perception as the final remnants of these ancient times. And what has come about in the evolution of humanity as a result of this?
Let us think of the 18th century, and of the English philosopher Locke who has had such an influence upon the development of the sciences. Locke speaks of the only form of knowledge that is valid—the knowledge that is transmitted, at the outset, by the senses. It is only a question of combining sense-perception mathematically because in the West—although the East has always resisted this—man has retained only this external sense perception, and inner vision has become purely abstract and mathematical.
And in France, in the 18th century, we find efforts being made to understand the human being, to answer the question: What is the human being in reality? Efforts were made to understand man through the power of knowledge he himself manifests; and we find such a work as Man as Machine by De la Mettrie. This was not the outcome of a sudden idea of one man but of a world-historical necessity of evolution. The corresponding phenomenon in ancient times would have been that the human being would have been understood by means of all the astronomical knowledge to be gained about the heavens—he would have been understood in the light of the whole macrocosm, by means of that ‘qualitative mathematics’ which is none other than ancient astronomy or, if you like, astrology. There would have been a concrete conception of the human being, not indeed gained with our conscious faculties of knowledge, but with the instinctive faculties of men in those times. And what has remained of this? Mathematical lines and forces spread in pure abstraction over the cosmos. The picture of the human being was that of a machine. An ingenious book which pictures man as a network of mathematical and mechanical forces cropped up in the 19th century and deluged all scientific views. Such objections as were raised were, at most, theoretical. People said: “It cannot really be so, something else must, after all, be working in man,” But although it was admitted theoretically that things could not be as they were pictured in Man as Machine, no other power was applied for understanding the human being than the powers used for understanding machines. Men were obliged to pass through this development of the spirit—of the spirit which is supremely abstract here and is able therefore only to grasp what is mathematical. Only so has the consciousness of freedom come to man. Tumultuous as was the urge for freedom in the west of Europe in the 18th century, there is an inner connection between the meagre knowledge of the human being which comes to expression in Man as Machine and the urge for human freedom which became manifest in the French Revolution. On the one side there was the worst possible decadence of knowledge arising from inner powers and, on the other, the insistent demand for recognition of the dignity of man by giving him freedom.
The vision that once arose within man was driven outwards to the senses, faded into external sense-perception. Nothing remained of what had once brought men together with vision: a mere feeling remained as a motivation in social life. And in the 19th century, particularly in Central Europe, in the West already in the 18th century, we find men like Dupuis in the West and Ludwig Feuerbach and others in Central Europe who, with the strange mentality which was then brought to bear on these things, reminded themselves that in the course of development humanity had once seen the spiritual in the macrocosm, had seen Gods or, ultimately, God. But then there arose this strong instinct: “Looking into the external world I have only the tapestry of material life, only what is revealed to sense-perception.” These men said to themselves: “These traditions, all that was once seen shining from the stars which are also things of sense, the spiritual in the world of minerals and plants—all this was fantasy, it was anthropomorphism; with this fantasy men imposed it into the external world. It was not the Gods who created man, but man who, out of his life of soul, created the Gods.” This was what was placed before man in the middle of the 19th century, first by Dupuis and then by Ludwig Feuerbach.
And then men like Darwin and others of similar mentality lent tremendous weight to the idea that man has only the external perceptions of the senses. They founded teachings based entirely on this kind of perception. But then it became apparent that the human being cannot be understood through these teachings. In a marvellous edifice of ideas we have a theory of evolution from the simplest up to the most highly complicated organisms and man is placed at the summit of the animal world. What was understood of the human being? That which could be externally seen through sense-perception.
In France, in the 18th century, man was conceived as a machine; in the 19th century he was seen only from outside and his inner nature was not reached. Only the sheath around man was there. This sheath does stand at the summit of the animal world. But what this sheath surrounds comes from quite different worlds into which there was no longer any insight, because all that remained was the sense-perception into which the ancient clairvoyance had developed, and the mathematics and mechanics into which the old spiritual science of astronomy had developed. Through the science arising from within, man could only be conceived of as a machine; and with the science relating to the external world, man could not be conceived at all, but only his sheath. Nor is there any realisation today of the extent to which the human being himself has been lost. Men study the anatomy and physiology of the animals and with certain modifications transfer this knowledge to the human being. But in the modern striving for knowledge there is no real understanding of the human being. From science—the highest authority recognised today—no conscious understanding of the human being is to be gained. Man as machine, comprehension of the material world in which the human being is not to be found—these have been the forerunners of our scientific mentality.
In one of the most recent books (another has since appeared, for the brochures aiming at refuting Anthroposophy are growing now into whole volumes)—in a fairly big book, we find it said that much in Anthroposophy is reminiscent of ancient mythologies. This is because the author simply does not understand Anthroposophy. He is a Licentiate of Theology, a very learned gentleman ... they are all learned gentlemen. This can be said as a refrain, thinking of the famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: “So are they all honourable men ...” They are all learned men and this particular one, because he does not understand Anthroposophy at all, finds in it something similar to ancient mythologies.
You know that in Anthroposophy it is a question of a fully conscious understanding of the world, an understanding with a consciousness that otherwise occurs only in mathematics with its inner penetration of the realities, so that it is certainly not a matter of mythological poetry. Nevertheless it is precisely through Anthroposophy that we are often deeply and inwardly stimulated to realise the meaning of ancient mythologies and ancient mythological pictures. These ancient mythologies are not ‘poetry’ in the sense in which we think of poetry today; they are the outcome of naive Imaginations of a certain content of the world. This content of the world, however, was expressed in pictures. And if we let the deep significance of these pictures work upon us we find a wonderful sureness of knowledge in them. Let me remind you today of a poem of ancient India addressed to the God Varuna:
Varuna is the motive power in all beings.
Varuna is he who has spread the air through the forests.
Varuna is he who gives the swift-footed animals their swiftness.
Varuna is he who produces milk in the milk-bearing cows.
Varuna is he who quickens the Will in the heart of man.
Varuna is he who kindles the lightning in the oceans of clouds.
Varuna is he who causes the light of the sun to shine in the vault of heaven.
Varuna is he who produces the Soma-drink on the mountains.
In wonderful language this poem to Varuna contains what I described to you yesterday. Think of what enters from the inner forces of the earth into man's physical and etheric bodies; these forces played into the consciousness and produced, in those ancient times, powers of inner vision. And then think of this poem and of the deep meaning in the indication that it is Varuna, the God of changes, who causes the air to blow through the forests (the earth with her covering). This same power-giving Being, working from the earth through the animals, causes the swiftness of horses, the life-substance in creatures who bear milk, stimulating in the heart of man the will-impulse from whence came the ancient, inner clairvoyance. In these indications we have something that make intelligible the kind of vision possessed by the shepherds in the field. And then from what follows, we can understand the kind of vision living in the wise men from the East. For it is Varuna who kindles the fire of lightning in the oceans of clouds—we look out into the macrocosm and there find the forces which are understood with the knowledge possessed by the Magi. It is Varuna who causes the light of the sun to shine in the heavens and who produces the Soma-drink on the mountain—these are the forces which enable man to have vision of the world.
An observation must, however, here be made. The poem comes from an epoch when the primeval, purest form of vision of the outer world was no longer present, when vision of the cosmic spaces was no longer, as in the earliest times, achieved by purely spiritual manipulations of the breathing or by drawing these visions from the inbreathing. The poem comes from a time when, as was very usual in the later Mysteries, a certain drink prepared from plants was taken to stimulate vision of the outer world, just as later on, when inner vision was lost, man attempted to stimulate inner powers by the taking of certain substances. In the East, men tried to quicken vision of the macrocosm by drinking certain juices from plants; in the West, certain substances were taken. In the East, again by external means, by the taking of substance which they called Soma-drink, men tried to quicken the faculty which appeared, in its last remnant, in the Magi. In the West, up to the late Middle Ages and even on into modern times, what was taken inwardly in order to attain the wisdom that evokes inner perception was called the Philosopher's Stone.
In books attempting to explain oriental life you will find many indications about the Soma-drink, the Soma-juice. All kinds of ingenious explanations are given because real Initiation-wisdom never tells what the substance of the Soma-drink really is. Many books will tell you that it is not known what the substance of the Philosopher's Stone is. Neither do I myself propose to speak about these two substances. I only want to indicate the humour of the statement made by scholarship that one cannot know what Soma-juice really is, although a large number of people drink this Soma-juice by the litre. As the poem to Varuna says, it grows on mountains. It is also said that the Philosopher's Stone is a certain substance in existence but that it is not really known what the learned alchemists meant by the Philosopher's Stone. But there are people in modern times who consume this Philosopher's Stone by the kilo. It is only a matter of seeing things in the right light.
It is remarkable that something very familiar should be presented as being quite unknown because people do not understand the connection of their present mode of vision with that of times, relatively speaking, not very long ago.
But it must be realised that today we see the world through very faulty spectacles and in spite of our scientific development do not understand what is nearest at hand; we do not know the workings of many substances we use in everyday life. We stand within these workings and experience them. Modern scholarship does not know what the Soma-drink is, or the Philosopher's Stone, although there are very few people who are not quite familiar with these substances (they simply do not know what they are). Equally can it be said: People of today realise that a great deal goes on in the intercourse between the banks and industrial undertakings and most men tear off their coupons from the papers they receive, but they know as little about what this means in the complex of social life as they know about the substances mentioned above. Our mode of perception is of a kind that it befogs us, misleads us with spectacles; we have our everyday arrangements without knowing anything real about the inner connections of the world.
It is strange that people try to keep to these concepts that are so superficial, that they do not want to get down to a new inner knowledge on the one side and strive for a new outer knowledge on the other. Sometimes, out of dark emotions, that which most men really want in their conscious being struggles to make itself felt, but they are afraid to raise this will into consciousness.
A friend recently gave me a copy of the Rheinische Musik und Theater Zeitung. The first article is based on the experiences of a musician. He writes out of immediate experience in particular circumstances and what he says is extremely interesting. I will read a few sentences:
“With the general social and economic upheaval there was added to the inner problems of music, the outer problem—that of the new public that is coming to art practically unprepared. Which of the arts has permanent value and how are art and the people to be brought together? These are questions of particular importance at the moment”
Most people are still unaware of the weight of these questions: there their weight has been felt, for they are there as a terrible burden in the world.
“Many, very many problems would be better and more easily solved if the musical profession were organised. But we are still without any Music Chamber which could represent the common interests of all professional musicians; even individual groups of interests are not yet really united with each other.”
The writer now proceeds to think about a suitable organisation. He says:
“Hardly any of the associations include all the members of the profession. The best are, perhaps, the German Musicians' Union which includes particularly the orchestra players, and the Union of Music Traders where there is a common basis because of their economic objects. After a big gap come the various groups of academic and nonacademic music teachers, of singing teachers in music schools, organists, directors and critics, as well as composers and executant musicians. Self-seeking interests and rivalry have put off many people from joining these associations. As a whole, workers in cultural professions are very far from realising the need of union. Thus it has come about that in the world of music those at the head of its public affairs are not experts who are cognisant of the real needs. In the great State arrangements as in the narrower, provincial bodies, dilettantes have the authority and also, according to the strength of the parties, politicians to whom art is only a secondary interest and who, though they often have good-will, usually lack the necessary expert knowledge and freedom from bias. And so it has come about that the State has almost completely failed to meet the justified demands of music. This does not concern music alone; it is typical in all cultural affairs. In the realisation too that the economic problems of a people cannot properly be handled by the politically-minded representatives who have held positions up to now, a new ‘Economic Council’ was recently formed. Out of about 400 seats, 3 were included for the Arts—such is the estimate of its importance. And when we know that one or two votes are incapable of representing the interests of the German Musicians' Union even in purely economic and financial questions, we cannot help asking: Where then are the cultural interests of the people to be considered? Parliamentary debates are out of the question. There is not a single expert of our profession in the Reichstag and even if there were ten or twenty, they could do nothing at all in a place where people speak and vote according to party points of view.
“There is only one way that is logical and clear and it will therefore be adopted one day for the well-being of our people. Beside the Political Parliament administering the equitable position of the individual vis-à-vis the whole, and of the people vis-à-vis the international world, and beside the Economic Council to deal with the material foundations of the people's life, we need a Cultural Council for the promotion of spiritual affairs.
“The idea of this Threefoldness is not new. It was however formulated in precise terms by Dr. Rudolf Steiner and is now being worked at by a league for the ‘Threefold Social Organism,’ Champignystrasse 17, Stuttgart, where further information can be obtained.
“It will be difficult for anyone who goes into this, to get the idea out of his head, so unambiguous is it and such a certain solution of the problems with which we have long been struggling so hopelessly. Its realisation must and will bring health to the whole of our people's life.”
I have read you this because it shows the longing for the Threefold Organism in one single profession. Then there are opinions which we must reject, opinions of those who have merely a political education and think that this Threefold Social Organism is a Utopia. It is not by any means a Utopia; it grows from the innermost experience of every single profession. The writer of this article is the editor of the paper and it is seldom that editors write in such a way. Every single individual in any profession can feel that the most practical conception of life leads him finally to say to himself: “It will be difficult for anyone who goes into this to get the idea out of his head, so unambiguous is it and such a certain solution of the problems with which we have long been struggling so hopelessly. Its realisation must and will bring health to the whole of our people's life.”
This ‘Cultural Council’ was founded a year ago this May and it has already faded out, is forgotten. Those who understood it least of all were the people in official positions and having authority in science and art. What must be emphasised over and over again is the need there is today for things to be taken with deep seriousness. This goes against the grain. People choose to believe that things will continue in the same way. No, they will not. If life continues without the stimuli that come from the spiritual world, industry can go on, banks can be in existence and universities where all the sciences are taught, other professions can be developed—but everything will lead to decadence, to barbarism, to the fall of civilisation. Those who are not willing to apply in practical life what can come out of Spiritual Science are working, not for ascent but for decline. And the majority of people today want decline and simply delude themselves into the belief that an ascent can still come out of it.
That is what I wanted to stress on the occasion of this Christmas festival. Let others go on, if they so will, along the old, familiar path that is like a great lie in modern life. I confronted this lie when I was a young man. In respect of the truths and realities of life I was very much at home in an international atmosphere and in things that have nothing to do with sympathy or antipathy for any particular race, for I taught in a house belonging to a Jewish family for many years. Every year, when Christmas was near, all the relatives, distant and near, set about buying Christmas presents and a Christmas tree—and all of them were members of the Jewish religion. They did everything the same as people who call themselves Christians, in honour of Him of whom it is said: “The Saviour is born unto us this day.” Things have become phrases to this extent, my dear friends. But people will not admit it, will not admit that these things have lost all meaning. It is all one and the same today, and it has been so for a very long time, whether a man whose heart is livingly united with the Saviour lays presents under the Christmas tree or whether this is done by someone who adheres to a way of thinking which rejects the Saviour. It is such things which show us the lie in humanity that has become reality, the phrase that has become reality within our civilisation. These things must be seen in all seriousness, my dear friends. It is meaningless today to say that one should not be radical in these matters ... for not to be radical means to take part in the advance towards decline.
This is what I wanted to voice at this Christmas festival, at a place where nothing in the old style is to be found. In our architecture at the Goetheanum there are no traces of ancient architectural styles. Neither do other things at the Goetheanum contain anything connected with old-fashioned customs. It is just because there is nothing of old customs at the Goetheanum that such hatred of it prevails in many quarters. Neither should there be old customs, because there must be at least one place today—however much it is hated and however intensely its ruin is desired—where attention is called to what is necessary for mankind in our time.
The Goetheanum contains nothing of the old. The Goethean science cultivated here obviously contains hardly anything that is old. And if we establish anything in practical life ... the reaction to it shows quite clearly that it is not in the old style. Whether in the habits of all anthroposophical friends everything of the old style has been overcome ... on that point the lecturer will be silent for the sake of politeness. But he would express the hope that our habits, down to the very way we handle our children, will tend more and more to what we recognise as a necessity for the evolution of mankind.
The year we are beginning with this Christmas festival will be no easy one for our anthroposophical development. On the contrary, it will be a difficult year. The opposition against us will not diminish but increase in strength. For the powers which have an interest in ruining Anthroposophy are very active, very alert, as I have often said. And one thing particularly I would like to call to mind today. When the ‘Futurum Company’ was founded here in Dornach, our good friend Herr Molt spoke of all that should enter and be applied in the affairs of practical life. He was right in everything that he said. When I was speaking afterwards I said that I was not anxious about the incorporation of anthroposophical thoughts and ideas in practical institutions—but what did cause me anxiety was whether we should find a sufficiently large number of human beings capable and energetic enough to carry these things through.
What is so very necessary, my dear friends, is that we should always be trying to bring together those human beings who are sufficiently energetic and capable to make Anthroposophy really practical, as well. Recent centuries have not only dulled human knowledge, they have also actually suppressed the practical capacities of men. And it is essential that people should try to unfold these powers out of the deepest foundations of their being—for the powers that are needed lie in every individual. We need a renewal also of the external, practical capacities of man, out of his deepest foundations. This birth should hover before us—the birth of an energy that can be brought forth within to confront the lack of energy to be met with in the outer world today. This birth should hover before us in everything that we feel to be connected with Christmas.
Think, too, of science. A young medical student was with me a few days ago and was talking to me about his studies. All that I could say was that the very worst thing that is happening nowadays in the most important sciences is that the thinking powers of men are not being unfolded. Take any modern book on therapy or pathology—so often we find heart, lung, digestive organs and so forth, represented according to purely material observations and with as much elimination of the thought element as possible. And when some real thinking is offered we find, as in the book written by Kurt Leese, the Licentiate of Theology, that it is said: this is unbearable, irritating; for here is someone speaking about the threefold being of man and we are expected to believe that the three members are not side by side, but intermingled. So much jugglery of thought ... Such is the opinion of this Licentiate of Theology, Kurt Leese.
To be a Licentiate of Theology at our universities means that thinking is fundamentally exterminated by the studies. When a man is challenged to think, this is unbearable, irritating, unpleasant in the extreme. It has come to the point where things that come from the innermost being, truthfulness among them, appear in the form they do, even among the leaders of Christianity. For example there is this clergyman who does not say that some drunkard told him of a statue of Christ being made with Luciferic traits above and animal characteristics below ... but who gives this out as something that he knows with certainty. He puts an objective lie into a book in which he sets out to describe Anthroposophy. And people accept such things without criticism or censure. Do you think for a moment that any healing of social life is possible when such things happen? If you have any such belief, it is a false hope. What is necessary is to develop a sane outlook on a positive evil in moral life. The point is not whether Anthroposophy is attacked or not but that a book has appeared containing a whole number of similar untruths. A man who writes such lies in this book will naturally include them in other writings. This is habit. The same thing exists in teachings given to the young. We must not fail to face these things, my dear friends.
The Child in the crib says to us that the deepest things in man need a health-bringing renewal. What we need is a new proclamation of what was given to the shepherds in the field and to the Wise Men from the East; from its very foundations we must understand what it is that will bring healing into the development of mankind. Then and then only are we worthy to say: The Saviour has been born unto us.
These are the things I wanted to say before we have to make a short pause in the lectures here.

Sechzehnter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Wir wollen uns einmal einige von den Tatsachen in die Erinnerung zurückrufen, welche in diesen Tagen Gegenstand unserer Betrachtung waren. Ich habe auf die bedeutsame Tatsache hingewiesen, welche darinnen liegt, daß in der Erzählung des Mysteriums von Golgatha auftauchen auf der einen Seite die Hirten mit ihrer Verkündigung, also Menschen einfachen Gemütes, auf der anderen Seite die Magier aus dem Morgenlande, also nach der damaligen Zeitauffassung Menschen, die aufgestiegen sind zur höchsten Weisheit, die zu erlangen war. Aus den Sternen heraus und den Geheimnissen, die ihnen die Menschheit abgelauscht hatte, verkündigte sich das Mysterium für die Magier. Aus dem, was aus frommen Herzen in der damaligen Zeit noch als eine gewisse Art des Hellsehens auftauchen konnte, verkündigte sich dasselbe für die ungelehrten einfachen Hirten. Wir werden dabei - so führte ich aus — auf die letzten Reste alter Menschheitsanschauungen hingewiesen, welche in viel früheren Zeiten gewissermaßen die normalen Menschheitsanschauungen waren, die dazumal, als das Mysterium von Golgatha eintrat, in letzten Resten bei auserlesenen Menschen der einen Art, der Gelehrtenart, oder auch bei auserlesenen Menschen der ungelehrten Art noch aufgetreten sind. So daß man etwa sagen kann, in der Zeit, als bei einzelnen Menschen noch letzte Reste alter Menschheitsanschauung vorhanden waren, die gerade noch hinreichten, um das Übersinnliche des Ereignisses von Golgatha zu erfassen, da trat auch dieses Ereignis von Golgatha auf Erden ein.
[ 2 ] Nun charakterisieren wir noch einmal, wie diese Erkenntnisarten bei den Menschen sind. Wir haben auf der einen Seite die Hirten. Sie erfahren durch innere naive, instinktive Schauungen dasjenige, was in der Menschenwelt geschieht. Solche innere Schauungen — darauf habe ich Sie aufmerksam gemacht — rühren davon her, daß die Kräfte des Erdenplaneten in den Menschen hereinwirken. Diese Kräfte des Erdenplaneten wirken ja nicht bloß in den niederen Reichen, sondern sie wirken auch im Menschen. Die neuere Menschheit, namentlich die Menschheit der Gegenwart, erlebt im Inneren nicht mehr Unmittelbares von diesen irdischen Kräften, die gewissermaßen aufsteigen aus dem Erdenplaneten und im Inneren des Menschen dann in Schauungen auftreten. Aber je weiter wir zurückgehen in der Entwickelung der Menschheit, desto mehr finden wir solche im Inneren des Menschen auftretende Schauungen, welche in ihrer ganzen Konfiguration, in ihrer besonderen Art und Weise verschieden sind je nach den verschiedenen Klimaten, nach den verschiedenen Erdenterritorien und so weiter. Was man dabei äußerlich entdecken kann, das ist allerdings vielfach trügerisch, denn die Menschen der älteren Zeiten waren auch nicht durchaus seßhaft. Was ihnen an inneren Erkenntnisfähigkeiten durch die Kräfte des Erdenplaneten zugekommen ist, das haben sie in irgendeinem Territorium der Erde entwickelt, sind dann durch Völkerund Stammeswanderungen nach anderen Territorien gezogen und haben dann das durch Vererbung weiter fortgepflanzt. So daß wir nicht immer sagen können, daß dasjenige, was da auftrat als innere Schauungen, unmittelbar zusammenhing mit dem Territorium, auf dem es gerade durch Menschen auftrat.
[ 3 ] Geradeso wie die Tierwelt eines bestimmten Erdenteiles eine ganz bestimmte Konfiguration hat — bei den Tieren drückt sich das mehr aus im äußerlichen Wachstum, in der äußerlichen Formung, in der Lebensweise —, so hatten die Menschen, als sie noch näherstanden den Kräften der Natur, einen Zusammenhang in bezug auf ihre innere Konfiguration mit dem, was innere Kräfte der Erde sind. Allerdings sind diese inneren Kräfte der Erde wiederum nicht ganz unabhängig von den Kräften des Universums. Der Mensch ist in seinem Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod diesen Erdenkräften hingegeben. Er ist ihnen hingegeben in bezug auf gewisse Glieder seiner menschlichen Wesenheit, in bezug auf den physischen Leib, in bezug auf den ätherischen Leib. Nicht in bezug auf den astralischen Leib und das Ich, aber in bezug auf den physischen Leib und den ätherischen Leib ist der Mensch durchaus den Kräften der Erde hingegeben. An das, was da unten im Erdenreich, möchte ich sagen, tätig ist, an das ist der Mensch mit seinem physischen Leib und mit seinem Ätherleib hingegeben. Und da in den älteren Zeiten die Menschheit viel abhängiger war vom physischen und Ätherleib, als sie es heute ist, so drückte sich auch das, was als Wirkungen der Erde in den Menschen tätig ist, mehr in dem Bewußtsein der Menschen aus, und das vermittelte für die Menschen namentlich ein gewisses instinktives Tätigsein des Gemütes mit Bezug auf die Erkenntnis der Menschenwelt selber, mit Bezug auf die Erkenntnis des Erdenplaneten, mit Bezug auf die Erkenntnis aber auch sogar der Tierwelt.
[ 4 ] Man lernte in alten Zeiten die Tierwelt kennen, indem man von jeder Tierart ein bestimmtes Bild, eine bestimmte Imagination hatte. Wir haben zurückbehalten von dieser Imagination, welche die Alten von den Tierarten hatten, nur den abstrakten Artenbegriff. Wir reden von der Art oder der Gattung von Wölfen, Tigern und Katzen und so weiter. Das sind die letzten abstrakten Überreste dessen, was in alten Zeiten als lebendige Bilder vorhanden war, was in Anschauung, in instinktiver Anschauung vorhanden war. Ebenso hatte der Mensch im Verhältnis zu den anderen Menschen in älteren Zeiten nicht jenes abstrakte Gefühl, das wir heute haben gegenüber unseren Nebenmenschen, an denen wir ja fast vorbeigehen, ohne sie wirklich kennenzulernen; sondern durch das, was in der geschilderten Weise im Inneren der Menschen an Kräften lebte, bekam der Mensch, wenn er dem Menschen begegnete, ein allerdings durch das gemeinsame Karma, durch das gemeinsame Schicksal bestimmtes, aber eben doch ein bestimmtes Bild, eine Anschauung von seinem Nebenmenschen, die sehr konkret als naive Imagination auftrat.
[ 5 ] Ebenso lebte in dieser Urmenschheit vielfach etwas, was den ganzen Erdenplaneten oder, wenigstens für viele Völker, die Territorien, auf denen sie lebten, anging. Das war ein innerliches Anschauen gegenüber dem Erdenplaneten, selbst gegenüber den Vorgängen in der Menschenwelt, die sich im sozialen Leben auslebten, und auch gegenüber den Vorgängen in der Tierwelt. Aus diesem innerlichen Anschauen hat sich dann unser gewöhnliches Sinnesanschauen entwickelt. Man könnte sagen, was den ganzen Menschen innerlich erfüllt hat, das innerliche Wahrnehmen, Schauungen bilden, das hat sich bei den Menschen ganz nach der Oberfläche der Sinne hin geschlagen in der neueren Zeit, und das ist unser Anschauen geworden, wie wir es heute namentlich im naturwissenschaftlichen Anschauen anbeten, wo wir nur gelten lassen wollen all das, was der Verstand aus den Anschauungen der Sinne kombiniert. Dieses sinnliche Anschauen, dieses Anschauen, mit dem wir heute den Sinnesteppich überblicken, ist der Abkömmling dessen, was uns entgegentritt, wenn wir in Wirklichkeit, nicht mit den Phantasmen der heutigen Psychologie oder Anthropologie, die alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung studieren. Was uns entgegentrat in alten Zeiten als innerliches Schauen, das ist heute zunächst unser äußerliches Schauen geworden.

[ 6 ] Das andere, was uns nun charakterisiert wird durch das Wissen der Magier aus dem Morgenlande, das ist abstrakt geworden. Es ist das, was nun den entgegengeserzten Weg genommen hat. Während das innerliche Schauen sich an die Oberfläche geschlagen hat und Sinnesanschauung geworden ist, hat das äußerliche Anschauen, das sich ausdrückte in dem imaginativen, instinktiv-imaginativen Wissen von der Sternenwelt und ihren Geheimnissen — was ausgedrückt wurde in der alten Art der Astronomie, die allerdings auch mit Zahlen rechnete, die mit Figuren geometrisierte, um diesen platonischen Ausdruck zu gebrauchen -, hat diese Anschauung, die gewissermaßen eine lebendige Mathematik im Weltenall verwirklicht sah, in dem jeder Stern zu gleicher Zeit Geistig-Wesenhaftes war, den entgegengesetzten Weg genommen (siehe Zeichnung). Die andere Anschauung ging an die Sinnesoberfläche, wurde das, was wir heute unsere äußere Anschauung, unsere Empirie nennen. Dasjenige aber, was äußere Anschauung war, ging in das Innere des Menschen und wurde die abstrakte Mathematik, die abstrakte Mechanik oder Phoronomie, alles das, was als mathematisch-mechanisches Wissen aus unserem Inneren aufsteigt.
[ 7 ] So haben wir allerdings in dem, was heute an den Menschen auf der einen Seite als Sinnesanschauung, auf der anderen Seite als mathematisch-mechanische Konstruktion der Welt herantritt, die Erbschaften, die abstrakten Erbschaften der alten, instinktiven Schauungen der Menschheit. Es sind namentlich, wenn das auch der äußeren Anthropologie so unzugänglich ist, im wesentlichen seit dem Eintritt des Mysteriums von Golgatha die letzten Reste alter Anschauungen dahingeschwunden. Bei der Mehrzahl der Erdenbevölkerung waren sie schon viel früher verschwunden, denn wir müssen in sehr, sehr frühe Jahrtausende zurückgehen, in die Jahrtausende, ehe von dem Hochland von Turan ausgegangen ist, was dann ägyptisch-chaldäische, griechische Kultur und so weiter geworden ist, wenn wir diese uralten Anschauungsweisen der Menschheit wirklich kennenlernen wollen. Aber die letzten Reste treten uns noch in der christlichen Tradition durch die Anschauung der Hirten entgegen, die ein wichtiges Menschheitsereignis kennenlernen durch instinktives imaginatives Hellsehen, und durch die Anschauung der Magier aus dem Morgenlande, die aus der Sternenweisheit heraus dasselbe sehen.
[ 8 ] Diese uralten Anschauungsweisen werden uns ja in ihren letzten Resten als ein deutliches Merkzeichen innerhalb der Menschheitsentwickelung vermittelt. Seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha hat sich dann immer mehr und mehr die neuere Anschauungsweise ausgebreitet, die sich übrigens schon im Griechentum vorbereitete, denn die Dinge gehen nicht schroff ineinander, sondern bereiten sich vor und glimmen ab. Es hat sich vorbereitet im Griechentum dasjenige, was im Grunde genommen intensiv erst in der allerneuesten Zeit geworden ist, was insbesondere sich in der Menschheitsentwickelung seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts zeigte und was seinen Höhepunkt dann erst im 19. Jahrhundert erlangt hat, deutlich aber schon im 18. Jahrhundert geworden ist, namentlich im europäischen Westen. Es besteht darin, daß die alte geistdurchsetzte Anschauung der Himmelsweiten zur abstrakten Mathematik und Mechanik geworden ist; so daß wir den Himmel im galileisch-keplerschen Sinne überschauen, wie wenn er begreiflich wäre als ein bloßer Gegenstand der Mathematik und Mechanik, und daß wir dasjenige, was wir Wahrnehmungen nennen, beschränken müssen auf das, was uns nur die Sinne vermitteln, daß untätig geworden ist die Wahrnehmungskraft des ganzen Menschen, die instinktiv in Urzeiten vorhanden war.
[ 9 ] Wir haben es ja oftmals gesagt, daß die Menschheit wiederum zurückkehren muß dazu, Schauungen zu entwickeln. Was als Mathematik, als Mechanik im Inneren aufsteigt, das muß wiederum zur Imagination entfaltet werden. Was von außen sich nur auf den Sinnesteppich anwenden läßt, sonst ins Spekulieren kommt und allerlei mechanische Theorien über die Sinnesvorgänge entwickelt, von allerlei Wellenschwingungen oder dergleichen redet, das muß wiederum unterworfen werden den Schauungen der Inspiration. Dadurch wird die Menschheit. wieder die Anknüpfung finden an ihren eigentlichen Ursprung, an das Geistige, das ja des Menschen ureigenstes Wesen ist. Also als letzte Reste haben wir erhalten aus diesen alten Zeiten die mathematische Anschauung und das, was äußere Sinnesanschauung ist. Und was ist damit heraufgekommen in der Menschheitsentwickelung?
[ 10 ] Sehen wir uns einmal das 18. Jahrhundert an. Gehen wir zurück bis zu dem englischen Philosophen Locke, der einen so großen Einfluß auf die Entwickelung der Wissenschaften genommen hat. Da finden wir zunächst hingewiesen durch Locke als auf die einzig mögliche Erkenntnis auf diejenige, die zunächst durch die Sinne vermittelt ist. Nur Sinnesanschauung durfte mathematisch kombiniert werden, weil man eben — besonders im Westen, der Osten hat sich immer dagegen gestemmt — nur erhalten hat die äußere Sinnesanschauung, und die innere Anschauung bloß eine abstrakt-mathematische geworden ist.
[ 11 ] In Frankreich zeigte sich im 18. Jahrhundert, daß man versuchte, den Menschen zu begreifen, Antwort zu geben auf die Frage: Was ist der Mensch eigentlich? — Man wollte den Menschen erkennen durch das, was der Mensch nun selber an Erkenntniskraft aufbringen kann. Und es entstand ein solches Werk wie: «Der Mensch eine Maschine» von de LaMettrie. Das ist nicht entstanden aus dem bloßen Einfall eines Menschen heraus, sondern das ist entstanden aus einer welthistorischen Notwendigkeit der Menschheitsentwickelung. Das Entsprechende in uralten Zeiten wäre gewesen, daß aus all der Wissenschaft, die die alte Astronomie hat gewinnen können über die Himmelserscheinungen, man den Menschen aus dem ganzen Makrokosmos heraus begriffen hätte; daß man gewissermaßen mit der qualitativen Mathematik, die aber nichts anderes ist als die alte Astronomie, oder sagen Sie meinetwillen Astrologie, daß man aus diesem heraus den Menschen begriffen hätte. Da wäre der Mensch konkret begriffen worden, wenn auch nicht mit unserem bewußten Erkenntnisvermögen, so doch mit dem instinktiven Erkenntnisvermögen der Alten.
[ 12 ] Was bleibt von dem zurück? Im Weltenall dachte man sich nur rein abstrakt ausgebreitet mathematische Linien, Kräfte, wie man sie innerlich abstrakt fassen kann. Man wollte sich den Menschen vorstellen als Maschine. Ein geistvolles Werk, das im Grunde genommen den Menschen nur nach den mathematisch-mechanischen Kräften vorstellen will, das hat dann weiter gespukt im 19. Jahrhundert, das hat alle wissenschaftlichen Anschauungen überschwemmt. Man hat sich höchstens theoretisch dagegen aufgelehnt. Man hat gesagt: Ja, das kann nicht so sein, da muß noch irgend etwas anderes im Menschen wirksam sein. — Aber man hat nichts anderes angewendet, wenn man auch theoretisch-philosophisch zugab, daß das nicht so sein kann, wie es in dem Werk «Der Mensch eine Maschine» dargestellt wird. Man hat doch keine anderen Kräfte angewendet zum Begreifen des Menschen als diejenigen, die man im Grunde auch bei der Maschine anwendet. Die Menschen mußten einmal durchgehen durch die Entwickelung des Geistes, der zwar im abstraktesten Sinne Geist ist, der aber, weil er eben nur im abstrakten Sinne Geist ist, nur das MechanischMineralische begreifen kann. Nur dadurch ist dem Menschen das Bewußtsein der Freiheit gekommen. Möge noch so tumultuarisch im 18. Jahrhundert der Freiheitsdrang im Westen Europas erschienen sein, es gibt einen inneren Zusammenhang zwischen jener armseligen Erkenntnis vom Menschen, die sich ausdrückt in «Der Mensch eine Maschine», und dem Drang nach menschlicher Freiheit, wie er sich ausdrückt in der Französischen Revolution. Auf der einen Seite ist die ärgste Dekadenz des Erkennens aus inneren Kräften, auf der anderen Seite das intensive Fordern der Menschenwürde in der Freiheit.
[ 13 ] Das andere, die Anschauung, die der Mensch im Inneren gehegt hat, sie wurde bis in die Sinne hinein getrieben und verblaßte bis zum äußeren Sinnesanschauen. Nichts mehr wurde ihr von dem, was den Menschen zum Menschen in der Anschauung führt; da blieb nur das Gefühl zurück als sozialer Motor. Und im 19. Jahrhundert, da traten dann namentlich in Mitteleuropa, im Westen auch schon im 18. Jahrhundert, diejenigen Persönlichkeiten auf — im Westen Dapuis, in Mitteleuropa dann solche Geister wie Ludwig Feuerbach und andere -, welche in der eigentümlichen Art, wie alles derartige in Mitteleuropa dann erfaßt wurde, sich erinnerten, daß die Menschheit im Laufe ihrer Entwickelung im Hinaussehen in den Makrokosmos Geistiges geschaut hat, Götter oder zuletzt Gott geschaut hat. Aber da trat der starke Instinkt davon auf: Wenn ich in die Außenwelt hinausschaue, da habe ich ja nur den Sinnesteppich, da habe ich nur das, was der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung gegeben ist. Was da überliefert wird, was man einstmals aus den Sternen leuchten gesehen hat, die ja auch Sinnendinge zunächst sind, dasjenige, was gegeben worden ist als geistiger Inhalt der mineralischen, der pflanzlichen Welt, das — so sagte man sich — haben die Menschen hineingedichtet, das ist alles Anthropomorphismus, das haben aus ihrer Phantasie heraus die Menschen in die Außenwelt hineinverlegt. Nicht die Götter haben die Menschen geschaffen, die Menschen haben aus ihrem Seelenwesen heraus die Götter geschaffen. Dupuis zuerst, dann solche Leute wie Ludwig Feuerbach in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, haben das vor die Menschen hingestellt.
[ 14 ] Auf der anderen Seite haben dann wiederum solche Geister wie Darwin und diejenigen, die in ähnlicher Weise gesinnt waren, stark geltend gemacht, daß der Mensch eben als Anschauung nur die äußere Sinnesanschauung hat. Sie haben Lehren begründet, in denen nur diese äußere Sinnesanschauung leben sollte. Und da zeigte sich: der Mensch kann nicht durch diese Lehren begriffen werden. In einer grandiosen Ideenkonstruktion ist eine Entwickelungstheorie von den einfachsten Organismen bis herauf zu den komplizierten gegeben worden, und der Mensch ist an die Spitze der Tierwelt gestellt worden. Was begriff man vom Menschen? Man begriff vom Menschen dasjenige, was man äußerlich anschauen konnte durch bloße Sinneswahrnehmung.
[ 15 ] Hatte man in Frankreich im 18. Jahrhundert ausgedacht, daß der Mensch eine Maschine sei, so schaute man jetzt im 19. Jahrhundert den Menschen nur von außen an, und man drang eben nicht vor in das Innere des Menschen. Nur die Menschenhülle bot sich dar. Diese Menschenhülle aber steht an der Spitze des Tierreiches. Was diese Menschenhülle umschließt, das steht aber gar nicht an der Spitze des Tierreiches, sondern rührt aus ganz anderen Welten her, in die man keinen Einblick mehr hatte, weil nur die sinnliche Anschauung vorhanden war, zu der sich das alte Hellsehen entwickelt hatte, weil nur vorhanden war die Mathematik und Mechanik, zu der sich die alte Astronomie, die eine lebendige Geistwissenschaft war, entwickelt hatte. So konnte man durch die innere Wissenschaft den Menschen nur als Maschine konstruieren, so konnte man durch die äußere Wissenschaft den Menschen überhaupt nicht konstruieren, sondern nur seine Hülle, Der Mensch kam allmählich abhanden. Und heute hat man ja im Grunde auch kein Bewußtsein davon, wie weit man den Menschen gerade in der Erkenntnis verloren hat. Man anatomisiert die Tiere, man betreibt Physiologie der Tiere und überträgt dann das mit einigen Modifikationen auf den Menschen. Aber eine wirkliche Menschenerkenntnis hat das heutige Streben nicht. Der Mensch kann heute aus dem, was er gerade als höchste Autorität anerkennt, aus der Wissenschaft, kein Bewußtsein vom Menschen gewinnen. Unserem wissenschaftlichen Gesinntsein ist vorangegangen der Mensch als Maschine, ist vorangegangen das Begreifen der sinnlichen Außenwelt, innerhalb welcher der Mensch nicht gefunden werden kann.
[ 16 ] In einem der neueren Bücher - seitdem ist ja auch schon wieder ein neues erschienen; es wachsen sich zuletzt die Broschüren, welche die Anthroposophie heute widerlegen sollen, zu ganzen Büchern aus -, in dem vorletzten größeren Buch gegen die Anthroposophie finden wir, wie manches in der Anthroposophie erinnern soll an alte Mythologien. Ja, eigentlich liegt einem solchen Tun nur das zugrunde, daß der Betreffende eben so gar nicht die Anthroposophie versteht. Der Verfasser dieser Schrift ist ein Lizentiat der Theologie, ein sehr gelehrter Herr. Gelehrte Herren sind sie ja alle, das kann man immer als Refrain sagen, wenn man sich an die berühmte Rede in Shakespeares « Julius Cäsar» erinnert: Ehrenwerte Männer sind sie alle. - Gelehrte Herren sind sie ja alle, und dieser findet eben, weil er Anthroposophie so gar nicht versteht, etwas Übereinstimmendes mit alten Mythologien.
[ 17 ] Wir wissen, daß es sich bei Anthroposophie um ein vollbewußtes Erfassen der Welt handelt, um ein Erfassen der Welt, das mit solchem Bewußtsein geschieht, wie sonst nur in der Mathematik die Wirklichkeiten innerlich durchschaut werden, also daß es sich wahrhaftig nicht um mythologische Dichtungen handelt. Aber dennoch werden wir manchmal, indem unser Inneres in tiefer Weise erregt wird, gerade durch Anthroposophie aufmerksam gemacht auf das Sinnvolle alter Mythologien, alter mythologischer Anschauungen. Diese alten Mythologien sind durchaus nicht in dem Sinne Dichtung, wie heute etwas Dichtung ist, sondern sie sind aus den naiven Imaginationen, die aber einem gewissen Weltinhalte entsprechen, hervorgegangen. Nur gaben sie eben das, was dieser Weltinhalt in sich hatte, bildhaft. Und wenn man das tief Bedeutsame dieser Bilder auf sich wirken läßt, dann zeigt sich manchmal etwas ganz Wunderbares an Erkenntnissicherheit in diesen alten Bildern, und ich möchte heute gerade erinnern an ein altes indisches Gedicht, das an den Gott Varuna gerichtet ist, und das ich etwa in der folgenden Weise Ihnen geben möchte:
Varuna ist der Kraftende in allen Wesen.
Varuna ist es, der in den Wäldern die Luft ausgebreitet hat.
Varuna ist es, der in den schnellfüßigen Tieren die Schnelligkeit bewirkt.
Varuna ist es, der in den milchtragenden Kühen die Milch bewirkt.
Varuna ist es, der in dem menschlichen Herzen den Willen erregt.
Varuna ist es, der in den Wolkenwassern die Blitzesstrahlen erregt.
Varuna ist es, der am Himmelsgewölbe das Licht der Sonne scheinen läßt.
Varuna ist es, der auf dem Berg den Somatrank erzeugt.
[ 18 ] Wir finden in einer wunderbaren Weise in dieser Ansprache an Varuna dasjenige, was ich Ihnen gestern ausgeführt habe. Fassen wir zuerst, was sich aus den inneren Kräften der Erde in den Menschen hereinbegibt in seinen physischen und in seinen Ätherleib - so daß dann nur der Astralleib und das Ich in sein Bewußtsein heraufkommen können und es verändern -, fassen wir also auf, daß da die Erdenkräfte in das Bewußtsein hereinspielen und dasjenige bewirken, was im Inneren dann Schaukräfte wurden in alten Zeiten, was überhaupt das Innere des Menschen und der Erde belebte, so finden wir das Sinnvolle, indem zuerst hingedeutet wird, wie es Varuna, der Gott der Verwandlungen, ist, der den Wind, die Luft durch die Wälder, das heißt durch die wälderbedeckte Erde, streifen läßt, wie diese selbe kraftende Wesenheit, indem sie von der Erde aus durch die Tiere wirkt, die Geschwindigkeit in den Pferden bewirkt, wie sie bewirkt die Lebenssubstanz in den Wesen, die Milch geben, wie sie aber in dem Herzen des Menschen die Willensimpulse bewirkt, aus denen gerade dasjenige kam, was eben altes innerliches Hellsehen war. Wir haben, ich möchte sagen, in diesem Hindeuten etwas, was uns die Anschauungsweise der Hirten auf dem Felde verständlich macht. Und in dem, was nun kommt, haben wir das, was uns verständlich macht die besondere Anschauungsweise der Magier aus dem Morgenlande. Denn Varuna ist es, der in den Wolkenwassern das Blitzesfeuer erregen läßt — man sieht hinaus in den Makrokosmos und findet da draußen die Kräfte, die auf die Magierweise erkannt werden -, der am Himmel das Licht der Sonne erscheinen läßt, und der auf dem Berge den Somatrank erzeugt, das, was im Menschen so wirkt, daß er überschauen kann die Welt.
[ 19 ] Allerdings muß man da eine Anmerkung machen. Das Gedicht ist schon aus einer Zeit, in der nicht mehr die urälteste, reinste Anschauung vorhanden war in bezug auf die äußere Welt, in der man schon nicht mehr durch rein geistige Verrichtungen des Atmens, wie es in der alten Zeit üblich war, wo man nicht aus der Einatmung ersaugen wollte, was dann die Anschauung ergab der Weltenweiten, sondern wo man — und das wurde vielfach in den Spätmysterien gepflogen — durch einen gewissen Trank, den man aus Pflanzen bereitete, sich anregen wollte, nach außen zu schauen; so wie man dann später, als die innere Anschauung verlorengegangen war, durch Genießen von ganz bestimmten Substanzen innerlich sich anregen wollte. Im Orient wollte man sich durch gewisse Pflanzensäfte für die äußere Anschauung des Makrokosmos anregen. Im Abendlande kam es dann auf, daß man sich durch innere Substanzen anregen wollte. Im Morgenlande nannte man dasjenige, wodurch man wieder durch äußere Mittel, durch Einnehmen von etwas, die Fähigkeit heraufbeschwören wollte, die im letzten Reste durch den Magier erschienen war, den Somatrank. Im Abendlande, bis ins späte Mittelalter herein, ja noch bis in die neuere Zeit nannte man das, was man innerlich einnehmen wollte, um jene Weisheit zu bekommen, die innerliche Wahrnehmung hervorruft, den Stein der Weisen.
[ 20 ] Sie werden in den gebräuchlichen Büchern, die Sie über den Orientalismus unterrichten wollen, überall den Hinweis auf den Somatrank, auf den Somasaft finden. Allerlei sehr geistvolle Erklärungen finden sich darüber, weil die Menschen von der wirklichen Initiationsweisheit aus niemals darauf aufmerksam gemacht sind, was nun der Somatrank substantiell eigentlich ist. Ebenso werden Sie in allerlei historischen Büchern darauf hingewiesen, daß man ja nicht weiß, welche Substanz der Stein der Weisen ist. Allerdings habe ich auch nicht gerade vor, von diesen beiden Substanzen zu sprechen. Ich möchte nur auf das Humorvolle hindeuten, daß eine gewisse Gelehrsamkeit darauf hinweist, daß man nicht wissen könne, was eigentlich der Somasaft ist, trotzdem eine große Anzahl von Menschen diesen Somasaft, der, wie das hier-im Liede des Varuna mitgeteilt ist, auf dem Berge wächst, literweise trinken. Und so wird auch hingewiesen darauf, daß eine gewisse Substanz als der Stein der Weisen existiert, daß man nicht eigentlich wisse, was die gelehrten Alchimisten unter diesem Stein der Weisen verstehen, obwohl die Menschen auch der heutigen Zeit kiloweise diesen Stein der Weisen verbrennen. Es handelt sich nur darum, diese Dinge in dem richtigen Lichte zu sehen. Es ist ein Merkwürdiges, daß da eigentlich oftmals als etwas höchst Unbekanntes hingestellt wird, was den Menschen sehr bekannt ist, weil sie nicht wissen, wie der Zusammenhang ihrer heutigen Anschauungsweise ist mit dem, was Anschauungsweise einer verhältnismäßig kurz zurückliegenden Zeit ist.
[ 21 ] Aber das müssen wir uns eben durchaus klarmachen, daß wir im Grunde genommen heute mit den schlimmsten Brillen in die Welt sehen und die Bedeutung des Allernächsten trotz unserer wissenschaftlichen Ausbildung nicht kennen, nicht kennen die Wirkungen mancher Substanzen, die wir im alltäglichen Leben anwenden. Wir stehen in diesen Wirkungen drinnen, wir erleben sie. Aber ebenso wie heute die Gelehrsamkeit nicht weiß, was der Somatrank ist, wie sie nicht weiß, was der Stein der Weisen ist, trotzdem man nur wenige Menschen finden kann, die die betreffenden Substanzen nicht ganz gut kennen — sie wissen nur nicht, welche es sind —, ebensogut kann man sagen: Die Menschen von heute sehen, daß sich manches vollzieht in dem Verkehr zwischen den Banken und den Industrieunternehmungen, und die meisten Menschen schneiden ihre Coupons ab von den betreffenden Papieren, die sie bekommen, und sie wissen ebensowenig, was eigentlich das im ganzen sozialen Zusammenhang des Lebens bedeutet, wie sie auch das andere eben Angeführte nicht wissen. Unsere Anschauungsweise ist eben durchaus so, daß sie uns bebrillt, das heißt, mit Brillen versieht, so daß wir unsere alltäglichen Verrichtungen haben, ohne irgend etwas über den inneren Zusammenhang der Welt in Wirklichkeit zu erkennen.
[ 22 ] Es ist merkwürdig, wie die Menschen heute danach streben, innerhalb dieser an der Oberfläche schwimmenden Begriffe zu bleiben, wie sie nicht wollen untertauchen auf der einen Seite in ein neues Inneres, auftauchen auf der anderen Seite, aufstreben nach einem neuen äußeren Wissen. Aus dunklen Gefühlen ringt sich dem Menschen manchmal das heraus, was im Unbewußten die meisten Menschen eigentlich schon wollen, aber sie schrecken zurück vor dem Erheben dieses Wollens in das Bewußtsein.
[ 23 ] Mir hat einer unserer Freunde in diesen Tagen die «Rheinische Musik- und Theater-Zeitung» gegeben. Der erste Artikel dieser «Rheinischen Musik- und Theater-Zeitung» sagt etwas aus den speziellen Erlebnissen eines Musikers heraus, also aus der unmittelbaren Erfahrung in einem besonderen Falle des Lebens. Es ist außerordentlich interessant, was da jemand aus einem Spezialfall des Erlebens heraus niederschreibt. Ich will nur einige Sätze daraus lesen. Da lesen wir zum Beispiel: «Zu diesem inneren Problem der Musik kam nun mit der allgemeinen sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Umwälzung das äußere, das des neuen Publikums, welches ziemlich unvorbereitet an die Kunst herantritt. Welche Kunst hat bleibenden Wert, und wie bringt man die Kunst und das Volk zusammen? Das sind die beiden zur Zeit besonders wichtigen Fragen.»
[ 24 ] Man muß sagen, die meisten Menschen fühlen noch nicht einmal das Schwergewicht dieser Fragen; hier fühlt man wenigstens das Schwergewicht dieser Fragen, denn diese Fragen sind mit furchtbarem Gewichte lastend in der Welt da.
[ 25 ] «Viele, sehr viele Probleme würden besser und leichter gelöst werden, wenn der Musikerstand organisiert wäre. Noch aber fehlt uns die Musikerkammer, welche die gemeinsamen Interessen aller Fachmusiker vertreten könnte; noch sind nicht einmal die einzelnen Interessengruppen wirklich zusammengeschlossen.»
[ 26 ] Nun denkt der Betreffende nach über die betreffende Organisation. Er sagt nun: «Kaum einer der Verbände umfaßt alle Standesgenossen; am stärksten sind vielleicht der deutsche Musikerverband, der besonders die Orchestermusiker umfaßt, ferner die Organisationen der Musikalienhändler, die ja durch ihre wirtschaftlichen Ziele eine gemeinsame Basis haben. In weitem Abstand folgen dann die verschiedenen Gruppen der akademischen und nicht akademischen Musiklehrer, der Gesanglehrer an Schulen, der Organisten, Dirigenten und Kritiker, sowie der schaffenden und reproduzierenden Musiker. Eigenbrödelei und Rivalität haben hier manchen ferngehalten. Es fehlt noch viel, daß alle geistigen Berufsarbeiter die Notwendigkeit eines Zusammenschlusses erkennen. So kam es denn, daß die Herrschaft auf musikalischem Gebiet besonders für alle öffentlichen Fragen gar nicht von Fachleuten ausgeübt wird, die wissen, was nottut, sondern daß vor allem im großen Staatsplan wie in den engeren provinzialen Gemeindeverwaltungen Dilettanten dieses Amtes walten, heutzutage je nach Stärke der Parteien Politiker, die gewissermaßen nur nebenher die Kunst mitbetreuen, oft sicherlich mit gutem Willen, aber vielfach doch nicht mit der nötigen Sachkenntnis und Unvoreingenommenheit. So kam es, daß vor allem der Staat den berechtigten Forderungen der Musik gegenüber fast völlig versagt. Aber diese Erscheinung trifft nicht die Musik allein; sie ist typisch für alle kulturellen Angelegenheiten. Aus der Erkenntnis heraus, daß auch die wirtschaftlichen Fragen eines Volkes nicht von den bisher bestehenden, politisch orientierten Volksvertretungen sachlich behandelt werden können, wurde jüngst ein neuer «Wirtschaftsrat> gebildet. Bei zirka 400 Sitzen waren knapp drei für die Künste eingeräumt; so bescheiden taxierte man deren Bedeutung ein! Und wenn wir schon glauben, daß ein bis zwei Stimmen nicht ausreichen, um auch nur in rein wirtschaftlichen Fragen die Interessen des deutschen Musikerstandes zu vertreten, so müssen wir doch die Frageaufwerfen: wo werden überhaupt die kulturellen Interessen des Volkes beraten? Die bisherige Besprechung in den Parlamenten lehnen wir ab. Nicht ein einziger Fachmusiker sitzt unseres Wissens im Reichstag, und wären es ihrer zehn und zwanzig, so könnten sie doch nichts ausrichten, wo man nach Parteigesichtspunkten redet und stimmt.
[ 27 ] So bleibt nur ein Weg, der logisch und klar ist, und deshalb eines Tages auch beschritten werden wird zum Heil unseres ganzen Volkes. Wir brauchen neben dem politischen Parlament, welches die rechtliche Stellung des Einzelnen gegenüber der Gesamtheit und des gesamten Volkes gegenüber der internationalen Welt verwaltet, und neben dem Wirtschaftsrat, der die materiellen Grundlagen des Volkslebens betreuen soll, einen Kulturrat, der sich der geistigen Dinge annimmt und deren Förderung zur Aufgabe hat.
[ 28 ] Der Gedanke dieser Dreigliederung ist nicht neu. Er wurde aber jüngst erst auf eine präzise Formel gebracht durch Dr. Rudolf Steiner und wird nun von der Geschäftsstelle eines Bundes <«Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus Stuttgart, Champignystraße 17, propagiert, von der jedermann weiteres Material zu der Frage erhalten kann.
[ 29 ] Wer sich einmal in die Sache hineingedacht hat, wird von dem Gedanken schwerlich wieder freikommen, so eindeutig ist er, und so sicher löst er die Probleme, mit denen wir uns seit langer Zeit hoffnungslos herumschlagen. Die Durchführung wird und muß unser ganzes Volksleben zur Gesundung führen!»
[ 30 ] Ich lese Ihnen das aus dem Grunde vor, weil Sie hier aus einem ganz einzelnen Fach heraus die Sehnsucht nach der Dreigliederung haben. Nun, da kommen diejenigen, die eben hier abgelehnt werden müssen, die eigentlich nur eine äußere politische Erziehung haben und finden, diese Dreigliederung sei eine Utopie. Nein, sie ist keine Utopie, sie ist gerade aus der innersten Empfindung jedes einzelnen Faches heraus genommen. Und jeder einzelne, der in einem ganz bestimmten Fache, in einem ganz bestimmten Gebiet drinnensteht, wie hier derjenige, der den Artikel geschrieben hat — es ist der Herausgeber der Zeitung; eine Seltenheit, daß Zeitungsherausgeber heute in einer solchen Weise schreiben -, jeder einzelne, der in einem bestimmten, konkreten Fall drinnensteht, kann empfinden, wie gerade das praktischste Betrachten des Lebens dazu führt, zuletzt sich sagen zu müssen: «Wer sich einmal in die Sache hineingedacht hat, wird von dem Gedanken schwerlich wieder freikommen, so eindeutig ist er, und so sicher löst er die Probleme, mit denen wir uns seit langer Zeit hoffnungslos herumschlagen. Die Durchführung wird und muß unser ganzes Volksleben zur Gesundung führen!»
[ 31 ] Nun, was hier bezeichnet wird als ein Element, das besonders begründet werden müsse, ein Kulturrat: es war in diesem Mai ein Jahr, daß der Kulturrat begründet worden ist. Und dieser Kulturrat, er ist verglommen, er ist heute vergessen. Am wenigsten verstanden ihn diejenigen, die irgendwie gerade im wissenschaftlichen oder künstlerischen Leben in Amt und Würden drinnenstanden.
[ 32 ] Das ist, was immer mehr und mehr betont werden muß: daß wir es gar sehr nötig haben, heute die Dinge außerordentlich ernst zu nehmen! Die Menschen finden es unbequem, dieses Ernstnehmen. Sie möchten immer wieder und wiederum glauben, es werde schon im alten Trott weitergehen. Nein, es wird nicht im alten Trott weitergehen! Wenn so weitergelebt wird, wie gelebt wird ohne die Anregungen, die aus der geistigen Welt heraus kommen, dann kann weiter Industrie getrieben werden, es können Banken da sein, es können Universitäten da sein, auf denen alle möglichen Wissenschaften gelehrt werden, es können die anderen Berufe weiter ausgeführt werden - alles führt in die Dekadenz, in die Barbarei, in den Untergang der Zivilisation hinein. Wer nicht ins unmittelbare Leben dasjenige hineinstellen will, was aus Geisteswissenschaft kommen kann, der will im Grunde genommen nicht den Aufstieg, der will den Niedergang. Und die Mehrzahl der Menschen will heute den Niedergang und lügt sich nur vor, daß aus dem Niedergang noch ein Aufgang kommen könne.
[ 33 ] Das ist es, was ich insbesondere von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten her gelegentlich dieses Weihnachtsfestes hier besonders betonen wollte. Lassen Sie doch die anderen Leute weiter im alten Sinne jene gewohnten Gänge machen, die immer in der neueren Zeit wie eine große Lebenslüge gemacht worden sind! Mir trat diese Lebenslüge entgegen, als ich ein junger Mensch war. In bezug auf das Leben, auf die Wirklichkeit, auf die Wahrheit des Lebens, verstand ich mich sehr wohl auf das Allerinternationalste und auf alles das, was wahrhaftig nicht zusammenhängt mit der Sympathie oder Antipathie für irgendeine Menschenrasse, denn ich war lange Zeit, viele Jahre, Erzieher in einem jüdischen Hause. Jedes Jahr aber, wenn die Weihnachtszeit herankam, da machte sich die ganze Verwandtschaft, entfernte und nahe Verwandte, alle machten sich auf die Strümpfe — und es waren alle durchaus solche, die dem Judentum angehörten -, um die Weihnachtsgeschenke zu kaufen, um zuletzt den Weihnachtsbaum einzukaufen. Und alles das wurde getan, gerade so wie es die andere Bevölkerung, die sich christlich nennt, auch tut. Alles das wurde getan zu Ehren dessen, was man mit dem Satze verehrt: «Uns ist heute der Heiland geboren!» So sehr sind die Dinge zur Phrase geworden. Man will sich nur nicht gestehen, wie sehr die Dinge zur Phrase geworden sind, wie sie aufhörten, Inhalt zu haben! Es ist heute und es ist seit lange schon ganz gleichgültig, ob derjenige, der einen lebendigen Herzensinhalt mit dem Heiland verbindet, zum Weihnachtsbaume sich setzt und Geschenke darunterlegt, oder ob einer, der in einem Diktum verharrt, das den Heiland ablehnt, ob der sich unter den Weihnachtsbaum setzt und Geschenke darunter verteilt! An solchen Dingen muß man das real gewordene Lügen der Menschheit, die real gewordene Phrase in unserer Zivilisation durchschauen. Im Ernste muß man die Dinge durchschauen. Es handelt sich heute nicht darum, etwa zu sagen: Man darf nicht in dieser Weise radikal sein! — denn Nicht-radikalSein in dieser Beziehung bedeutet Mitmachen mit dem Hineinsegeln in den Niedergang der Menschheit. Das ist es, was ich gerade an diesem Weihnachtsfeste zur Sprache bringen wollte innerhalb desjenigen Gebietes, in dem nun wahrhaftig gar nichts im alten Stile da ist. Sie finden nichts von alten Baustilen in unserer Architektur hier am Goetheanum. Sie finden in dem, was sonst in diesem Goetheanum ist, schließlich auch nichts von dem, was vertreten wurde von den alten Gewohnheiten. Deshalb haßt man dieses Goetheanum auf vielen Seiten so, weil eben nichts von den alten Gewohnheiten da ist. Aber es darf auch nichts da sein, denn es muß heute wenigstens eine Stätte geben — wenn man sie auch noch so sehr haßt, wenn man auch ihren Untergang wünscht -, es muß eine Stätte geben, die aufmerksam macht auf das, was der Menschheit heute notwendig ist.
[ 34 ] Das Goetheanum enthält nichts von Altem. Dasjenige, was sichtlich die Wissenschaft des Goetheanismus ist, die hier gepflegt wird, die enthält wohl kaum irgend etwas von dem, was alt ist. Wenn wir irgend etwas für das praktische Leben begründen - das Echo, das ihm entgegenkommt, zeigt schon, daß es auch nicht gerade im alten Stil ist. Nun, ob in den Lebensgewohnheiten aller anthroposophischen Freunde auch schon alles Alte überwunden ist, darüber schweigt des anthroposophischen Vortragenden Höflichkeit. Aber den Wunsch möchte er aussprechen, daß immer mehr und mehr einlaufen mögen auch unsere Gewohnheiten, bis hinunter in unser Kinderbehandeln, in dasjenige, was wir als eine Notwendigkeit für die Menschheitsentwickelung erkennen.
[ 35 ] Das Jahr, das wir beginnen mit diesem Weihnachtsfeste, es wird für unsere anthroposophische Entwickelung kein leichtes Jahr sein; es wird ein schwieriges Jahr sein. Was uns entgegentritt, wird nicht an Kraft abnehmen, es wird an Kraft immer zunehmen. Denn diejenigen Mächte, die ein Interesse daran haben, Anthroposophie zu ruinieren, die sind sehr tätig, die sind sehr wach, wie ich oftmals gesagt habe. Und an eines möchte ich heute gerade erinnern: hier an diesem Orte stand, als in Dornach das «Futurum» begründet werden sollte, unser lieber Freund Herr Molt und sprach von dem, was ja auch ins praktische Leben einziehen sollte. Er hatte gewiß in jedem Worte recht. Ich ergriff hinterher das Wort und sagte, es wäre mir nicht bange um alles das, was man braucht, um anthroposophische Gedanken und Ideen und Empfindungen zu verkörpern in äußeren praktischen Einrichtungen; nur um das eine sei mir bange — so sagte ich dazumal -, ob wir auch eine genügend große Anzahl von Menschen finden, welche Tüchtigkeit an den Tag zu legen vermögen, um so etwas durchzuführen.
[ 36 ] Das ist gar sehr notwendig, daß wir immer anstreben, die tüchtigen Menschen in der Welt zusammenzubringen, welche die Fähigkeiten entwickeln können, das, was Anthroposophie sein kann, wirklich auch praktisch zu machen, denn die neueren Jahrhunderte haben nicht nur das menschliche Wissen etwa stumpf gemacht, sie haben tatsächlich auch die praktischen, die eigentlich wirklich praktischen Fähigkeiten der Menschen zurückgedrängt. Und notwendig ist es, daß die Menschen versuchen, aus den tiefsten Untergründen ihres Wesens — denn da hat jeder Mensch die Kräfte, welche nötig sind — wirklich diese Kräfte hervorzuholen. Wir brauchen eine solche Erneuerung auch der äußeren praktischen Kräfte der Menschheit aus des Menschen tiefstem Inneren heraus. Diese Geburt sollte uns vorschweben: die Geburt eines Tüchtigen, das aus dem Inneren des Menschen heraus will, gegenüber dem Untüchtigen, das wir heute in der Außenwelt lernen können. Diese Geburt, sie sollte uns vorschweben bei alldem, was wir als die Weihnachtsstimmung empfinden.
[ 37 ] Nehmen Sie auch in der Wissenschaft die Dinge, wo sie auftreten. Eine jüngere medizinisch studierende Persönlichkeit war vor einigen Tagen bei mir und sprach sich über verschiedene Nöte ihres Studiums aus. Ich konnte nur sagen: Das Schlimmste, was gegenwärtig geschieht, ist, daß gerade an den wichtigsten Wissenschaften die menschlichen Denkkräfte gar nicht entwickelt werden. Man nehme heute irgendein therapeutisches oder ein pathologisches Buch in die Hand: sehr häufig hat man Herzorgane, Lunge, Verdauungsorganismus und so weiter alles nebeneinander aufgestapelt nach äußerer sinnlicher Anschauung, möglichst mit Ausschaltung des Denkens. Und kommt man mit irgendwelchem Denken, dann passiert einem das, was mir eben passiert ist in dem Buche von Kurt Leese, dem Lizentiaten der Theologie. Er sagt einem: Die Lektüre der Steinerschen Schriften sei ärgerlich und unleidlich, denn der komme mit Gedanken, welche von der Dreigliederung des Menschen sprechen, und da solle man sich vorstellen, daß nun die drei Glieder nicht nebeneinander sind, sondern ineinander. — Das ist ein Gedanken-Bravourstück, meint der Lizentiat der Theologie, Kurt Leese.
[ 38 ] Wer heute an unseren Universitäten Lizentiat der Theologie wird, dem hat das Studium gerade das Denken gründlich ausgetrieben! Und dann findet er aufreizend und unleidlich, wenn man von ihm verlangt, er solle denken; dann findet er gerade das am allerunbequemsten. Aber dann kommt es eben dahin, daß alles, was aus dem Innersten des Menschen hervorquillt, zum Beispiel auch die Wahrhaftigkeit, selbst innerhalb der Führer des Christentums so auftritt, wie zum Beispiel bei jenem Pfarrer, der nicht etwa sagt, irgendein Betrunkener habe ihm erzählt, daß da eine Statue von Christus gemacht wird, der oben wie er es als bestimmte Tatsache hinstellt — luziferische Züge und unten tierische Merkmale hat, sondern er stellt es hin als etwas, was er gewiß weiß. Also er stellt eine ganz objektive Lüge in ein Buch hinein, durch das er die Anthroposophie charakterisieren will. Und die Menschen nehmen solche Dinge hin, ohne sie zu monieren, ohne sich dagegen aufzulehnen. Glauben Sie, daß irgendeine soziale Gesundung eintreten kann, wenn nebenbei in der sozialen Ordnung diese Dinge möglich sind? Wenn Sie das glauben, geben Sie sich einer falschen Hoffnung hin. Notwendig ist, daß der Mensch seine gesunden Sinne entwickelt für das, was moralisches Unkraut ist. Es kommt gar nicht darauf an, ob Anthroposophie angegriffen ist oder nicht, sondern es kommt darauf an, daß da ein Buch auftritt, in dem nicht eine, sondern eine ganze Anzahl solcher Unwahrheiten drinnenstehen. Wer solche Unwahrheiten in diesem Buche schreibt, schreibt sie selbstverständlich auch in seinen anderen. Das ist Gewohnheit. Und das lebt im Grunde genommen in dem, was an die Jugend herangebracht wird. Das muß ins Auge gefaßt werden. Es darf nicht versäumt werden, auf das hinzuschauen.
[ 39 ] Denn schließlich, wenn uns heute das Kind, das in der Krippe lag, etwas zu sagen hat, so ist es das: Es ist eine gesundende Erneuerung des Tiefsten notwendig, was im Menscheninneren lebt. Wir müssen zu einer neuen Verkündigung dessen kommen, was auf der einen Seite den armen Hirten auf dem Felde, auf der anderen Seite den weisen Magiern aus dem Morgenlande verkündet worden ist. Wir müssen aus dem Fundamente heraus verstehen können, was wirklich das Heilende, das Heilandartige in der menschlichen Entwickelung ist. Dann erst sind wir würdig, zu sagen: Uns ist der Heiland geboren. — Das haben wir nötig. Auf das wollte ich noch einmal hinweisen, bevor wir für eine ganz kurze Zeit die Vorträge hier unterbrechen müssen.

Sixteenth Lecture
[ 1 ] Let us recall some of the facts that have been the subject of our consideration in recent days. I have pointed out the significant fact that in the account of the mystery of Golgotha, on the one hand we find the shepherds with their proclamation, that is, people of simple mind, and on the other hand the magi from the East, who according to the understanding of that time were people who had ascended to the highest wisdom that could be attained. The mystery was revealed to the magi through the stars and the secrets that humanity had gleaned from them. It was revealed to the uneducated, simple shepherds through what could still emerge from pious hearts at that time as a kind of clairvoyance. In this, I explained, we are referred to the last remnants of ancient views of humanity, which in much earlier times were, so to speak, the normal views of humanity, and which, at the time when the mystery of Golgotha occurred, still appeared in their last remnants among select people of one kind, the learned kind, or also among select people of the uneducated kind. So one can say that at the time when the last remnants of the old view of humanity still existed in individual human beings, just enough to grasp the supersensible nature of the event of Golgotha, this event of Golgotha also took place on earth.
[ 2 ] Now let us characterize once again how these types of knowledge are in human beings. On the one hand, we have the shepherds. They experience what is happening in the human world through inner, naive, instinctive visions. Such inner visions — as I have pointed out to you — originate from the forces of the Earth planet working within human beings. These forces of the Earth do not only work in the lower realms, but also in human beings. The newer humanity, especially the humanity of the present, no longer experiences these earthly forces directly within itself, which rise, as it were, from the Earth and then appear in visions within the human being. But the further back we go in the development of humanity, the more we find such visions appearing within human beings, which differ in their entire configuration, in their particular nature, according to the different climates, according to the different regions of the earth, and so on. What can be discovered externally is often deceptive, however, because people in earlier times were not entirely settled. Whatever inner powers of perception they acquired through the forces of the earth, they developed in some territory of the earth, then moved to other territories through migrations of peoples and tribes, and then passed these on through heredity. So we cannot always say that what appeared as inner visions was directly related to the territory in which it appeared through human beings.
[ 3 ] Just as the animal world of a particular part of the earth has a very specific configuration — in animals this is expressed more in their external growth, in their external form, in their way of life — so, when human beings were still closer to the forces of nature, they had a connection in their inner configuration with what are the inner forces of the earth. However, these inner forces of the earth are not entirely independent of the forces of the universe. In their lives between birth and death, human beings are devoted to these earthly forces. They are devoted to them in relation to certain members of their human being, in relation to the physical body, in relation to the etheric body. Not in relation to the astral body and the I, but in relation to the physical body and the etheric body, human beings are completely devoted to the forces of the earth. I would say that human beings are devoted to what is active down there in the earthly realm with their physical body and their etheric body. And since in earlier times humanity was much more dependent on the physical and etheric bodies than it is today, what is active in human beings as the effects of the earth was also expressed more in human consciousness, and this conveyed to human beings a certain instinctive activity of the mind in relation to the knowledge of the human world itself, in relation to the knowledge of the Earth as a planet, but also in relation to the knowledge of the animal world.
[ 4 ] In ancient times, people learned about the animal world by having a certain image, a certain imagination of each animal species. We have retained from this imagination that the ancients had of animal species only the abstract concept of species. We speak of the species or genus of wolves, tigers, cats, and so on. These are the last abstract remnants of what existed in ancient times as living images, what existed in perception, in instinctive perception. Similarly, in ancient times, human beings did not have the abstract feeling we have today toward our fellow human beings, whom we pass by without really getting to know them; but through what lived within people in the way described above, when people encountered one another, they received a certain image, a perception of their fellow human beings, which was determined by their shared karma, by their shared destiny, but was nevertheless a definite image, which appeared very concretely as naive imagination.
[ 5 ] Likewise, something lived in this primitive humanity that concerned the entire planet Earth, or at least, for many peoples, the territories in which they lived. This was an inner contemplation of the Earth, even of the processes in the human world that played out in social life, and also of the processes in the animal world. Our ordinary sensory perception then developed from this inner contemplation. One could say that what filled the whole human being inwardly, the inner perception, the forming of visions, has in recent times been projected by human beings entirely onto the surface of the senses, and this has become our perception, as we worship it today, especially in scientific observation, where we only want to accept what the intellect combines from the perceptions of the senses. This sensory perception, this perception with which we today survey the sensory tapestry, is the descendant of what confronts us when we study the ancient times of human development in reality, not with the fantasies of today's psychology or anthropology. What confronted us in ancient times as inner vision has now become our outer vision.

[ 6 ] The other thing that now characterizes us, which comes from the knowledge of the magi from the East, has become abstract. It is what has now taken the opposite path. While inner vision has come to the surface and become sensory perception, outer vision, which was expressed in the imaginative, instinctive-imaginative knowledge of the starry world and its mysteries — which was expressed in the ancient form of astronomy, which, however, also used numbers and geometrized figures in order to use this Platonic expression — this perception, which saw a kind of living mathematics realized in the universe, in which every star was at the same time a spiritual being, took the opposite path (see drawing). The other view went to the surface of the senses and became what we today call our external perception, our empiricism. But what was external perception went into the inner being of man and became abstract mathematics, abstract mechanics or phoronomy, everything that rises from our inner being as mathematical-mechanical knowledge.
[ 7 ] Thus, in what today approaches human beings on the one hand as sensory perception and on the other as a mathematical-mechanical construction of the world, we have the legacies, the abstract legacies of the ancient, instinctive perceptions of humanity. Although this is inaccessible to external anthropology, the last remnants of old perceptions have essentially disappeared since the mystery of Golgotha. For the majority of the earth's population, they had disappeared much earlier, for we must go back to very, very early millennia, to the millennia before what then became Egyptian-Chaldean, Greek culture and so on originated in the highlands of Turan, if we really want to get to know these ancient ways of perception of humanity. But the last remnants still confront us in the Christian tradition through the view of the shepherds, who learn about an important event in human history through instinctive imaginative clairvoyance, and through the view of the magi from the East, who see the same thing through their knowledge of the stars.
[ 8 ] These ancient ways of seeing are conveyed to us in their last remnants as a clear sign within human evolution. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the newer way of seeing things has spread more and more, which, incidentally, was already being prepared in Greek culture, because things do not come together abruptly, but prepare themselves and glow. What has become so intense only in the most recent times, what has been particularly evident in human development since the middle of the 15th century and what only reached its peak in the 19th century, but had already become clear in the 18th century, especially in Western Europe, was prepared in Greek culture. It consists in the fact that the old spiritual view of the heavens has become abstract mathematics and mechanics, so that we view the heavens in the Galilean-Keplerian sense, as if they were comprehensible as mere objects of mathematics and mechanics, and that we must limit what we call perceptions to what the senses alone convey to us, that the power of perception of the whole human being, which was instinctively present in primeval times, has become inactive.
[ 9 ] We have often said that humanity must return to developing visions. What arises internally as mathematics and mechanics must in turn be developed into imagination. What can only be applied to the sensory tapestry from outside, otherwise leading to speculation and all kinds of mechanical theories about sensory processes, talking about all kinds of wave vibrations or the like, must in turn be subjected to the visions of inspiration. In this way, humanity will once again find the connection to its actual origin, to the spiritual, which is, after all, the very essence of the human being. So, as the last remnants, we have preserved from these ancient times the mathematical view and that which is external sensory perception. And what has come up with this in the development of humanity?
[ 10 ] Let us take a look at the 18th century. Let us go back to the English philosopher Locke, who had such a great influence on the development of the sciences. Here we find Locke pointing out that the only possible knowledge is that which is initially conveyed through the senses. Only sensory perception could be combined mathematically because, especially in the West (the East always resisted this), only external sensory perception was preserved, and internal perception became merely abstract and mathematical.
[ 11 ] In France in the 18th century, attempts were made to understand human beings and to answer the question: What is man actually? — People wanted to understand human beings through what they themselves were capable of achieving in terms of cognitive power. This gave rise to works such as “Man a Machine” by de LaMettrie. This did not arise from the mere whim of one person, but from a world-historical necessity of human development. The equivalent in ancient times would have been that, from all the knowledge that ancient astronomy had gained about celestial phenomena, people would have understood humans from the entire macrocosm; that, using qualitative mathematics, which is nothing other than ancient astronomy, or astrology if you will, people would have understood humans from this. Human beings would then have been understood in concrete terms, if not with our conscious faculty of cognition, then at least with the instinctive faculty of cognition of the ancients.
[ 12 ] What remains of this? In the universe, one imagined only purely abstract mathematical lines and forces, as one can grasp them abstractly within oneself. People wanted to imagine human beings as machines. A spiritual work that basically only wants to imagine human beings according to mathematical-mechanical forces continued to haunt the 19th century and flooded all scientific views. At most, people rebelled against it theoretically. People said: Yes, that can't be true, there must be something else at work in human beings. — But they did not apply anything else, even though they admitted theoretically and philosophically that it could not be as described in the work “Man is a Machine.” No other forces were applied to understand man than those which are basically applied to machines. Human beings had to go through the development of the spirit, which is spirit in the most abstract sense, but because it is only spirit in the abstract sense, it can only comprehend the mechanical-mineral. Only in this way did humans gain consciousness of freedom. No matter how tumultuous the urge for freedom may have appeared in Western Europe in the 18th century, there is an inner connection between that poor understanding of human beings expressed in “Man a Machine” and the urge for human freedom as expressed in the French Revolution. On the one hand, there is the worst decadence of knowledge derived from inner forces; on the other, the intense demand for human dignity in freedom.
[ 13 ] The other, the view that man cherished within himself, was driven into the senses and faded away until it was no longer visible to the external senses. Nothing remained of what leads man to man in perception; only feeling remained as a social driving force. And in the 19th century, particularly in Central Europe, and in the West as early as the 18th century, personalities emerged — in the West Dapuis, in Central Europe then such minds as Ludwig Feuerbach and others — who, in the peculiar way in the way that everything of this kind was then understood in Central Europe, who remembered that in the course of its development, humanity had looked out into the macrocosm and seen spiritual beings, gods, or ultimately God. But then the strong instinct arose: when I look out into the external world, all I have is the sensory tapestry, all I have is what is given to sensory perception. What has been handed down, what was once seen shining from the stars, which are also sensory things at first, that which has been given as the spiritual content of the mineral and plant worlds, that, it was said, humans have imagined, that is all anthropomorphism, that is what humans have transferred from their imagination into the external world. It was not the gods who created human beings; human beings created the gods out of their soul nature. Dupuis first, then people like Ludwig Feuerbach in the middle of the 19th century, presented this to human beings.
[ 14 ] On the other hand, minds such as Darwin and those who thought similarly strongly asserted that humans have only external sensory perception as their means of perception. They founded doctrines in which only this external sensory perception was to exist. And then it became apparent that human beings cannot be understood through these doctrines. In a grandiose construction of ideas, a theory of evolution was presented, from the simplest organisms up to the most complex, and human beings were placed at the top of the animal world. What did people understand about human beings? They understood what they could see externally through mere sensory perception.
[ 15 ] If in France in the 18th century it had been thought that man was a machine, then in the 19th century man was viewed only from the outside, and no one penetrated into his inner being. Only the human shell presented itself. But this human shell stands at the top of the animal kingdom. What this human shell encloses, however, is not at all at the top of the animal kingdom, but comes from completely different worlds into which people no longer had any insight, because only sensory perception was available, which had developed into the old clairvoyance, because only mathematics and mechanics were available, which had developed from the old astronomy, which was a living spiritual science. Thus, through inner science, man could only be constructed as a machine; through outer science, man could not be constructed at all, only his shell. Man gradually became lost. And today, we are basically unaware of how far we have lost man in our knowledge. Animals are dissected, animal physiology is studied, and then this is transferred to humans with a few modifications. But today's endeavors do not have any real knowledge of the human being. Today, humans cannot gain any awareness of themselves from what they currently recognize as the highest authority, from science. Our scientific mindset was preceded by the idea of man as a machine, by the understanding of the sensory external world within which man cannot be found.
[ 16 ] In one of the more recent books — since then a new one has already appeared; the pamphlets intended to refute anthroposophy today are growing into whole books — in the penultimate major book against anthroposophy, we find how much in anthroposophy is supposed to remind us of ancient mythology. Yes, actually, the only reason for such an approach is that the person concerned simply does not understand anthroposophy at all. The author of this work is a licentiate of theology, a very learned gentleman. They are all learned gentlemen, one can always say that as a refrain, remembering the famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: “They are all honorable men.” They are all learned gentlemen, and this one, precisely because he does not understand anthroposophy at all, finds something in it that agrees with ancient mythology.
[ 17 ] We know that anthroposophy is a fully conscious understanding of the world, an understanding of the world that occurs with the same consciousness with which realities are otherwise only seen inwardly in mathematics, so that it is truly not a matter of mythological poetry. Nevertheless, when our inner being is deeply stirred, anthroposophy sometimes draws our attention to the meaningfulness of ancient mythology and ancient mythological views. These ancient mythologies are by no means fiction in the modern sense of the word, but have emerged from naive imaginings that nevertheless correspond to a certain world content. They simply gave pictorial form to what this world content contained within itself. And when one allows the deep meaning of these images to sink in, something quite wonderful sometimes emerges in these ancient images in terms of certainty of knowledge, and today I would like to recall an ancient Indian poem addressed to the god Varuna, which I would like to give you in the following way:
Varuna is the power in all beings.
Varuna is the one who spread the air in the forests.
Varuna is the one who causes swiftness in swift-footed animals.
Varuna is the one who causes milk in milk-bearing cows.
Varuna is the one who stirs the will in the human heart.
Varuna is the one who stirs the lightning bolts in the cloud waters.
Varuna is the one who causes the light of the sun to shine in the vault of heaven.
Varuna is the one who produces the somatrank on the mountain.
[ 18 ] In this address to Varuna, we find in a wonderful way what I explained to you yesterday. Let us first grasp what enters into the human being from the inner forces of the earth into his physical and etheric bodies — so that then only the astral body and the I can rise up into his consciousness and transform it — let us grasp, then, that the forces of the earth play into the consciousness and bring about what in ancient times became the powers of vision within the human being, which animated the inner life of human beings and the earth in general. We find meaning in this when we first consider how Varuna, the god of transformation, allows the wind and air to sweep through the forests, that is, through the forest-covered earth, and how this same powerful being, working from the earth through the animals, causes speed in horses, how it produces the life substance in beings that give milk, but how it also produces in the human heart the impulses of the will, from which came precisely that which was ancient inner clairvoyance. I would say that in this indication we have something that makes the view of the shepherds in the field understandable to us. And in what now follows, we have what makes the special view of the magicians from the East understandable to us. For it is Varuna who causes the lightning fire in the waters of the clouds — one looks out into the macrocosm and finds there the forces that are recognized by the magicians — who causes the light of the sun to appear in the sky, and who produces the somatrank on the mountain, that which works in man so that he can see the world.
[ 19 ] However, a comment must be made here. The poem dates from a time when the most ancient, purest view of the external world no longer existed, when people no longer sought to gain insight into the vastness of the world through purely spiritual acts of breathing, as was customary in ancient times, when they did not want to suck in the air they breathed in, but where people — and this was often practiced in the late mysteries — wanted to stimulate themselves to look outward through a certain drink prepared from plants, just as later, when inner perception had been lost, people wanted to stimulate themselves inwardly by enjoying very specific substances. In the East, people sought to stimulate their external perception of the macrocosm through certain plant juices. In the West, it then became fashionable to seek stimulation through internal substances. In the East, the substance through which people sought to reawaken, by external means, through ingestion, the ability that had appeared in the last remnants through the magician, was called the somatic drink. In the West, until the late Middle Ages and even into modern times, what people wanted to ingest in order to attain the wisdom that brings about inner perception was called the philosopher's stone.
[ 20 ] In the standard books you use to teach Orientalism, you will find references to somatrank, to somasaft, everywhere. All kinds of very clever explanations are given for this, because people have never been made aware of what somatrank actually is in terms of real initiatory wisdom. Similarly, all kinds of historical books point out that no one knows what substance the philosopher's stone is made of. However, I do not intend to talk about these two substances. I would just like to point out the humorous fact that a certain erudition indicates that one cannot know what the soma juice actually is, even though a large number of people drink this soma juice, which, as is stated here in the song of Varuna, grows on the mountain, by the liter. And so it is also pointed out that a certain substance exists as the philosopher's stone, that one does not actually know what the learned alchemists understand by this philosopher's stone, even though people today burn this philosopher's stone by the kilo. It is simply a matter of seeing these things in the right light. It is strange that something that is very familiar to people is often presented as something highly unknown because they do not know how their present way of looking at things is connected with the way of looking at things in a relatively recent past.
[ 21 ] But we must make it clear to ourselves that, basically, we are looking at the world today through the worst possible glasses and, despite our scientific education, we do not know the meaning of what is closest to us, we do not know the effects of many substances that we use in everyday life. We are immersed in these effects; we experience them. But just as today's scholars do not know what somatrank is, just as they do not know what the philosopher's stone is, even though there are only a few people who are not quite familiar with the substances in question—they just do not know what they are—so too can we say: People today see that certain things are happening in the transactions between banks and industrial enterprises, and most people cut the coupons off the relevant papers they receive, and they know as little about what this actually means in the overall social context of life as they know about the other things just mentioned. Our way of looking at things is such that it blinds us, that is, it puts glasses on us, so that we go about our daily business without really recognizing anything about the inner connections of the world.
[ 22 ] It is strange how people today strive to remain within these concepts floating on the surface, how they do not want to dive down into a new inner world on the one hand, or emerge on the other, striving for new external knowledge. Dark feelings sometimes wrest from people what most people actually already want in their unconscious, but they shy away from raising this desire into consciousness.
[ 23 ] One of our friends gave me the Rheinische Musik- und Theater-Zeitung newspaper the other day. The first article in this Rheinische Musik- und Theater-Zeitung reports on the specific experiences of a musician, that is, on his immediate experience in a particular situation in life. It is extremely interesting to read what someone writes about a special experience. I would like to read just a few sentences from it. For example, we read: “Added to this internal problem of music was the external problem of the general social and economic upheaval and the new audience, which approached art quite unprepared. Which art has lasting value, and how can art and the people be brought together? These are the two particularly important questions at the moment.”
[ 24 ] It must be said that most people do not even feel the weight of these questions; here, at least, one feels the weight of these questions, for these questions weigh terribly heavily on the world.
[ 25 ] “Many, very many problems would be solved better and more easily if the musical profession were organized. But we still lack a chamber of musicians that could represent the common interests of all professional musicians; not even the individual interest groups are really united yet.”
[ 26 ] Now the person concerned thinks about the organization in question. He now says: "Hardly any of the associations include all members of the profession; perhaps the strongest are the German Musicians' Association, which mainly includes orchestra musicians, and the organizations of music dealers, which have a common basis due to their economic goals. Far behind them come the various groups of academic and non-academic music teachers, school singing teachers, organists, conductors, and critics, as well as creative and performing musicians. Individualism and rivalry have kept many away. There is still a long way to go before all intellectual professionals recognize the need for unity. As a result, authority in the field of music, especially in all public matters, is not exercised by experts who know what is needed, but rather, especially in the larger state administration and in the smaller provincial municipal administrations, by amateurs who, depending on the strength of the parties, are politicians who who, in a sense, are only involved in the arts as a sideline, often with good intentions, but in many cases without the necessary expertise and impartiality. Thus it has come about that the state, in particular, has almost completely failed to meet the justified demands of music. But this phenomenon does not affect music alone; it is typical of all cultural affairs. Recognizing that the economic issues of a people cannot be dealt with objectively by the existing politically oriented representatives of the people, a new “Economic Council” was recently formed. With approximately 400 seats, just under three were allocated to the arts; that is how modestly their importance was assessed! And if we believe that one or two votes are not enough to represent the interests of German musicians, even in purely economic matters, then we must ask the question: where are the cultural interests of the people discussed at all? We reject the discussions that have taken place in parliaments to date. To our knowledge, there is not a single professional musician in the Reichstag, and even if there were ten or twenty, they would be powerless to achieve anything where people speak and vote according to party lines.
[ 27 ] This leaves only one path that is logical and clear, and which will therefore one day be taken for the good of our entire people. In addition to the political parliament, which administers the legal position of the individual vis-à-vis the community and of the entire people vis-à-vis the international world, and in addition to the economic council, which is responsible for the material foundations of the life of the people, we need a cultural council that takes care of spiritual matters and has the task of promoting them.
[ 28 ] The idea of this threefold division is not new. However, it was only recently formulated precisely by Dr. Rudolf Steiner and is now being propagated by the office of a federal association, “Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus” (Threefold Social Order), located at Champignystraße 17 in Stuttgart, from which anyone can obtain further material on the subject.
[ 29 ] Once you have thought about it, it is difficult to shake off the idea, so clear is it and so surely does it solve the problems with which we have been hopelessly struggling for so long. Its implementation will and must lead to the recovery of our entire national life!
[ 30 ] I am reading this to you because you have a longing for the threefold social order from a very specific field. Now, there are those who must be rejected here, who actually have only an external political education and find this threefold social order to be a utopia. No, it is not a utopia; it is taken from the innermost feelings of each individual subject. And every single person who is involved in a very specific subject, in a very specific field, such as the person who wrote the article here — he is the editor of the newspaper; it is rare for newspaper editors to write in this way today — every single person who is involved in a specific, concrete case can feel how the most practical view of life ultimately leads one to say: “Once you have thought your way into the matter, it is difficult to free yourself from the idea, so clear is it, and so surely does it solve the problems with which we have been hopelessly struggling for a long time. Its implementation will and must lead to the recovery of our entire national life!”
[ 31 ] Now, what is referred to here as an element that needs to be particularly justified, a cultural council: it was a year ago in May that the cultural council was established. And this cultural council has faded away and is forgotten today. Those who understood it least were those who, in one way or another, held positions of authority in scientific or artistic life.
[ 32 ] This is what must be emphasized more and more: that we really need to take things extremely seriously today! People find it uncomfortable to take things seriously. They want to believe again and again that things will continue in the same old rut. No, things will not continue in the same old rut! If we continue to live as we do now, without the inspiration that comes from the spiritual world, then industry can continue, banks can exist, universities can exist where all kinds of sciences are taught, other professions can continue to be practiced — but everything will lead to decadence, barbarism, and the downfall of civilization. Those who do not want to incorporate into their immediate lives what can come from spiritual science do not really want progress; they want decline. And the majority of people today want decline and only lie to themselves that decline can lead to progress.
[ 33 ] This is what I wanted to emphasize particularly from various points of view during this Christmas season. Let other people continue in the old way, following the familiar paths that have always been taken in recent times as a great lie of life! I encountered this lie when I was a young man. With regard to life, reality, and the truth of life, I understood very well the most international aspects and everything that is truly unrelated to sympathy or antipathy for any human race, because I was an educator in a Jewish home for many years. But every year, when Christmas time came around, the whole family, distant and close relatives, all went out to buy Christmas presents, and finally to buy the Christmas tree. And all this was done just as the other population, who call themselves Christians, do. All this was done in honor of what is revered in the phrase: “Today the Savior is born!” Things have become so much a matter of phrase. People just don't want to admit how much things have become a matter of phrase, how they have ceased to have any meaning! Today, and for a long time now, it has been completely irrelevant whether someone who connects a living heartfelt belief with the Savior sits down at the Christmas tree and places gifts underneath it, or whether someone who adheres to a dictum that rejects the Savior sits down under the Christmas tree and distributes gifts underneath it! In such things, one must see through the lies of humanity that have become reality, the empty phrases of our civilization that have become reality. One must see through things seriously. It is not a matter today of saying, for example, “One must not be so radical!” — for not being radical in this regard means going along with the decline of humanity. That is what I wanted to bring up at this Christmas celebration, within this area where there is truly nothing of the old style. You will find nothing of old architectural styles here at the Goetheanum. Ultimately, you will find nothing in the Goetheanum that represents the old customs. That is why many people hate this Goetheanum so much, because there is nothing of the old habits there. But there must be nothing there, because today there must be at least one place—even if people hate it so much, even if they wish for its downfall—there must be a place that draws attention to what is necessary for humanity today.
[ 34 ] The Goetheanum contains nothing of the old. What is visibly the science of Goetheanism that is cultivated here contains hardly anything that is old. When we establish something for practical life, the response it receives shows that it is not exactly in the old style. Now, whether everything old has already been overcome in the habits of all anthroposophical friends is a matter of courtesy for the anthroposophical lecturer not to comment on. But he would like to express the wish that more and more of our habits may also be transformed, right down to the way we treat our children, into what we recognize as a necessity for the development of humanity.
[ 35 ] The year we are beginning with this Christmas celebration will not be an easy one for our anthroposophical development; it will be a difficult year. What lies ahead of us will not diminish in strength, but will continue to grow stronger. For those forces that have an interest in ruining anthroposophy are very active, very alert, as I have often said. And there is one thing I would like to remind you of today: here in this place, when the “Futurum” was to be founded in Dornach, our dear friend Mr. Molt stood and spoke of what was to be brought into practical life. He was certainly right in every word he said. I then took the floor and said that I was not anxious about everything that was needed to embody anthroposophical thoughts, ideas, and feelings in external practical institutions; I was anxious about only one thing, I said at the time, namely whether we would find a sufficient number of people who were capable of demonstrating the ability to carry something like this out.
[ 36 ] It is very necessary that we always strive to bring together capable people in the world who can develop the abilities to make what anthroposophy can be a reality, because the recent centuries have not only dulled human knowledge, they have actually suppressed the practical, the truly practical abilities of human beings. And it is necessary that people try to bring these abilities out of the deepest recesses of their being, for every human being has the necessary powers there. We also need such a renewal of humanity's outer practical powers from the deepest inner being of the human being. We should have this birth in mind: the birth of something capable, which wants to come forth from within the human being, as opposed to the incapable, which we can learn today in the outer world. We should have this birth in mind in everything we experience as the Christmas spirit.
[ 37 ] Take things in science as they appear. A young medical student visited me a few days ago and spoke about various difficulties in his studies. I could only say: The worst thing that is happening at present is that human thinking powers are not being developed at all in the most important sciences. Pick up any therapeutic or pathological book today: very often you will find the heart organs, lungs, digestive system, and so on, all piled up next to each other according to external sensory perception, with thinking eliminated as far as possible. And if you approach it with any kind of thinking, then what happened to me in the book by Kurt Leese, the licentiate of theology, will happen to you. He tells you that reading Steiner's writings is annoying and intolerable because he comes up with ideas that speak of the threefold structure of the human being, and you are supposed to imagine that the three parts are not next to each other but inside each other. That is a feat of mental acrobatics, says Kurt Leese, the licentiate of theology.
[ 38 ] Anyone who graduates from our universities today with a degree in theology has had thinking thoroughly driven out of them by their studies! And then they find it provocative and intolerable when they are asked to think; they find that most uncomfortable of all. But then it comes to pass that everything that springs from the innermost depths of human beings, for example truthfulness, even within the leaders of Christianity, appears as it does, for example, in the case of that pastor who does not say that some drunkard told him that a statue of Christ is being made which, as he presents it as a definite fact, has Luciferic features at the top and animal characteristics at the bottom, but he presents it as something he knows for certain. So he puts a completely objective lie into a book through which he wants to characterize anthroposophy. And people accept such things without questioning them, without rebelling against them. Do you believe that any social recovery can take place when such things are possible in the social order? If you believe that, you are giving yourself false hope. It is necessary for human beings to develop a healthy sense of what is moral weed. It does not matter whether anthroposophy is attacked or not, what matters is that a book appears in which not one but a whole number of such untruths are contained. Anyone who writes such untruths in this book naturally also writes them in his others. It is a habit. And this lives on, basically, in what is brought to the youth. This must be taken into account. We must not fail to look at this.
[ 39 ] For ultimately, if the child who lay in the manger has something to say to us today, it is this: a healing renewal of what lives in the innermost being of human beings is necessary. We must come to a new proclamation of what was announced on the one hand to the poor shepherds in the fields and on the other to the wise magi from the East. We must be able to understand from the ground up what is truly healing and salvific in human development. Only then will we be worthy to say: The Savior is born unto us. — That is what we need. I wanted to point this out once again before we have to interrupt the lectures here for a very short time.
