Community Life, Inner Development, Sexuality and the Spiritual Teacher
GA 253
15 September 1915, Dornach
VI. Community Life, Inner Development, Sexuality and the Spiritual Teacher
Let us continue with the theme we have been considering for the past few days and begin by asking the question, “How old is love?” There is no doubt in my mind that the great majority of people with their rather superficial way of looking at things would immediately respond that love is as old as the human race, of course. However, anyone who recognizes cultural history as being imbued with spiritual impulses, and who therefore tries to deal with such issues concretely instead of in vague generalities, would answer quite differently. Love, my friends, is seven hundred years old at the most!
Nowhere in ancient Greek and Roman prose or poetry will you find anything resembling our modern idea of love. And if you read Plutarch, for instance, you will find the two concepts of Venus and Amor very clearly differentiated.1Plutarch, c.46–after 119 A.D. Greek biographer and writer. In his work “On Isis and Osiris,” Plutarch makes the distinction between the two on the basis of the origin of Venus and Amor. He uses the Greek “Eros” for “Amor.” Love as the subject of so much lyrical eloquence in literature, and especially in poetry, is no more than six or seven hundred years old. Our modern notion of love—what love means to us today and how that is instilled in people—has played a part in the human heart and mind only for the past six or seven centuries. Before that, people did not have the same idea of love; they did not speak about it in any even remotely similar way.
This should not come as a surprise to you, not even on a theoretical or epistemological level. The objection that human beings have always made a practice of loving does not hold good; that would be like saying that if the Earth revolves around the Sun as the Copernican view claims, then it must have been doing so even during Roman, Greek, and Egyptian time—in fact, as long as it has been in existence. Of course that's true, but the people of those times didn't talk about the Copernican system.
Similarly, it is also not valid to object that what is expressed in the idea of love must have existed before the concept itself was there. Of course, the facts and phenomena of loving have always been an identifiable facet of human life, but people have not always talked about them. We have come a long way in the past six or seven hundred years in that respect; in fact, we have come so far that love occupies a central position in many people's view of life. And not only that, we now have a scientific theory, the theory of psychoanalysis, which is positively swimming in the most vulgar concepts of love, as I have shown. This is an evolutionary tendency that anthroposophists in particular are called upon to resist and to transform by fostering a spiritual-scientific philosophy of life.
Many of you may be aware that I described these same things quite precisely from a historical perspective in some earlier lectures, so I would be surprised if you were all taken aback by my statement that our idea of love is only six or seven hundred years old.2For instance, in a lecture given in Berlin on May 14, 1912, Lecture 6 in Earthly and Cosmic Man, GA 133, (London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company, 1948). In any case, the idea of love has gradually crept into all kinds of philosophical concepts during the past few hundred years, as is revoltingly evident in psychoanalysis. It would take a long time to get to the bottom of all this, but I hope these more or less aphoristic remarks will give you some clues.
As an example, let's consider a contemporary thinker who is totally immersed in modern cultural concepts—in other words, someone who cannot overcome his supposed insight that outer sensory-physical reality is all we can reasonably talk about. I have already introduced Fritz Mauthner to you as a very sincere representative of this type of person.3Fritz Mauthner, 1849–1923, linguistic philosopher whose most important works were Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, 3 volumes, (Stuttgart and Berlin: 1901–1902) and Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Neue Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, 2 volumes, (Munich and Leipzig, 1910). Mauthner is a linguistic critic and the author of a philosophical dictionary. This puts him in a very strange position in that it makes him aware of the fact that the word “mysticism” has existed down through the ages—as a linguistic critic, he naturally wants to know what stands behind both the word itself and actual mystical aspirations.
My friends, just consider how much reading material we have to struggle through to understand that particular relationship of the human soul to super-earthly worlds that deserves the name “mysticism.” Consider, too, how very seriously we have to take any explanations, such as those in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, if we want to understand the inner attitude needed in order to face the spiritual world as a mystic—that is, as a soul at one with the spiritual pulse and flow of higher worlds.4Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, see Lecture Three, note 6. We can only really say what mysticism is in the modern sense of the word when we have engaged in serious reflection such as that in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. In other words, we have to at least study that book thoroughly and attentively a couple of times.
When someone like Fritz Mauthner gets his hands on a book like Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, it is patent nonsense to him—just so many words. Mauthner is an honest man, after all. He would be telling the truth if, having read Swedenborg, he were to say that he doesn't understand a thing when Swedenborg talks about inhabitants of Mars who can conceal their innermost impulses. He might also say that he finds nothing to relate to in a book like Knowledge of the Higher Worlds; perhaps angels might be able to understand it, but he cannot.
This is an utterly plausible opinion, and I am convinced it is what Fritz Mauthner would come to as an honest person. And in fact, if he is honest and sticks to the truth, coming to this conclusion is inevitable because the concept of mysticism eludes him entirely; there's nothing to it as far as he is concerned. For him, everything in Theosophy or Knowledge of the Higher Worlds is all just words, words, words.5Theosophy, see Lecture Two, note 10. If he himself experiences a kind of Faustian striving, he might express it by saying, “[I will] contemplate all seminal forces in the outer physical world and be done with peddling empty words.” 6The reference is to a line from Goethe's Faust: “Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen und to nicht mehr in Worten kramen,” “[I] may contemplate all seminal forces — and be done with peddling empty words.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, trans. Stuart Atkins, (Cambridge, MA: Suhrkamp/Insel, 1984), Part One, Scene I, 11. 384-385. And in his own way, he is quite right.
However, Mauthner is not only honest, he is also thorough, and so he wonders if it is actually true that human souls have never experienced anything like mysticism. After all, people have always talked about it. What was it, then, that induced them to speak about mysticism?
When I was a very young man, I knew an outstanding theologian, now dead, who was also very well educated in philosophy.7In all probability, the reference is to Laurenz Manner (1848–1911), a Catholic theologian and professor of philosophy Rudolf Steiner met in Vienna in the salon of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. See The Course of My Life, GA 28, (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1986) and Vom Menschenrätsel (“On the Riddle of the Human Being”), GA 20, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1984). [Not published in English — Translator]. He always said, and rightly so, that behind every error there is something true and real we must look for. No idea is so crazy that we need not look for the reality behind it. This is also Mauthner's rationale in conceding that there must be something to mysticism after all. Obviously, there are still strange characters around who write books like Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and talk about our mystical relationship to spiritual worlds, but to him it is all nonsense. However, there has to be something in human nature that produces the emotions these crazy, mixed-up people call mysticism. There must be something behind it.
If you try to find how Mauthner discovers what underlies mysticism, the most you can say after having read the entry on mysticism in his dictionary is that he keeps going around in circles.8In German, “his pigtail hangs behind him.” The reference is to a poem by Adalbert von Chamisso (1781–1838). Everything in this article revolves around words and definitions of words. But since I was interested in finding out how Mauthner, in his own way, attempts to get at what is behind mysticism, I looked it up in his dictionary to see what could be found there ... [gap in the stenographic record]
So I looked up not only his entry on mysticism but also the one on love. I found the article on love to be one of his best, and very well written. It's actually very nice. Mauthner first mentions Spinoza's definition of love and Schopenhauer's brief and heavy-handed definition, and then he explains that it is necessary to distinguish between mere eroticism, which is strictly physical and confined to sexuality, and real love on a soul level. Mauthner admits all that, and even goes on to say something as elevated as this:
I believe that people who are one-sided geniuses in thinking have seldom, if ever, had any understanding of love in its highest degree, of feelings of love taken to pathological extremes. They have not experienced it personally and have only tried to categorize the descriptions of poets.9The quotations on the following pages are from Mauthner's Wörterbuch der Philosophie, see note 3 above.
That is, the philosophers did not know much about love except what they looked up in books of poetry.
I believe that love in its ultimate degree has been experienced and described only by artists (approximately since the time of Petrarch), and that it entered common parlance through the power of imitation or fashion and captured the imagination of readers for six hundred years, and is now in the process of being replaced by another fashion. Although the ultimate degree of love is as rare as a great artistic creation or the kind of religious union with God that St. Francis may have experienced, still the whole world babbles on about religion, art, and love. What they mean by all this are mere substitutes for emotions that perhaps one person in a million has actually experienced.
So there!
The ultimate degree of love, whose existence I do not deny, is really something of a miracle—and people have also tried to explain miracles as pathological phenomena. In the most unlikely event that both sexual partners experience the highest degree of love, a miracle takes place in defiance of all the laws of nature: each one lifts the other and both float above the earth. Archimedes' principle is, or appears to be, superseded. Whether in happiness or in death, the longing of mysticism is fulfilled.
There you have it. For someone like Mauthner, steeped in modern materialistic philosophy, the emotion of love is the only way human beings can experience the feelings “deranged” mystics experience in their relationship to spiritual things. “Whether in happiness or in death, the longing of mysticism is fulfilled” is a remarkably honest sentence coming from someone who has lost all connection to the spiritual world. Mauthner continues:
For the purposes of this little investigation, I have deliberately overlooked many other meanings of the word “love.” At this juncture, however, I must still point out that union with God is experienced by mysticism as the pleasure of love at its most passionate and most spiritual, and that Spinoza made use of his first definition of love (in Book III and Book V of his Ethics) to proclaim the love for God, the amor erga Deum, as the highest bliss known to human beings. The longing to give expression to the inexpressible is intrinsic to mysticism, and this has led to considerable misuse of the concept of love. There is something of this vivid mysticism not only in Spinoza's pantheistic extravagance, but also in Schopenhauer's metaphysical cynicism. It is also what Cousin meant when he said that we love the infinite and imagine we love finite things.
The well-known feeling that leads us to call our sexual partners “lovers” runs through so-called love in all its various degrees. And we describe our very subjective experience through the unwarranted use of the corresponding verb “to love.” The attempt to find an objective noun, namely, the word “love” to describe this experience met with such success that people have persuaded themselves that the experience itself is as common as the word “love” has become.
As you can see, when the modern materialistic world tries to formulate a concept of mysticism out of its own fundamental impulses, it is forced to conclude that what mystics dream of can only be found in the emotion of love in the real world; that is, everything spiritual is dragged down into a refined version of eroticism.
It is typical, for instance, that Mauthner brings up the particular way in which a woman friend of Nietzsche's, the author Lou Andreas-Salomé,10Lou Andreas-Salome, 1861–1937, German writer. Daughter of a German general in the service of the Russians, wife of Orientalist F. C. Andreas, a friend of Nietzsche and Rilke, with connections to Freud and psychoanalysis. She wrote novels, short stories, and nonfiction. describes Nietzsche's intellect as a type of refined eroticism.11Lou Andreas-Salome, Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken, (“Friedrich Nietzsche in His Writings”), 1894. It is interesting, too, how Mauthner reacts to her portrayal of Nietzsche. He says:
Recently, after so many attempts by men, a woman, Friedrich Nietzsche's friend Lou Andreas-Salome, has also tried to formulate a philosophy of love in her excellent book on Nietzsche, which won her the hatred of the entire Nietzsche clan. She is very subtle in her expositions, but bold enough to refuse to accept fidelity as an attribute of love, and she forges a link between the artist's fantasy and that of lovers (“Eroticism,” p. 25). She too, however, intellectualizes the act to such an extent that there seems to be no conceptual distinction between sensuality and the intellectual phenomena accompanying it.
In other words, then, from the way men and women express themselves, we see that nowadays, even in our thinking, we have to replace our relationship to the spiritual world with the eroticism throbbing in our souls—a more or less refined eroticism, depending on the character of the individual in question.
This all has to do with the fundamental materialistic tendency of our times, which also leads to untruthfulness when people are not honest enough to admit that all they know about mysticism is the aspect that is identical to eroticism. Untruthfulness emerges when these people talk about eroticism but conceal it behind a veil of mystical concepts. Materialists who freely admit that they see nothing but eroticism in all of mysticism are actually much more honest than people who take eroticism as their starting point but hide it behind mystical formulas as they clamber up to the very highest worlds. Sometimes you can almost see the ladders they are using to scramble up to the very highest planes of existence in order to have a mystical cover-up for something that is actually nothing more than eroticism. On the one hand, then, we have the theoretical linking of mysticism to eroticism, and on the other hand the tendency of our modern times to sink down into eroticism and drag all kinds of murky, misunderstood mysticism into it.
Some time ago I challenged you to work on eradicating the mystical eccentricities that come about through the kind of mingling of spheres I described, so that people who are well able to recognize the noble character of spirituality will once again be able to rise to the perspective needed to speak about spirituality where spirituality is actually present, without clothing subjective emotions in spiritual forms. In making this appeal, I hoped to create some degree of clarity in these matters within the Anthroposophical Society, so that clear thinking might prevail.12See Address of August 21, 1915, in Part Two of this volume, p. 141. Time alone will tell whether we will actually be able to accomplish this.
In former times (and in fact until quite recently, as I pointed out yesterday), a much more radical means was used to safeguard the basic requirements of any kind of spiritual scientific society. It was a simple matter of excluding one entire sex, half of humanity, so that the other half would be spared the dangers inherent in mixing elevated spiritual concepts with thoughts of natural human activity on the physical plane. Thinking about spiritual matters belongs to the spiritual world. We must come to the healthy realization that it is much worse to talk about certain aspects of natural human interaction in mystical formulas that do not belong to this natural level than it is to call these things honestly by name and admit that this aspect belongs to the physical plane and must remain there.
Schopenhauer, in his singularly heavy-handed fashion, characterized love as follows: “The sum total of the current generation's love affairs are thus the human race's ‘earnest meditatio composition is generationis fu fume, e qua iterum pendent innumerae generationes’ ”—the earnest meditation of the human race as a whole on the composition of generations to come, on which in turn countless generations depend.13Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J. Payne, (Indian Hills, Colorado: Falcon's Wing Press, 1958), Vol. II, Addenda to Book 4, Chapter 44, “Metaphysics of Sexual Love.” This passage is also quoted in Mauthner's Wörterbuch der Philosophie in the entry on “Love.” Well, that's Schopenhauer's opinion, not mine! It is a terrible thing to see people deny the rightful place of such urges and disguise them by saying, for example, that they are obliged to do what they do so that an extremely important individuality can incarnate. That is really an abomination in the eyes of someone trying to practice mysticism in all earnestness and dignity.
We must also take into account the fact that mysticism is not intended as an excuse for laziness on our part. That is what it becomes, however, when healthy concepts are replaced by unhealthy ones in the name of mysticism. Here on the physical plane, people are supposed to make their mark through good will and work—real hard work. If they prefer to gain recognition under false pretenses rather than on the merits of their work, and demand special treatment by virtue of being the reincarnation of somebody or other, then they are using mysticism as an excuse. They want to be recognized as someone special without doing a thing. This is a very trivial and vulgarized way of looking at the matter.
If we are making every effort, as indeed we must nowadays, to foster spiritual science openly in the presence of both sexes, the old compulsory bans must be replaced by a serious and dignified attitude on the part of both men and women as they seek to acquire knowledge of the higher worlds. We must succeed in eliminating from this search all the fantasies bound up with our lower human drives. Only then will we be able to prevent the proliferation of errors originating in the illusions of individuals prone to mystical laziness. Mysticism, my friends, does not ask us to become lazier than the people out there who care nothing about it. If anything, it requires us to be more diligent than they are. And mystical morality cannot mean sinking below the moral level of other human beings; rather we must advance beyond it. If we do not make a serious effort to eradicate anything resembling “Sprengelism,” as I would like to call it, from our Society, we will make no progress.
How I will continue with this series of lectures depends on the course of your meeting today.14No stenographic record was kept of this meeting, since Rudolf Steiner did not participate in it. Let us first see how far you get in this meeting, and then I will announce when we will continue.
Sechster Vortrag
Episodische Betrachtung über den Begriff der Liebe in seinem Verhältnis zum Begriff der Mystik
Meine lieben Freunde! Ich möchte heute noch einiges weitere ausführen zu dem Thema, das ja in den Betrachtungen dieser Tage von mir angeschlagen worden ist. Heute möchte ich ausgehen von der Frage: Wie alt ist eigentlich die Liebe?
Meine lieben Freunde, ich zweifle nicht daran, daß wohl die weitaus meisten Menschen aus einer gewissen oberflächlichen Anschauung der Dinge sogleich antworten werden: Die Liebe ist so alt wie die Menschheit. - Aber wer gewohnt ist, aus der Kulturgeschichte heraus zu sprechen, die er als mit geistigen Impulsen durchdrungen erkennt, der wird Ihnen eine andere Antwort auf diese Frage geben, weil er sich bemüht, die Dinge konkret und nicht in allgemeinen verschwommenen Begriffen ins Auge zu fassen. Die Liebe, meine lieben Freunde, ist höchstens 700 Jahre alt! Lesen Sie die ganze alte römische, die griechische Literatur und Dichtung, und Sie werden nirgends dasjenige finden, was man in der jetzigen Zeit mit dem Begriff der Liebe verbindet. Und wenn Sie Plutarch lesen, so werden Sie die beiden Begriffe Venus und Amor in sehr charakteristischer Weise deutlich voneinander unterschieden finden. Die Art und Weise, wie die Liebe in der Dichtung, namentlich in der Lyrik figuriert, wie sie den Mittelpunkt von soundso vielen lyrischen Ergüssen bildet, ist nicht älter als etwa 600 bis 700 Jahre. Das heißt, der Begriff von Liebe, mit der Bedeutung, wie sie heute dem Menschen gilt, wie man sie ihm heute beibringt, figuriert in den Gemütern der Menschen erst seit 6 bis 7 Jahrhunderten. Früher hat man nicht auch nicht in annähernd ähnlicher Weise - von diesem Begriff der Liebe gesprochen.
Das darf Sie nicht verwundern, nicht einmal theoretisch, nicht einmal erkenntnistheoretisch. Denn der Einwand, daß die Menschen ja immer Liebe geübt haben, der gilt nicht. Das ist genau so, wie wenn man sagen würde, wenn die kopernikanische Weltanschauung richtig ist, daß die Erde sich um die Sonne bewegt, so hat sie sich so doch auch schon während der lateinischen, griechischen, ägyptischen Zeit, ja solange die Erde steht, bewegt. - Ja, gewiß, aber gesprochen haben die Leute nicht von der kopernikanischen Weltanschauung. Der Einwand gilt also nicht, daß dasjenige, was im LiebeBegriff ausgedrückt ist, schon früher, bevor der Liebe-Begriff selber da war, bestanden hat. Es bildeten eben die Erscheinungen, die Tatsachen der Liebe einen Komplex von Lebenstatsachen, aber man sprach darüber nicht. Aber in den vergangenen 600 bis 700 Jahren hat man es darin weit gebracht. Man hat es nicht nur dazu gebracht, daß die Liebe für viele heute als der Mittelpunkt alles Lebens gilt ich meine jetzt in der Weltanschauung -, sondern man hat es sogar dazu gebracht, daß es heute eine wissenschaftliche Theorie, die psychoanalytische gibt, die, wie ich Ihnen gezeigt habe, ganz und gar in den ordinärsten Liebesbegriffen «plätschert». Das ist der Gang der Entwickelung, gegen den wir uns, meine lieben Freunde, aufzulehnen haben, den wir in etwas anderes zu wandeln haben dadurch, daß wir die geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung pflegen.
Ich würde mich eigentlich wundern, wenn viele oder alle unter Ihnen wirklich verwundert wären über den Ausspruch, daß der Begriff der Liebe erst 600 bis 700 Jahre alt ist, denn manche von Ihnen könnten wissen, daß ich auch in früheren Vorträgen dieselben Dinge ausgesprochen und ganz historisch charakterisiert habe.
Nun, jenes Naherücken des Begriffes der Liebe an alle möglichen Weltanschauungsbegriffe, wie das so abstoßend in der psychoanalytischen Weltanschauung hervortritt, das hat sich eben im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte langsam und allmählich herangebildet, und wir würden lange zu tun haben, um diesen Dingen so recht auf den Grund zu kommen. Aber durch einige Betrachtungen, die ich einmal wie episodisch, wie aphoristisch anstellen werde, möchte ich Ihnen doch auf den Weg verhelfen.
Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel einen Geist der heutigen Zeit, der so ganz in den Kulturbegriffen der heutigen Zeit darinnensteckt, davon ganz durchtränkt ist, der mit anderen Worten über die vermeintliche Erkenntnis nicht hinwegkommt, daß das äußere, das sinnlich-physisch Reale doch das Einzige ist, wovon man vernünftigerweise sprechen kann. Ich habe Ihnen einen sehr ehrlichen Typus dieser Leute schon vorgeführt in Fritz Mauthner, dem Kritiker der Sprache und Verfasser eines philosophischen Wörterbuches.
Sehen Sie, ein solcher Mensch ist in einer eigentümlichen Lage. Fritz Mauthner ist Kritiker der Sprache; er weiß daher, daß es wenigstens das Wort «Mystik» in der Menschheitsentwickelung immer gegeben hat. Und da er Kritiker der Sprache ist, will er eine Antwort haben auf die Frage: Was steckt denn eigentlich hinter diesem Wort «Mystik», hinter den mystischen Bestrebungen?
Nun bedenken Sie einmal, meine lieben Freunde, wie wir uns durch eine reiche Literatur hindurch bemühen müssen, um dahinter zu kommen, wie jene Beziehung der menschlichen Seele zu den überirdischen Welten ist, die verdient, mit dem Wort «Mystik» charakterisiert zu werden. Bedenken Sie, wie ernst und würdig wir es mit solchen Auseinandersetzungen nehmen müssen, wie die sind in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», um Einsicht zu bekommen, wie die Seele sich stimmen muß, um den höheren Welten so gegenüberzustehen, daß man sagen kann: Die betreffende Seele ist die eines Mystikers, eines Menschen, der seine Vereinigung gefunden hat mit dem, was geistig die höheren Welten durchpulst und durchwellt. Also das muß man sich erst verschaffen, in das muß man sich erst hineinleben. Und eigentlich kann heute nur jemand wissen, was Mystik im Sinne der Gegenwart ist, der wirklich solche Erwägungen angestellt hat, wie sie in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» ausgesprochen sind, also der dieses Buch wenigstens mit Aufmerksamkeit einige Male durchstudiert hat.
Wenn nun ein Mann wie Fritz Mauthner solch ein Buch wie «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» in die Hand bekommt, so ist es für ihn selbstverständlich der barste Unsinn, denn er kann ja darin nichts lesen als Worte. Und er hat recht - er ist ja ehrlich -, wenn er Swedenborg gelesen hat und sagt: Der Swedenborg redet von Marsbewohnern, die ihre inneren Impulse verbergen können - ich kann davon gar nichts verstehen. - Ebenso könnte er auch sagen: Wahrhaftig, wenn ich ein solches Buch lese wie «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», so ist da für mich darin aber auch gar nichts zu finden; es könnte sein, daß Engel es verstehen könnten, aber ich kann es nicht verstehen. - So kann man urteilen, und ich bin überzeugt, daß Fritz Mauthner dieses Urteil als ehrlicher Mann fällen könnte. Man muß einsehen, daß er ehrlicherweise, wenn er bei der Wahrheit bleibt, ein solches Urteil schließlich fällen muß, denn für ihn entfällt der Begriff der Mystik ganz und gar; für ihn ist nichts dahinter. Was in der «Theosophie» oder in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» ausgeführt ist, das ist für ihn alles nur Worte, Worte, Worte. Und wenn er auf seine Art ein faustisches Streben hat, so sagt er: Ich suche alle Wirkenskraft und Samen in der physischen äußeren Welt und will nicht in Worten kramen. - In seiner Art ist das ganz richtig.
Aber nun ist er nicht nur ehrlich, sondern auch gründlich, und so sagt er sich: Sollten die Menschen wirklich niemals in ihrer Seele so etwas gehabt haben wie Mystik? Sie haben doch immer von Mystik gesprochen. Also was ist denn in der Seele des Menschen, was ihn dazu verführt hat, von Mystik zu sprechen?
Sehen Sie, ich habe einmal als ganz junger Mann einen Theologen gekannt - er ist jetzt schon tot -, der war ein hervorragender Theologe und auch ein philosophisch ganz durchgebildeter Mensch, der hat mit vollem Recht gesagt: Eigentlich ist hinter jedem Irrtum auch etwas Reales oder Wahres, was man suchen muß, und kein Spleen ist so groß, daß man nicht das Reale, das hinter ihm eben steht, suchen müßte. - Nun, in diesem Sinne sagt sich auch Fritz Mauthner: Es muß in der Mystik doch etwas stecken. Das heißt, Fritz Mauthner muß sich sagen, wenn so vertrackte Kerle heute noch da sind, die Bücher schreiben wie «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und von einer mystischen Beziehung des Menschen zu den geistigen Welten reden, so ist das natürlich der bare Unsinn; aber es muß doch in der Menschennatur etwas leben, was solche Gefühle hervorbringt, die diese vertrackten närrischen Mystiker eben ihre Mystik nennen. Es muß so etwas geben. Wenn man versucht, darauf zu kommen, wo Fritz Mauthner eigentlich das findet, was der Mystik zugrunde liegt, so ergibt sich wahrhaftig nicht viel mehr als höchstens, daß man über seinen Artikel «Mystik», wenn man ihn durchgelesen hat, sich zuletzt sagt: «Der Zopf, der hängt ihm hinten». Wenn man diesen Artikel nimmt, so findet man darin wirklich nichts anderes, als daß sich alles in Worte und Worterklärungen herumdreht. Weil ich aber dahinterkommen wollte, wo denn Fritz Mauthner in seiner Art hinter das Reale dieser Mystik zu kommen sucht, so habe ich versucht, in seinem Wörterbuch nachzuschlagen, wo man bei ihm das finden könnte... [Lücke im Stenogramm].
Und da habe ich denn nicht nur den Artikel «Mystik» aufgeschlagen, sondern auch den Artikel «Liebe». Und ich finde eigentlich, daß dieser Artikel «Liebe» noch zu den am allerbesten geschriebenen gehört, denn er ist eigentlich ganz nett. Er stellt zuerst auch die Worterklärungen, die Definitionen der Liebe bei Spinoza, die kurze grobe Definition der Liebe bei Schopenhauer zusammen und erklärt dann auch, daß man unterscheiden müsse zwischen der wirklichen, seelisch gemeinten Liebe und der bloßen Erotik, dem Physischen, des in der Sexualität Beschlossenen. Also das alles läßt Mauthner gelten, und er schwingt sich sogar sehr schön zu Folgendem auf:
«Ich glaube, die einseitigen Denkgenies haben wohl für das pathologische Liebesgefühl, für den höchsten Grad der Liebe selten oder nie Verständnis gehabt, haben keine eigenen Erfahrungen gesammelt und sich nur bemüht, die Beschreibungen der Dichter begrifflich zu ordnen.»
Also er sagt: die Philosophen, die werden nicht viel von Liebe gewußt haben, die haben ja bei den Dichtern nachgeschaut.
«Ich glaube, der höchste Grad des Liebesgefühls ist nur vom Künstler (etwa seit Petrarca) erfahren und beschrieben worden, ging durch die Macht der Nachahmung oder der Mode in die Vorstellungen der Gemeinsprache über, beherrscht in der Poesie sechs Jahrhunderte lang die Phantasie der Leser und ist gerade jetzt im Begriffe, von einer anderen Mode abgelöst zu werden. Der höchste Grad des Liebesgefühls ist eine ebensolche Rarität wie eine große Kunstschöpfung und wie die religiöse Vereinigung mit Gott, die Franziskus erlebt haben mag; dennoch schwätzt alle Welt von Religion, von Kunst und von Liebe. Was man so nennt, ist nur ein Surrogat für ein Gefühl, das von einer Million von Schwätzern kaum einer erlebt hat.»
Na, schön!
«Der höchste Grad der Liebe, dessen Existenz ich also nicht leugne, hat wirklich etwas von einem Wunder an sich, man hat ja auch die Wunder als pathologische Erscheinungen erklären wollen. Ereignet sich der allerseltenste Fall, daß beide Geschlechtspartner den stärksten Grad der Liebe fühlen, so vollzieht sich gegen alle Naturgesetze das Wunder, daß Eines das Andere hebt, daß beide über der Erde schweben. Das dos uoi nov orw des Archimedes ist oder scheint aufgehoben. Ob Glück oder Tod, die Sehnsucht der Mystik ist erfüllt.»
Da haben Sie es! Es gibt also für einen Menschen wie Mauthner, der ganz und gar auf dem Boden unserer modernen Weltanschauung steht, nur das Liebesgefühl als einzige Möglichkeit, wo der Mensch doch solche Gefühle haben kann, die der vertrackte Mystiker in seinem Verhältnis zum Geistigen findet. Die sind nur im Liebesgefühl vorhanden. Denn das ist wirklich ein ehrlicher Satz eines solchen Menschen, der alle Beziehung zur geistigen Welt verloren hat: «Ob Glück oder Tod, die Sehnsucht der Mystik ist erfüllt.»
Dann sagt Mauthner weiter:
«Ich habe bei dieser kleinen Untersuchung die vielen anderen Bedeutungen des Wortes Liebe absichtlich übersehen. Jetzt muß ich aber doch darauf hinweisen, daß auch die Mystik ihre Vereinigung mit Gott wie den brünstigsten und geistigsten Liebesgenuß empfindet, und daß namentlich Spinoza seine erste Liebesdefinition (im 3. Buche der Ethik und dann im 5. Buche) dazu benützt, den amor Dei, den amor erga Deum als die höchste Seligkeit des Menschen zu verkünden. Das Wesen der Mystik, die Sehnsucht, das Unaussprechliche auszusprechen, hat zu einem solchen Mißbrauch des Liebesbegriffes geführt, aber nicht nur in Spinozas pantheistischer Verstiegenheit, auch in Schopenhauers metaphysischen Zynismen steckt etwas von dieser bildhaften Mystik, die auch Cousin meinte mit seinen Worten: Wir lieben das Unendliche und bilden uns ein, die endlichen Dinge zu lieben.
Durch alle Grade der sogenannten Liebe geht das wohlbekannte Gefühl, in welchem wir den Geschlechtspartner mit einem adjektivischen Worte lieb nennen; unsere Empfindung dabei, die ebenso subjektiv ist, haben wir überall mit dem falsch gebildeten verbalen Wort lieben bezeichnet: der Versuch, für die Empfindung ein objektives, substantivisches Wort zu bilden, das Wort Liebe, hat in der Sprache solches Glück gehabt, daß die Menschen sich eingeredet haben, die Empfindung wäre ebenso häufig zu finden wie das Wort.»
Also Sie sehen, meine lieben Freunde, wenn die moderne Welt des Materialismus aus ihren Grundimpulsen heraus versucht, sich einen Begriff von Mystik zu bilden, dann ist sie dazu gezwungen, sich zu sagen: Das, was der Mystiker erträumt, findet man realiter bloß im Liebesgefühl; das heißt, es wird alles Geistige heruntergeholt in eine verfeinerte Erotik.
Charakteristisch ist es, daß zum Beispiel Mauthner die eigentümliche Art heranzieht, wie Nietzsches Geisteswesen von einer Freundin Nietzsches, von Frau Lou Andreas-Salome, in ihrem Buch über Nietzsche charakterisiert worden ist: eben auch als eine Art verfeinerter Erotik. Und es ist interessant, wie sich Fritz Mauthner gerade zu dieser Darstellung Nietzsches durch Frau Lou Andreas-Salome stellt. Er sagt:
«Neuerdings hat nach so vielen Männern auch eine Frau die Philosophie der Liebe zu erkennen versucht, Lou Andreas-Salomé, die von der Firma Nietzsche um ihres vorzüglichen NietzscheBuches willen gründlich gehaßte Freundin Nietzsches. Frau Lou ist in ihren Ausführungen sehr fein; sie wagt es, die Treue grundsätzlich nicht als Eigenschaft der Liebe anzuerkennen, und sie schlägt die Brücke zwischen der Phantasie des Künstlers und der Phantasie der Liebenden (Die Erotik S. 25f.). Aber auch Frau Lou vergeistigt den Akt so sehr, daß eine begriffliche Scheidung zwischen dem Wollustgefühle und der geistigen Begleiterscheinung nicht zustande kommt.»
Männer und Frauen also sprechen sich so aus, wie man in der gegenwärtigen Zeit selbst im Denken genötigt ist, an die Stelle der Beziehungen der Seele zur geistigen Welt das zu setzen, was die Menschenseele durchpulst als mehr oder weniger - das hängt vom Charakter des Menschen ab - verfeinerte Erotik.
Alle diese Dinge hängen doch mit dem materialistischen Grundzug unserer Zeit zusammen. Dieser materialistische Grundzug unserer Zeit hat zugleich notwendig zur Folge, daß sich Unwahrhaftigkeit einstellt, namentlich da, wo man nicht so ehrlich zu Werke geht, daß man sagt: Wir kennen eigentlich von Mystik nichts als die reale Seite, die identisch ist mit dem Erotischen. Die Unwahrhaftigkeit kommt dann zutage, wenn man das Erotische meint, aber über das Erotische den Schleier mystischer Begriffe hinüberlegt. Wahrhaftiger ist wirklich noch ein Materialist, der einfach sagt: Ich sehe in der ganzen Mystik eigentlich nur Erotik -, als derjenige, der von der Erotik ausgeht, aber um es zu kaschieren, in mystischen Formeln bis in die höchsten Welten hinaufklettert. Man kann manchmal geradezu die Leitern sehen, auf denen solche Leute hinaufkraxeln bis in die höchsten Plane, um das mystisch zu kaschieren, was eigentlich nichts weiter ist als Erotik. Wir haben also auf der einen Seite die theoretische Angliederung des Mystik-Begriffes an den Begriff der Erotik, auf der anderen Seite den Zug unserer Zeit, herunterzusinken in Erotisches und das Hineintragen von allerlei möglichst unklarer Mystik, unklarer, unverstandener Mystik in die schwüle Erotik.
Meine lieben Freunde, daß klare Vorstellungen über diese Dinge in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft sich verbreiten mögen, das war dasjenige, warum ich vor einiger Zeit als Aufforderung an Sie gerichtet habe, daß Arbeit geschehe, um jene mystische Verschrobenheit auszumerzen, welche aus der eben charakterisierten Vermischung entsteht; daß in einer gewissen Weise gerade diejenigen, die gut erkennen den Charakter edler Geistigkeit, wiederum sich aufschwingen zu dem Standpunkte, von Geistigem zu sprechen da, wo Geistiges wirklich vorhanden ist, und nicht die subjektiven Emotionen in geistige Formen einzukleiden. Und weil mir bewußt ist, daß nicht überall klare Begriffe in dieser Beziehung herrschen, meine lieben Freunde, deshalb habe ich vor einiger Zeit den Appell an die Gesellschaft gerichtet, einige Klarheit über diese Dinge zu schaffen. Aber die Zeit wird lehren, ob wir dazu imstande sind.
Ich habe gestern angedeutet, daß in älteren Zeiten, ja bis in unsere Zeit herauf, man ein anderes, viel radikaleres Mittel gewählt hat, um die Bedingungen zu erfüllen, die einer geisteswissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft - welcher Form auch immer - zugrunde liegen müssen: Man hat einfach einen Teil der Menschheit, das eine Geschlecht ausgeschlossen, damit das andere dadurch bewahrt geblieben ist vor allerlei Vermischungen höherer geistiger Begriffe mit Begriffen des natürlichen Menschenlebens auf dem physischen Plan. Geistiges zu denken gehört der geistigen Welt an, und im gesunden Sinne müssen wir uns dazu aufschwingen, zu wissen, daß es viel, viel schlimmer ist, von gewissen Dingen des naturgemäßen Zusammenlebens der Menschen in mystischen Formeln zu sprechen, die nicht hingehören in dieses Gebiet, als dieses Gebiet in voller Wahrheit mit dem rechten Namen zu benennen und sich einzugestehen, wie dieses Gebiet eben ein Gebiet des physischen Planes sein muß. Für den, der in wahrem Sinne ein Mystiker ist, ist es eine furchtbare Sache, wenn irgend jemand einfach denjenigen Trieb, der ihn dazu bringt, das zu erfüllen, was - verzeihen Sie - Schopenhauer in seiner eigentümlich grobklotzigen Charakterisierung der Liebe mit folgenden Worten bezeichnet: «Die sämtlichen Liebeshändel der gegenwärtigen Generation zusammengenommen sind demnach des ganzen Menschengeschlechts» - das ist nicht meine, sondern Schopenhauers Ansicht! «ernstliche meditatio compositionis generationis futurae, e qua iterum pendent innumerae generationes.»
Also in seiner grobklotzigen Metaphysik sagt Schopenhauer: Die sämtlichen Liebeshändel der gegenwärtigen Generation zusammengenommen sind demnach des ganzen Menschengeschlechtes ernste Meditation über die Zusammensetzung der künftigen Generation, von der wiederum zahllose solche Generationen abhängen.
Wenn jemand einen so gearteten Trieb nicht in seiner Wahrheit gelten läßt, sondern ihn dadurch verbrämt, daß er etwa sagt: Ich bin verpflichtet, dies oder jenes zu tun, um einer sehr bedeutenden Individualität die Möglichkeit zu verschaffen, in die Welt hereinzukommen -, dann ist das etwas Greuliches für denjenigen, der in Ernst und Würde Mystik pflegen will.
Und auch das ist zu berücksichtigen, meine lieben Freunde, daß Mystik nicht ein Faulbett sein soll für die Menschheit. Sie wird aber zu einem gemacht, wenn gesunde Begriffe durch kranke Begriffe auf mystische Art ersetzt werden. Hier auf dem physischen Plan hat der Mensch zu gelten durch dasjenige, wozu er den guten Willen hat zu arbeiten, wirklich zu arbeiten. Wenn er nicht arbeiten will und seinen Wert sich erschleichen will dadurch, daß er nicht durch das, was seine Arbeit wert ist, taxiert sein will, sondern dadurch, daß er sagt: Nun, ich habe Anspruch darauf, als etwas Besonderes genommen zu werden, weil ich diese oder jene Wiederverkörperung bin -, dann heißt das, sich aufs mystische Faulbett zu legen; man will anerkannt sein für etwas, ohne daß man etwas tut. Das ist der ganz gewöhnliche, triviale Begriff der Sache. Und wenn die Bemühungen in unserer Zeit dahin gehen müssen, meine lieben Freunde, dahin gehen müssen heute in unserer Zeit, rückhaltlos vor beiden Geschlechtern Geisteswissenschaft zu pflegen, so muß, so wie früher ein Zwangsdamm vorhanden war, heute ein Damm darinnen bestehen, daß die beiden Geschlechter in dem Ernst und in der Würde ihrer Lebensauffassung, in der Entfernung aller Phantastik, die doch immer mit den untergeordneten Trieben der Menschheit zusammenhängt, in Ernst und Würde die Erkenntnis der höheren Welten suchen. Dann wird es nicht möglich sein, daß Irrtümer über Irrtümer sich über dasjenige verbreiten, was in der oder jener phantastischen Seele aus der Pflege des mystischen Faulbetts heraus entsteht. Die Mystik, meine lieben Freunde, verlangt nicht, daß man fauler werde als die anderen Menschen draußen im Leben, die nichts für Mystik übrig haben, sondern daß man noch fleißiger als diese werde. Und die mystische Moral kann nicht ein Hinuntersinken sein unter die Anschauungen der anderen Menschen, sondern ein Hinaufsteigen über diese. Und wenn wir uns nicht bemühen, solche Dinge wie das, was ich als «Sprengelismus» bezeichnen möchte - wenn wir uns nicht bemühen, alles ähnliche wie den «Sprengelismus» auszumerzen aus unserer Gesellschaft, dann, meine lieben Freunde, kommen wir nicht weiter!
Ich werde nun in diesen Betrachtungen fortfahren, je nachdem, wie es sich aus dem Verlaufe der heutigen Versammlung ergibt.1Da Rudolf Steiner nicht daran teilnahm, wurde auch nicht stenographiert. Es wird sich ja zeigen, wie weit die heutige Versammlung kommt, und dann werde ich ankündigen, wann ich diese Betrachtungen fortsetze.
Sixth Lecture
Episodic Reflections on the Concept of Love in Relation to the Concept of Mysticism
My dear friends! Today I would like to elaborate further on the topic that I have been discussing in my reflections over the past few days. Today I would like to start with the question: How old is love, actually?
My dear friends, I have no doubt that the vast majority of people, based on a certain superficial view of things, will immediately answer: Love is as old as humanity. But those who are accustomed to speaking from a cultural-historical perspective, which they recognize as being imbued with spiritual impulses, will give you a different answer to this question, because they strive to view things concretely and not in general, vague terms. Love, my dear friends, is at most 700 years old! Read all of ancient Roman and Greek literature and poetry, and you will find nowhere what we associate with the concept of love today. And if you read Plutarch, you will find that the two concepts of Venus and Cupid are clearly distinguished from each other in a very characteristic way. The way love appears in poetry, especially in lyric poetry, how it forms the center of so many lyrical effusions, is no more than 600 to 700 years old. This means that the concept of love, with the meaning it has for people today, as it is taught to them today, has only been present in people's minds for 6 to 7 centuries. In the past, people did not speak of this concept of love in anything like the same way.
This should not surprise you, not even theoretically, not even epistemologically. For the objection that people have always practiced love does not apply. It is exactly the same as saying that if the Copernican worldview is correct, that the earth moves around the sun, then it has been doing so since Latin, Greek, and Egyptian times, indeed for as long as the earth has existed. Yes, certainly, but people did not speak of the Copernican worldview. So the objection that what is expressed in the concept of love already existed before the concept of love itself existed does not apply. The phenomena, the facts of love, formed a complex of facts of life, but people did not talk about them. But in the past 600 to 700 years, much progress has been made in this area. Not only has love come to be regarded by many today as the center of all life—I mean in the worldview—but it has even led to a scientific theory, psychoanalysis, which, as I have shown you, is completely mired in the most ordinary concepts of love. This is the course of development against which we, my dear friends, must rebel, which we must transform into something else by cultivating the spiritual-scientific worldview.
I would actually be surprised if many or all of you were really astonished by the statement that the concept of love is only 600 to 700 years old, because some of you may know that I have also expressed the same things in earlier lectures and characterized them in a completely historical way.
Well, this convergence of the concept of love with all kinds of worldview concepts, as is so repulsive in the psychoanalytic worldview, has developed slowly and gradually over the last few centuries, and it would take us a long time to get to the bottom of these things. But through a few observations, which I will make episodically, aphoristically, I would like to help you on your way.
Take, for example, a spirit of the present age who is so completely immersed in the cultural concepts of the present age, so thoroughly imbued with them, that he cannot get beyond the supposed realization that the external, the sensually and physically real, is the only thing that can reasonably be spoken of. I have already presented you with a very honest example of this type of person in Fritz Mauthner, the language critic and author of a philosophical dictionary.
You see, such a person is in a peculiar position. Fritz Mauthner is a critic of language; he therefore knows that at least the word “mysticism” has always existed in human development. And since he is a critic of language, he wants an answer to the question: What is actually behind this word “mysticism,” behind mystical aspirations?
Now consider, my dear friends, how we must struggle through a wealth of literature to discover what the relationship of the human soul to the supernatural worlds is that deserves to be characterized by the word “mysticism.” Consider how seriously and respectfully we must take such discussions, as they are in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds,” in order to gain insight into how the soul must attune itself to face the higher worlds in such a way that one can say: The soul in question is that of a mystic, a human being who has found union with what spiritually permeates and pervades the higher worlds. So one must first acquire this, one must first live into it. And actually, today only someone who has really considered the ideas expressed in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” can know what mysticism means in the present day, that is, someone who has at least studied this book attentively several times.
When a man like Fritz Mauthner picks up a book like “How to Obtain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” it is of course utter nonsense to him, because he can read nothing in it but words. And he is right — he is honest — when he has read Swedenborg and says: Swedenborg talks about Martians who can hide their inner impulses—I can't understand any of it. He might as well say: Truly, when I read a book like “How to Obtain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” I can't find anything in it; it may be that angels can understand it, but I cannot. - That is how one can judge, and I am convinced that Fritz Mauthner, as an honest man, could make such a judgment. One must realize that, if he remains true to the truth, he must ultimately make such a judgment, because for him the concept of mysticism is completely irrelevant; for him, there is nothing behind it. What is expounded in “Theosophy” or in “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” is, for him, nothing but words, words, words. And if he has a Faustian striving in his own way, he says: I seek all power and seed in the physical outer world and do not want to rummage around in words. In his own way, that is quite right.
But now he is not only honest, but also thorough, and so he says to himself: Should people really never have had anything like mysticism in their souls? They have always spoken of mysticism. So what is it in the human soul that has led them to speak of mysticism?
You see, when I was a very young man, I knew a theologian—he is now dead—who was an outstanding theologian and also a highly educated philosopher, who said quite rightly: Actually, behind every error there is also something real or true that one must seek, and no whim is so great that one should not seek the reality that lies behind it. Well, in this sense, Fritz Mauthner also says to himself: There must be something to mysticism after all. That is, Fritz Mauthner must say to himself, if there are still such complicated guys around today who write books like “How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” and talk about a mystical relationship between humans and the spiritual worlds, then that is of course utter nonsense; but there must be something in human nature that gives rise to such feelings, which these stubborn, foolish mystics call their mysticism. There must be something like that. If one tries to figure out where Fritz Mauthner actually finds the basis of mysticism, one really comes up with little more than, at most, reading his article “Mysticism” and finally saying to oneself: “The pigtail hanging behind him.” If you take this article, you really find nothing else in it but that everything revolves around words and explanations of words. But because I wanted to find out where Fritz Mauthner, in his own way, seeks to get behind the reality of this mysticism, I tried to look it up in his dictionary to see where I might find it... [gap in the stenogram].
And so I looked up not only the article “Mysticism,” but also the article “Love.” And I actually think that this article “Love” is one of the best written, because it is actually quite nice. First, he compiles the explanations of the word, the definitions of love according to Spinoza, the short, rough definition of love according to Schopenhauer, and then explains that one must distinguish between real, spiritual love and mere eroticism, the physical, that which is confined to sexuality. Mauthner accepts all of this and even rises to the following beautiful conclusion:
“I believe that one-sided intellectual geniuses have rarely or never understood the pathological feeling of love, the highest degree of love, have not gathered any experience of their own, and have only attempted to organize the descriptions of poets conceptually.”
So he says: philosophers will not have known much about love, they looked to the poets for guidance.
"I believe that the highest degree of love has only been experienced and described by artists (since Petrarch, for example), has entered the common language through the power of imitation or fashion, has dominated the imagination of readers in poetry for six centuries, and is now in the process of being replaced by another fashion. The highest degree of love is as rare as a great work of art or the religious union with God that Francis may have experienced; yet everyone talks about religion, art, and love. What they call these things is only a substitute for a feeling that hardly any of the million talkers have ever experienced."
Well, fine!
"The highest degree of love, whose existence I do not deny, really has something of a miracle about it; indeed, people have tried to explain miracles as pathological phenomena. In the rarest of cases, when both partners feel the strongest degree of love, a miracle occurs that defies all laws of nature: one lifts the other, and both float above the earth. Archimedes' dos uoi nov orw is, or seems to be, suspended. Whether happiness or death, the longing of mysticism is fulfilled."
There you have it! So for someone like Mauthner, who stands entirely on the ground of our modern worldview, the feeling of love is the only possibility for a person to have the kind of feelings that the complicated mystic finds in his relationship to the spiritual. They are only present in the feeling of love. For this is truly an honest statement from such a person who has lost all connection to the spiritual world: “Whether happiness or death, the longing of mysticism is fulfilled.”
Mauthner then goes on to say:
"In this brief examination, I have deliberately overlooked the many other meanings of the word love. But now I must point out that mysticism also experiences its union with God as the most passionate and spiritual enjoyment of love, and that Spinoza in particular uses his first definition of love (in the third book of Ethics and then in the fifth book) to proclaim amor Dei, amor erga Deum, as the highest bliss of man. The essence of mysticism, the longing to express the inexpressible, has led to such a misuse of the concept of love, but not only in Spinoza's pantheistic extravagance; Schopenhauer's metaphysical cynicism also contains something of this pictorial mysticism, which Cousin also meant when he said: We love the infinite and imagine that we love finite things.
Through all degrees of so-called love runs the well-known feeling in which we call our sexual partner “loving” with an adjectival word; our feeling, which is just as subjective, we have universally described with the incorrectly formed verbal word “love”: the attempt to form an objective, substantive word for the feeling, the word “love,” has been so successful in language that people have convinced themselves that the feeling is as common as the word."
So you see, my dear friends, when the modern world of materialism tries to form a concept of mysticism based on its fundamental impulses, it is forced to say to itself: what the mystic dreams of can only be found in reality in the feeling of love; that is, everything spiritual is brought down to a refined eroticism.
It is characteristic that Mauthner, for example, draws on the peculiar way in which Nietzsche's spiritual nature was characterized by a friend of Nietzsche's, Ms. Lou Andreas-Salome, in her book about Nietzsche: namely, as a kind of refined eroticism. And it is interesting how Fritz Mauthner responds to this portrayal of Nietzsche by Ms. Lou Andreas-Salome. He says:
"Recently, after so many men, a woman has also attempted to recognize the philosophy of love, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Nietzsche's friend, who is thoroughly hated by the Nietzsche company because of her excellent book on Nietzsche. Ms. Lou is very subtle in her remarks; she dares not to recognize fidelity as a fundamental characteristic of love, and she builds a bridge between the imagination of the artist and the imagination of lovers (Die Erotik, p. 25f.). But Ms. Lou also spiritualizes the act to such an extent that a conceptual distinction between the feeling of lust and the spiritual accompaniment does not come about."
Men and women thus express themselves in such a way that, in the present day, even in our thinking we are compelled to replace the soul's relationship with the spiritual world with what pulsates through the human soul as more or less refined eroticism, depending on the character of the individual.
All these things are connected with the materialistic tendency of our time. This materialistic tendency of our time necessarily leads to insincerity, especially when people are not honest enough to say: We actually know nothing about mysticism except its real side, which is identical with the erotic. Dishonesty comes to light when people mean the erotic, but cover the erotic with a veil of mystical concepts. A materialist who simply says, “I really only see eroticism in all mysticism,” is actually more truthful than someone who starts from eroticism but, in order to conceal it, climbs up to the highest worlds in mystical formulas. I actually see only eroticism in all mysticism — than someone who starts from eroticism but, in order to conceal it, climbs up to the highest worlds in mystical formulas. Sometimes you can actually see the ladders on which such people scramble up to the highest planes in order to conceal as mystical what is actually nothing more than eroticism. So on the one hand we have the theoretical affiliation of the concept of mysticism with the concept of eroticism, and on the other hand the tendency of our time to sink into eroticism and to carry all kinds of mysticism, as unclear as possible, unclear, misunderstood mysticism, into sultry eroticism.
My dear friends, it was in order that clear ideas about these things might spread in the Anthroposophical Society that I addressed an appeal to you some time ago, asking that work be done to eradicate the mystical eccentricity that arises from the mixture I have just described; so that, in a certain way, precisely those who recognize the character of noble spirituality may rise to the point of speaking of the spiritual where the spiritual is really present, and not clothe subjective emotions in spiritual forms. And because I am aware that clear concepts do not prevail everywhere in this regard, my dear friends, I therefore appealed to the society some time ago to create some clarity about these things. But time will tell whether we are capable of doing so.
Yesterday I indicated that in earlier times, and indeed up to the present day, a different, much more radical means was chosen to fulfill the conditions that must underlie a spiritual scientific society, whatever form it may take: one simply excluded one part of humanity, one sex, so that the other was thereby preserved from all kinds of mixing of higher spiritual concepts with concepts of natural human life on the physical plane. Spiritual thinking belongs to the spiritual world, and in a healthy sense we must rise to the occasion and realize that it is much, much worse to speak of certain things pertaining to the natural coexistence of human beings in mystical formulas that do not belong in this realm than to name this realm in full truth with the right name and admit to ourselves how this realm must be a realm of the physical plane. For those who are true mystics, it is a terrible thing when someone simply refers to the urge that drives them to fulfill what—forgive me—Schopenhauer, in his peculiarly crude characterization of love, describes with the following words: “All the love affairs of the present generation taken together are therefore the whole human race” — that is not my view, but Schopenhauer's! “ernsthafte meditatio compositionis generationis futurae, e qua iterum pendent innumerae generationes.”
So, in his crude metaphysics, Schopenhauer says: All the love affairs of the present generation taken together are therefore the whole human race's serious meditation on the composition of the future generation, on which countless such generations in turn depend.
If someone does not accept such an instinct as true, but embellishes it by saying, for example, “I am obliged to do this or that in order to give a very important individuality the opportunity to come into the world,” then this is something abhorrent to those who want to cultivate mysticism with seriousness and dignity.
And it must also be taken into account, my dear friends, that mysticism should not be a bed of laziness for humanity. But it is turned into one when healthy concepts are replaced by unhealthy concepts in a mystical way. Here on the physical plane, man must be valued for what he has the good will to work for, to really work for. If they do not want to work and want to obtain their value by not being assessed according to the value of their work, but by saying: Well, I am entitled to be treated as something special because I am this or that reincarnation – then that means lying down on the mystical bed of laziness; they want to be recognized for something without doing anything. That is the very ordinary, trivial concept of the matter. And if the efforts of our time must go in that direction, my dear friends, must go in that direction today in our time, to cultivate spiritual science unreservedly before both sexes, then, just as there used to be a dam, there must be a dam today that both genders seek knowledge of the higher worlds with seriousness and dignity in their view of life, distancing themselves from all fantasy, which is always connected with the subordinate drives of humanity. Then it will not be possible for errors upon errors to spread about what arises in this or that fanciful soul from the cultivation of the mystical bed of laziness. Mysticism, my dear friends, does not require one to become lazier than other people out there in life who have no time for mysticism, but rather to become even more diligent than they are. And mystical morality cannot be a sinking below the views of other people, but a rising above them. And if we do not strive to eradicate things such as what I would like to call “Sprengelism” – if we do not strive to eradicate everything similar to “Sprengelism” from our society, then, my dear friends, we will not make any progress!
I will now continue with these reflections, depending on how today's meeting proceeds. 1As Rudolf Steiner did not participate, no shorthand notes were taken. We will see how far today's meeting progresses, and then I will announce when I will continue these reflections.