The Younger Generation
GA 217
4 October 1922, Dornach
Lecture II
In speaking of a movement among the youth, a clear distinction can be made between the youth movement in the wider sense and those young people who are particularly concerned with schools, with the sphere of education in general. I do not wish to accentuate either the one or the other, but our aim will be most readily attained if we consider the main difficulties of the inner life among the youth at Universities and Colleges.
We shall often have to start from details and then quickly soar to a wider outlook. Allow me to say a few words about the inner experiences undergone by young people at Universities. As a matter of fact, this situation has been preparing for many decades, but recently it has reached a climax making it more clearly perceptible.
Young people at the Universities are seeking for something. This is not surprising, for their purpose in going to college is to seek for something. They have been looking in those who taught them, for real leaders, for those who were both teachers and leaders or—as would be equally correct—teachers endowed with leadership, and they did not find them. And this was the really terrible thing clothed in all kinds of different words—one man speaking conservatively, the other radically, one saying something very wise and another something very stupid. What was said amounted to this: We can no longer find any teachers.
What, then, did youth find when they came to the Universities? Well, they met men in whom they did not find what they were looking for. These men prided themselves on not being teachers any longer, but investigators, researchers. The Universities established themselves as institutes for research. They were no longer there for human beings, but only for science. And science led an existence among men which it defined as “objective.” It drummed into people, in every possible key, that it was to be respected as “objective” science. It is sometimes necessary to express such things pictorially. And so this objective science was now going about among human beings but it most certainly was not a human being! Something non-human was going about among men, calling itself “Objective Science.”
This could be perceived in detail, over and over again. How often is it not said: This or that has been discovered; it already belongs to science. And then other things are added to science and these so-called treasures of science become an accumulation, something which has acquired, step by step, this dreadful objective existence among mankind. But human beings do not really fit in with this objective creature who is strutting around in their midst, for true and genuine manhood has no kinship with this cold, objective, bolstered-up creature. True, as time has gone on, libraries and research institutes have been established. But the young, especially, are not looking for libraries or research institutes. They are looking in libraries for—it is almost beyond one to say the word—they are looking for human beings—and they find, well, they find librarians! They are looking in the scientific institutes for men filled with enthusiasm for wisdom, for real knowledge, and they find, well, those who are usually to be found in laboratories, scientific institutes, hospitals and the like. The old have accustomed themselves to being so easy-going and phlegmatic that they really do not want to be there at all in person—only their institutes and libraries must be there. But the human being cannot bring this about. Even if he tries not to be there, he is there nevertheless, working not through the reality that lives in him as a human being, but through a leaden heaviness in him.
One could express this in other ways too: Human beings strive toward Nature. But—to take a significant point—you cannot help saying: Nature is round the young child too, for example. But in its life of soul-and-spirit the little child derives nothing from Nature. The little child has to get something from Nature by coming into relation with human beings with whom it can experience Nature in common. In a certain respect this holds good right up to very late years of youth. We must come together with human beings with whom we can experience Nature in common. This was not possible during the last decades because there was no language in which people, both young and old, could come to an understanding with one another about Nature. When the old speak of Nature it is as though they were darkening her, as though the names they give to the plants no longer fit them. Nothing fits! On the one side there is the riddle “plant” and we hear the names from the old, but they do not tally because the human reality is expelled; “objective” science is wandering about on the earth. This state of things came gradually but it reached a climax during recent decades.
In the nineteenth century it showed itself through a particular phenomenon in a significant way. When anyone with a little imagination cast an eye over the higher forms of culture in recent centuries, he made acquaintance at every turn with this objective creature “Science,” which came upon the scene in many different guises but claimed always to be the one and only genuine, objective science. And having made its acquaintance, having this objective science continually introduced to one, one perceived that another being had stolen away bashfully, because she felt that she was no longer tolerated. And if one were spurred on to speak with this being, secretly in the corner, she said: “I have a name which may not be uttered in the presence of objective science. I am called Philosophy, Sophia—Wisdom. But having the ignominious prefix ‘love’ I have attached to me something that through its very name is connected with human inwardness, with love. I no longer dare to show myself. I have to go about bashfully. Objective science prides itself on having nothing of the ‘philo’ in its makeup. It has also lost, as a token, the real Sophia. But I go about nevertheless, for I still bear something of the sublime within me, connected with feeling and with a genuinely human quality.”
This is a picture that often came before the soul, and it expressed an undefined feeling in countless young people during the last twenty or thirty years.
People have been trying to find forms of expression—for as there are forms of expression for the life of thought, so too for the life of feeling—they have always been trying to find expressions for what they were seeking. Possibly the most zealous, who felt the greatest warmth of youth, broke out into the vaguest expressions because all they really knew was: We are seeking for something. But when they came to express what it was that they were seeking, it was nothing, a Nothingness. In reality, the Nothingness was, as in the words of Faust, the “All,” but it presented itself as a Nothingness. It was a question of crossing an abyss. Such was the feeling, and it still is the feeling today. It can only be understood as part of history, but history in a new, not old sense.
And now I want to speak of something quite different, but gradually things will link themselves together. Human beings who lived at the beginning of our era were able to feel quite differently from the human being of today. This was so because in the life of feeling and human perception there still lived a great deal of what was old. Human beings had a heritage in their souls. Heritage was not there only at the beginning of our era; it continued far into the Middle Ages. But nowadays souls are placed into the world without it. The fact that souls come into the world without this heritage is very noticeable in the new century. That is one aspect. The other—well, my dear friends, suppose you were to ask anybody who lived at the beginning of our era if they spoke much about “education”. The farther back we go, the less we find that education is spoken about. Education, of course, may be spoken about in different ways, for instance: Through education the young should gradually be brought up to be what they want to be when they are old. For after all we must grow old in earthly life—however young we may still be.
In olden times human beings were young and grew old in a more natural way. Today people cannot be old and young in a way that is true to nature. People do not know any longer what it means to be young and what it means to be old. Nothing is known about it and that is why there is such endless talk about education, because there is a longing to know how to teach young people to be young in order that they may grow old respectably. But nobody knows how to direct things so that human beings should be truly young and how, in youth, they can decently assimilate what will enable them to become old in a worthy manner.
Centuries ago all this was quite a matter of course. Today a great deal is said about education. Mostly we do not realize the absurdity of what is said on this subject. Nowadays almost everyone is talking about education. And why? Usually he has but the vaguest realization of having been badly educated and yet difficulties in life are attributed to this cause. People talk about it because they find that they are uneducated. This they admit. But they do not experience anything real in this domain. Nonetheless conclusions are formed. The usual cry is: “We should have this program in education”—merely because people feel so insecure in themselves. One could also show that a strong will is present on all sides, but without any real content. And that is exactly what the young are feeling, that there is no content in this will. Why is there no content? Because only lately something genuinely new has arisen in earth-evolution.
The following can only be indicated in broad outline, but if you care to look at my book, Occult Science, it will be brought home to you. There you will find that the earth is shown as a heritage of other world-existences. The names are immaterial. I have called them the Saturn, Sun and Moon existences. But the first earth-epoch was only the repetition of earlier world-existences. On the earth there have been three periods of repetition: a Saturn, a Sun, and a Moon period. Then came the earth period proper. But this earth period proper, this Atlantean epoch, was again only a repetition at a higher level of earlier conditions.
And then came the post-Atlantean epoch—a still higher stage. But this again was a repetition. The post-Atlantean epoch was a repetition of a repetition. Until the fifteenth century A.D. mankind actually lived on nothing but repetitions, on nothing but a heritage. Up to the fifteenth century the human being, in his soul, was by no means an unwritten page. Before then, many things rose up of themselves in the soul. But from the fifteenth century onwards souls were really unwritten pages. Now the earth was new—new for the first time. Since the fifteenth century the earth has been new. Before then human beings lived on the earth with much they inherited. As a rule no heed is paid to the fact that since the fifteenth century the earth has become new for the first time. Before then human beings were fed on the past. Since the fifteenth century they have been standing face to face with Nothingness. The soul is an unwritten page. And how have human beings been living since the fifteenth century? Since then, the son has inherited from the father rough tradition what had once been inherited in a different way, so that from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century tradition was still always there. But as you can see, tradition has fared worse and worse.
Think for example of the Sphere of Rights. It would never have occurred to a man like Scotus Erigena to speak of Rights as modern people speak, because at that time there was still something in the souls which led human beings to speak as man to man. This is no longer so, because there is nothing in the soul that leads to the human reality; man has found nothing yet that leads out of the Nothingness. At one time the father could at least speak to the son. But at the end of the eighteenth century things had gone so far that the father had really nothing to say to his son any more. Then people began to seek, convulsively to begin with, for the so-called “Rights of Reason.” Ideas and feelings on the subject of Rights were supposed to be pressed out of reason. Then Savigny and others discovered that nothing more could be pressed out of reason. People began to establish Rights according to history, where it was a question of studying earlier conditions and cramming themselves with the feelings of men long since dead, because there was nothing left in themselves. Rights of reason were a convulsive clinging to what had already been lost. Rights according to history were a confession that nothing more was to be got out of the men of the day. Such was the situation at the onset of the nineteenth century: The feeling grew keener and keener that mankind was facing a Nothingness and that something must be got out of the human being himself.
In ancient Greece nobody would have known how to speak about objective science. How did man express his relation to the world? By reference to spiritual vision he spoke of Melpomene, of Urania, and so on; of the “Liberal Arts”. These Liberal Arts were not beings who went about on the earth, but for all that they were real. Even in the age of philosophy, the Greek's experience of his connection with the spiritual world was concrete. The Muses were genuinely loved; they were real beings with whom man was related and had intercourse. Homer's words: “Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Peleus' son, Achilles” were not the mere phraseology they are thought to be by modern scholars. Homer felt himself a kind of chalice and the Muse spoke out of him as a higher manhood enfilled him.
Klopstock was unwilling to speak in the phrases which were already prevalent in the world into which he was born; he said: “Sing, immortal Soul, of sinful man's redemption.” But this “immortal soul” too has disappeared little by little. It was a slow and gradual process. In the first centuries of Christendom we find that the once concrete Muses had become dreadfully withered ladies! Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astrology, Music—they had lost all concrete reality. Boethius makes them appear almost without distinct features. It is impossible to love them any longer. But even so they are buxom figures in comparison with the objective science that goes about as a being among men today. Little by little the human being has lost the connection he had in olden times with the spiritual world. This was inevitable because he had to develop to full freedom in order to shape all that is human out of himself. This has been the challenge since the fifteenth century, but it was not really felt until the end of the nineteenth and particularly in the twentieth century. For now, not only was the inheritance lost but the traditions too. Fathers had nothing to tell their sons. And now the feeling was: We are facing a Nothingness. People began to sense: The earth has in fact become new.
What I have said here can be put in another way, by considering what would have become of the earth without the Christ Event.—Suppose there had been no Christ Event. The earth as it lives in man's life of soul and spirit would gradually have withered. The Christ Event could not have been delayed until the modern age. It had to occur somewhat earlier than the time when the old inheritance had gone, in order that the Christ Event could at least be experienced through the old inherited qualities of soul. Just imagine what it would have been like if the Christ Event at the beginning of our era had come about at the end of the nineteenth or in the twentieth century. How our contemporaries would laugh to scorn the pretension that an event could be of such significance! Quite a different kind of feeling was necessary. The feeling of standing before a Nothingness could not, at the time of that Event, have been there. The Christ Event came during the first third of the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch of civilization. And in the same epoch, in the first third of which there fell the Christ Event, the old era came to an end.
A new era begins in the fifteenth century, with the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch of civilization in which we are now living. In this epoch there were only traditions. They have gradually faded out. In this epoch, as regards the Christ Event, as regards the deeper, more intimate religious questions, men are clearly facing a Nothingness. It has even become impossible for theologians to understand the Christ Event. Try to get from contemporary theology an intelligible conception of the Christ Event. Those who argue the Christ away from Jesus pass as the greatest theologians today. Quite obviously, people are facing the Abyss.
I am only describing symptoms. For these things take place in the deeper layers of man's life of soul. These layers of soul conjure into those who were born on earth to become the young of recent decades, something that makes them feel cut off from the stream of world happenings. It is as though a terrible jerk had been given to the evolution of the soul.
Suppose my hand were capable of feeling and were chopped off. What would it feel? It would feel cut off, dried up; it would no longer feel itself to be what it actually is. This is what the human soul has been feeling since the last third of the nineteenth century in regard to the stream of world happenings. The soul feels cut off, chopped off, and the anxious question is: How can I once again become alive in my soul?
But then, when one strives to speak out of what can bring this life back again, those who want to muddle along on the lines of the old spiritual life simply show no understanding. Just think how little is understood about the essence of the founding of the Waldorf School, for example. For the most part people hear about the Waldorf School something quite different from what they ought to hear. They hear things that were also said decades ago. The mere words that are spoken today about the Waldorf School can be found by them in books. They find every single word in earlier books. But when one wants to use different words, or perhaps only different ways of putting the sentences together, then people say: That is bad style. They have not the remotest notion of what must be done now, when human beings who still have a soul in their bodies must inevitably face the Nothingness.
Waldorf School education must be listened to with other ears than those with which one hears about other kinds of education or educational reform. For the Waldorf School gives no answer to the questions people want to have answered today and which are ostensibly answered by other systems of education. What is the aim of such questions? Their usual aim is intelligence, much intelligence—and of intelligence the present time has an incalculable amount. Intelligence, intellect, cleverness—these are widespread commodities at the present time. One can give terribly intelligent answers to questions like: What should we make out of the child? How should we inculcate this or that into him? The ultimate result is that people answer for themselves the question: What pleases me in the child, and how can I get the child to be what I like? But such questions have no significance in the deeper evolutionary course of humanity. And to such questions Waldorf pedagogy gives no reply at all.
To give a picture of what Waldorf Education is, we must say that it speaks quite differently from the way in which people speak elsewhere in the sphere of education: Waldorf School Education is not a pedagogical system but an Art—the Art of awakening what is actually there within the human being. Fundamentally, the Waldorf School does not want to educate, but to awaken. For an awakening is needed today. First of all, the teachers must be awakened, and then the teachers must awaken the children and the young people.
An awakening is needed, now that mankind has been cut off from the stream of world-evolution in general. In this moment humanity fell asleep—you will not be surprised that I use this expression. They fell asleep, just as a hand goes to sleep when it is cut off from the circulation of the body. But you might say: But human beings have made such progress since the fifteenth century, they have developed such colossal cleverness, and, moreover, are aware of the colossal cleverness they have developed If the War had not come—which, by the way, was not the experience that it might have been, although people did realize to a slight extent that they were not so very clever after all—heaven knows to what point the phrase, “We have made such splendid progress” would have got. It would have been unendurable! Certainly in the sphere of the intellect tremendous progress has been made since the fifteenth century. But this intellect has something dreadfully deceptive about it.
You see, people think that in their intellects they are awake. But the intellect tells us nothing about the world. It is really nothing but a dream of the world. In the intellect, more emphatically than anywhere else, man dreams and because objective science works mostly with the intellect that is applied to observation and experiment, it too dreams about the world. It all remains a dreaming. Through the intellect man no longer has an objective relation with the world. The intellect is the automatic momentum of thinking which continues long after man has been cut off from the world. That is why human beings of the present day, when they feel a soul within them, are seeking again for a real link with the world, a re-entrance into the world. If up till the fifteenth century men had positive inheritances, so now they are confronting a “reversed” inheritance, a negative inheritance. And here a strange discovery can be made.
Up to the fifteenth century, men could welcome with joy what they had inherited from the evolution of the world. The world had not been unrolled and human beings were not altogether cut off from it. Today, after the switching off has occurred, one can again ponder what is to be got from the world without personal activity. But then a strange discovery is made, like a man who is left a legacy and forgets to inform himself about it accurately. A calculation is made and it is discovered that the debits exceed the assets. The opportunity of refusing the legacy has been missed. But this means a definite amount of debts which have to be paid. It is a negative inheritance. There are such cases. And so a negative inheritance comes to the soul, even concerning the greatest Event that has ever happened in evolution.
Before the time of Golgotha it was not necessary for human beings to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, because it had not taken place. Then it happened, and with the remains of ancient inheritance it could still be dimly understood in the age that followed. Then came the fifteenth century when these inherited remains were no longer there, although it was still possible for father to pass on to son the story of what took place in the Mystery of Golgotha.
None of this helps any longer. People are dreadfully clever. But even in the seventh and eighth centuries they would have been clever enough to perceive the contradictions in the four Gospels. The contradictions were, after all, very easy to discover. They began to be investigated for the first time in the nineteenth century. And so it is in every domain of life. The value of the intellect was too highly assessed and a consciousness, a feeling, for the Event of Golgotha was lost. Religious consciousness was lost in the deepest sense. But in its innermost essence the soul has not lost this consciousness, and the young are asking: “What was the Mystery of Golgotha in reality?” The elders were unable to say anything about it. I am not implying that the young are capable of this either, or that anything is known at the Universities. What I am saying is that something ought to be known about it.
To sum up, what is taking place chaotically in the depths of human souls: a striving to understand once again the Mystery of Golgotha. What must be sought for is a new experience of Christ. We are standing inevitably before a new experience of the Christ Event. In its first form it was experienced with the remains of old inherited qualities of soul; they have vanished since the fifteenth century, and the experiences have been carried on simply by tradition. For the first time, in the last third of the nineteenth century it became evident that the darkness was now complete. There was no heritage any longer. Out of the darkness in the human soul, a light must be found once again. The spiritual world must be experienced in a new way.
This is the significant experience that is living in the souls of profounder natures in the modern youth movement. By no means superficially but in a deeper sense, it is clear that for the first time in the historical evolution of mankind there must be an experience which comes wholly from out of the human being himself. As long as this is not realized it is impossible to speak of education. The fundamental question is: How can original, firsthand experience, spiritual experience, be generated in the soul?
Original spiritual experience in man's soul is something that is standing before the awakening of human beings in the new century as the all-embracing, unexpressed riddle of man and of the world. The real question is: How is man to awaken the deepest nature within him, how can he awaken himself? Zealous spirits among growing humanity—I can only express it in a picture—are like one who only half wakes in the morning with his limbs heavy, unable to come fully out of sleep. That is how the human being feels today—as if he cannot completely emerge from the state of sleep.
This lies at the root of a striving in many different forms during the last twenty or thirty years and is still shining with a positive light today into the souls of the young. It expresses itself in the striving for community among young people. People are looking for something. I said yesterday: Man has lost man, and is seeking him again. Until the fifteenth century, human beings had not lost one another. Naturally evolution cannot be turned back to an earlier condition and it would be dreadful to attempt it. We do not wish to become reactionaries. Nevertheless it is a fact that up to the fifteenth century man could still find man. Since that century dim thought-pictures were to be found in tradition and in what the father was still able to hand on, saying: “The other person over there is really a human being.” Dimly it was realized that this form going about was also a human being. In the twentieth century this has altogether vanished. Even tradition has gone, and yet the quest is still for the human being. Man is really seeking for man. And why? Because in reality he is seeking for something quite different.
If things continue as they were at the turn of the century, then no one will wake up. For the others too are in the state where they are incapable of awakening anybody. In short, human beings, in community life, must mean something to one another. It is this that has from the beginning radiated through Waldorf School Education, which does not aim at being a system of principles but an impulse to awaken. It aims at being life, not science, not cleverness but art, vital action, awakening deed. That is, what matters is a question of awakening, for evolution has made human beings fall into a sleep that is filled with intellectualistic dreams. Even in the ordinary dream—which is nothing compared with the intellectual dreaming that goes on—man is often a megalomaniac. But, ordinary dreaming is a mere nothing compared with intellectualistic dreaming.
An awakening is at stake and it will simply not do to go any further with intellectualism. This objective science which goes about and has discarded all its old clothes because it fears that something genuinely human might be found in them, has surrounded itself with a thick fog, with the mantle of objectivity, and so nobody notices what is going about in this objectivity of science. People need something human again: human beings must be awakened.
Yes, my dear friends, if an awakening is to take place, the Mystery of Golgotha must become a living experience again. In the Mystery of Golgotha a Spirit-Being came into the earth from realms beyond the earth. In earlier times this was grasped with ancient powers of the soul. The twentieth century is challenged to understand it with new powers. Modern youth, when it understands itself, is demanding to be awakened in its consciousness, not in the ancient and slumbering powers of the soul. And this can only happen through the Spirit, can only happen if the Spirit actually sends its sparks into the communities people are seeking for today. The Spirit must be the Awakener. We can only make progress by realizing the tragic state of world-happenings in our day, namely, that we are facing the Nothingness we necessarily had to face in order to establish human freedom in earth-evolution. And in face of the Nothingness we need an awakening in the Spirit.
Only the Spirit can open the shutters, for otherwise they will remain tightly shut. Objective science—I cast no reproaches, for I am not overlooking its great merits—will, in spite of everything, leave these shutters tightly closed. Science is only willing to concern itself with the earthly. But since the fifteenth century the forces which can awaken human beings have disappeared. The awakening must be sought within the human being himself, in the super-earthly. This is indeed the deepest quest, in whatever forms it may appear. Those who speak of something new and are inwardly earnest and sincere should ask themselves: “How can we find the unearthly, the super-sensible, the spiritual, within our own beings?” This need not again be clothed in intellectualistic forms. Truly it can be sought in concrete forms, indeed it must be sought in such forms. Most certainly it cannot be sought in intellectualistic forms. For if you ask me why you have come here, it is because there is living within you this question: How can we find the Spirit? If you see what has impelled you to come in the right light, you will find that it is simply this question: “How can we find the Spirit which, out of the forces of the present time, is working in us? How can we find this Spirit?”
In the next few days, my dear friends, we will try to find this Spirit.
Zweiter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Wenn man heute von der Bewegung unter der Jugend spricht, kann man deutlich unterscheiden die weitere Jugendbewegung und die engere Jugendbewegung, die man die Bewegung der Jugend an den Hochschulen nennen kann, derjenigen Jugend, welche den Schulen, dem Pädagogischen überhaupt im weiteren Sinne zustrebt. Nicht weil ich das eine oder andere besonders betonen möchte, sage ich das, sondern weil wir zu dem, wozu wir kommen müssen, am leichtesten kommen, wenn wir zunächst einmal auf die Hauptschwierigkeiten des inneren Lebens hinsehen, wie sie sich namentlich unter der Universitäts- und Hochschuljugend geltend gemacht haben.
[ 2 ] Wir werden bei diesen Betrachtungen manchmal von Einzelheiten des Lebens ausgehen und uns dann rasch zu einem größeren Überblick erheben müssen. Daher gestatten Sie mir, daß ich zunächst ein paar Worte über die Erfahrungen sage, die gerade die Universitätsjugend in ihren Seelen durchgemacht hat. Im Grunde genommen hat sich das schon seit vielen Jahrzehnten vorbereitet; nur ist es in dem allerletzten Jahrzehnt zu einem Höhepunkt gestiegen, so daß man es deutlicher wahrnehmen konnte.
[ 3 ] Die Universitätsjugend sucht etwas. Es ist nicht weiter wunderbar, daß sie etwas sucht, denn man kommt ja zur Hochschule, weil man etwas sucht. Sie suchte nach lehrenden Führern — man könnte auch sagen nach führenden Lehrern —, und die Jugend fand keine führenden Lehrer. Und das war das ganz Furchtbare, das man in die verschiedensten Worte kleidete, das der eine konservativ, der andere radikal aussprach, der eine, indem er etwas sehr Weises, der andere, indem er eine große Dummheit sagte. Das wurde so ausgesprochen: Wir finden ja keine Lehrer mehr.
[ 4 ] Was fand man denn, wenn man an die Hochschule kam? Man fand die, die da waren, aber in denen man das, was man suchte, nicht fand. Sie waren stolz darauf, nicht mehr eigentliche Lehrer zu sein, sondern Forscher. Die Universitäten und Hochschulen etablierten sich als Forscheranstalten. Sie waren gar nicht mehr für die Menschen da. Sie waren nur für die Wissenschaft da, und die Wissenschaft führte ein Dasein unter den Menschen, das sie als objektiv bezeichnete. Sie bleute den Menschen in allen Tonarten ein, daß sie zu respektieren sei als objektive Wissenschaft. Man muß solche Dinge manchmal etwas bildlich aussprechen. Die objektive Wissenschaft ging also jetzt unter den Menschen herum; aber die objektive Wissenschaft war ganz sicher kein Mensch, sondern es ging etwas Unmenschliches unter den Menschen herum und nannte sich objektive Wissenschaft.
[ 5 ] Das konnte man in den Einzelheiten immer wieder erleben. Wie oft heißt es: Das ist schon gefunden, das gehört schon der Wissenschaft an. — Ein anderes wird zur Wissenschaft hinzugefunden, und diese sogenannten Schätze der Wissenschaft sind dann ein Aufgespeichertes, das sich allmählich dieses schreckliche, objektive Dasein in der Menschheit errungen hat. Aber die Menschen passen nicht zu dieser objektiven unter ihnen herumstolzierenden Wesenheit, denn es gibt kein eigentliches Verhältnis des wahren, echten Menschen zu dieser objektiv-kalten Wesenheit, die in der verschiedensten Weise aufgespeichert ist. Wir haben nach und nach zwar die Bibliotheken und wissenschaftlichen Forschungsinstitute bekommen. Aber insbesondere der junge Mensch sucht doch nicht die Bibliotheken, auch nicht die wissenschaftlichen Forschungsinstitute, sondern er sucht in den Bibliotheken — man bringt das Wort fast gar nicht heraus — die Menschen und er findet dort: Bibliothekare! Er sucht in den wissenschaftlichen Forschungsinstituten die für die Weisheit, für die wirkliche Erkenntnis begeisterten Menschen und findet diejenigen, die man halt in den Laboratorien, in den wissenschaftlichen Forschungsinstituten, Kliniken und so weiter findet. Die Alten haben es sich allmählich angewöhnt, so bequem zu sein, daß sie eigentlich gar nicht mehr da sein wollen, sondern ihre Institute, ihre Bibliotheken sollen da sein. Aber der Mensch kann das nicht zustandebringen. Wenn er auf diese Art nicht da sein will, dann ist er erst recht da, dann wirkt er statt durch dasMenschliche durch die bleierne Schwere.
[ 6 ] Man könnte es noch auf andere Weise aussprechen: Die Menschen streben zu der Natur hin. — Aber, um gleich ein radikales Beispiel zu nehmen: Die Natur ist auch um das ganz kleine Kind herum da. Nur hat das ganz kleine Kind seelisch-geistig nichts von der Natur und kann erst dadurch etwas von ihr erhalten, daß es mit Menschen in Beziehung kommt, mit denen es gemeinsam die Natur erleben kann. Das gilt in gewissem Sinne auch noch bis in sehr alte Jugendjahre hinein. Man muß mit Menschen zusammenkommen, mit denen man gemeinsam die Natur erleben kann. Das konnte man aber in den letzten Jahrzehnten aus dem Grunde nicht, weil es keine Sprache gab, in der man sich von der Jugend bis zum Alter hin über die Natur verständigen konnte. Wenn die Alten über die Natur sprechen, so ist das so, als ob sie dadurch die Natur verdunkelten, als ob die Namen, die sie den Pflanzen geben, nicht mehr zu den Pflanzen paßten. Es stimmte nichts mehr. Man hatte auf der einen Seite das Rätsel «Pflanze» vor sich; dann hörte man den Namen von den Alten, aber das stimmte nicht, weil eben der Mensch ausgeschaltet war, weil die objektive Wesenheit «Wissenschaft» auf der Erde herumwandelte. Das war langsam und allmählich gekommen. Die letzten Jahrzehnte haben aber eine gewisse Kulmination gebracht.
[ 7 ] Was im neunzehnten Jahrhundert zu einer gewissen Kulmination gekommen ist, zeigt sich ganz bedeutsam in einer einzelnen Erscheinung. Wenn man ein bißchen Phantasie hatte und sich in dem höheren Bildungswesen der letzten Jahrhunderte herumbewegte, dann machte man alle Augenblicke die Bekanntschaft dieser objektiven Wesenheit «Wissenschaft», die in den verschiedensten Formen auftrat, aber immer die eine, die einzige, die wirkliche objektive Wissenschaft sein wollte. Und wenn man diese Bekanntschaft gemacht hatte, wenn einem immer wieder diese objektive Wissenschaft vorgestellt worden war, dann hatte man die Einsicht, daß sich eine andere Wesenheit verschämt seitwärts hinwegschlich, weil sie sich nicht mehr geduldet fühlte. Die sagte einem dann doch, wenn man aufgestachelt wurde, hinten im Verborgenen mit ihr zu reden: Ich habe einen Namen, der sich vor der objektiven Wissenschaft nicht mehr nennen darf. Ich heiße Philosophie, heiße Sophia, Weisheit. Ich habe halt den schändlichen Vornamen von der Liebe und habe etwas, das schon durch seinen Namen angenagelt ist, daß es etwas zu tun hat mit menschlicher Innerlichkeit, mit der Liebe. Ich kann mich nicht mehr sehen lassen, ich muß verschämt herumgehen. Die «objektive Wissenschaft» prunkt damit, daß sie nichts mehr von «Philo» in sich hat. Sie hat zum Denkzeichen nun auch die eigentliche «Sophia» verloren. Aber nun gehe ich so herum, denn ich trage noch etwas Hohes von Gefühl und Menschlichkeit in mir. - Das ist ein Bild, das einem öfter vor die Seele treten konnte. In solchen Bildern lebt sich aus, was unbestimmt gefühlt worden ist von unzähligen jungen Menschen der letzten Jahrzehnte.
[ 8 ] Immer wurde gesucht, einen Ausdruck zu finden — so wie es einen Ausdruck im Vorstellen, einen Ausdruck im Empfinden, Fühlen gibt — für das, was man eigentlich sucht. Diejenigen, die vielleicht am enthusiastischsten waren in den letzten Jahrzehnten, die am meisten junge Wärme in sich fühlten, die ergingen sich in den unbestimmtesten Ausdrücken, weil sie eigentlich nur wußten: Wir suchen etwas. Aber wenn sie ausdrücken wollten, was sie suchten, so war es eigentlich nichts. Das «Nichts» war zwar wirklich nach den Faustworten «das All», aber es präsentierte sich als ein Nichts. Man mußte über einen Abgrund. Das war die Empfindung und das ist im Grunde genommen auch heute noch die Empfindung. Diese Empfindung kann man nicht anders verstehen als historisch, aber nicht historisch im alten Sinne, sondern historisch im neuen Sinne.
[ 9 ] Nun will ich von etwas ganz anderem reden, aber die Dinge werden sich uns allmählich zusammenschließen. Etwa im Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung konnte sich der Mensch noch ganz anders fühlen als heute, weil in diesem Fühlen und Empfinden noch viel Altes steckte. Man hatte in der Seele Erbschaften. Diese Erbschaften hatte man nicht nur im Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung, sondern noch bis tief ins Mittelalter hinein. Jetzt aber werden die Seelen in die Welt hineinversetzt ohne Erbschaften. Besonders stark ist dies im neuen Jahrhundert zu spüren, daß die Seelen ohne Erbschaften in die Welt hineinkommen. Das auf der einen Seite. Auf der anderen Seite: Meine lieben Freunde, fragen Sie einmal bei denjenigen, die im Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung gelebt haben, ob sie viel über das gesprochen haben, was man heute zusammenfaßt in das Wort Erziehung. Von Erziehung wird um so weniger gesprochen, je weiter man in die Vergangenheit zurückkehrt. Man kann natürlich in verschiedener Weise von Erziehung sprechen. Man kann von der Erziehung auch in der Weise sprechen, daß man sagt, durch die Erziehung soll sich die Jugend allmählich zu dem heranbilden, was man dann im Alter sein möchte. Denn schließlich muß man im Erdenleben alt werden, wenn wir auch noch so jung sind.
[ 10 ] In früheren Zeiten sind eben die Menschen auf eine selbstverständlichere Art jung gewesen und alt geworden als heute. Heute leben die Menschen eigentlich in einer Welt, in der sie gar nicht auf naturgemäße Weise jung und alt sein können. Man weiß ja heute nicht mehr, wie man jung und wie man alt ist. Man weiß gar nichts mehr davon und deshalb redet man so unendlich viel von Erziehung, weil man gern wissen möchte, wie man die Jugend jung macht, damit sie auf respektierliche Art einmal alt werden kann. Aber man weiß nicht, wie man die Dinge drehen soll, damit die Menschen jung sein und auf eine anständige Weise in der Jugend das aufnehmen können, was ihnen die Möglichkeit gibt, später in einer menschenwürdigen Weise alt zu sein.
[ 11 ] Das alles war vor Jahrhunderten in Selbstverständlichkeit gegossen. Heute redet man viel über Erziehung. Man weiß oft nicht, wie absurd es ist, wenn die Menschen über Erziehung reden. Warum redet heute fast jeder über Erziehung? Meist nicht darum, weil er einsieht, daß er so schlecht erzogen ist, sondern weil er findet, daß er wegen seiner schlechten Erziehung Schwierigkeiten im Leben hat. Und so reden die Menschen über Erziehung, weil sie finden, sie seien unerzogen. Dieses gesteht man sich ein; aber man hat niemals etwas Richtiges auf diesem Gebiete erlebt. Dennoch mafßt man sich ein Urteil darüber an. Man schreit nach Erziehungsprogrammen, weil man keine Sicherheit in sich fühlt. Man könnte immer darauf aufmerksam machen, wie eigentlich überall ein starkes Wollen da ist, aber nirgends ein Inhalt dieses Wollens. Gerade das fühlt die Jugend, daß kein Inhalt dieses Wollens da ist. Warum ist kein Inhalt da? Weil es eigentlich in der ganzen Erdenentwickelung erst seit kurzer Zeit etwas wirklich Neues gibt.
[ 12 ] Da muß ich allerdings auf etwas verweisen, was ich nur in großen Umrissen andeuten kann. Es wird Ihnen aber immer mehr vor dieSeele treten, wenn Sie sich einmal meine «Geheimwissenschaft» anschauen. Da werden Sie finden, daß das Erdenwesen gezeigt wird als eine Erbschaft von anderem Weltendasein. Wie die Namen sind, ist gleichgültig. Ich habe sie Saturn-, Sonnen-, Monddasein genannt; aber das erste Erdendasein war ja nur eine Wiederholung der früheren Weltendaseine. Man kann sagen: Drei Wiederholungsperioden hat es für die Erde gegeben, eine Saturn-, eine Sonnen- und eine Mondenzeit. Dann kam die eigentliche Erdperiode. Aber diese eigentliche Erdperiode, diese atlantische Zeit, war wieder nur eine Wiederholung — auf höherer Stufe — von dem, was früher schon dagewesen war.
[ 13 ] Dann kam die nachatlantische Zeit. Man stieg zu einer noch höheren Stufe. Aber wieder war es eine Wiederholung dessen, was schon dagewesen war.Es war die nachatlantische Zeit eine Repetition der Repetition. Die Menschheit hat tatsächlich bis in das fünfzehnte nachchristliche Jahrhundert gelebt von lauter Repetitionen, von lauter Erbschaften. Bis ins fünfzehnte Jahrhundert hinein war man seelisch kein unbeschriebenes Blatt. Es stiegen in den Seelen allerlei Dinge wie von selbst auf. Erst vom fünfzehnten Jahrhundert ab waren die Seelen unbeschriebene Blätter. Seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert ist erst die Erde neu. Vorher hat man von lauter Erbschaften auf der Erde gelebt. Das beachtet man gewöhnlich nicht, daß erst seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert die Erde neu ist. Früher hat man immer vom alten gezehrt. Seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert steht der Mensch vis-A-vis dem Nichts. Seine Seele ist ein unbeschriebenes Blatt. Und wie lebt man seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert? Zunächst hat man vom Vater auf den Sohn durch Tradition fortgeerbt, was man früher auf andere Weise fortgeerbt hat, so daß vom fünfzehnten Jahrhundert bis in das neunzehnte Jahrhundert hinein immer noch Tradition da war. Aber es ist allmählich immer schlimmer geworden mit der Tradition. Sie können das an Einzelheiten sehen.
[ 14 ] Nehmen Sie das Recht. So über Recht zu sprechen wie die heutige Menschheit über Recht spricht, wäre zum Beispiel einem Scotus Erigena nicht eingefallen, weil man damals noch etwas in der Seele hatte, was einen anleitete, dazu führte, von Mensch zu Mensch zu sprechen. Das gibt es nicht mehr, weil nichts mehr in der Seele da ist, das zum Menschen führt, weil man noch nichts gefunden hat, was aus dem Nichts herausführt. Damals konnte es wenigstens der Vater noch dem Sohne sagen. Am Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts ist es aber so weit gekommen, daß der Vater dem Sohne nichts Ordentliches mehr zu sagen hatte. Dann haben die Menschen zunächst krampfhaft nach dem sogenannten Vernunftrecht gesucht. Aus der Vernunft sollte herausgepreßt werden, wie man zu Vorstellungen und Empfindungen über das Recht kommt. Und dann haben andere, zum Beispiel Savigny, gefunden, daß man aus der Vernunft nichts mehr herauspressen könne. So kam man zu dem historischen Recht. Man hat sich hingesetzt und studiert, was früher war, sich vollgepfropft mit den Gefühlen, die die längst Gestorbenen gehabt haben, weil man selber nichts mehr hatte. Das Vernunftrecht war ein krampfhaftes Festhalten an dem, was man schon verloren hatte. Das historische Recht war ein Eingeständnis, daß man aus dem Menschen der Gegenwart überhaupt nichts mehr herausbekommt. So trat man ins zwanzigste Jahrhundert hinein, und da wurde das Gefühl immer ärger: Man steht gegenüber dem Nichts, und man muß aus dem Menschen heraus etwas finden.
[ 15 ] In der alten griechischen Zeit hätte es niemand verstanden, wenn man von objektiver Wissenschaft gesprochen hätte. Der Mensch hat sein Verhältnis zur Welt damals anders ausgedrückt. Er hat, auf geistiges Schauen hinweisend, von Melpomene, von Urania, von den freien Künsten gesprochen. Aber diese freien Künste, obwohl sie reale, wirkliche Wesen waren, waren nicht Wesen, die auf der Erde herumgingen. Es war etwas sehr Konkretes, was der Grieche noch in der Zeit, als es schon eine Philosophie gab, als sein Verhältnis zur geistigen Welt fühlte. Es waren die Musen, die man eigentlich liebte, richtige Wesenheiten, zu denen man als zu realen Wesen ein Verhältnis hatte. Nicht aus einer bloßen Phrase heraus, wie die Neueren glauben, beginnt Homer seine Ilias: «Singe mir, Muse, vom Zorn des Peleiden Achilleus.» Homer hat sich wie eine Art von Schale gefühlt und die Muse hat aus ihm gesprochen, als eine höhere Menschlichkeit ihn erfüllend.
[ 16 ] Als Klopstock nicht mehr aus der Phrase, in die er zum großen Teil hineingeboren war, reden wollte, hat er wenigstens noch gesagt: «Sing’, unsterbliche Seele, der sündigen Menschheit Erlösung.» Aber diese unsterbliche Seele ist den Menschen nach und nach auch entschwunden. Das geschah langsam und allmählich. In den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Entwickelung findet man, wie die konkreten Musen allmählich furchtbar dürre Damen geworden sind. Grammatik, Dialektik, Rhetorik, Arithmetik, Geometrie, Astrologie und Musik, sie hatten alles Konkrete verloren. Schon bei Boethius haben sie fast keine konkrete Physiognomie mehr. Man kann sie eigentlich nicht mehr recht lieben. Dennoch sind sie noch dralle Figuren im Vergleich mit der «objektiven Wissenschaft», die heute unter den Menschen herumwandelt. Langsam und allmählich ist es so gekommen, daß der Mensch das, was in alten Zeiten sein Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt war, verloren hat. Und er mußte es verlieren, denn er mußte sich einmal zur völligen Freiheit entwickeln, um alles, was menschlich ist, aus sich selber heraus zu gestalten. Zu dem ist er aufgefordert seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert; aber recht gespürt hat man es erst am Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts und insbesondere im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Denn jetzt waren nicht nur die Erbschaften, sondern auch die Traditionen weg. Die Väter hatten sozusagen nichts mehr den Söhnen zu sagen. Jetzt fühlte man: Wir stehen gegenüber dem Nichts. Man fühlte, daß die Erde im Grunde genommen neu geworden ist.
[ 17 ] Man kann das, was ich jetzt ausgesprochen habe, noch auf eine andere Weise aussprechen. Man kann nämlich die Frage stellen, was aus der Erde geworden wäre, wenn das Christus-Ereignis nicht eingetreten wäre. Man nehme an, das Christus-Ereignis wäre nicht gekommen. Dann wäre die Erde in dem seelisch-geistigen Leben der Menschheit allmählich vertrocknet. Das Christus-Ereignis konnte nicht bis heute warten; es mußte etwas früher fallen als der Zeitpunkt, in dem alle alten Erbschaften verbraucht waren, damit man mit den alten Erbschaften wenigstens noch das Christus-Ereignis empfinden konnte. Sie brauchen sich nur vorzustellen: Wenn am Ende des neunzehnten oder im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert so etwas gekommen wäre wie ein ChristusEreignis, wie es im Beginne unserer Zeitrechnung gekommen ist, was hätten da die Menschen unserer Zeit für ein Hohngelächter angestimmt gegenüber der Prätention, daß irgendein Ereignis eine Bedeutung haben sollte wie das Christus-Ereignis! Es ist nicht auszudenken, was die Menschen empfunden hätten gegenüber einer solchen Prätention. Zur Zeit des Christus-Ereignisses mußte eine ganz andere Empfindung da sein. Die Empfindung, gegenüber dem Nichts zu stehen, durfte noch nicht da sein. Das Christus-Ereignis trat ein im ersten Drittel des vierten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraumes. Und mit demselben vierten Kulturzeitraum, dessen erstes Drittel das Christus-Ereignis trägt, war das Alte fertig.
[ 18 ] Ein Neues beginnt im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert mit dem fünften nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraum, in dem wir jetzt darinstehen. In ihm gibt es keine Traditionen; sie sind allmählich verglommen. Jetzt steht man gegenüber dem Christus-Ereignis, gegenüber den tieferen, intimeren religiösen Fragen ganz deutlich vor dem Nichts. Denn allmählich ist es selbst für die Theologen ganz unmöglich geworden, das ChristusEreignis zu verstehen. Versuchen Sie heute einmal, aus der zeitgenössischen Theologie heraus irgendeine verständliche Vorstellung zu gewinnen über das Christus-Ereignis! Als die größten Theologen gelten heute diejenigen, die den Christus aus dem Jesus wegdisputieren. Es tritt ganz deutlich hervor, daß man vor dem Nichts steht.
[ 19 ] Was ich sage, sind alles nur die Symptome, denn diese Dinge gehen in den tieferen Schichten des menschlichen Seelenlebens vor sich. Diese tieferen Schichten zaubern in die Seelen derjenigen Menschheit, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten jung geworden ist, etwas herein, das man etwa so ausdrücken kann: Der Mensch fühlt sich wie abgekoppelt von dem Strome des Weltgeschehens. Es ist schon etwas in der seelischen Entwickelung des Menschen eingetreten, das mit einem furchtbaren Ruck zu vergleichen ist.
[ 20 ] Stellen Sie sich vor, meine Hand könnte selbständig fühlen, und sie würde mir abgehackt. Was würde sie fühlen? Sie würde sich abgehackt, verdorrend fühlen, sie würde sich nicht mehr als etwas Lebendiges fühlen. So fühlt sich seit dem letzten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts die Seele jenem allgemeinen Strome des Weltgeschehens gegenüber wie abgehauen, wie abgekoppelt, und die bange Frage steht vor dem Menschen: Wie werde ich wieder lebendig in der Seele?
[ 1 ] Versucht man dann, aus den Impulsen heraus zu sprechen, die wieder Leben bringen können, dann verstehen die Menschen, die im Sinne des alten Geisteslebens so weiterhudeln wollen, das gar nicht. Wie wenig wird eigentlich verstanden, was aus dem Leben heraus gesprochen wird über so etwas wie die Begründung der Waldorfschule! Da hören die Leute zumeist etwas ganz anderes über die Waldorfschule, als was sie hören sollten. Sie hören nur, daß man zu ihnen so redet, wie man vor Jahrzehnten auch schon geredet hat. Sie können ja die Worte, die man heute über die Waldorfschule redet, in Büchern nachschlagen. Sie finden alle diese Worte schon in den Büchern von früher. Und wenn einer andere Worte gebrauchen wollte oder nicht einmal andere Worte, sondern nur andere Satzfügungen, so sagen die Leute, es sei eine schlechte Sprache. Sie haben keine Ahnung von dem, was jetzt geschehen muß, wo die Menschheit, die noch Seele im Leibe hat, dem Nichts gegenübersteht.
[ 21 ] Was über Waldorfschul-Pädagogik gesprochen wird, muß man mit anderen Ohren anhören, als was man sonst über Erziehung hört, auch über Reform-Erziehung. Denn auf die Fragen, die die Menschen jetzt beantwortet haben wollen und die in den anderen Erziehungssystemen gestellt und scheinbar beantwortet werden, gibt die WaldorfschulPädagogik überhaupt keine Antwort! Worauf zielen diese Fragen? Gewöhnlich auf recht viel Vernunft, und Vernunft hat die Gegenwart unermeßlich viel. Vernunft, Intellekt und Gescheitheit sind ganz ungeheuer verbreitete Artikel in der Gegenwart. Fragen wie die: Was man aus dem Kinde machen soll? Wie man das oder jenes ins Kind hineinbringen soll? — werden furchtbar vernünftig beantwortet. Und das läuft alles darauf hinaus: Was gefällt einem am Kinde und wie kriegt man es zurecht, daß es so wird, wie man es haben möchte? Aber das hat für den tieferen Entwickelungsgang der Menschheit keine Bedeutung mehr! Auf solche Fragen gibt die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik überhaupt keine Antwort.
[ 22 ] Wenn man zunächst bildlich charakterisieren will, wie die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik spricht, so muß man sagen, daß sie ganz anders spricht, als man sonst in bezug auf Erziehung zu sprechen pflegt. Die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik ist überhaupt kein pädagogisches System, sondern eine Kunst, um dasjenige, was da ist im Menschen, aufzuwecken. Im Grunde genommen will die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik gar nicht erziehen, sondern aufwecken. Denn heute handelt es sich um das Aufwecken. Erst müssen die Lehrer aufgeweckt werden, dann müssen die Lehrer wieder die Kinder und jungen Menschen aufwecken. Es handelt sich tatsächlich um ein Aufwecken, nachdem die Menschheit abgekoppelt, abgeschnürt worden ist von dem fortlaufenden Strome der Weltentwickelung. Wie eine Hand einschläft, wenn sie abgeschnürt wird, so schlief die Menschheit seelisch-geistig ein. Sie werden vielleicht einwenden, daß die Menschen es ja seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert weit gebracht haben, eine riesige Gescheitheit entwickelt haben. Ja, wäre der Weltkrieg nicht gekommen — der zwar nicht in dem Maße den Menschen Erlebnis geworden ist, wie er es hätte sein können, durch den sie aber doch ein bißchen wenigstens eingesehen haben, daß sie gar nicht so gescheit geworden sind —, wer weiß, wie oft man zu hören bekäme: Wie haben wir es doch so herrlich weit gebracht! - Das wäre nicht mehr auszuhalten.
[ 23 ] Es ist ja richtig: im Intellekt sind die Menschen seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert furchtbar weit gekommen. Dieser Intellekt hat etwas schauderhaft Verführerisches, denn im Intellekt halten sich alle Menschen für wach. Aber der Intellekt lehrt uns gar nichts über die Welt. Er ist nämlich in Wirklichkeit bloß ein Traum von der Welt. Im Intellekte träumt man am allerstärksten, und indem die objektive Wissenschaft gerade am meisten mit dem Intellekt arbeitet, den sie auf Beobachtung und Experiment anwendet, träumt sie im Grunde genommen über die Welt. Aber es bleibt beim Träumen. Man steht durch den Intellekt in keiner objektiven Verbindung mehr mit der Welt. Der Intellekt ist das automatische Fortdenken, nachdem man von der Welt längst abgeschnürt ist. Deshalb sucht die gegenwärtige Menschheit, wenn sie ihre Seele in sich selber erfühlt, wenn sie ein Gefühl bekommt von sich selbst in der Seele, wieder den Anschluß an die Welt, sucht wieder hinzukommen zur Welt. Hatte man bis ins fünfzehnte Jahrhundert hinein immer noch positive Erbschaften gehabt, so steht man jetzt vor einer umgekehrten Erbschaft, vor einer negativen Erbschaft. Man macht nämlich eine eigentümliche Entdeckung.
[ 24 ] Bis ins fünfzehnte Jahrhundert hinein konnten die menschlichen Seelen das, was sie aus der Weltentwickelung heraus erbten, noch immer mit einer gewissen Freude begrüßen. Die Welt war bis dahin noch nicht ganz abgerollt und man war noch nicht losgekoppelt. Man konnte das, was man bekam, mit Freude begrüßen. Auch heute, nach der Abkoppelung, kann man sich besinnen auf dasjenige, was man ohne sein Zutun von der Welt bekommt, aber man macht dabei eine ganz merkwürdige Entdeckung.Es geht einem wie dem, welcher eine Erbschaft macht und vergißt, sich genau zu informieren. Dann wird zusammengerechnet und man entdeckt, daß die Passiven die Aktiven übersteigen. Man hat versäumt, die Erbschaft abzulehnen! Aber damit bekommt man eine soundso große Summe Schulden, die bezahlt werden müssen. Das ist eine negative Erbschaft; es gibt solche Fälle. So hat auch die Menschheit in ihrer Seele eine negative Erbschaft, sogar gegenüber dem größten Ereignis, das sich in der Menschheit zugetragen hat.
[ 25 ] Bis zum Mysterium von Golgatha haben die Menschen das Mysterium von Golgatha nicht zu verstehen gebraucht, denn es war nicht da. Dann war es da, und aus den Resten der alten Erbschaften heraus konnte man es in der Folgezeit noch abglimmend verstehen. Dann kam das fünfzehnte Jahrhundert, wo man solche Erbschaftsreste nicht mehr hatte, wo aber der Vater auf den Sohn noch ein Verständnis dafür vererben konnte, wie es sich mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha verhält. Heute hilft alles das nicht mehr. Die Menschen sind furchtbar gescheit; aber so gescheit, um die Widersprüche der vier Evangelien zu sehen, wären ja die Menschen des siebten, achten Jahrhunderts auch gewesen. Die Widersprüche sind doch furchtbar leicht herauszufinden. Man hat aber erst im neunzehnten Jahrhundert angefangen, diese Widersprüche zu untersuchen. So ist es auf allen Gebieten des Lebens. Der Intellekt wurde überschätzt, und ein Bewußtsein, eine Empfindung vom Ereignis von Golgatha ist verlorengegangen. Das religiöse Empfinden ist im Bewußtsein verlorengegangen. Im tiefsten Innern hat aber die Seele dieses Empfinden nicht verloren, und die Jugend will wissen: Wie war es mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha? — Die Alten wußten nichts darüber zu sagen. Ich sage nicht, daß die Jugend etwas weiß und daß man etwas davon wisse auf den Universitäten. Ich sage, sie sollten etwas davon wissen.
[ 26 ] Wenn man das, was sich chaotisch in den Tiefen der Seelen abspielt, in klare Worte faßt, so ist es so: Im Innern der Seelen ist ein Streben, das Mysterium von Golgatha wieder zu verstehen. Es wird ein neues Christus-Erlebnis gesucht. Wir stehen notwendigerweise vor dem neuen Erleben des Christus-Ereignisses. In seiner ersten Gestalt ist es noch erlebt worden mit den Resten der alten Seelenerbschaften, und da diese seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert verbraucht sind, pflanzte es sich durch Tradition fort. Erst im letzten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts war die Verfinsterung vollständig. Keine alten Erbschaften waren mehr da. Es muß aus der menschlichen Seelenverfinsterung heraus wieder ein Licht gesucht werden. Es muß schon die geistige Welt neu erlebt werden.
[ 27 ] Das ist das bedeutsame Erlebnis, das den tieferen Naturen der gegenwärtigen Jugendbewegung in der Seele steckt. Es ist durchaus nicht in einem oberflächlichen, sondern in einem tieferen Sinne klar, daß zum ersten Male in der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit jetzt etwas erlebt werden muß, was ganz und gar aus den Menschen selber heraus kommt. So lange man das nicht weiß, kann man auch nicht über Pädagogik reden. Man muß sich klar sein darüber, daß aus der tiefsten Wurzel heraus gefragt werden muß: Wie kommt man zum ursprünglichsten geistigen Erleben in der Menschenseele?
[ 28 ] Das ursprüngliche geistige Erleben in der Menschenseele ist nun etwas, was mit dem neuen Jahrhundert als das ganz umfassende und unausgesprochene Menschen- und Weltenrätsel vor dem Aufwachen der Menschen dasteht. Es ist die Frage: Wie bringt der Mensch sein Tiefstes, das er in sich hat, zum Aufwachen, wie kann der Mensch sich erwecken? Man möchte sagen, die enthusiastischsten Geister der heranwachsenden Menschheit sind so—nur in einem Bilde kann ich es wieder ausdrücken -, wie wenn jemand des Morgens halb aufwacht, alle seine Glieder schwer sind und er im vollen Sinne des Wortes nicht herauskann aus dem Schlafzustande. So fühlt sich heute der Mensch: als nicht ganz herauskönnend aus dem Schlafzustande.
[ 29 ] Diese Tatsache liegt einem Streben zugrunde, das in den letzten Jahrzehnten in mannigfaltigen Formen zum Ausdruck gekommen ist und das in einer sympathischen Weise auch jetzt in diese Seelen hineinleuchtet. Es drückt sich in dem Gemeinschaftsstreben der jungen Menschheit aus. Man sucht etwas. Ich habe gestern gesagt: Der Mensch hat den Menschen verloren, der Mensch sucht wiederum den Menschen. Bis ins fünfzehnte Jahrhundert hatten die Menschen einander nicht verloren. Wir können natürlich die Weltentwickelung nicht zurückschrauben; das wäre auch etwas Furchtbares, wenn wir das tun wollten. Reaktionäre werden wir ganz sicher nicht werden. Aber wir müssen doch sagen, bis in das fünfzehnte Jahrhundert hinein konnten die Menschen den Menschen noch finden. Seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert konnte man aus der Tradition und dem, was einem die Väter noch sagen konnten, dunkle Gedankenbilder bekommen, die einen aufmerksam machten: der andere ist ein Mensch. Man empfand es dunkel, daß diese Gestalt, die neben einem hergeht, doch auch ein Mensch ist. Mit dem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert ist auch das verschwunden. Es gibt auch keine Tradition mehr, die einem etwas sagt, und man sucht doch den Menschen. Man sucht wirklich den Menschen. Warum? Weil man im Grunde genommen etwas ganz anderes sucht.
[ 30 ] Wenn die Dinge so fortgehen, wie sie sich um die Jahrhundertwende herum ergeben haben, dann wacht kein Mensch auf. Denn die anderen sind auch so, daß sie niemanden aufwecken können. Schließlich müssen die Menschen sich doch gegenseitig etwas sein. Auch in der Gemeinschaft müssen sie sich gegenseitig etwas sein. Das ist es auch, was von Anfang an durch alles das, was in der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik lebt, durchgeleuchtet hat. Sie sollte nicht ein System von Grundsätzen, sondern ein Impuls zum Aufwecken sein. Sie sollte Leben sein, nicht Wissen; nicht Geschicklichkeit, sondern Kunst sollte sie sein, lebensvolles Tun, weckende Tat. Darauf kommt es an, wenn geweckt werden soll, da die Menschen nun schon einmal durch die Weltentwickelung in einen Schlaf hineingekommen sind, der erfüllt ist von intellektualistischem Träumen. Schon im gewöhnlichen Traum wird der Mensch oft größenwahnsinnig. Aber dieses gewöhnliche Träumen ist ein Waisenknabe gegenüber dem intellektualistischen Träumen.
[ 31 ] Wenn es sich um ein Aufwecken handelt, geht es wirklich nicht, daß man den Intellektualismus weitertreibt. Diese objektive Wissenschaft, die da herumgeht und alle alten Kleider abgelegt hat, weil sie sich fürchtet, daß man durch irgendein altes Kleid noch etwas Menschliches finden könnte, hat sich umgeben mit der dichtesten Nebelhülle: mit der Hülle der Objektivität; und so merkt man eigentlich gar nichts von dem, was in dieser Objektivität der Wissenschaft herumgeht. Man braucht wieder etwas Menschliches, man muß aufgeweckt werden.
[ 32 ] Ja, meine lieben Freunde, wenn aufgeweckt werden soll, dann muß eben das Mysterium von Golgatha noch einmal erlebt werden. Aber bei dem Mysterium von Golgatha ist außer dem irdischen Jesus noch eine Geistwesenheit in die Erde hereingekommen. Das hat man früher noch erfaßt, mit alten Kräften. Vom zwanzigsten Jahrhundert wird gefordert, daß man es mit neuen Kräften erfaßt. Die heutige Jugend verlangt, wenn sie sich richtig versteht, im Bewußtsein — nicht in den alten schlummernden Kräften wie damals — erweckt zu werden. Und das kann nur geschehen durch den Geist, kann nur geschehen, wenn in die Gemeinschaften, die gesucht werden, tatsächlich der Geist seinen Funken hereinschlägt. Der Geist muß der Wecker sein, der Auferweckende. Nur dann kommen wir weiter, wenn wir uns diese tragische Gestalt des Weltgeschehens in unserer Zeit klarmachen: daß wir eigentlich gegenüber dem Nichts stehen, an das wir in der Erdenentwickelung notwendigerweise einmal herankommen mußten zur Begründung der menschlichen Freiheit. Und gegenüber dem Nichts brauchen wir das Aufwecken im Geiste.
[ 33 ] Nichts anderes als allein der Geist kann die Fensterläden, von denen ich gestern gesprochen habe, aufmachen; ohne ihn werden sie dicht verschlossen bleiben. Die objektive Wissenschaft, die ich nicht tadle, deren große Verdienste ich auch nicht verkenne, wird trotz alledem die Fensterläden dicht verschlossen lassen. Denn sie will ja nur mit dem Irdischen zu tun haben. Im Irdischen aber lebt seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert das Menschenerweckende nicht mehr. Es muß in dem gesucht werden, was im Menschen selber außerirdisch ist. Das ist eigentlich im Grunde doch das tiefste Suchen, in welchen Gestalten es heute auch auftritt. Das sollen diejenigen, die von etwas Neuem sprechen und ernst und wahr in ihrem Innern sind, sich fragen: Wie finden wir in uns selbst das Unirdische, das Übersinnliche, das Geistige? — Man braucht das nicht wieder in intellektualistische Formen zu kleiden. Das kann wahrhaftig in sehr konkreten Formen gesucht werden, muß auch in solchen Formen gesucht werden. Ganz gewiß wird es nicht in intellektualistischen Formen gesucht werden können. Wenn Sie mich fragen, warum Sie heute gekommen sind, so kann ich nur antworten: Weil in Ihnen die Frage lebt: Wie finden wir den Geist? — Stellen Sie dasjenige, was Sie hierher getrieben hat, ins richtige Licht, dann stellen Sie nur die Frage: Wie finden wir den Geist, der aus der Gegenwart heraus in uns arbeitet? Wie finden wir diesen Geist? — Diesen Geist wollen wir in den nächsten Tagen zu finden suchen, meine lieben Freunde.
Second Lecture
[ 1 ] When we speak today of the movement among young people, we can clearly distinguish between the broader youth movement and the narrower youth movement, which can be called the movement of young people at universities, those young people who are striving toward schools and education in the broader sense. I say this not because I want to emphasize one or the other, but because we can most easily arrive at what we need to arrive at if we first look at the main difficulties of inner life, as they have become apparent among university and college youth in particular.
[ 2 ] In these considerations, we will sometimes start from details of life and then quickly rise to a broader overview. Therefore, allow me to say a few words first about the experiences that university youth in particular have gone through in their souls. Basically, this has been in preparation for many decades; it has only come to a head in the last decade, so that it could be perceived more clearly.
[ 3 ] University youth are searching for something. It is not surprising that they are searching for something, because people go to university because they are searching for something. They were looking for teaching leaders—one could also say leading teachers—and the youth found no leading teachers. And that was the terrible thing that was clothed in all sorts of words, that one person expressed conservatively, another radically, one by saying something very wise, another by saying something very stupid. It was expressed like this: We can no longer find any teachers.
[ 4 ] What did one find when one went to college? One found those who were there, but one did not find what one was looking for in them. They were proud of no longer being teachers in the true sense, but researchers. The universities and colleges established themselves as research institutes. They were no longer there for the people. They were only there for science, and science led an existence among people that it described as objective. It drummed into people in every possible way that it should be respected as objective science. Sometimes you have to express such things somewhat figuratively. So objective science was now walking among people; but objective science was certainly not a human being, rather something inhuman was walking among people and calling itself objective science.
[ 5 ] This could be experienced again and again in detail. How often do we hear: That has already been discovered; it already belongs to science. — Something else is added to science, and these so-called treasures of science are then stored up, gradually acquiring this terrible, objective existence in humanity. But human beings do not fit in with this objective entity strutting around among them, because there is no real relationship between the true, genuine human being and this objectively cold entity that is stored in various ways. We have gradually acquired libraries and scientific research institutes. But young people in particular do not seek out libraries or scientific research institutes; rather, they seek out—one can hardly bring oneself to say it—people in libraries, and there they find librarians! They seek out people in scientific research institutes who are enthusiastic about wisdom and real knowledge, and they find those who are to be found in laboratories, scientific research institutes, clinics, and so on. The elderly have gradually become so comfortable that they no longer want to be there themselves, but want their institutes and libraries to be there. But man cannot achieve this. If he does not want to be there in this way, then he is there all the more, then he acts through leaden heaviness instead of through humanity.
[ 6 ] One could express it in another way: People strive toward nature. — But to take a radical example: nature is also present around a very small child. Only the very small child has nothing of nature in its soul and spirit and can only receive something from it by coming into contact with people with whom it can experience nature together. In a certain sense, this also applies until well into adolescence. One must come together with people with whom one can experience nature together. However, this has not been possible in recent decades because there was no language in which people could communicate about nature from youth to old age. When old people talk about nature, it is as if they are obscuring nature, as if the names they give to plants no longer fit the plants. Nothing was right anymore. On the one hand, you had the mystery of the “plant” before you; then you heard the names from the old people, but they were wrong because the human being was excluded, because the objective entity “science” was walking around on earth. This had come about slowly and gradually. But the last few decades have brought a certain culmination.
[ 7 ] What came to a certain culmination in the nineteenth century is clearly evident in a single phenomenon. If you had a little imagination and moved in the higher education circles of the last few centuries, you would constantly encounter this objective entity called “science,” which appeared in various forms but always wanted to be the one and only, the real objective science. And once you had made this acquaintance, once this objective science had been presented to you again and again, you realized that another entity was shyly slipping away because it no longer felt tolerated. When you were encouraged to talk to it in secret, it said to you: I have a name that can no longer be mentioned in the presence of objective science. My name is Philosophy, Sophia, Wisdom. I have the shameful first name of Love and have something that is already nailed down by its name, that it has something to do with human inner life, with love. I can no longer show myself, I must walk around in shame. “Objective science” prides itself on having nothing of “Philo” left in it. It has now also lost the actual “Sophia” as a symbol. But now I walk around like this because I still carry something noble within me, something of feeling and humanity. This is an image that could often come to mind. Such images give expression to what countless young people have felt vaguely over the last few decades.
[ 8 ] People have always sought to find an expression—just as there is an expression in imagination, an expression in perception, in feeling—for what they are actually seeking. Those who were perhaps the most enthusiastic in recent decades, who felt the most youthful warmth within themselves, indulged in the most vague expressions because they really only knew one thing: we are searching for something. But when they wanted to express what they were searching for, it was actually nothing. The “nothing” was indeed, according to the catchphrase, “the whole,” but it presented itself as nothing. One had to cross an abyss. That was the feeling, and that is basically still the feeling today. This feeling can only be understood historically, but not historically in the old sense, rather historically in the new sense.
[ 9 ] Now I want to talk about something completely different, but things will gradually come together. At the beginning of our calendar, for example, people felt very different from how they do today because there was still a lot of the old in their feelings and perceptions. People had inheritances in their souls. These inheritances were not only present at the beginning of our calendar, but continued well into the Middle Ages. Now, however, souls are brought into the world without inheritances. This is particularly noticeable in the new century, that souls come into the world without inheritances. That is on the one hand. On the other hand, my dear friends, ask those who lived at the beginning of our calendar whether they talked much about what we now summarize in the word education. The further back you go in time, the less people talked about education. Of course, you can talk about education in different ways. One can also speak of education in the sense that through education, young people should gradually develop into what they want to be in old age. After all, we must grow old in earthly life, no matter how young we are.
[ 10 ] In earlier times, people were young and grew old in a more natural way than they do today. Today, people actually live in a world in which they cannot be young and old in a natural way. Today, we no longer know how to be young or how to be old. We no longer know anything about it, and that is why we talk so much about education, because we would like to know how to make young people young so that they can grow old in a respectable manner. But we do not know how to turn things around so that people can be young and, in their youth, take in what will enable them to grow old in a dignified manner later on.
[ 11 ] All this was taken for granted centuries ago. Today, people talk a lot about education. They often don't realize how absurd it is when people talk about education. Why does almost everyone talk about education today? Mostly not because they realize that they are so poorly educated, but because they find that their poor education causes them difficulties in life. And so people talk about education because they think they are uneducated. They admit this to themselves, but they have never experienced anything worthwhile in this area. Nevertheless, they presume to judge it. People cry out for education programs because they feel insecure. One could always point out how there is a strong will everywhere, but nowhere is there any content to this will. This is precisely what young people feel, that there is no content to this will. Why is there no content? Because, in the entire history of the earth, something truly new has only existed for a short time.
[ 12 ] Here I must refer to something that I can only outline in broad terms. However, it will become increasingly clear to you when you take a look at my “Secret Science.” There you will find that the earthly being is shown as an inheritance from other world existences. What these are called is irrelevant. I have called them Saturn, Sun, and Moon existences; but the first earthly existence was only a repetition of the earlier world existences. One can say that there have been three periods of repetition for the Earth: a Saturn, a Sun, and a Moon period. Then came the actual Earth period. But this actual Earth period, this Atlantean period, was again only a repetition—at a higher level—of what had already existed before.
[ 13 ] Then came the post-Atlantean period. We rose to an even higher level. But again it was a repetition of what had already been. The post-Atlantean period was a repetition of the repetition. Humanity actually lived until the fifteenth century AD on nothing but repetitions, on nothing but inheritances. Until the fifteenth century, people were not spiritually blank slates. All kinds of things arose in their souls as if by themselves. It was only from the fifteenth century onwards that souls became blank slates. Since the fifteenth century, the earth has been new. Before that, people lived on earth from nothing but inheritance. People do not usually realize that the earth has only been new since the fifteenth century. In the past, people always lived off the old. Since the fifteenth century, human beings have stood face to face with nothingness. Their souls are blank slates. And how have people lived since the fifteenth century? At first, they passed on from father to son through tradition what they had previously passed on in other ways, so that from the fifteenth century into the nineteenth century, tradition still existed. But tradition gradually became worse and worse. You can see this in the details.
[ 14 ] Take the law, for example. Talking about law the way people talk about it today would never have occurred to someone like Scotus Erigena, because back then people still had something in their souls that guided them, that led them to talk from person to person. That no longer exists because there is nothing left in the soul that leads to humanity, because nothing has yet been found that leads out of nothingness. At that time, at least the father could still tell his son. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, it had come to the point where the father had nothing proper to say to his son anymore. Then people began to search frantically for so-called rational law. They wanted to squeeze out of reason how to arrive at ideas and feelings about law. And then others, such as Savigny, found that nothing more could be squeezed out of reason. This led to historical law. People sat down and studied what had been in the past, filling themselves with the feelings of those who had long since died, because they themselves had nothing left. Rational law was a desperate clinging to what had already been lost. Historical law was an admission that nothing more could be extracted from the people of the present. Thus, we entered the twentieth century, and the feeling became increasingly worse: we are faced with nothingness, and we must find something within human beings.
[ 15 ] In ancient Greece, no one would have understood what was meant by objective science. People expressed their relationship to the world differently back then. Referring to spiritual insight, they spoke of Melpomene, of Urania, of the liberal arts. But these liberal arts, although they were real, actual beings, were not beings that walked around on earth. It was something very concrete that the Greeks still felt as their relationship to the spiritual world at a time when philosophy already existed. It was the Muses that people actually loved, real beings with whom they had a relationship as real beings. It is not out of mere phraseology, as modern scholars believe, that Homer begins his Iliad: “Sing to me, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.” Homer felt himself to be a kind of vessel, and the muse spoke through him, filling him with a higher humanity.
[ 16 ] When Klopstock no longer wanted to speak from the phrase into which he had largely been born, he at least said: “Sing, immortal soul, of the redemption of sinful mankind.” But this immortal soul has also gradually disappeared from people. This happened slowly and gradually. In the first centuries of Christian development, we find that the concrete muses gradually became terribly dry ladies. Grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astrology, and music had lost everything concrete. Even in Boethius, they had almost no concrete physiognomy anymore. One can no longer really love them. Nevertheless, they are still buxom figures compared to the “objective science” that wanders among people today. Slowly and gradually, man has lost what in ancient times was his connection to the spiritual world. And he had to lose it, because he had to develop into complete freedom in order to shape everything that is human out of himself. He has been called upon to do so since the fifteenth century, but this was not really felt until the end of the nineteenth century and especially in the twentieth century. For now not only the inheritance but also the traditions were gone. The fathers had, so to speak, nothing more to say to their sons. Now people felt: We are facing nothingness. They felt that the earth had basically become new.
[ 17 ] What I have just said can be expressed in another way. We can ask what would have become of the earth if the Christ event had not taken place. Suppose the Christ event had not come. Then the earth would have gradually dried up in the soul-spiritual life of humanity. The Christ event could not wait until today; it had to come a little earlier than the time when all the old legacies had been used up, so that people could at least still feel the Christ event with the old legacies. Just imagine: if something like the Christ event had come at the end of the nineteenth or twentieth century, as it came at the beginning of our era, what mocking laughter would the people of our time have raised at the pretension that any event should have a significance like that of the Christ event! It is impossible to imagine what people would have felt toward such a pretension. At the time of the Christ event, there must have been a completely different feeling. The feeling of standing before nothingness could not yet be there. The Christ event occurred in the first third of the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. And with the same fourth cultural epoch, whose first third bears the Christ event, the old was finished.
[ 18 ] Something new begins in the fifteenth century with the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, in which we now find ourselves. There are no traditions in it; they have gradually faded away. Now, when faced with the Christ event and with deeper, more intimate religious questions, we stand quite clearly before nothingness. For gradually it has become quite impossible even for theologians to understand the Christ event. Try today to gain any comprehensible idea of the Christ event from contemporary theology! Today, the greatest theologians are those who argue Christ out of Jesus. It is quite clear that we are facing nothingness.
[ 19 ] What I am saying are only symptoms, for these things are happening in the deeper layers of the human soul. These deeper layers are conjuring up something in the souls of those members of humanity who have become young in recent decades, something that can be expressed as follows: People feel disconnected from the flow of world events. Something has happened in the spiritual development of humanity that can be compared to a terrible jolt.
[ 20 ] Imagine that my hand could feel independently and that it was chopped off. What would it feel? It would feel severed, withering, it would no longer feel like something alive. Since the last third of the nineteenth century, the soul has felt severed, disconnected from the general flow of world events, and the anxious question confronts human beings: How can I become alive again in my soul?
[ 1 ] If one then tries to speak from the impulses that can bring life back, people who want to continue muddling along in the old spirit of life do not understand this at all. How little is actually understood of what is spoken from life about something like the founding of the Waldorf School! Most people hear something completely different about Waldorf schools than what they should hear. They only hear that people are talking to them the same way they did decades ago. They can look up the words that are used today to describe Waldorf schools in books. They will find all these words in books from the past. And if someone wanted to use different words, or not even different words but just different sentence structures, people would say it was bad language. They have no idea what needs to happen now, when humanity, which still has a soul in its body, is facing nothingness.
[ 21 ] What is said about Waldorf education must be listened to with different ears than what is usually said about education, including reform education. For Waldorf education offers no answers whatsoever to the questions that people now want answered and that are asked and apparently answered in other educational systems! What are these questions aimed at? Usually at a great deal of reason, and reason is immeasurably abundant in the present age. Reason, intellect, and cleverness are extremely widespread commodities in the present age. Questions such as: What should be made of the child? How should this or that be instilled in the child? — are answered in a terribly reasonable manner. And it all boils down to this: What do you like about the child and how can you get it to turn out the way you want it to? But that no longer has any significance for the deeper development of humanity! Waldorf school pedagogy has no answer at all to such questions.
[ 22 ] If one wants to characterize figuratively how Waldorf school pedagogy speaks, one must say that it speaks quite differently from the way people usually speak about education. Waldorf education is not an educational system at all, but an art of awakening what is already present in the human being. Fundamentally, Waldorf education does not seek to educate, but to awaken. For today it is a matter of awakening. First the teachers must be awakened, then the teachers must awaken the children and young people. It is indeed a matter of awakening, after humanity has been disconnected, cut off from the continuous stream of world evolution. Just as a hand falls asleep when it is tied off, so humanity fell asleep spiritually and mentally. You may object that since the fifteenth century, human beings have come a long way and developed enormous intelligence. Yes, if the world war had not come — which, admittedly, did not affect people to the extent that it could have, but through which they nevertheless gained at least a little insight into the fact that they had not become so intelligent after all — who knows how often we would hear people say: How wonderfully far we have come! That would be unbearable.
[ 23 ] It is true that intellectually, people have come a long way since the fifteenth century. This intellect has something frighteningly seductive about it, because intellectually, all people consider themselves awake. But intellect teaches us nothing about the world. In reality, it is merely a dream of the world. It is in the intellect that we dream most intensely, and since objective science works most with the intellect, which it applies to observation and experiment, it is essentially dreaming about the world. But it remains a dream. Through the intellect, we no longer have any objective connection with the world. The intellect is automatic thinking that continues long after we have been cut off from the world. That is why, when contemporary humanity feels its soul within itself, when it gets a sense of itself in its soul, it seeks to reconnect with the world, to return to the world. Whereas until the fifteenth century there had always been positive legacies, we now face a reverse legacy, a negative legacy. For we are making a peculiar discovery.
[ 24 ] Until the fifteenth century, human souls could still welcome with a certain joy what they inherited from the development of the world. Until then, the world had not yet completely unraveled and people were not yet disconnected. One could welcome what one received with joy. Even today, after the disconnection, one can reflect on what one receives from the world without any effort on one's part, but in doing so one makes a very strange discovery. It is like someone who inherits something and forgets to find out exactly what it is. Then the accounts are settled and one discovers that the liabilities exceed the assets. You have neglected to refuse the inheritance! But with it you get a large sum of debt that has to be paid. This is a negative inheritance; there are such cases. In the same way, humanity has a negative inheritance in its soul, even in relation to the greatest event that has ever happened to humanity.
[ 25 ] Until the Mystery of Golgotha, people did not need to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, because it was not there. Then it was there, and from the remnants of the old inheritances, it could still be dimly understood in the following period. Then came the fifteenth century, when such remnants of heritage no longer existed, but when fathers could still pass on to their sons an understanding of the mystery of Golgotha. Today, none of this helps anymore. People are terribly clever; but the people of the seventh and eighth centuries would have been just as clever in seeing the contradictions in the four Gospels. The contradictions are terribly easy to find. But it was not until the nineteenth century that people began to investigate these contradictions. This is true in all areas of life. The intellect was overestimated, and an awareness, a feeling for the event of Golgotha was lost. Religious feeling has been lost in consciousness. Deep down, however, the soul has not lost this feeling, and young people want to know: What was the mystery of Golgotha? The older generation had nothing to say about it. I am not saying that young people know anything or that anything is taught about it at universities. I am saying that they should know something about it.
[ 26 ] If we put into clear words what is happening chaotically in the depths of souls, it is this: within souls there is a striving to understand the mystery of Golgotha again. A new Christ experience is being sought. We are necessarily facing a new experience of the Christ event. In its first form, it was still experienced with the remnants of the old soul heritage, and since these have been exhausted since the fifteenth century, it has been perpetuated through tradition. It was not until the last third of the nineteenth century that the eclipse was complete. There were no old legacies left. A light must be sought again out of the darkness of the human soul. The spiritual world must be experienced anew.
[ 27 ] This is the significant experience that lies deep in the soul of the deeper natures of the present youth movement. It is clear, not in a superficial sense but in a deeper sense, that for the first time in the world historical development of humanity, something must now be experienced that comes entirely from human beings themselves. As long as we do not know this, we cannot talk about education. We must be clear that we must ask ourselves from the deepest roots: How do we arrive at the most original spiritual experience in the human soul?
[ 28 ] The original spiritual experience in the human soul is now something that stands before the awakening of humanity in the new century as the all-encompassing and unspoken mystery of humanity and the world. The question is: How does man awaken what is deepest within him, how can man awaken himself? One might say that the most enthusiastic spirits of the growing human race are like this—I can only express it in a picture—as if someone were half awake in the morning, all his limbs heavy, and he could not, in the full sense of the word, get out of his sleep. This is how people feel today: as if they cannot quite emerge from the state of sleep.
[ 29 ] This fact underlies a striving that has found expression in many forms in recent decades and that now shines sympathetically into these souls. It is expressed in the community striving of young humanity. People are searching for something. I said yesterday: Man has lost man; man is searching for man again. Until the fifteenth century, people had not lost each other. Of course, we cannot turn back the development of the world; that would be something terrible if we wanted to do so. We will certainly not become reactionaries. But we must say that until the fifteenth century, people were still able to find other people. Since the fifteenth century, tradition and what our fathers could still tell us have given rise to dark thoughts that make us aware that the other is a human being. It seemed obscure that this figure walking beside us was also a human being. With the twentieth century, this has also disappeared. There is no longer any tradition that tells you anything, and yet you search for people. You really search for people. Why? Because, basically, you are searching for something completely different.
[ 30 ] If things continue as they have been since the turn of the century, no one will wake up. Because the others are also such that they cannot wake anyone up. Ultimately, people must mean something to each other. They must also mean something to each other in the community. This is also what has shone through from the very beginning in everything that lives in Waldorf school education. It should not be a system of principles, but an impulse to awaken. It should be life, not knowledge; it should be art, not skill, lively activity, awakening action. This is what matters if people are to be awakened, since they have already fallen into a sleep filled with intellectual dreams as a result of world evolution. Even in ordinary dreams, people often become megalomaniacal. But these ordinary dreams are mere children compared to intellectualistic dreams.
[ 31 ] When it comes to awakening, it is really not possible to continue intellectualism. This objective science, which has cast off all its old clothes because it is afraid that something human might still be found in some old garment, has surrounded itself with the densest veil of fog: the veil of objectivity; and so one actually notices nothing of what is going on in this objectivity of science. One needs something human again; one must be awakened.
[ 32 ] Yes, my dear friends, if we are to be awakened, then the mystery of Golgotha must be experienced once again. But in the mystery of Golgotha, apart from the earthly Jesus, a spiritual being entered the earth. This was still understood in the past, with old forces. The twentieth century demands that we grasp it with new powers. Today's youth, if they understand themselves correctly, demand to be awakened in consciousness — not in the old slumbering powers as in the past. And that can only happen through the Spirit, can only happen if the Spirit actually strikes its spark into the communities that are being sought. The spirit must be the alarm clock, the awakener. We can only move forward if we realize the tragic nature of world events in our time: that we are actually facing nothingness, which we necessarily had to approach in the evolution of the earth in order to establish human freedom. And in the face of nothingness, we need to be awakened in the spirit.
[ 33 ] Nothing but the spirit alone can open the shutters I spoke of yesterday; without it, they will remain tightly closed. Objective science, which I do not criticize, whose great merits I do not deny, will nevertheless leave the shutters tightly closed. For it wants to deal only with the earthly. But since the fifteenth century, the human awakening no longer lives in the earthly. It must be sought in what is extraterrestrial in human beings themselves. This is actually the deepest search, in whatever form it appears today. Those who speak of something new and are serious and true in their hearts should ask themselves: How do we find within ourselves the unearthly, the supersensible, the spiritual? — There is no need to clothe this again in intellectual forms. It can truly be sought in very concrete forms, and must also be sought in such forms. It certainly cannot be sought in intellectual forms. If you ask me why you have come here today, I can only answer: Because the question lives within you: How do we find the spirit? — Put what has driven you here into the right light, then ask only the question: How do we find the spirit that works within us out of the present moment? How do we find this spirit? — This is the spirit we want to seek to find in the next few days, my dear friends.