The Driving Force of Spiritual Powers in World History
GA 222
18 March 1923, Dornach
Lecture V
By considering in retrospect what has been presented in the last lectures concerning happenings, facts and actions in the super-sensible worlds—it was all more or less supplementary to my little book, The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind—you will understand that it is essential to realize that in our time a mighty event is taking effect. It is the event of which I said that it belongs essentially to the 4th century A.D. and it consists in the transference of rulership of the cosmic thoughts from the Spirits of Form to the Spirits of Personality, the Archai or Primal Powers. If we are mindful of the whole import, the cosmic import of this significant event, we may say: it consists in giving men in the course of their evolution what should rightly become theirs in our present Fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of the evolution of the Consciousness Soul, namely, inner freedom, the possibility for the individual to act from his own inner self. We know, of course, that human evolution on Earth was in essentials a kind of preparation for this very epoch, that the natural foundation had first to be laid down in man, so that within the sphere of what this foundation has enabled him to become, his soul might progress towards freedom. How is this connected with the super-sensible event previously characterized?
If we picture this event in broad outline we can say: on the one side, from our survey of the super-sensible world, we realize that the outstanding spiritual leaders of mankind are the Beings whom we must call Spirits of Personality, Archai, but those Archai who have been vested with rulership of the cosmic thoughts by the Exousiai, the Spirits of Form. These Archai to whom man in his evolution owes the possibility of formulating thoughts through the inner efforts of his own soul, are hampered in their activity by those Beings who, as Exousiai, as Spirits of Form, have remained behind at an earlier stage of evolution; they are Beings who, as Spirits of Form, have not ceded rulership of the cosmic thoughts. And now, in this epoch of the Consciousness Soul in which we have been living since the 15th century A.D., man is confronted with the great choice in some one of his incarnations definitely to decide for freedom or, which is the same thing, to have the possibility of this freedom through turning to the legitimate Archai.
We do indeed see, in our own age, how men strive to free themselves from those spiritual Beings who, as Exousiai, were unwilling to cede rulership of the cosmic thoughts. What part these Beings play in the present phase of the evolution of humanity will be clear to us when we realize what role was justifiably played in earlier times by the Exousiai who were then undergoing normal development.
In earlier times men did not unfold their thoughts as they have to do today. They did not unfold their thoughts by inner activity, inner effort. They unfolded thoughts by devoting themselves to the contemplation of external Nature and just as we perceive colours and sounds today, they simultaneously perceived the thoughts. But in still earlier ages, when men gave themselves up to instinctive, unconscious clairvoyance, they received, together with the clairvoyant pictures, thoughts as a gift from the divine-spiritual worlds. Men did not work out their thoughts; they received them. It was inevitably so in olden times.
Just as the child must first develop his physical nature, must first lay a foundation for what he can learn only in later life, so humanity as a whole could achieve the inner, active development of a world of thoughts only when this world of thoughts had first penetrated from outside into the whole nature of man.
This period of preparation had to be lived through. But during it man could really never say that he was qualified to become a free being. For, as you can see from my The Philosophy of Freedom, the basic condition of human freedom is precisely that man shall unfold his thoughts himself in inner activity, and that out of these self-evolved thoughts which in my book I have called ‘pure thoughts’, he shall also draw his moral impulses.
Such moral impulses, springing from the soil of man's own being, did not and could not exist in the earlier epochs of the evolution of humanity. Moral impulses had then to be imparted together with the thoughts, which were, so to speak, God-given, like commandments that were unconditionally binding and made a man unfree. You will find this aspect of the subject presented in the The Philosophy of Freedom: the transition of mankind from bondage by commandments which exclude freedom, to action out of moral intuition which includes freedom.
Now the Spirits of Form are Beings who always work from outside when they bring about something in man. All stimuli from outside that cause a man to work on his own being bring to expression the deeds of the Spirits of Form. And it was definitely the case that as long as the Spirits of Form instilled the cosmic thoughts into man, the thoughts either came to him from stones, plants or animals as perceptions, or else rose up from instincts and impulses within him. In those days men floated, as it were, on the waves of life, and the waves of life were thrown up—but also calmed in so far as they brought thoughts—by the Spirits of Form. It was from outside, therefore, that there came to man what he then laid hold of in his inmost soul. Hence in those olden times man's feeling for his Gods was such that he turned primarily to them when seeking to find the causes of world-happenings and of his own life. When a man spoke of the Gods he spoke as though he was seeking to find in them the causes of his own existence on Earth, and of the manifestations of nature on Earth. He always looked back to the Gods as the primary causes of things. Whence came the world? Whence came I myself? These were the great religious questions of an earlier humanity.
If you study the ancient myths, you will always find, in the biblical story of Creation too, references to Genesis-myths, because men were seeking primarily for the origin of the world, but actually stopped short at this point in their search.
The whole mood and attitude of the human soul were due to the fact that in the world of his thoughts man was dependent upon the Spirits of Form. Until the 4th century A.D. and in its after-effects right on into the 15th century, the Spirits of Form were, so to speak, fully authorized in the world-order—if I may use this expression—to rule over and direct the cosmic thoughts and to promote thinking, the unfolding of thoughts, in man from outside.
Since that period things have changed. Since then the Exousiai, the Spirits of Form, have ceded the rulership of the cosmic thoughts to the Archai. But how do the Archai exercise this rulership? It is no longer as if they themselves were ruling over the thoughts, as if they were laying them into man from outside; they make it possible for man to evolve these thoughts himself. How can this be? It can come about for the reason that we men have all passed through a number of lives on Earth. In those olden times, when it was right for the Exousiai to bring the thoughts from outside, men had not lived through as many lives on Earth as is now the case. They could not yet, even when they awoke the impulse for it in themselves, produce activity of their own in order to engender the power of thoughts within themselves. We live today in such and such an earthly incarnation. And if only we have the necessary will for it—for it depends upon the will—we can find in ourselves the force to produce our own world of thoughts, an individual world of thoughts, as I have also described it in the The Philosophy of Freedom. Such is the Progress consisting of the transference of the rulership of thoughts by the Spirits of Form to rulership by the Spirits of Personality.
The Spirits of Form drew these thoughts out of the cosmic reservoir of thoughts, in order to instil them into men from outside. Man took the cosmic thoughts into himself and willynilly felt like a creature propelled forward in the Hoods and waves produced in the cosmos by the Spirits of Form. The world of thoughts within the cosmos transmitted its harmony to man himself. But man was an unfree being within the cosmos! Today he has acquired the freedom to work out his own thoughts but these thoughts would all remain hermits in the cosmos if they have not been taken from and brought back again into the cosmic harmony. And in our epoch this comes to pass through the Archai.
Here the foundation is laid for the solution of that immensely significant historic cleavage that has come about in modern times and has plunged human souls into such infinite confusion. Do we not perceive this cleavage? From other points of view I have often told you that man learns, on the one hand, that the whole cosmos is permeated by a nature-order, that this natureorder also plays into man's own being, that there was once an archetypal nebula out of which sun and planets took shape, and then man himself. Do we not see on the one hand the system of cosmic laws of nature to which man feels himself yoked? And on the other hand, do we not see how man, in order to preserve his true human dignity, is urged, in his capacity as a being arising out of nature, to quicken in himself the thought of a moral world-order so that his moral impulses may not fly off and be scattered in the universe but have reality?
In the course of the 19th century this cleavage has again and again resulted in a certain philosophical hair-splitting. Think of those religious conflicts which, within Protestantism, are allied with the school of Ritschl.1Albrecht R. Ritschl, 1822–1869. Protestant theologian. Most people know nothing of these religious-philosophical conflicts as such, for they have taken place within the narrow framework of the theological or philosophical schools. What goes on within this narrow framework, however, does not remain within its bounds. It is not important whether you or humanity in general know what Ritschl thought about the moral-divine world-order, or about the personality of Jesus. But what such people have thought in the course of the 19th century about the personality of Jesus flows down and persists in the teachings given to children from six to twelve years old. That will become, and indeed has become, a universal attitude of soul. And although men do not realize it in full clarity it is nevertheless present in them as vague feelings, as dissatisfaction with life; and it then passes over into action that must eventually bring about an era as chaotic as that in which we are now living. This is the anxious question facing modern humanity; it arises because man is obliged to say to himself: Here is the world of natural law, having issued from the primal nebula, reaching eventually total entropy, and therefore heading towards a condition where everything of the nature of soul and Spirit will have become submerged in a world which lacks all mobility and must inevitably become a great cemetery. All moral ideals proceeding from the individuality of man would have perished.
People do not acknowledge this today because they are not honest enough to do so. But all that they get from modern civilization would inevitably lead them to suffer on account of this immensely significant cleavage in their world-view, to suffer—only they do not realize it—from being subject to a natural world and also from being obliged to assume the existence of a moral world, yet having no power, because of the modern outlook, to ascribe any reality to moral ideas.
It was not so for an older humanity. An older humanity felt that its moral ideas came from the Gods. That was in the days when the Exousiai, the Spirits of Form, instilled the thoughts into man—including, of course, moral ideas. At that time man knew that even if the Earth did indeed perish, the divinespiritual Beings who draw the world-thoughts out of the cosmos would be there in the future. Man knew that it was not he who made the thoughts, that they were there in the same way as processes of Nature are there; they must therefore always have been in existence, like the external processes of Nature.
We must be quite clear that many people—in greater and greater numbers—simply cannot come to terms with life. Some admit this to themselves—they are possibly the best. Others do not admit it, and the world-chaos into which we have fallen is due to their actions.
All the chaos, the disorder that exists today, is the direct consequence of this inner cleavage, this ignorance of the extent to which the moral world has reality. Men prefer to blunt their understanding of the great world-problems since they are unwilling to force themselves to admit where the cleavage actually lies. They prefer to ignore it.
Now the cleavage cannot be healed by what is today called civilization. It can be healed only an the basis of a spiritual world-outlook sought by way of Anthroposophy. Man comes to realize the existence of Archai who have now received the task in the cosmos of linking the thoughts of man—which now arise in isolation in the soul—to the world-processes in due arrangement.
In a grand and impressive way man again finds the foundation for the moral world-order. How does he find it? He could not become free if he were incapable of feeling: You unfold your thoughts out of your own individuality; you are yourself the elaborator of your thoughts.
But this at once implies that we have wrested our thoughts away from the cosmos. In ancient times it was like this:

If I draw the ocean of cosmic thoughts (yellow) and man diagrammatically (red), then I must indicate what passed into each man as his share of the world of cosmic thoughts. He clung to the world of cosmic thoughts—it came down into him. That this could take place was due to the action of the Spirits of Form.

In the course of evolution this has changed. We have here the ocean of cosmic thoughts (yellow) but the rulership of it has passed to the Archai. If I indicate individual men (below, red), their thoughts are detached; they are no longer connected with the cosmic thoughts. This is inevitable, for man could never be a free being if he did not wrest his world of thoughts away from the cosmos. He must wrest his thoughts away in order to become a free being but then they must be linked again with the cosmos. What is necessary, then, is that the rulership of these thoughts—which is not a direct concern of human life (green) but of the cosmos—should be exercised by the Archai, the Spirits of Personality.
But now, if we turn to the moral aspect of these thoughts we shall say to ourselves: When we enter the spiritual world—either through the gate of death or in the Earth's future or whenever it may be—when we enter the spiritual world we shall meet the Spirits of Personality, the Archai. We shall then be able to perceive what it has been possible for them to do with our thoughts which, to begin with, for the sake of our freedom were isolated within ourselves. We shall then recognize our worth and dignity as men from what the Spirits of Personality have been able to do with our thoughts. And cosmic thought turns directly into moral sensibility, moral impulsion.
Moral impulsion can arise anywhere today from Anthroposophy if rightly grasped—only it must be grasped by the whole being of man.
If we grasp this thought, the thought of responsibility to the normally evolving Archai, if we truly grasp our spiritual function in the cosmos, then we shall also find the place that rightly belongs to us in our epoch; we shall be true men of our time. And then we shall look in the right way at what, indeed, is forever around us: not a world of sense alone but also a spiritual world. We shall regard the Archai as the spiritual Beings to whom man must be responsible if, as a member of humanity, he is to undergo his evolution rightly in the course of earthly time. We shall realize that in the present age what was once the necessary world-order is still opposed by all that has remained from those Spirits of Form who are still intent upon ruling over the cosmic thoughts in the old way. And this is the most important concern of civilization in our time. The deeper talks of man today consist in this: through a right attitude to the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, to become truly free so that he may also adopt the right attitude to the Spirits of Form who today are not within their rights when they strive to exercise rulership over the cosmic thoughts as formerly, but were once the legitimate rulers. On the one hand we shall find what makes life in the world difficult, but we shall also find everywhere ways out of these difficulties. Only we must seek for these ways as free individuals. For if we have no will to achieve a free development of thoughts, what could the Archai possibly make of us?
What is important in our age is that man should have the resolute will to be a free being. In most cases he still does not will it and so has to accommodate himself to the idea. It is still difficult today for a man to wish to be a free being. What would please him most would be to wish what he likes and that the right Spirits would be there to carry out his wishes in an invisible, super-sensible way. Then he would perhaps feel free, feel his dignity as man! We need only wait for one or two incarnations—not such a very long time, until about the year 2800 or 3000—and then in our next incarnation, when looking back on the earlier one, we should never be able to excuse ourselves if we had confused human freedom with the furtherance of human comfort by indulgent Gods !
Today man does exactly this—he confuses freedom and indulgence of benevolent Gods with his love of ease and his wishes for comfort. There are still many people today who wish that there were benevolent Gods to carry out their wishes without much assistance from themselves. But as I said, we need only wait for the year 2800 or 3000 and in a subsequent incarnation we shall thoroughly despise such an attitude. Today, if we develop a truly moral attitude of mind this must be allied with a certain moral strength, with a genuine desire for freedom—inner freedom in the first place; outer freedom will soon follow in the right form if the will for inner freedom is present. But to this end it is essential to perceive exactly where the unauthorized Spirits of Form are active.
Well, they are active everywhere. I could imagine—the human intellect has such a strongly Luciferic tendency—that there may be people who say: Yes, it would certainly be much more sensible for the divine ordering of the world if these backward Spirits of Form were not causing havoc, indeed if they were not there at all ! I advise individuals who think like this also to consider as sensible people whether they could nourish themselves without at the same time filling their intestines with unpleasant substances. The one process is simply not possible without the other. Similarly it is not possible in the world for the things upon which the greatness and dignity of man depend to exist without their correlates.
Where, then, do we see backward Spirits of Form in action? Today in particular we see them active in the national chauvinisms which have spread over the whole world wherever the thoughts of men arise, not directly from the innermost core of human nature but out of the blood, out of what comes from the instincts.
In this connection there are two attitudes to nationality One is this: a man scorns the normal Archai and simply lends himself to what the backward Spirits of Form achieve through the nationalities. He then grows up simply as a national, boasting in chauvinistic style of what he has become through having been born with national blood in his veins. His speech is a product of his nationality, his thoughts come to him in the language of his nationality, the very form of his thoughts too comes from the particular form of this language. He grows from the soil which the Spirits of Form have made out of the nationalities.
Now suppose there is someone who is willing to fall in with the backward Spirits of Form and is at the same time an extremely ambitious individual, placed by destiny in a special position, then—with an eye to the national chauvinisms—he may compose ‘Fourteen Points‘. He then finds followers who regard Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points as a splendid gift to the world!
Seen truly, what were these Fourteen Points? They were something flung to the world as an inducement to pander to what the backward Spirits of Form were intent upon inculcating into the different nations. The Fourteen Points were directly inspired from that source.
One can speak of all these things on very different levels. Exactly what I am saying today on one level in characterizing the Archai and the Exousiai, I said years ago in order to underline the significance of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, because they have lulled the world in a cradle of illusions, have caused untold disaster and chaos.
Further, we see today how the influence proceeding from these backward Spirits of Form makes itself felt in the one-sided, materialistic world-view of natural science, where there is downright horror—or, better said, an unholy dread—of engaging in real activity of thought. Just picture what a terrible scene an orthodox professor would make if a student in the laboratory were to look into the microscope with the aim of producing some thought. That would never do ! One must carefully record only what external sense-perception presents. People are quite unaware that this presents only half of the reality—the other half being produced through a man's own creative thought-activity. But the present mission of the normally developed Archai must be known and understood. In the science that has been vitiated by the backward Spirits of Form, it is essential that the true mission of the Spirits of Personality shall make itself felt. And there is the greatest possible fear of this prospect today.
You have probably heard the well-known anecdote of how scientific knowledge is obtained by the different nations in accordance with their fundamental character. What happens when it is a question today of learning in orthodox zoology about a camel? How do the different nations set to work? The Englishman makes a journey into the desert and observes the camel. It may take him two years to observe the camel in every set of circumstances but in this way he gets to know its nature thoroughly, describes it, omitting all thoughts—as would be expected; he describes everything without formulating any thoughts of his own. The Frenchman goes to a menagerie where a camel is on show, looks at it and describes the animal as seen in the menagerie. He does not, like the Englishman, get to know the camel in natural situations of its life but describes it as it is in the menagerie. The German goes neither into the desert nor into a menagerie but sits down in his study, gathers together all the thoughts he can educe from what he has learnt, constructs the camel a priori and on the basis of this a priori construction, describes it.—This is how the anecdote is generally narrated. Moreover it is nearly, very nearly correct; for everywhere one has the feeling that whether a camel is being described, or man himself, or anything else, the description has originated in the ways indicated. One thing, however, is omitted. This alone would have given the right answer: there might be a fourth participant in this threefold anecdote. It matters not whether this hypothetical fourth goes into the desert or whether, having no opportunity to go into the desert or into a menagerie, he studies books. He may even go to a painter of animals and Look at pictures in which animals are portrayed with genius. But no matter whether he sees the camel in the desert or in a menagerie or whether he takes the a priori descriptions out of books, he is able from what he learns to put this question to the divine-spiritual world-order itself: What is the real nature of a camel? The individual who has made this inner effort sees the camel in the menagerie and also how it behaves in the desert; he also perceives what can be gathered from reading different books, perhaps even books containing horribly caricatured, philistine, pedantic descriptions. Nevertheless if he can discern the essential nature of a camel he can still gather the important points from pedantic treatises and all kinds of a priori constructions.
What mankind needs above everything else today is to find the way to the spiritual, not, of course, by excluding but by including experience of the world gained through the senses.
Here again we have the indication of what, in every domain of our striving for knowledge, will lead to insight into how the backward Spirits of Form can mislead us, and how a true understanding of the mission of the Spirits of Personality can give us, as men, our rightful place in the epoch in which we are living. And what is most important of all is to inform ourselves about growing children, in order to achieve a true art of education. For a glaring defect in all education nowadays is that people hold fast to what man has become in the course of evolution through the backward Spirits of Form; it is assumed that everything is as it should be.
Now the child's nature revolts against this attitude—thank God, we may say. The grown-up person is content with this state of things, but the child's nature revolts against it; youth above all revolts against it.
Here again we have one of the characteristic features of the modern Youth Movement and one of the points where modern education must, shall I say, become clairvoyant—or at least must allow itself to be fructified by the findings of clairvoyance—so that it may be recognized that when a human being is born nowadays the seed of inner activity of thoughts is born with him. Then if this seed of the inner activity of thoughts is present, we learn one essential thing which men today are for the most part incapable of achieving. Do you know what that is? It is that they cannot become old! And youth would like to have as leaders men who have become old in the true sense. The young do not want to be led by the young—even if they insist that they do, they are deceiving themselves; they would like to have as leaders men who have understood how to grow old in the genuine sense and have brought with them into old age the living seed of the development of thoughts. If youth can perceive this it will follow such leaders, knowing that men have something real to say if they have known how to become old in the right way. But what does youth encounter today? Its own likeness ! Men have not understood how to become old and have remained infantile. They know no more than the fifteen and sixteen-year-olds know already. No wonder that the fifteen and sixteen-year olds refuse to follow the sixty- and seventy-year olds who have grown no older than they are themselves. The others have not understood how to bring activity into their old bodies. Youth wants people who have become old in the real way, people who may be old in appearance, with wrinkles, white hair and bald scalps but who, despite old hearts, are fundamentally as young as themselves. Youth wants human beings who have understood how to become old, who therefore in becoming old have increased in wisdom and inner strength.
The problem of the Youth Movement would be easily solved if it were to be grasped in its cosmic significance, if, for instance, fundamental lectures were to be given an the theme: How is it possible in the world today not to remain infantile in ripe old age? There is the real problem.
With those who have become old in the real sense, who have not remained infantile, youth will ally itself, will harmonize quite naturally. But from those who are exactly like itself youth can learn nothing. It simply seems grotesque to a young man, himself perhaps only eighteen years old and possibly not having learnt a great deal—he has of course learnt something—whose hair is still quite dark or fair, who has no wrinkles, still a chubby face, not a beard yet—it seems grotesque to this young person to have to follow someone who is inwardly no older than himself, who looks so funny with his grey hair and bald crown, who has learnt no more than he has himself—but yet it all looks different! That is fundamentally the core of the manifest disharmony between youth and age.
If you take very seriously, in all its significance, what I have tried to express in a humorous way, you will also be able to perceive clearly much that constitutes a great and burning question in modern civilization.


Fünfter Vortrag
Indem wir auf dasjenige zurückblicken, was in den letzten Betrachtungen Ihnen vorgeführt wurde in bezug auf das Geschehen, die Tatsachen und Handlungen in den übersinnlichen Welten — es war ja das alles mehr oder weniger eine Ergänzung meines Schriftchens «Die geistige Führung des Menschen und der Menschheit» —, werden Sie verstehen, daß es in unserer Zeit im wesentlichen darauf ankommt, einzusehen, daß sich das große, gewaltige Ereignis auswirkt, von dem ich sagte, daß es in der Hauptsache dem 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert angehört, und daß es die Übergabe der Verwaltung der Weltgedanken von seiten der Geister der Form an die Geister der Persönlichkeit oder Urkräfte ist. Wenn wir den ganzen Sinn, den kosmischen Sinn dieses bedeutsamen Ereignisses ins Auge fassen, so können wir sagen: Er besteht durchaus darin, der Menschheit im Verlaufe ihrer Entwickelung dasjenige zu geben, was sie bekommen soll in unserem gegenwärtigen fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, in dem Zeitraum der Bewußtseinsseelenentwickelung, nämlich die innere menschliche Freiheit, die Möglichkeit für den einzelnen Menschen, aus sich selbst heraus zu handeln. Wir wissen ja, daß im wesentlichen die menschliche Erdenentwickelung eine Art Vorbereitung war für diesen Zeitraum, daß in dem Menschen erst die Naturgrundlage geschaffen werden mußte, damit er innerhalb dessen, was er geworden ist durch diese Naturgrundlage, dann sein Seelisches in sich zur Freiheit entwickeln kann. Wie hängt dies nun zusammen mit jenem charakterisierten übersinnlichen Ereignisse?
Wenn wir in großen Zügen dieses Ereignis uns vor die Seele stellen, so können wir sagen: Wir überblicken auf der einen Seite die geistige Welt so, daß die hauptsächlichsten geistigen Führer der Menschheit diejenigen Wesenheiten sind, die wir ansprechen müssen als Geister der Persönlichkeit, als Archai; aber solche Geister der Persönlichkeit, solche Archai, welche die Verwaltung der Weltgedanken aus den Händen der Exusiai, der Geister der Form, erhalten haben. Diese Archai, denen also gewissermaßen die Menschheit in ihrer Entwickelung die Möglichkeit verdankt, durch eigene innere Seelenarbeit zu Gedanken zu kommen, werden beeinträchtigt in ihrer Wirksamkeit durch jene Wesenheiten, die als Exusiai, als Geister der Form zurückgeblieben waren auf einer früheren Entwickelungsstufe, von solchen Wesenheiten, die gewissermaßen als Geister der Form die Verwaltung der kosmischen Gedanken nicht abgetreten haben. Und der Mensch wird nun einmal in diesem Bewußtseinsseelenzeitraum, in dem wir seit dem 15. Jahrhundert drinnen leben, vor die große Wahl gestellt, in irgendeiner seiner Inkarnationen vor die große Wahl gestellt, sich wirklich zur Freiheit zu entscheiden, oder, was dasselbe ist, die Möglichkeit dieser Freiheit durch seine Hinwendung zu den richtigen Archai zu erhalten.
Wir sehen allerdings in unserem Zeitalter, wie die Menschen sich sträuben, sich loszumachen von jenen geistigen Wesenheiten, die als Exusiai nicht die Gedankenentwickelung haben abtreten wollen. Welche Rolle diese Wesenheiten in der gegenwärtigen Menschheitsentwikkelung spielen, wir können es uns klarmachen, wenn wir sehen, welche Rolle die entsprechenden, in normaler Entwickelung begriffenen Exusiai in älteren Zeiten mit Recht gehabt haben.
In älteren Zeiten haben ja die Menschen nicht so ihre Gedanken entwickelt, wie sie das heute zu tun haben. Sie haben ihre Gedanken nicht in innerer Aktivität, nicht in innerer Arbeit entwickelt. Sie haben ihre Gedanken entwickelt, indem sie sich hingegeben haben dem Anschauen der äußeren Natur, und so wie wir heute die Farben, die Töne wahrnehmen, auch zu gleicher Zeit die Gedanken wahrgenommen. Aber in noch älteren Zeiten, in denen die Menschen dem instinktiven, unbewußten Hellsehen sich hingegeben haben, haben sie mit den Bildern des unbewußten Hellsehens zugleich die Gedanken als eine Gabe der göttlich-geistigen Welten empfangen. Die Menschen haben sich also die Gedanken nicht erarbeitet, die Menschen haben die Gedanken empfangen. Das mußten sie in älteren Zeiten.
Geradeso wie das Kind zuerst seine physische Natur entwickeln muß, wie das Kind zunächst eine Grundlage schaffen muß für dasjenige, was es erst im späteren Leben lernen kann, so konnte die Menschheit als Ganzes zu der inneren aktiven Entwickelung einer Gedankenwelt nur dann kommen, wenn erst von außen herein an der gesamten menschlichen Natur diese Gedankenwelt arbeitete.
Diese Vorbereitungszeit mußte also durchgemacht werden. Aber in dieser Vorbereitungszeit konnte der Mensch eigentlich niemals sagen, daß er dazu berufen sei, ein freies Wesen zu werden. Denn wie Sie aus meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» ersehen können, ist die Grundbedingung der menschlichen Freiheit eben diese, daß der Mensch seine Gedanken in innerer Aktivität selber entwickelt, und daß er aus diesen selbst entwickelten Gedanken, die ich in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» die reinen Gedanken genannt habe, auch die moralischen Impulse schöpfen kann.
Solche auf dem Grund des eigenen menschlichen Wesens ersprießenden moralischen Impulse gab es nicht und konnte es nicht geben in den älteren Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung. Da mußten mit den Gedanken, die gleichsam gottgegeben waren, wie Gebote, die absolut bindend waren und die den Menschen unfrei machten, zugleich die moralischen Impulse gegeben werden. Gerade diese Seite der Sache finden Sie in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» dargestellt: den Übergang der Menschheit von der Gebundenheit in den Geboten, welche die Freiheit ausschließen, zu dem Handeln aus der sittlichen Intuition heraus, welche die Freiheit einschließt.
Nun ist es bei den Geistern der Form so, daß sie immer von außen herein im Menschen etwas bewirken. Alles dasjenige, was der Mensch von außen herein in seinem eigenen Wesen bewirkt hat, alles das enthält die Taten der Geister der Form. Und es war eben durchaus so, daß, solange die Geister der Form den Menschen die kosmischen Gedanken eingepflanzt haben, die Gedanken etwas waren, was entweder, ich möchte sagen, aus Steinen, Pflanzen, Tieren den Menschen wie Wahrnehmungen entgegenkam, oder aber von innen aufstieg aus den menschlichen Instinkten und Trieben herauf. Da schwamm der Mensch gewissermaßen auf den Wogen des Lebens, und die Wogen des Lebens wurden aufgeworfen — aber auch beruhigt, insofern sie Gedanken aufwarfen - von den Geistern der Form. Von außen kam also an den Menschen dasjenige heran, was er in seinem Inneren dann ergriff. Daher fühlte sich der Mensch auch in jenen älteren Zeiten seinen Göttern gegenüber so, daß er vorzugsweise nach den Göttern suchte als nach den Ursachen des Weltgeschehens und seiner selbst. Wenn der Mensch von den Göttern sprach, so sprach er so, daß er in den Göttern die Ursache dessen suchte, was er auf Erden ist, was Naturerscheinungen auf der Erde sind. Der Mensch ging immer zu den Göttern als zu den Ursachen der Dinge zurück: Woher kommt die Welt? Woher komme ich selbst? -— Das waren die großen religiösen Fragen der älteren Menschheit.
Wenn Sie die alten Mythen durchgehen, so werden Sie immer finden, sogar bis in die biblische Schöpfungsgeschichte herein: es sind Genesis-Mythen, auf die da hingewiesen wird, weil man nach dem Ursprung der Welt vorzugsweise zunächst suchte, aber auch bei diesem Suchen nach dem Ursprung der Welt im wesentlichen stehen blieb.
Diese ganze Stimmung der Menschenseele, sie war dadurch gegeben, daß eben der Mensch in seiner Gedankenwelt von den Geistern der Form abhängig war. Bis in das 4. nachchristliche Jahrhundert herein, und in den Nachwirkungen noch bis ins 15. Jahrhundert waren gewissermaßen die Geister der Form in der Weltenordnung — wenn ich diesen Ausdruck gebrauchen darf — vollberechtigt, die ganze Gedankenregierung, die Gedankenverwaltung zu haben, und das Denken, die Gedankenentfaltung von außen an den Menschen heranzubringen.
Seit jener Zeit ist es anders geworden. Seit jener Zeit haben die Exusiai, die Geister der Form eben die Gedankenverwaltung an die Archai abgegeben. Aber wie verwalten die Archai diese Gedanken? Nun nicht mehr so, wenn sie selbst sie verwalten, daß sie den Menschen sie einflößen, daß sie den Menschen sie von außen hineinlegen, sondern daß sie den Menschen selber die Möglichkeit geben, diese Gedanken zu entwickeln. — Wie kann das sein?
Das kann eben dadurch sein, daß wir Menschen ja alle durch eine große Anzahl von Erdenleben durchgegangen sind. In jenen älteren Zeiten, in denen die Exusiai mit Recht die Gedanken von außen heranbrachten, waren die Menschen noch nicht durch so viele Erdenleben gegangen wie in der jetzigen Zeit. Da konnten sie noch nicht in sich, wenn sie wirklich den Impuls dazu in sich rege machten, die eigene Aktivität finden, um die Gedankenkraft in sich selber zu erzeugen. Wir leben heute, sagen wir, in der so und so vielten Erdeninkarnation. Und wenn wir nur den Willen dazu haben — denn auf den Willen kommt es an -, dann können wir in uns dasjenige finden, was Kraft ist, eine eigene Gedankenwelt aus uns heraus zu erzeugen, eine individuelle Gedankenwelt, wie ich es auch in der «Philosophie der Freiheit» ausgeführt habe.
Aber nehmen Sie nun diesen Gedanken völlig ernst! Denken Sie daran, daß wir in das Zeitalter eingetreten sind, in dem der Mensch aus seinem eigenen Inneren heraus beschäftigt ist, seine Gedanken sich zu erarbeiten, seine Gedanken zu formen. Er steht aber nun auch als einzelner in der Welt da. Diese Gedanken würden gewissermaßen isoliert in der Welt dastehen, keine Bedeutung für den Kosmos haben, wenn nicht geistige Wesenheiten da wären, welche den Gedanken, den sich der Mensch in seiner Freiheit erarbeitet, nun in der rechten Weise als Kraft und Impuls dem Kosmos einfügten. Und so haben wir den Fortschritt, der gegeben ist von der Gedankenverwaltung durch die Geister der Form zu jener durch die Geister der Persönlichkeit.
Die Geister der Form haben gewissermaßen aus dem allgemeinen kosmischen Reservoir der Gedanken diese Gedanken herausgeschöpft, um sie von außen an den Menschen heranzubringen. Der Mensch hat die Weltengedanken in sich aufgenommen, mußte sich fühlen als eine Art von Geschöpf, das sich fortbewegt innerhalb der von den Geistern der Form im Kosmos erzeugten Fluten und Wellen. Da war die Gedankenwelt so im Kosmos darinnen, daß sie ihre Harmonie auf den Menschen selber übertrug. Aber der Mensch war ein unfreies Wesen innerhalb des Kosmos. Nun hat der Mensch die Freiheit erlangt, seine eigenen Gedanken sich zu erarbeiten; sie würden aber alle im Kosmos Gedanken-Eremiten bleiben, wenn sie nun nicht aufgenommen und in die kosmische Harmonie wiederum zurückgetragen würden. Und das geschieht eben durch die Archai in unserem Zeitalter.
Hier ist die Grundlage dafür geschaffen, jenen ungeheuer bedeutsamen historischen Zwiespalt, der heraufgekommen ist in der neueren Zeit und der die Menschenseelen in so unendliche Verwirrung gebracht hat, zu lösen. Sehen wir denn nicht diesen Zwiespalt? Ich habe Ihnen von andern Gesichtspunkten aus öfter erwähnt, wie der Mensch auf der einen Seite lernt, daß der ganze Kosmos von einer Naturordnung durchzogen ist, daß diese Naturordnung auch in die eigene menschliche Wesenheit hereinspielt, daß da einstmals ein Urnebelgebilde war, aus dem sich Sonne und Planeten herausgeballt haben, aus dem sich wieder der Mensch selber herausgeballt hat. Sehen wir nicht auf der einen Seite das System der kosmischen Naturgesetze, in das der Mensch sich eingespannt fühlt? Und sehen wir nicht auf der andern Seite, wie der Mensch, um seine wirkliche Menschenwürde zu wahren, darauf angewiesen ist, indem er nun dasteht als naturgegebenes Wesen, in sich rege zu machen den Gedanken an eine moralische Weltenordnung, auf daß seine moralischen Impulse nicht verfliegen im Weltenall, sondern Realität haben?
Ich möchte sagen, an einem gewissen philosophischen Spintisieren ist dieser Zwiespalt immer wieder und wiederum im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts angekommen. Sehen Sie sich innerhalb des Protestantismus jene religiösen Kämpfe an, die sich zum Beispiel an die Ritschlsche Schule knüpfen. Als solche religiös-philosophisch-theologische Kämpfe kennen sie ja die meisten Menschen nicht, denn sie haben sich im engen Rahmen der theologischen oder philosophischen Schulen abgespielt. Aber das, was sich in diesem engen Rahmen der theologischen oder philosophischen Schulen abspielt, bleibt ja nicht darinnen. Es kommt ja nicht darauf an, daß Sie oder überhaupt die Menschheit alle miteinander wissen, was Ritschl über die moralisch-göttliche Weltenordnung, über die Persönlichkeit Jesu gedacht hat. Aber was solche Persönlichkeiten im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts über die Persönlichkeit Jesu gedacht haben, das rinnt hinunter und lebt schon in den Lehren, die den sechs- bis zwölfjährigen Kindern beigebracht werden. Das wird ja allgemein menschliche Seelenverfassung, und ist allgemein menschliche Seelenverfassung geworden. Und wenn auch die Menschen sich das nicht zur vollen Klarheit bringen, es ist doch so, daß es als unbestimmte Gefühle, als Unbefriedigtheit des Lebens in ihnen vorhanden ist, und daß es dann in solch chaotisches Handeln übergeht, das endlich ein solches chaotisches Zeitalter heraufbringen mußte, wie dasjenige ist, in dem wir leben. Das ist eben die große bange heutige Menschheitsfrage, die dadurch entsteht, daß der Mensch sich sagen muß: Da ist die naturgesetzliche Welt, ausgegangen von dem Urnebel, endend einmal im Wärmetod, wo alles, was seelisch-geistig ist, in der nicht mehr in sich beweglichen, sondern in einem allgemeinen Wärmezustand existierenden Welt untergegangen sein wird, so daß der große Friedhof da sein müßte. Alle moralischen Ideale, die aus der Individualität des einzelnen Menschen hervorgehen, würden erstorben sein.
Der Mensch macht sich das heute nicht klar, weil er nicht ehrlich genug dazu ist. Aber alles, was er aus der heutigen Zivilisation entnimmt, müßte ihn dazu führen, an diesem ungeheuer bedeutsamen Zwiespalt in seiner Weltanschauung zu kranken — nur weiß er es nicht —, daran zu kranken, daß eine natürliche Welt da ist, der er unterworfen ist, daß er annehmen muß eine sittliche Welt, und daß er keine Möglichkeit hat aus seiner heutigen Anschauung heraus, den sittlichen Ideen eine Realität zuzuschreiben.
So war es nicht für eine ältere Menschheit. Eine ältere Menschheit empfand, daß sie ihre sittlichen Ideen von den Göttern hatte. Das war in der Zeit, als eben die Exusiai, die Geister der Form dem Menschen die Gedanken einflößten, also auch die sittlichen Gedanken. Da wußte der Mensch, daß wahrhaftig, möge auch die Erde dem Wärmetod verfallen, in der Zukunft da sein werden die göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, welche aus dem ganzen Kosmos heraus die Weltgedanken haben. So daß der Mensch wußte: nicht er macht die Gedanken, sie sind so da, wie die äußeren Naturvorgänge da sind; sie mußten also eine immerwährende Existenz haben wie die äußeren Naturvorgänge.
Man muß sich das nur ganz klarmachen, daß heute viele Menschen eben immer mehr und mehr mit dem Leben nicht fertigwerden. Die einen gestehen sich das - es sind vielleicht noch die besten -, die andern gestehen sich das nicht, aber durch ihr Handeln entsteht das allgemeine Weltenchaos, in das wir hineingeraten sind.
Aber alles, was heute als Weltenchaos, als Weltenunordnung da ist, das ist die tatsächliche Folge dieses inneren Zwiespaltes, dieses Nichtwissens, inwiefern die moralische Weltenordnung eine Realität hat. Es möchten sich die Menschen stumpf machen gegenüber den großen Weltfragen, da sie sich nicht aufraffen wollen, sich zu gestehen, wo der Zwiespalt eigentlich liegt. Sie möchten ihn am liebsten vergessen. Nun, mit dem, was man heute unsere äußere Zivilisation nennt, läßt sich der Zwiespalt nicht lösen. Er läßt sich allein lösen auf demjenigen Boden einer geistigen Weltanschauung, der durch die Anthroposophie gesucht wird. Und da kommt man eben dazu, einzusehen, wie Archai da sind, welche nunmehr die Aufgabe im Kosmos, in der kosmischen Führung erhalten haben, die Gedanken der Menschen, die nun isoliert, durch innere Arbeit in der Seele entstehen, wirklich überall anzuknüpfen an die Weltenvorgänge, sie überall einzuordnen.
Und in einer großartigen, gewaltigen Weise findet der Mensch wiederum den Boden für die moralische Weltenordnung gerade auf diese Weise. Wie findet er ihn? Nun, der Mensch könnte nicht frei werden, wenn er nicht das Gefühl entwickeln könnte: Du entfaltest deine Gedanken aus deiner eigenen Individualität heraus; du bist der Erarbeiter deiner Gedanken.
Aber damit reißen wir zu gleicher Zeit die Gedanken los vom Kosmos. Es war gewissermaßen in alten Zeiten so: Wenn ich hier das Meer der kosmischen Gedanken aufzeichne (siehe Zeichnung, gelb) und da die Menschen wären, die ich schematisch so zeichne (rot), dann müßte ich dasjenige, was in jedem Menschen als sein Teil der kosmischen Gedankenwelt hineinkäme, so zeichnen (gelb). Der Mensch hing an der kosmischen Gedankenwelt, sie senkte sich in ihn hinein. Daß es so sein konnte, ergab sich aus dem Wirken der Geister der Form.

Das ist im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung anders geworden. Wir haben hier das Meer der kosmischen Gedanken (siehe Zeichnung, gelb), die Verwaltung ist übergegangen an die Archai. Wenn ich nun da unten die einzelnen Menschen zeichne, so ist dasjenige abgeschnürt, was ihre Gedanken sind; es hängt nicht mehr mit den kosmischen Gedanken zusammen. — Das muß so sein. Denn niemals könnte der Mensch ein freies Wesen werden, wenn er nicht seine Gedankenwelt abrisse vom Kosmos. Er muß sie abreißen, um ein freies Wesen zu werden; dann aber müssen sie wieder angeknüpft werden. Was also notwendig ist, das ist die Verwaltung dieser Gedanken — die ja zunächst das menschliche Leben nicht unmittelbar angeht (grün), sondern den Kosmos angeht - durch die Archai, die Geister der Persönlichkeit.

Aber nun nehmen wir diesen Gedanken in moralischer Gesinnung, und fühlen wir, wie dieser Gedanke in moralischer Gesinnung so wird, daß wir uns sagen: Wir werden, wenn wir die geistige Welt betreten — sei es, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, sei es sonstwo, oder in der Erdenzukunft -, zusammentreffen mit den Geistern der Persönlichkeit, mit den Archai. Wir werden dann wahrnehmen können, was sie haben machen können mit unseren Gedanken, die zunächst um unserer Freiheit willen in uns isoliert waren. Und da werden wir unseren Menschenwert und unsere Menschenwürde an dem erkennen, was die Archai, die Geister der Persönlichkeit aus unseren Gedanken haben machen können. Und es wendet sich der kosmische Gedanke unmittelbar an moralische Gesinnung, an moralische Impulsivität.
Es kann aus der richtig erfaßten Anthroposophie heute durchaus überall die moralische Impulsivität entspringen. Es muß nur mit dem ganzen Menschen dasjenige erfaßt werden, was Anthroposophie ist.
Erfassen wir diesen Gedanken, den Gedanken der Verantwortlichkeit gegenüber den normal sich entwickelnden Archai, erfassen wir diese unsere geistige Beziehung im Kosmos richtig, dann leben wir uns auch richtig in unser Zeitalter herein, dann werden wir richtige Menschen unseres Zeitalters. Und dann werden wir in der richtigen Weise hinschauen auf das, was uns ja immer umgibt: nicht nur eine sinnliche Welt, sondern auch eine geistige Welt. Wir werden hinschauen auf diese geistigen Wesenheiten, die Archai, denen gegenüber der Mensch verantwortlich werden soll, wenn er in der richtigen Weise würdig seine Menschheitsentwickelung durchmachen will im Laufe der Erdenzeiten. Wir werden sehen, wie in der heutigen Zeit dem, was einmal die notwendige Weltenordnung war, auch noch gegenübersteht alles das, was übriggeblieben ist an solchen Geistern der Form, die noch immer die Gedanken in der alten Weise verwalten wollen. Und das ist der wichtigste Zivilisationseinschlag in unserer Zeit! Das sind die eigentlichen tieferen Aufgaben des Menschen: durch seine richtige Stellung zu den Archai, zu den Geistern der Persönlichkeit, frei zu werden, damit er auch die richtige Stellung zu den Geistern der Form gewinne, die heute mit der Gedankenverwaltung, die sie ebenso noch machen wollen wie früher, nicht im Rechte sind, die aber einstmals in ihrem Rechte waren. Und wir werden auf der einen Seite dasjenige finden, was in der Welt heute das Leben schwierig macht, wir werden aber auch überall die Wege aus den Schwierigkeiten der Welt heraus finden. Nur müssen wir diese Wege als freie Menschen suchen. Denn wenn wir keinen Willen haben zur freien Gedankenentwickelung, was sollen dann die Archai mit uns anfangen?
Dasjenige, worauf es ankommt in unserem Zeitalter, das ist, daß der Mensch wirklich ein freies Wesen sein will. Meistens will er es ja zunächst noch nicht. Er muß sich erst hineinfinden, es zu wollen. Dem Menschen wird es heute noch schwer, sich als freies Wesen zu wollen. Er möchte eigentlich am liebsten, daß er das, was ihm gefällt, wünschen kann, und daß dann die richtigen Geister da wären, die seine Wünsche auf eine unsichtbare übersinnliche Art ausführen. Dann würde er sich vielleicht frei fühlen, menschenwürdig fühlen! Wir brauchen nur ein paar Inkarnationen herankommen zu lassen, gar nicht einmal so lange Zeit, nur etwa das Jahr 2800 oder 3000, dann werden wir uns gar nicht mehr verzeihen können in einer nächsten Inkarnation — wo wir ja zurückschauen werden auf die frühere Inkarnation -, daß wir einmal menschliche Freiheit verwechselt haben mit Förderung der menschlichen Bequemlichkeit durch nachsichtige Götter!
Diese zwei Dinge verwechselt ja der Mensch heute: Freiheit, und Nachsicht von gütigen Göttern mit der menschlichen Bequemlichkeit, mit den bequemen menschlichen Wünschen. Heute wollen das viele Menschen noch, daß es gütige Götter gibt, die ihnen ihre Wünsche ohne viel Zutun ausführen. Wie gesagt, wir brauchen nur das Jahr 2800 oder 3000 herankommen zu lassen, in einer nächsten Inkarnation werden wir das dann sehr verachten. Aber gerade wenn wir heute richtige moralische Gesinnung entwickeln, so muß sie auch verbunden sein mit einer gewissen moralischen Stärke, welche die Freiheit wirklich will — die innere Freiheit zunächst; die äußere wird sich dann schon in der richtigen Weise entwickeln, wenn der Wille zur inneren Freiheit vorhanden ist. Dazu ist aber notwendig, daß man nun in rechter Weise beobachten kann, wo denn diese unberechtigten Geister der Form überall tätig sind.
Nun, sie sind überall tätig. Ich könnte mir denken — der menschliche Intellekt hat ja solch einen luziferischen Hang -, daß es nun Menschen gäbe, die da sagen: Ja, es wäre doch viel vernünftiger für die göttliche Weltenordnung, wenn diese zurückgebliebenen Geister der Form da nicht wirtschaften würden, gar nicht da wären! — Menschen, die so denken, denen rate ich, als vernünftiger Mensch auch zu denken, daß sie sich nähren könnten, ohne daß sich der Darm zu gleicher Zeit mit unangenehmen Stoffen anfüllt. Das eine ist eben nicht möglich ohne das andere. Und so ist es in der Welt nicht möglich, daß die Dinge, die groß und gewaltig die Würde des Menschen bedingen, da seien ohne ihre entsprechenden Korrelate.
Wo sehen wir denn nun zurückgebliebene Geister der Form tätig? In erster Linie sehen wir sie heute tätig in den nationalen Chauvinismen, die über die ganze Welt sich verbreiten, da, wo die Gedanken der Menschen sich nicht aus unmittelbarer innerster menschlicher Zentralität heraus entwickeln, sondern aus dem Blute heraus, aus dem, was aus den Instinkten aufflutet.
In dieser Beziehung gibt es zweierlei Verhalten zu der Nationalität. Das eine ist dieses: Man verachtet die normalen Archai und gibt sich einfach demjenigen hin, was die zurückgebliebenen Geister der Form aus den Nationalitäten machen. Man wächst dann einfach aus der Nationalität herauf, pocht in chauvinistischer Weise auf das, was man dadurch geworden ist, daß man aus dem Blute einer Nationalität heraus geboren ist. Man redet aus der Nationalität heraus, seine Gedanken bekommt man mit der Sprache dieser Nationalität; mit der besonderen Form dieser Sprache bekommt man auch seine Gedankenformen. Man steigt auf aus demjenigen, was die Geister der Form aus den Nationalitäten gemacht haben. |
Und wenn man nun nachgeben will diesen zurückgebliebenen Geistern der Form und zu gleicher Zeit ein furchtbar ehrgeiziger Mensch ist, der durch das Schicksal an einen besonderen Posten gestellt ist, dann fabriziert man, gerade mit Rücksicht auf die nationalen Chauvinismen der Welt, «Vierzehn Punkte» und findet dann Anhänger, welche diese vierzehn Punkte Woodrow Wilsons als dasjenige betrachten, was der Welt etwas Großartiges geben soll.
In Wahrheit gesehen, was waren sie, diese vierzehn Punkte Woodrow Wilsons? Sie waren etwas, was der Welt hingeworfen werden sollte, damit sie frönen kann dem, was die zurückgebliebenen Geister der Form ausgießen wollen über die verschiedenen Naturgrundlagen der Nationen. Sie waren unmittelbar von da her inspiriert.
Man kann über alle diese Dinge reden von den verschiedensten Niveaus aus. Ganz dasselbe, was ich heute auf einem Niveau sage, das der Charakteristik von Archai und Exusiai entspricht, ganz dasselbe habe ich vor Jahren immer gesagt, um die Weltbedeutung dieser vierzehn Punkte von Woodrow Wilson zu charakterisieren, durch welche, weil sie die Welt in Illusionen gewiegt haben, so ungeheuer viel Unglück und Chaos in die Welt gekommen ist.
Ferner sehen wir heute, wie das, was von diesen zurückgebliebenen Geistern der Form ausgeht, sich geltend macht in der einseitigen naturwissenschaftlich-materialistischen Weltanschauung, wo ein wahrer Horror vorhanden ist — besser gesagt, eine scheußliche Angst davor besteht -, in die Aktivität der Gedanken überzugehen. Man soll sich heute nur einmal vorstellen, was für einen furchtbaren Spektakel ein richtiger Professor machen würde, wenn irgendein Student im Laboratorium ins Mikroskop schaute und irgendeinen Gedanken hervorbringen wollte. Das gibt es nicht! Da muß man sorgfältig nur dasjenige verzeichnen, was die äußere sinnliche Beobachtung gibt, gar nicht wissend, daß die ja nur die Hälfte der Wirklichkeit gibt, die andere Hälfte der Wirklichkeit wird eben im eigenen menschlichen Schaffen von Gedanken erzeugt. Da muß man aber wissen, was die gegenwärtige Mission der richtig entwickelten Archai ist. Es muß in der Wissenschaft, die verdorben wird durch die zurückbleibenden Geister der Form, geltend gemacht werden die richtige Mission der Geister der Persönlichkeit. Davor besteht heute die denkbar größte Angst.
Nicht wahr, Sie kennen die bekannte Anekdote, wie nach den verschiedenen National-Naturgrundlagen Wissenschaft gemacht wird. So etwa wird gefragt: Wie geht es zu, wenn es sich heute darum handelt, in richtiger Zoologie ein Kamel kennenzulernen, wie machen das die verschiedenen Nationen? Der Engländer macht eine Reise in die Wüste, beobachtet das Kamel. Er braucht ja dazu vielleicht zwei Jahre, bis er das Kamel in allen Lebenslagen beobachtet hat, aber er lernt auf diese Weise das Kamel in unmittelbarer Natur kennen, beschreibt es, läßt natürlich alle Gedanken weg, aber er beschreibt alles, schafft nicht eigene Gedanken. Der Franzose geht in die Menagerie, wo ein Kamel ausgestellt ist, schaut sich in der Menagerie das Kamel an und beschreibt das Kamel in der Menagerie. Er lernt nicht so wie der Engländer das Kamel in allen Naturlagen kennen, sondern er beschreibt es, wie es in der Menagerie ist. Der Deutsche geht weder in die Wüste noch in die Menagerie, sondern er setzt sich in seine Gelehrtenstube, setzt a priori alle Gedanken zusammen, die er aus dem, was er gelernt hat, herausbringen kann, konstruiert a priori das Kamel und beschreibt aus diesem a priori Konstruierten heraus das Kamel. — So wird gewöhnlich die Anekdote erzählt. Sie stimmt ja auch fast, wirklich fast, denn man hat überall das Gefühl, ob nun ein Kamel beschrieben wird oder ob der Mensch selber beschrieben wird oder dergleichen: es ist auf diese Weise die Beschreibung entstanden. Aber nur eines findet man nicht. Das würde, möchte ich sagen, erst das richtige Fazit, die richtige Antwort geben auf diese dreifach gestaltete Anekdote: Da wäre irgendwo der vierte, der — es kommt schon nicht darauf an, ob er nun in die Wüste geht, oder ob er Bücher studiert, weil er gerade nicht Gelegenheit hat, in die Wüste oder in die Menagerie zu gehen, oder ob er schließlich zu einem Tiermaler geht, dessen Bilder ansieht, auf denen mit genialer Kunst Kamele gemalt sind —, der imstande ist, aus dem, was sich ihm da ergibt, die Frage an die göttlich-geistige Weltenordnung selber zu stellen: Was ist das Wesen des Kamels? — Derjenige nämlich, der diese innere Arbeit leisten kann, der sieht dem Kamel, das in der Menagerie ist, noch an, wie es sich in der Wüste verhält; ja, der sieht es selbst dem noch an, was er sich durch Lektüre aus verschiedenen Büchern bilden kann, vielleicht aus Büchern, in denen scheußlich karikierte, philiströs-pedantische, schulmeisterliche Beschreibungen stehen. Er kriegt doch heraus, wenn er in das Wesen des Kamels eindringen kann, selbst aus dem Schulmeisterlichen, aus allem möglichen a priori Konstruierten, er kriegt noch heraus, um was es sich handelt. |
Das ist es, was heute vor allen Dingen die Menschheit braucht, natürlich nicht mit Ausschluß, sondern mit Einschluß der äußeren Weltenerfahrung, mit Einschluß der sinnlichen Weltenerfahrung: hinzufinden den Weg zum Geistigen.
Da haben wir wiederum dasjenige, was uns in jedem Gebiete unseres Erkenntnisstrebens dazu führen soll, in der richtigen Weise einzusehen, wie uns die zurückgebliebenen Geister der Form verführen können, und wie uns das richtige Erkennen dessen, was die Mission der Geister der Persönlichkeit ist, gerade als Menschen richtig hineinstellen kann in unser Zeitalter. Und am allerwichtigsten ist es, sich in dieser Weise orientieren zu können über die heranwachsenden Kinder, um zu einer wirklichen Erziehungskunst zu kommen. Denn das ist ja gerade etwas, was heute überall als ein ungeheurer Mangel aller Erziehungskunst vorhanden ist: Die Menschen halten fest an dem, was aus dem Menschen geworden ist im Laufe der geschichtlichen Entwickelung durch die unrichtigen Geister der Form, setzen voraus, daß das ganz richtig sei, daß der Mensch so ist.
Nun revoltiert dagegen — man kann sagen, Gott sei Dank - noch die kindliche Natur. Die läßt sich das noch nicht gefallen. Der spätere Mensch läßt es sich ja sehr gerne gefallen; die kindliche Natur revoltiert noch dagegen, insbesondere die jugendliche Natur revoltiert dagegen.
Wiederum haben wir einen der charakteristischen Punkte der heutigen Jugendbewegung und einen der charakteristischen Punkte, wo die heutige Pädagogik, ich möchte sagen, hellsichtig werden muß — oder wenigstens aus Hellsichtigkeit sich befruchten lassen muß —, damit nun wirklich erkannt werde, wie mit dem Menschen, wenn er heute geboren wird, der Keim zu der inneren Aktivität der Gedanken mitgeboren wird. Dann, wenn dieser Keim zur inneren Aktivität der Gedanken da ist, dann lernen wir vor allen Dingen eines, was heute die Menschen meist nicht können. Wissen Sie, was die Menschen heute nicht können? Sie können nämlich nicht alt werden. Und die Jugend, die möchte nämlich zu Führern altgewordene Menschen haben. Sie möchte nicht die Jugend selber zum Führer haben — wenn sie es auch sagt, da täuscht sie sich —, sie möchte zu Führern Leute haben, die richtig alt zu werden verstanden haben, die den lebendigen Keim der Gedankenentwickelung sich bis ins Alter mitführen. Wenn das die Jugend bemerken kann, dann folgt sie nämlich den Führern, denn da weiß sie, es haben ihr die Leute etwas zu sagen, wenn sie verstanden haben, in der richtigen Weise alt zu werden. Aber was trifft denn heute die Jugend? Sie trifft da lauter — ihresgleichen! Die Menschen haben nicht verstanden, alt zu werden, sind Kindsköpfe geblieben; sie wissen nicht mehr, als die Fünfzehn-, Sechzehnjährigen auch schon wissen. Da ist es ja kein Wunder, daß die Fünfzehn-, Sechzehnjährigen den Sechzig-, Siebzigjährigen nicht mehr folgen wollen, weil die ja nicht älter geworden sind. Sie haben gar nicht die Aktivität in den alten Körper hineinzutragen verstanden. Die Jugend wünscht richtig altgewordene Menschen, nicht bloß alt aussehende mit Runzeln und weißen Haaren und glatzigen Köpfen, die aber im Grunde genommen in alten Herzen so jung sind wie sie selber, sondern die Jugend will solche Menschenwesen, die verstanden haben, alt zu werden, also zugenommen haben mit dem Altwerden an Weisheit und Kraft.
Die Jugendbewegungsfrage würde leicht gelöst werden, wenn man sie eben in ihrer ganzen kosmischen Bedeutung erfassen würde, wenn man nämlich einmal gründlich Vorträge hielte über das Thema: Wie ist es heute möglich in der Welt, kein Kindskopf bis ins hohe Greisenalter zu bleiben? Das ist das Problem.
Den Nichtkindsköpfigen, den wirklich Altgewordenen, wird die Jugend sich tatsächlich in einer ganz selbstverständlichen Weise anschließen, wird sich mit ihnen zusammenfinden. Aber von ihresgleichen kann sie nichts lernen; sondern es kommt dem jungen Menschen nur grotesk vor, wenn er nun selber vielleicht achtzehn Jahre alt ist, vielleicht noch nicht so sehr viel gelernt hat — einiges hat er ja gelernt -, er hat noch volles schwarzes oder blondes Haar auf dem Kopfe und noch keine Runzeln, hat noch ein pausbäckiges Gesicht, hat noch nicht einmal einen Bart bekommen, schön, und nun, nicht wahr, soll er folgen einem andern, der innerlich gar nicht älter ist als er, aber der sieht so komisch aus, hat einen Glatzkopf, hat graue Haare, hat nicht mehr gelernt als er selber, aber das alles schaut anders aus! — Das ist im Grunde genommen der innerste Kern dieser Tatsache des Nichtzusammenfindens von Jugend und Alter.
Sie müssen das, was ich jetzt in einer humoristischen Weise versuchte zu sagen, nur in seiner ganzen seriösen, in seiner ganzen ernsten Bedeutung nehmen, dann werden Sie auch manches, was in der heutigen Zivilisation als eine große, bedeutsame, brennende Frage daliegt, unmittelbar ins seelische Auge fassen können.
Da ich es nicht gut übers Herz bringen kann — die nächsten drei Vorträge kann ich ja nicht halten, weil ich am Freitag schon in Stuttgart sein soll —, hier abzubrechen, so werde ich mir erlauben, am Donnerstag um acht Uhr einen Vortrag zu halten, aber nur für diejenigen, die ihn hören wollen.


Fifth Lecture
As we look back on what has been presented to you in the last lectures with regard to the events, facts and actions in the supersensible worlds - all this was more or less a supplement to my little paper “The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind” - you will understand that in our time it is essentially important to realize that the great, tremendous event is taking effect, of which I said that it belongs mainly to the 4th century after Christ, and that it is the transfer of the administration of world thoughts from the spirits of form to the spirits of personality or elemental forces. It is the handing over of the administration of the world's thoughts from the Spirits of Form to the Spirits of Personality or Primal Forces. If we consider the whole meaning, the cosmic meaning of this significant event, we can say that it consists in giving mankind in the course of its development that which it is to receive in our present fifth post-Atlantean period, in the period of the development of the consciousness soul, namely inner human freedom, the possibility for the individual human being to act out of himself. We know that human development on earth was essentially a kind of preparation for this period, that the natural basis had to be created in man first, so that he could then develop his soul into freedom within what he had become through this natural basis. How is this now connected with the supersensible event characterized?
If we place this event in broad outline before the soul, we can say: On the one hand we survey the spiritual world in such a way that the chief spiritual guides of mankind are those entities whom we must address as spirits of personality, as Archai; but such spirits of personality, such Archai, who have received the administration of the world's thoughts from the hands of the Exusiai, the spirits of form. These Archai, to whom, so to speak, mankind in its development owes the possibility of coming to thoughts through its own inner soul work, are impaired in their effectiveness by those beings who, as Exusiai, as spirits of form, had remained behind on an earlier stage of development, by such beings who, so to speak, as spirits of form, have not ceded the administration of cosmic thoughts. And in this period of the consciousness soul, in which we have been living since the 15th century, man is faced with the great choice, in any one of his incarnations, to really decide for freedom, or, which is the same, to maintain the possibility of this freedom through his turning to the right Archai.
In our age, however, we see how people are reluctant to break away from those spiritual beings who, as exusiai, have not wanted to cede the development of thought. What role these entities play in the present development of mankind, we can realize when we see what role the corresponding exusiai in normal development rightly had in older times.
In older times, people did not develop their thoughts in the way they do today. They did not develop their thoughts through inner activity, through inner work. They developed their thoughts by devoting themselves to observing external nature, and just as we perceive colors and sounds today, we also perceived thoughts at the same time. But in even older times, when people gave themselves over to instinctive, unconscious clairvoyance, they received thoughts as a gift from the divine-spiritual worlds at the same time as the images of unconscious clairvoyance. So people did not work out the thoughts, people received the thoughts. They had to in older times.
Just as the child must first develop its physical nature, just as the child must first create a foundation for that which it can only learn in later life, so humanity as a whole could only come to the inner active development of a world of thoughts when this world of thoughts first worked on the whole of human nature from the outside.
This preparatory period therefore had to be gone through. But during this preparatory period man could never actually say that he was called to become a free being. For as you can see from my “Philosophy of Freedom”, the basic condition of human freedom is precisely that man develops his own thoughts in inner activity, and that he can also draw moral impulses from these self-developed thoughts, which I have called pure thoughts in my “Philosophy of Freedom”.
Such moral impulses sprouting from the ground of one's own human being did not and could not exist in the older times of human development. There the moral impulses had to be given at the same time as the thoughts which were, as it were, God-given, like commandments which were absolutely binding and which made man unfree. It is precisely this side of the matter that you will find described in my “Philosophy of Freedom”: the transition of humanity from being bound by commandments, which exclude freedom, to acting out of moral intuition, which includes freedom.
Now it is the case with the spirits of form that they always bring about something in man from the outside. All that which man has brought about in his own being from without, all that contains the deeds of the Spirits of Form. And as long as the spirits of form implanted the cosmic thoughts in man, the thoughts were something that either, I would say, came to man from stones, plants and animals like perceptions, or else rose up from within from the human instincts and drives. Man floated, as it were, on the waves of life, and the waves of life were raised - but also calmed, in so far as they raised thoughts - by the spirits of form. From the outside, therefore, man was approached by that which he then grasped within himself. Therefore, in those older times, man also felt towards his gods in such a way that he preferred to search for the gods as the causes of world events and of himself. When man spoke of the gods, he spoke in such a way that he sought in the gods the cause of what he was on earth, what natural phenomena on earth were. Man always went back to the gods as the causes of things: Where does the world come from? Where do I myself come from? -- These were the great religious questions of ancient mankind.
If you go through the old myths, you will always find, even as far back as the biblical story of creation, that they are Genesis myths, to which reference is made, because the origin of the world was first and foremost sought, but this search for the origin of the world essentially came to a standstill.
This whole mood of the human soul was given by the fact that man in his world of thought was dependent on the spirits of form. Up to the 4th century after Christ, and in the aftermath up to the 15th century, the spirits of form in the world order - if I may use this expression - were to a certain extent fully authorized to have the whole government of thought, the administration of thought, and to bring thought, the development of thought, to man from outside.
Since that time things have changed. Since that time the Exusiai, the spirits of form, have handed over the administration of thought to the Archai. But how do the Archai manage these thoughts? No longer by administering them themselves, by instilling them in people, by putting them into people from outside, but by giving people themselves the opportunity to develop these thoughts. - How can that be?
It can be because we humans have all passed through a large number of earthly lives. In those older times, when the Exusiai rightly brought the thoughts from outside, people had not yet gone through as many earth lives as in the present time. At that time they could not yet find within themselves, if they really had the impulse to do so, the activity to generate the power of thought within themselves. Today we are living, let us say, in such and such an earthly incarnation. And if we only have the will to do so - for it is the will that counts - then we can find within ourselves that which is the power to generate our own world of thought out of ourselves, an individual world of thought, as I have also explained in the “Philosophy of Freedom”.
But now take this thought completely seriously! Remember that we have entered an age in which man is busy working out his own thoughts from within himself, forming his own thoughts. But he now also stands alone in the world. These thoughts would to a certain extent stand isolated in the world, would have no meaning for the cosmos, if there were not spiritual beings there who would now insert the thought, which man works out in his freedom, into the cosmos in the right way as power and impulse. And so we have the progress that is given from the administration of thought by the spirits of form to that by the spirits of personality.
The Spirits of Form have, as it were, drawn these thoughts out of the general cosmic reservoir of thoughts in order to bring them to man from outside. Man absorbed the thoughts of the world and had to feel himself as a kind of creature moving within the tides and waves created by the spirits of form in the cosmos. The world of thought was so integrated into the cosmos that it transferred its harmony to man himself. But man was an unfree being within the cosmos. Now man has attained the freedom to work out his own thoughts; but they would all remain thought-hermits in the cosmos if they were not now taken up and carried back again into the cosmic harmony. And this is what happens through the Archai in our age.
This is the basis for resolving the tremendously significant historical discord that has arisen in recent times and which has caused so much confusion in human souls. Do we not see this dichotomy? I have often mentioned to you from other points of view how man learns on the one hand that the whole cosmos is permeated by a natural order, that this natural order also plays into his own human being, that there was once a primordial nebula from which the sun and planets emerged, from which man himself emerged again. Do we not see on the one hand the system of the cosmic laws of nature into which man feels himself to be bound? And on the other hand, do we not see how man, in order to preserve his real human dignity, is dependent on the fact that he now stands there as a natural being, to stimulate in himself the thought of a moral world order, so that his moral impulses do not evaporate in the universe, but have reality?
I would like to say that this dichotomy reached a certain philosophical spinting point again and again in the course of the 19th century. Take a look at the religious struggles within Protestantism that were linked to the Ritschl school, for example. Most people do not know them as such religious-philosophical-theological struggles, because they took place within the narrow framework of theological or philosophical schools. But what takes place within this narrow framework of theological or philosophical schools does not remain within it. It is not important that you or all of humanity know what Ritschl thought about the moral-divine world order, about the personality of Jesus. But what such personalities thought about the personality of Jesus in the course of the 19th century trickles down and lives on in the teachings that are taught to six to twelve-year-old children. After all, this is becoming a general human state of mind, and has become a general human state of mind. And even if men do not bring it to full clarity, it is nevertheless the case that it is present in them as vague feelings, as unsatisfied life, and that it then passes over into such chaotic action that finally had to bring about such a chaotic age as the one in which we live. This is precisely the great anxious question of mankind today, which arises from the fact that man must say to himself: There is the world of natural law, starting from the primeval fog, ending one day in heat death, where everything that is soul-spiritual will have perished in the world that is no longer mobile in itself, but existing in a general state of heat, so that the great cemetery would have to be there. All moral ideals that emerge from the individuality of the individual human being would have died.
People today do not realize this because they are not honest enough to do so. But everything he takes from today's civilization would have to lead him to suffer from this tremendously significant dichotomy in his world view - only he does not know it - to suffer from the fact that there is a natural world to which he is subject, that he must assume a moral world, and that he has no possibility from his present view to ascribe a reality to the moral ideas.
This was not the case for an older humanity. An older humanity felt that it had its moral ideas of the gods. That was at the time when the Exusiai, the spirits of form, instilled thoughts into man, including moral thoughts. Then man knew that truly, even if the earth were to succumb to heat death, the divine-spiritual beings would be there in the future, who would have the world thoughts out of the whole cosmos. So that man knew: he does not make the thoughts, they are there as the outer natural processes are there; they therefore had to have an everlasting existence like the outer natural processes.
You just have to realize that many people today are increasingly unable to cope with life. Some admit this to themselves - they are perhaps still the best - others do not admit it to themselves, but their actions create the general chaos of the world into which we have fallen.
But everything that exists today as world chaos, as world disorder, is the actual consequence of this inner conflict, of not knowing to what extent the moral world order has a reality. People want to make themselves dull in the face of the great questions of the world because they do not want to make up their minds to admit to themselves where the conflict actually lies. They would prefer to forget it. Well, the dichotomy cannot be resolved with what we call our external civilization today. It can only be resolved on the ground of a spiritual world view that is sought through anthroposophy. And there one comes to realize how Archai are there, who have now received the task in the cosmos, in the cosmic guidance, to really connect the thoughts of men, which now arise in isolation, through inner work in the soul, everywhere to the world processes, to classify them everywhere.
And in a great, mighty way man again finds the ground for the moral world order just in this way. How does he find it? Well, man could not become free if he could not develop the feeling: You unfold your thoughts out of your own individuality; you are the maker of your thoughts.
But at the same time we tear our thoughts away from the cosmos. It was like this in ancient times: If I were to draw the sea of cosmic thoughts here (see drawing, yellow) and there were the people whom I draw schematically like this (red), then I would have to draw what would enter into each person as his part of the cosmic world of thoughts like this (yellow). Man was attached to the cosmic world of thought, it sank into him. That it could be so resulted from the working of the spirits of form.

This has changed in the course of human development. Here we have the sea of cosmic thoughts (see drawing, yellow), the administration has passed over to the Archai. If I now draw the individual human beings down there, that which is their thoughts is cut off; it is no longer connected with the cosmic thoughts. - It must be so. For man could never become a free being if he did not tear off his world of thoughts from the cosmos. He must tear them off in order to become a free being; but then they must be reattached. What is necessary, therefore, is the administration of these thoughts - which do not initially concern human life directly (green), but concern the cosmos - by the Archai, the spirits of personality.

But now let us take this thought in a moral attitude, and let us feel how this thought in a moral attitude becomes such that we say to ourselves: When we enter the spiritual world - be it when we have passed through the gate of death, be it elsewhere, or in the earthly future - we will meet with the spirits of the personality, with the Archai. We will then be able to perceive what they have been able to do with our thoughts, which were initially isolated within us for the sake of our freedom. And then we will recognize our human value and our human dignity by what the Archai, the spirits of the personality, have been able to make of our thoughts. And the cosmic thought turns directly to moral sentiment, to moral impulsiveness.
Moral impulsiveness can arise everywhere today from correctly understood anthroposophy. It is only necessary to grasp what anthroposophy is with the whole human being.
If we grasp this thought, the thought of responsibility towards the normally developing Archai, if we grasp our spiritual relationship in the cosmos correctly, then we will also live into our age correctly, then we will become true human beings of our age. And then we will look in the right way at what always surrounds us: not only a sensual world, but also a spiritual world. We will look at these spiritual beings, the Archai, to whom man should become responsible if he wants to go through his human development in the right way and in a worthy manner in the course of the earthly ages. We will see how in the present time what was once the necessary world order is still confronted by all that remains of such spirits of form who still want to administer thoughts in the old way. And that is the most important impact of civilization in our time! These are the actual deeper tasks of man: to become free through his right position in relation to the Archai, to the spirits of personality, so that he may also gain the right position in relation to the spirits of form, who today are not in the right with the administration of thought, which they still want to do just as they did in the past, but who were once in their right. And we will find on the one hand that which makes life difficult in the world today, but we will also find ways out of the difficulties of the world everywhere. But we must seek these ways as free people. For if we have no will to develop our thoughts freely, what are the Archai to do with us?
What is important in our age is that man really wants to be a free being. For the most part he does not want it at first. He must first find his way into wanting it. It is still difficult for people today to want to be free beings. He would actually prefer to be able to wish for what he likes, and that the right spirits would then be there to carry out his wishes in an invisible, supersensible way. Then perhaps he would feel free, feel worthy of humanity! We only need to allow a few incarnations to pass, not even that long a time, only about the year 2800 or 3000, then we will no longer be able to forgive ourselves in a next incarnation - where we will look back on the earlier incarnation - that we once confused human freedom with the promotion of human comfort by indulgent gods!
Today man confuses these two things: freedom and the indulgence of benevolent gods with human comfort, with comfortable human wishes. Today, many people still want there to be benevolent gods who carry out their wishes without much help. As I said, we only need to let the year 2800 or 3000 approach, and in the next incarnation we will despise this very much. But especially if we develop the right moral attitude today, it must also be connected with a certain moral strength that really wants freedom - inner freedom first; the outer freedom will then develop in the right way when the will for inner freedom is present. But for this it is necessary that one can now observe in the right way where these unjustified spirits of form are active everywhere.
Well, they are active everywhere. I could imagine - the human intellect has such a Luciferian tendency - that there would now be people who would say: Yes, it would be much more sensible for the divine world order if these backward spirits of form did not operate there, if they were not there at all! - I would advise people who think like this to think, as a sensible person, that they could nourish themselves without their intestines filling up with unpleasant substances at the same time. The one is not possible without the other. And so it is not possible in the world for the things that greatly and powerfully determine the dignity of man to exist without their corresponding correlates.
Where then do we see retarded spirits of form at work? First and foremost, we see them at work today in the national chauvinisms that are spreading throughout the world, where people's thoughts do not develop out of the most direct inner human centrality, but out of the blood, out of what flows from the instincts.
In this relationship there are two kinds of behavior towards nationality. One is this: One despises the normal Archai and simply surrenders to what the retarded spirits of form make of the nationalities. One then simply grows up out of the nationality, insisting in a chauvinistic way on what one has become by being born out of the blood of a nationality. One speaks out of the nationality, one gets one's thoughts with the language of this nationality; with the particular form of this language one also gets one's thought forms. One rises from that which the spirits of form have made of the nationalities.
And if one now wants to give way to these backward spirits of form and at the same time is a terribly ambitious person who is placed by fate in a special position, then one fabricates “Fourteen Points”, precisely with regard to the national chauvinisms of the world, and then finds followers who regard these fourteen points of Woodrow Wilson as that which is supposed to give the world something great.
In truth, what were they, these fourteen points of Woodrow Wilson? They were something to be thrown to the world that it might indulge in what the backward spirits of form want to pour out upon the various natural foundations of nations. They were directly inspired from there.
You can talk about all these things from different levels. Quite the same thing I am saying today on a level corresponding to the characteristics of Archai and Exusiai, quite the same thing I used to say years ago to characterize the world significance of these fourteen points of Woodrow Wilson, through which, because they have lulled the world into illusions, so tremendous a great deal of misfortune and chaos has come into the world.
Furthermore, we see today how what emanates from these backward spirits of form asserts itself in the one-sided scientific-materialistic world view, where there is a real horror - or rather, a terrible fear of it - of passing over into the activity of thought. Just imagine today what a terrible spectacle a real professor would make if some student looked into the microscope in the laboratory and wanted to produce some kind of thought. There is no such thing! One must carefully record only that which external sensory observation gives, not realizing that it only gives half of reality, the other half of reality is produced in one's own human creation of thoughts. But one must know what the present mission of the properly developed archai is. The correct mission of the spirits of personality must be asserted in science, which is corrupted by the remaining spirits of form. There is the greatest conceivable fear of this today.
Not true, you know the well-known anecdote about how science is done according to the various national natural bases. For example, the question is asked: If we are talking about getting to know a camel in real zoology today, how do the different nations do it? The Englishman goes on a trip to the desert and observes the camel. It may take him two years to observe the camel in all situations, but in this way he gets to know the camel in its natural state, describes it, of course leaving out all thoughts, but he describes everything, does not create his own thoughts. The Frenchman goes to the menagerie where a camel is on display, looks at the camel in the menagerie and describes the camel in the menagerie. Unlike the Englishman, he does not get to know the camel in all its natural habitats, but describes it as it is in the menagerie. The German goes neither into the desert nor into the menagerie, but sits down in his study, puts together a priori all the thoughts he can bring out of what he has learned, constructs the camel a priori and describes the camel from this a priori construction. - This is how the anecdote is usually told. It is almost true, really almost, because you have the feeling everywhere, whether a camel is being described or whether the person himself is being described or something similar: the description has arisen in this way. But there's only one thing you don't find. That, I would like to say, would be the right conclusion, the right answer to this threefold anecdote: There would be somewhere the fourth, who - it does not matter whether he goes into the desert, or whether he studies books because he does not have the opportunity to go into the desert or the menagerie, or whether he finally goes to an animal painter and looks at his pictures, on which camels are painted with ingenious art - who is able to pose the question to the divine-spiritual world order itself from what arises for him there: What is the essence of the camel? - The person who can do this inner work can still see how the camel in the menagerie behaves in the desert; indeed, he can even see what he can form by reading various books, perhaps books containing hideously caricatured, philistine-pedantic, schoolmasterly descriptions. If he can penetrate the essence of the camel, even from the schoolmasterly, from all kinds of a priori constructs, he can still find out what it is all about.
This is what humanity needs above all today, not with exclusion of course, but with inclusion of the outer world experience, with inclusion of the sensual world experience: to find the way to the spiritual.
There again we have that which should lead us in every area of our striving for knowledge to see in the right way how the backward spirits of form can seduce us, and how the right recognition of what the mission of the spirits of personality is can place us correctly as human beings in our age. And the most important thing is to be able to orient ourselves in this way about the growing children in order to arrive at a real art of education. For this is precisely something that is present everywhere today as a tremendous deficiency in the art of education: people cling to what has become of man in the course of historical development through the incorrect spirits of form, assuming that this is quite right, that man is like this.
Now childlike nature is still revolting against this - one can say, thank God. It does not yet put up with it. Later man is very happy to put up with it; childish nature still revolts against it, especially youthful nature revolts against it.
Once again we have one of the characteristic points of today's youth movement and one of the characteristic points where today's pedagogy must, I would like to say, become clairvoyant - or at least allow itself to be fertilized by clairvoyance - so that it can now really be recognized how the germ of the inner activity of thought is born with the human being when he is born today. Then, when this germ for the inner activity of thought is there, we learn one thing above all, which people today are mostly unable to do. Do you know what people can't do today? They can't grow old. And young people want people who have grown old to be their leaders. They don't want young people themselves as leaders - even if they say so, they are mistaken - they want people as leaders who have understood how to grow old properly, who carry the living germ of thought development with them into old age. If young people can notice this, then they will follow the leaders, because they know that people have something to say to them if they have understood how to grow old in the right way. But what do young people meet today? They only meet their own kind! People have not understood how to grow old, they have remained childish; they know no more than fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds already know. So it's no wonder that the fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds no longer want to follow the sixty- and seventy-year-olds, because they haven't gotten any older. They haven't understood how to bring activity into the old body. Young people want people who have really grown old, not just old-looking people with wrinkles and white hair and balding heads, who are basically as young as they are in their old hearts, but young people want people who have understood how to grow old, who have grown in wisdom and strength as they have grown older.
The question of the youth movement would be easily solved if one were to grasp it in its entire cosmic significance, namely if one were to hold thorough lectures on the subject: How is it possible in the world today not to remain a child's head into old age? That is the problem.
Young people will indeed join the non-child-headed, the truly old, in a completely natural way, they will come together with them. But they cannot learn anything from their peers; It only seems grotesque to the young person when he himself is perhaps eighteen years old, perhaps has not yet learned so much - he has learned some things - he still has a full head of black or blond hair and no wrinkles, still has a chubby face, He hasn't even grown a beard yet, nice, and now, isn't it, he's supposed to follow someone else who isn't any older than him inside, but who looks so strange, has a bald head, gray hair, hasn't learned any more than he has, but all that looks different! - That's basically the innermost core of this fact of youth and age not coming together.
You only have to take what I have now tried to say in a humorous way in all its seriousness, in all its serious meaning, then you will also be able to directly grasp in your soul's eye many things that lie there in today's civilization as a great, significant, burning question.
Since I cannot bring myself to stop here - I cannot give the next three lectures because I am due to be in Stuttgart on Friday - I will take the liberty of giving a lecture on Thursday at eight o'clock, but only for those who want to hear it.

