The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Group Soul and Individuality

[ 1 ] Today we would like to address a general topic, namely the question of the significance and tasks of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in the present day, and then on Tuesday we will turn to a more specific topic concerning the individual human destiny and nature.

[ 2 ] We have often emphasized that anthroposophy has a special mission and significance for humanity, especially in the present day. After all, anyone who, as a thinking human being, engages with anthroposophy must repeatedly ask themselves: What goals does this spiritual movement actually pursue, and how does it relate to other challenges of our time? — Now, as we have often done before, we can examine these challenges from a wide variety of perspectives. Today, let us try to grasp the course of human development at the point where we ourselves stand, look a little into the future, and then ask ourselves: What is the task of anthroposophy, particularly in view of the stage of human development at which we currently stand?

[ 3 ] We know, of course, that since the great Atlantic catastrophe—which completely transformed the Earth as a place of human habitation—there have been five cultural epochs up to the present day. We have often listed these five cultural epochs as the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Chaldean-Egyptian, and Greco-Roman periods, and then the period in which we ourselves live—the fifth cultural epoch, which has been in preparation since, let us say, the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries, and in which we are actually right in the midst of. Now we must be clear that such divisions are of course not meant to imply that any epoch of development ends abruptly and then a new one begins, but rather that everything flows slowly and gradually into one another, and one can say that long before such an epoch has run its course, the new one is already preparing itself within it. So that we can say of our cultural epoch, the fifth of the post-Atlantean era, that what will actually characterize the sixth cultural epoch is already being prepared now, and quite significantly so. And the humanity of the present will generally divide into two parts: those who today have no concept of any of this, who know nothing of the fact that something like the sixth cultural epoch is in preparation—who, so to speak, live blindly from day to day—and those who do have an idea that something new is in preparation and who also know that, fundamentally speaking, what is being prepared must be made by human beings, must be prepared by human beings. In a certain sense, as a human being, one can position oneself within the times and tell oneself that one is doing what is generally customary, doing what others have done, what our fathers taught us; or one can position oneself in such a way that one consciously knows: If you want to be a conscious link in the human chain at all, you must do something—either within yourself or in your surroundings—that contributes, as far as you are able, to preparing for what must inevitably come: namely, the sixth cultural epoch. One can only understand how it is possible to make preparations for this sixth cultural epoch if one considers the character of our own era a little. The best way to do this is through comparison.

[ 4 ] We know that these cultural epochs differ significantly from one another, and over the years of our anthroposophical movement we have pointed out various characteristics that distinguish them from one another. We have referred to the ancient Indian cultural epoch and have shown how the soul qualities of human beings at that time differed from those of later periods, how human beings were still endowed to a high degree with clairvoyant consciousness; and we have shown how development through the subsequent cultural epochs consists in the fact that human beings have increasingly lost their clairvoyance and have had to limit their powers of perception and their intellectual faculties more and more to the physical plane. We have seen how the fourth cultural epoch slowly prepared itself, in which human beings, so to speak, stepped out entirely onto the physical plane, so that the being we call Christ Jesus could incarnate on the physical plane as a being, as a human being of the physical plane. We then saw how, since that time, through a certain current, this has come to the fore: how all human capacities on the physical plane have become even more intensified, how the materialistic tendency of our time, all the human urge to accept only what presents itself in the physical environment, is connected with a further descent of humanity onto the physical plane. But development is by no means to remain at this stage. Humanity must ascend once more into the spiritual world, ascending with all the achievements it has acquired, with all the fruits of the physical plane. And this is precisely what anthroposophy is meant to be: that which can offer humanity the possibility of ascending once more into the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] Now we can say: Immediately after the great Atlantean catastrophe, there were many people who knew, through their direct perceptive abilities, that there is a spiritual world around us, that we live in a spiritual world. The number of people who knew this grew fewer and fewer, while human abilities became increasingly limited to sensory perception. But while, on the one hand, the ability to perceive the spiritual world is at an all-time low today, on the other hand, something is taking shape in our time that is so significant that a much larger number of people in the next incarnation—the one following this present one—will possess abilities quite different from those of today. Just as human abilities have changed throughout the five cultural epochs, so too will they change in the sixth, and a large number of people today will already clearly demonstrate in their very next incarnation, through the very nature of their souls, that their abilities have changed significantly. And today we want to gain clarity on just how different these human souls will be in the future—for a large number of them as early as the next incarnation, and for others in the one after that.

[ 6 ] We could also look back at past periods of human development in another way. There we would see that, the further back we go to ancient clairvoyance, the more we have linked to the human soul what might be called the character of group-soul-ness. You have often been made aware that among the ancient Hebrew people, the awareness of this group-soul-ness was present in the most eminent sense. Anyone who felt, who felt quite consciously, that they were a member of the ancient Hebrew people would say to themselves—and this has indeed been pointed out in particular: As an individual human being, I am a transient phenomenon, but within me lives something that has a direct connection to the entire soul entity that has flowed down since the forefather Abraham. - That is what the members of the ancient Hebrew people felt. We can even describe, in an esoteric sense, what was felt by the ancient Hebrew people as a spiritual phenomenon. We understand better what happened there if we consider the following:

[ 7 ] Let us consider an ancient Hebrew initiate. Although initiation was not as common among the ancient Hebrew people as it was among other peoples, we can nevertheless characterize such a true initiate—not merely one introduced to theories and the law, but one who truly beholds the spiritual worlds—only by taking into account the entire national character. It is customary today in external scholarship, which works its way through its documents without a clue, to test everything found in the Old Testament against all manner of external documents and then to find it unconfirmed. We will have occasion to point out that the Old Testament presents the facts more faithfully than external documentary history. In any case, spiritual science shows that a blood kinship of the Hebrew people can indeed be traced back to the patriarch Abraham, and that the acceptance of Abraham as the patriarch is fully justified. In particular, however, this was something known in the ancient Hebrew mystery schools: such an individuality, such a soul-being as that of Abraham, was not merely incarnated as Abraham, but is an eternal being that remained present in the spiritual world. And in truth, a true initiate was one who was inspired by the same spirit that had inspired Abraham, who could invoke him for himself, who was imbued with the same soulfulness as Abraham. So that there was a real connection between every initiate and the patriarch Abraham. We must note this; it was expressed in the feeling of the members of the ancient Hebrew people. This was a kind of group soul-affinity. What was expressed in Abraham was felt as the group soul of the people. And in this way, group souls were felt within the rest of humanity.

[ 8 ] Humanity can be traced back to group souls. The further back we go in human evolution, the less pronounced individuality becomes. What we still find today in the animal kingdom—that an entire group belongs together—was present in human beings as well, and becomes increasingly evident the further back we go into prehistoric times. Groups of people belong together there, and the group soul is significantly stronger than what the individual soul is in the single human being.

[ 9 ] We can now say: Even today, in our time, humanity has not yet overcome its group-soul nature, and anyone who believes that it has been completely overcome would simply be failing to take certain subtler aspects of life into account. But anyone who does take these into account will very soon see that, in fact, certain people not only resemble one another in their physiognomy, but that the soul qualities in groups of people are also similar to one another, so that one can, so to speak, divide people into categories. Every person can still count themselves among a certain category today. With regard to this or that characteristic, they may belong to different categories, but a certain group-soul nature is evident not only in the existence of peoples, but also in other respects. The boundaries drawn between individual nations are fading more and more; yet other groupings are still discernible. Certain fundamental characteristics are so closely intertwined in individual human beings that anyone who is willing to look can still perceive the last remnants of group soul characteristics in people today.

[ 10 ] For we are currently living, in the truest sense of the word, in a time of transition. All group-soul attachments are to be gradually shed. Just as the chasms between individual nations are disappearing more and more, just as the individual parts of the various nations are coming to understand one another more and more, so too will other group-soul attachments be shed, and the individuality of each person will increasingly come to the fore.

[ 11 ] This, however, characterizes something quite essential in the course of evolution. If we wish to approach it from another angle, we can say that, within the course of human evolution, the concept in which group-soul-ness is most fully expressed—namely, the concept of race—is becoming increasingly less significant. If we go back to the time before the great Atlantean catastrophe, we can see how the human races were taking shape. In the ancient Atlantean era, people were definitely grouped according to external physical characteristics, even more so than today. What we call races today are merely remnants of those significant differences among people that were common in ancient Atlantis. The concept of race is truly applicable only to ancient Atlantis. Therefore, since we take into account the actual development of humanity, we have had no need at all for the concept of race in the strictest sense for the post-Atlantean era. We do not speak of an Indian race, a Persian race, and so on, because that is no longer accurate. We speak of an ancient Indian cultural period, an ancient Persian cultural period, and so on.

[ 12 ] And it would be completely meaningless to suggest that a sixth race is being prepared in our time. If remnants of the old Atlantean distinctions, of the old Atlantean group-soul character, still exist in our time, so that one can still speak of the racial division continuing to have an effect—what is being prepared for the sixth epoch consists precisely in the shedding of racial character. That is the essential point. That is why it is necessary that the movement known as anthroposophy, which is to prepare the sixth epoch, should, precisely in its fundamental character, take up this shedding of racial character—namely, that it seeks to unite people from all races, from all nations, and in this way bridges the differentiation, the differences, the chasms that exist between the individual groups of people. For what is the old racial standpoint has, in a certain sense, a physical character, and what unfolds into the future will have a much more spiritual character.

[ 13 ] That is why it is so urgently necessary to understand that our anthroposophical movement is a spiritual one, focused on the spiritual, and that it overcomes precisely those differences that arise from physical distinctions through the power of the spiritual movement. It is, of course, quite understandable that every movement has its teething troubles, so to speak, and that in the early days of the theosophical movement, the matter was presented as if the earth were divided into seven periods—these were called the main races—and each of the main races into seven sub-races; and that all of this would repeat itself so steadily that one could always speak of seven races and seven sub-races. But we must move beyond these teething troubles and realize that the concept of race ceases to have any meaning at all, especially in our time.

[ 14 ] Something else is also taking shape—something that is connected to human individuality in a most profound sense—in the process of human beings becoming more and more individual. The point is simply that this individuality should become such in the true sense, and the anthroposophical movement is now intended to serve this purpose: that human beings may become individualities in the true sense, or personalities, as we might also say. But how can it do this?

[ 15 ] Here we must turn our attention to the most remarkable new quality of the human soul that is now emerging. The question is often asked: “If reincarnation exists, why don’t people remember their past lives?” — That is a question I have answered many times before, and such a question is like bringing a four-year-old child and, simply because the child cannot do arithmetic and is human, wanting to say: Humans cannot do arithmetic. — Let the child grow to be ten years old, and then it will be able to do arithmetic. So it is with the human soul. Even if it cannot remember today, the time will come when it can remember, the time when it will have the same abilities as one who is initiated today. But that very shift is taking place today. There are a number of souls today who have progressed so far in our time that they stand on the very threshold of the moment when they will remember their past incarnations, at least the most recent one. A whole number of people today are, so to speak, just on the verge of the gate opening to the comprehensive memory that encompasses not only the life between birth and death, but also the previous incarnations—at least the most recent one for the time being. And when, after the present incarnation, a number of people are reborn, they will remember the present incarnation. The only question is how they will remember. Anthroposophical development is intended to provide the impetus and guidance for remembering in the right way.

[ 16 ] If one wishes to characterize this anthroposophical movement from this perspective, one must say: Its character is such that it leads people to grasp, in the true sense, what is called the human “I,” the innermost element of the human being. I have often pointed out that Fichte was right in saying that most people would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than an “I.” And if you consider how many people there are in our time who have any conception at all of what an “I” is—that is, of what they themselves are—you would generally arrive at a rather sad conclusion.

[ 17 ] Whenever this question comes up, I am always reminded of a comrade I had a little over thirty years ago, who, as a very young man at the time, was completely steeped in materialistic thinking. Today it is more fashionable to speak of a monistic mindset. He was already steeped in it despite his young age. He always laughed when it was suggested that there is something within human beings that can be described as a spiritual entity; for he held the view that what lives within us as thought is produced by mechanical or chemical processes in the brain. I often said to him: Look, if you seriously believe that as your life’s purpose, why do you lie constantly? — He did indeed lie constantly, for he never said: My brain feels, my brain thinks, but rather: I think, I feel, I know this or that. —So he devised a theory that he contradicted with every word, as indeed every person does; for it is impossible to hold fast to what one imagines as a materialistic theory. One cannot remain truthful if one thinks materialistically. If one were to say otherwise: “My brain loves you”—then one should not say “you,” but rather: “My brain loves your brain.”—People do not realize this consequence. But it is in fact something that is not merely humorous, but something that reveals the deep undercurrent of unconscious insincerity at the root of our current intellectual formation.

[ 18 ] Most people would actually prefer to think of themselves as a piece of lava on the moon—that is, as a jumbled mass of matter—rather than as what can be called a “self.” And, of course, it is least likely today that one can come to an understanding of the self through external science, which, by its very nature and methods, must think in materialistic terms. How, then, can a person attain this understanding of the self? How can they gradually gain a concept, an idea of what they instinctively feel when they say, “I think”? — Solely by recognizing, through the guidance of the anthroposophical worldview, how this human being is structured, how the physical body has a Saturn-like character, the etheric body a Sun-like character, the astral body a Moon-like character, and the “I” an Earth-like character. When we take in all the ideas we gather from the entire universe, we come to understand how the “I,” as the true master craftsman, works upon all the other members. And so, little by little, we also arrive at a concept of what we represent with the word “I,”

[ 19 ] We gradually strive toward the highest concept of this “I” as we learn to understand such a word. We do not merely feel ourselves to be spiritual beings when we feel ourselves within an “I,” but when we can say to ourselves: Within our individuality lives something that existed before the father Abraham. — When we can say not merely: “I and the father Abraham are one,” but: ‘I and the Father—that is the spiritual essence that weaves through and lives within the world.’—What lives within the ‘I’ is the very same spiritual substance that weaves through and lives within the world as the spiritual. Thus we gradually strive to understand this ‘I,’ that is, the bearer of human individuality—that which extends from incarnation to incarnation.

[ 20 ] But in what way do we understand the “I,” and do we even understand the world through the anthroposophical worldview? This anthroposophical worldview comes about in the most individual way possible and is, at the same time, the most non-individual thing that can even be conceived. It can come about in the most individual way only through the mysteries of the universe revealing themselves in a human soul, through the great spiritual beings of the world flowing into it. Within human individuality, the content of the world must be experienced in the most individual way, yet at the same time it must be experienced with a character of complete impersonality. Whoever wishes to experience the true character of the world’s mysteries must stand entirely on the standpoint from which he says to himself: Whoever still values his own opinion cannot arrive at the truth. — For this is the peculiarity of anthroposophical truth: the observer must have no opinion of his own, no preference for this or that theory; he must by no means, through his particular individual idiosyncrasies, love this or that view more than another. As long as he stands on this standpoint, it is impossible for the true mysteries of the world to reveal themselves to him. He must perceive entirely individually; but his individuality must have developed to such an extent that it no longer retains anything of the personal, including what he individually finds sympathetic or unsympathetic. This must be taken strictly and seriously. Anyone who still has any preference for this or that concept or view, anyone who, through his upbringing or temperament, is inclined toward one thing or another, will never recognize objective truth.

[ 21 ] This summer, we have attempted to understand Eastern wisdom from the perspective of Western thought. We have sought to do justice to Eastern wisdom and have truly presented it in such a way that it has come into its own. It must be strongly emphasized that in our time, with independent intellectual understanding, it is impossible to always decide in favor of a particular preference for the Eastern or Western worldview. Anyone who, depending on their temperament, claims to prefer the uniqueness or the laws of the world as they exist in the Eastern or, correspondingly, in the Western tradition, has not yet fully grasped what is actually at stake. One should not, for example, decide in favor of the greater significance of, say, Christ over all that Eastern teaching recognizes simply because one, due to one’s Western upbringing or temperament, is more inclined toward Christ. Only then is one called upon to decide the question: How does Christ relate to the East?—when, from a personal standpoint, the Christian is as indifferent to one as the Eastern. As long as one has a preference for this or that, one is not yet called upon to make the decision. One begins to become objective only when one lets the facts speak for themselves, when one no longer respects any reason for one’s own opinion, but lets only the facts speak in this realm.

[ 22 ] Therefore, when the anthroposophical worldview presents itself to us today in its true form, we encounter something that is intimately interwoven with human individuality, because it must spring from the “I”-power of individuality and, on the other hand, must be independent, so that this individuality is, in turn, completely irrelevant. The person in whom the anthroposophical teachings appear must be the most indifferent to them; it must not depend on him at all. What matters is that he has brought himself to the point where he imposes nothing of his own coloring on these things. Then they will indeed have to be individual, because the spiritual cannot appear in the light of the stars or the moon, for example, but only in the human soul, in individuality. Then, on the other hand, this individuality will have to be at a stage where it can step aside during the coming into being of what the wisdom teachings of the world are.

[ 23 ] In this way, what the anthroposophical movement offers to humanity becomes, on the one hand, something that concerns every human being, regardless of the race, nation, or other background into which they were born; for it addresses only the new humanity, the human being as such—not a general abstraction called “human,” but each individual human being. That is what matters. If it speaks, just as it springs from the individuality, from the core of the human being, to the deepest core of the human being, then it grasps this core of the human being. However we may otherwise speak from person to person, fundamentally speaking, it is always only surface to surface, something we have not connected to the innermost core of being. Understanding from human to human—complete understanding—is hardly possible today in any other realm than that in which what is produced springs from the center of the human being and, when correctly understood by the other, speaks back to their center. Therefore, in a certain sense, it is a new language that is spoken through anthroposophy. Even though we are still compelled today to proclaim what is proclaimed in the individual national languages—the content is a new language spoken by anthroposophy.

[ 24 ] What is spoken in the world today is a language that actually applies only to a very limited sphere. In ancient times, when people could still glimpse the spiritual world through their ancient, dim clairvoyance, their words signified something that existed in the spiritual world. The word signified something that existed in the spiritual world. Even in Greece, things were different back then than they are today. The word “idea,” as used by Plato, means something different from the word “idea” as used by our philosophers today. These modern philosophers can no longer comprehend Plato because they have no conception of what he called an “idea,” and thus confuse it with abstract concepts. Plato still had the spiritual before him, albeit already distilled; it was, so to speak, still something entirely real. So back then, the words still contained, if one may put it that way, the essence of the spiritual. You can sense that in the words. When someone today uses the word “wind” or “air,” well, they mean something external, physical. The word “wind” corresponds to something external and physical. When, for example, the word for wind, “Ruach,” was used in ancient Hebrew, it did not merely refer to something external and physical, but to a spiritual force sweeping through space. When a person inhales—well, today materialistic science tells them that they are simply inhaling material air. In ancient times, people did not believe that they were inhaling material air; they were clear that they were inhaling something spiritual, or at least something of the soul.

[ 25 ] Thus, these words were indeed terms for the spiritual and the soul. Today that has ceased; today language is limited to the external world, or at least those who wish to be in step with the times today go to great lengths to see only a materialistic meaning even in what is so obviously derived from the spiritual and the soul. Physics speaks, after all, of a “collision” of bodies. It has forgotten that the word “collision” is derived from what a living being accomplishes from within its very core when it strikes another being. Thus, the original meaning of the word is forgotten even in these simple matters.

[ 26 ] So today our language—and this is especially true of scientific language—has become a language capable of expressing only material things. Consequently, what is in our soul while we speak is comprehensible only to those faculties of our soul that are bound to the physical brain as their instrument; and then, when the soul is disembodied, it no longer understands anything of all that is designated by these words. Once the soul has passed through the gate of death and no longer makes use of the brain, all of today’s scientific discussions become constructs that are completely incomprehensible to the disembodied soul. It does not even hear or perceive what is expressed in the language of our time. It no longer makes sense to a disembodied soul, because it only makes sense for that which is on the physical plane.

[ 27 ] This, in turn, is something that is even more important to consider in what one might call one’s mindset or way of thinking. It is far more important to take this into account in practice than in theory, for what matters is life, not theory, and it is characteristic that one can see, even within the Theosophical Movement itself, how materialism has crept in. Since it is, after all, a fashion of the times, it has crept into theosophical thought in many ways, so that even there, within theosophy itself, true materialism prevails, for example when describing the etheric or life body. While one should strive to grasp the spiritual, it is usually described as if it were a finer form of matter, and the astral body likewise. One typically starts with the physical body, then moves on to the etheric or life body and says: It is structured after the pattern of the physical body, only finer—and proceeds in this way all the way up to Nirvana. There one finds descriptions that draw their imagery from nothing other than the physical. I have already observed that when one wanted to express that there was a good atmosphere among those present in a room, one did not simply express this in a straightforward sense, but rather said: “Ah, there are subtle vibrations present in this room.” — In doing so, one pays no attention to the fact that one is materializing what is spiritually present in an atmosphere when one imagines the room filled with a kind of thin mist permeated by vibrations.

[ 28 ] Yes, you see, that is what I would call the most materialistic way of thinking imaginable. Materialism itself, so to speak, is breathing down the necks of those who wish to think spiritually. This is merely one characteristic of our present age; yet it is important that we become aware of it. And that is why we must pay particular attention to what has been said: that our language, which is, after all, a kind of tyrant over human thought, implants a tendency toward materialism in the soul. And some who would very much like to be idealists today, seduced by the tyranny of language, express themselves entirely in a materialistic sense. This is a language that can no longer be understood by the soul once it no longer feels bound to the human brain.

[ 29 ] There is actually something else, believe it or not. For those who are familiar with occult insight and true spiritual perception, the manner of presentation commonly found today in theosophical and scientific writings is a source of real pain, because it seems nonsensical to them when they begin to think no longer with the physical brain, but with the soul, which is no longer bound to the physical brain, that is, truly lives in the spiritual world. As long as one thinks with the physical brain, it may be acceptable to characterize the world in this way. But as soon as one begins to develop a spiritual perspective, it ceases to make sense to speak of things in this manner. Then it even hurts to hear the statement: “There are good vibrations in this room”—instead of: “There’s a good atmosphere here.” This immediately causes pain in those capable of truly visualizing things spiritually, because thoughts are realities. The room fills with a dark mist when someone puts forth the thought-form: “There are good vibrations in the room”—instead of: “There’s a good atmosphere here.”

[ 30 ] It is now the task of the anthroposophical mode of thinking—and this mode of thinking is more important than the theories—that we learn to speak a language that is not merely understood by the human soul while it is still in the physical body, but also when that soul is no longer bound to the instrument of the physical brain; that is, a language that can still be grasped either by a soul that is still in the body but viewing things spiritually, or by a soul that has passed through the gate of death. And that is the essential point! When we set forth the concepts that explain the world, that explain the human being, then this is a language that can be understood not merely here on the physical plane, but also by those who are not currently incarnated in a physical body, but live between death and a new birth. Yes, what is spoken on our anthroposophical ground is heard and understood by the so-called dead. There they are completely on the same ground as us, where the same language is spoken. There we speak to all human beings. For in a certain sense, it is a matter of chance whether a human soul is currently in a physical body or in the other state between death and a new birth. And through anthroposophy we learn a language that is understandable to all human beings, regardless of whether they are in one state or the other. Thus, within the field of anthroposophy, we speak a language that is also spoken to the so-called dead. For through what we cultivate in the anthroposophical discussions—even if it seems abstract—we truly touch the innermost core of the human being, the innermost essence of the human being. We penetrate right into the human soul. And by doing so, we liberate the human being—because we penetrate into their soul—from all group-soul-boundness; that is to say, in this way the human being becomes increasingly capable of truly grasping their own I-ness.

[ 31 ] And this is what is so remarkable: those who come to anthroposophy today, who truly take it to heart, stand out from other people—who remain distant from it—as if, through anthroposophical ideas, their “I” were crystallizing into a spiritual being that is then carried through the gate of death. In the place where the I-being is—the one that remains, that is now in the body and that remains after death—in the place of that I-being, there is a void, a nothingness in other people. Everything else that can be grasped in terms of concepts today becomes increasingly irrelevant to the actual spiritual core of the human being. The central being of the human being is grasped through what we take in of anthroposophical thought. This crystallizes a spiritual substance within the human being; they take this with them after death, and through it they perceive in the spiritual world. With this they see and hear in the spiritual world; with this they penetrate that darkness which otherwise exists for the human being in the spiritual world. And this brings about the fact that when a person today develops this “I” within themselves through these anthroposophical concepts and the anthroposophical way of thinking—which is now connected to all the world wisdom we can receive—if they develop it, they also carry it over into their next incarnation. Then they will be reborn with this now-developed ego, and they will remember this developed ego. And that is the deeper task of the anthroposophical world movement today: to send a number of people into their next incarnation with an ego that they will remember as their individual ego. And those will be the people who form the core of the next cultural epoch.

[ 32 ] Those people who have been well prepared by the anthroposophical spiritual movement to remember their individual I will be scattered across the entire earth. For the essential feature of the next cultural epoch will be that it will not be confined to individual localities, but will be spread across the entire earth. Individuals will be scattered across the entire earth, and within the entire globe will be present the core of humanity that will be essential for the sixth cultural epoch. And so it will be among these people that they will recognize one another as those who, in their previous incarnation, strove together for the individual I.

[ 33 ] This is the proper cultivation of that soul capacity we have been discussing. This soul capacity develops in such a way that not only those who have been described will remember; rather, more and more people—even though they have not developed their ego—will retain memories of their previous incarnation. But they will not remember an individual ego, because they have not developed it, but rather the group ego in which they have remained. Thus there will be people who, in this incarnation, have worked on the development of their individual ego. These will remember as independent individuals; they will look back and say: You were this one or that one. —- Those who have not developed their individuality will not be able to remember this individuality either.

[ 34 ] Do not believe that mere clairvoyance alone grants one the ability to remember one’s previous self. People used to be clairvoyant. If mere clairvoyance were enough, everyone would remember, for everyone was clairvoyant. It is not merely a matter of whether one is clairvoyant; people will become clairvoyant in the future. What matters is whether one has cultivated the self in this incarnation or not. If one has not cultivated it, then it is not present as an inner human entity. One looks back and remembers, as a group self, what one shared collectively. So that these people will say: Yes, I was there, but I did not break away. - These people will then perceive this as their situation, as a new phase for humanity, as a relapse into conscious belonging to the group soul. And this will be something terrible for the sixth epoch: not being able to feel oneself as an individual in retrospect, but being hindered by the fact that one cannot transcend the group-soul nature. To put it bluntly, one could say: Those people who are now cultivating their individuality will own the entire Earth with all that it can produce—at least figuratively speaking—; those people who do not develop their individual self will be compelled to join a certain group and allow themselves to be dictated to by it regarding how they should think, feel, will, and act. This will be perceived as a regression, as a fall, in the future of humanity.

[ 35 ] Thus, we must not regard the anthroposophical movement and spiritual life as mere theory, but as something given to us in the present, because it prepares what is necessary for the future of humanity. If we truly grasp our situation—precisely where we are now, having come from the past, and looking a little toward the future—we must say: Now is the time to begin developing the human capacity for recollection. It all depends on our training it correctly, that is, on our cultivating an individual I. For we can only remember what we have created in our soul. If we have not created it, then all that remains is the binding memory of a group I, and we experience this as a descent into a group of, so to speak, higher animality. Even though human group souls are finer and higher than animal ones, they remain, after all, group souls. The people of ancient times did not perceive this as a fall, because they were in the process of developing from group-soul-boundness toward the individual soul. If it is retained now, they will consciously fall into it, and that will be the oppressive feeling in the future of those who do not find the right connection either now or in a later incarnation: that they will feel the fall into group-soul-boundness.

[ 36 ] This is the true task of anthroposophy: to provide the connection. We must therefore understand it within the context of human life. If we consider that the sixth cultural epoch is precisely the first overcoming—the complete overcoming—of the concept of race, then we must realize that it would be fanciful to believe that the sixth race, too, originated from some place on earth and formed itself in the same way as the earlier races. This is the essence of progress: that ever-new forms of life development emerge within the course of history, and that the concepts valid for earlier times are not necessarily valid for future ones. Otherwise—if we fail to recognize this—the idea of progress will not become fully clear to us. Otherwise, we will, so to speak, always fall back into the error of saying: so many cycles, globes, races, and so on. And it always goes round and round again, and always in the same way. - One cannot understand why this wheel of cycles, globes, and races should keep turning over and over again. The point is that the word “race” is a designation that applies only to certain periods. Around the sixth period, the concept hardly makes sense anymore. Races contained within them only the elements that remained from the Atlantean period.

[ 37 ] In the future, that which speaks to the deepest depths of the human soul will also find expression more and more in the human exterior, and it will express that which the human being has acquired as something entirely individual on the one hand, yet experiences as non-individual on the other, by extending outward to the human face; so that the individuality of the human being will be written on his face, not the group-soul character. This will constitute human diversity. Everything will be individually acquired, even though it exists through the overcoming of individuality. And we will not encounter groups among those who are grasped by the I, but the individual will express itself outwardly. This will also form the difference between human beings. There will be those who have acquired their sense of self; they will be present across the entire earth with the most diverse faces, but in their diversity one will recognize that the individual self is expressed right down to their gestures. Whereas in those who have not developed individuality, the group-soul nature will be expressed in that they will also bear the group-soul nature in their features; that is, they will fall into categories that will resemble one another. This will be the outer physiognomy of our Earth: that a possibility will be prepared to bear individuality as an outward sign and to bear group-soul character as an outward sign.

[ 38 ] The purpose of earthly evolution is for human beings to increasingly acquire the ability to express their inner selves in their outer appearance. That is why there is an ancient text in which the greatest ideal for the development of the I, Christ Jesus, is characterized as follows: When the two become one, when the outer becomes like the inner, then the human being has attained Christ-likeness within. This is the meaning of a certain passage in the so-called Egyptian Gospel. Such passages are understood from the perspective of anthroposophical wisdom.

[ 39 ] Now that we have attempted today to grasp the task of anthroposophy from the depths of our understanding, let us now, on Tuesday, tackle a spiritual problem that can, in turn, lead us—as a particularly individual human concern—to our destiny and our very being.