The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. A Fourfold Mission for the Synthesis of Worldviews

[ 1 ] Spiritual Science must become an instrument of mutual understanding, through which we learn to understand one another, so to speak, across the whole of humanity and right into the soul. And this learning to understand one another right down into the soul must, so to speak, permeate us as an anthroposophical attitude; it must live within us, otherwise even the occult truths that flow into humanity through Spiritual Science will not become clearly understandable to us. In this respect, Spiritual Science—because it is, so to speak, the key to understanding the innermost being—can bring peace and harmony to the earth. How can it do that?

[ 2 ] Let us illustrate this with a concrete example. Take, for instance, the relationship between two people who, across the globe, adhere to different religious beliefs—let’s say Christianity and Buddhism. What we can say about Christians and Buddhists—who are merely classic examples—we could of course also say about the worldviews of two people living side by side here in Europe; for what applies on a large scale will, through spiritual insight, also apply on a small scale. If we take the Christian and the Buddhist as they are in their traditional orthodox creeds, how do they relate to one another? Well, in such a way that the Christian actually believes the Buddhist can only attain salvation if he accepts Christianity in the form that the Christian himself holds. And so we see the missionary activities of Christians among Buddhists; they bring their specific creed there. And the orthodox Buddhist behaves in exactly the same way. Let us suppose that both became anthroposophists. How can the Christian, as an anthroposophical Christian, relate to the Buddhist? — Well, let us say he hears what belongs to the most essential aspects of Buddhism and what, strictly speaking, is only properly understood by someone who lives within Buddhism itself. After all, today one learns about what is called the content of the various religious creeds in two ways: from people who engage in comparative religious studies, and from those who come to know the content of the various religious creeds through Spiritual Science. If one considers those who engage in comparative religious studies, one must say that they are extraordinarily diligent, active people who strive to cultivate a scholarly comparison of the various religious creeds. But when they compare these religious creeds, something quite peculiar emerges; what they are actually seeking—even if they do not admit it—is the untruth of the various religious creeds. These people seek what is not true, what was accepted in childhood from the various religious creeds; that is, they seek the untruth. The person who engages in Spiritual Science seeks the core essence within the individual religious creeds; he seeks what is contained in this or that religious creed, albeit in a single nuance, yet as a nuance of perception. He thus seeks what is true in the individual religious creeds, not what is false.

[ 3 ] Things can indeed take a strange turn in this regard. Surely no one who knows the facts can help but have the utmost respect for Max Müller, perhaps the greatest scholar of comparative religion or the greatest expert in the study of religions. He, too, offered little more than what one might call the untruth of the Eastern creeds. But he believed he was giving everything with it. And then H. P. Blavatsky appeared and spoke quite differently. She spoke in such a way that one could see in her: she knows the very core of the Eastern creeds.

[ 4 ] What did Max Müller say about this? His judgment is somewhat grotesque and shows that a scholar does not necessarily need to be well-versed in logic. He claimed that people follow Blavatsky, who gives them only a completely false representation of the Eastern religions, while disregarding the true representation of them, which he, Max Müller, for example, provides. And he used the following comparison: Yes, when people are walking down the street and see a real pig grunting there, they aren’t particularly surprised by it, but when they see a person grunting like a pig, that causes a stir. — He wanted to compare what the Eastern religious systems naturally present—namely, his own approach to comparing religions—with the pig that grunts naturally—I’m not the one making the comparison! — and wanted to compare what H. P. Blavatsky presented with a person who grunts like that. Well, I won’t even speak to the tastefulness of the comparison; for it doesn’t strike me as very logical at all: I would be somewhat surprised, after all, if I encountered a person who could grunt deceptively. But I certainly wouldn’t, really wouldn’t, use the other comparison from comparative religious studies with the aforementioned animal, and it is strange that Max Müller himself used it.

[ 5 ] Spiritual Science introduces us to the core truth of the various religions. Let us take a key point in Buddhism: Once a Buddhist has grasped the fundamental essence of his faith, he knows that Bodhisattvas exist, and he knows that these Bodhisattvas, having begun as individual beings, undergo a more rapid development than other human individuals and then ascend to become Buddhas. Buddha is a general name for all those who, in a human, physical incarnation, ascend from Bodhisattva to Buddha. And one of those who is particularly distinguished by the name Buddha is precisely the son of Shuddhodana: Gautama Buddha. And of him, as of every Buddha, one must acknowledge that when he attains Buddhahood at the age of twenty-nine, the incarnation in which this occurs is his final incarnation, and that he need not descend again into a physical earthly incarnation. The Buddhist regards this as a truth. The comparative religionist would regard it as child’s play. The anthroposophist, however, who familiarizes himself with the mysteries of religions in all fields, does not approach the Buddha in this way, but knows that such a thing is a truth. And just as any devout Buddhist does, the anthroposophist approaches Buddhism and says: Yes, I know that there is such a thing as Bodhisattvas who ascend to the Buddha, who need not incarnate again. That is one of the tenets of your religious community; I acknowledge it, just as you do, and by acknowledging it, I can look up to your Buddha with reverence, just as you do. — That is to say, the anthroposophical Christian begins to fully understand what the Buddhist says, and he shares the same sentiments and feelings with him; he shares them with him, and from one perspective, they understand one another right from the start.

[ 6 ] Let us consider the other case, in which the Buddhist has now also become an anthroposophist and comes to recognize what the Christian—who has risen above the narrow confines of the orthodox denominational viewpoint—knows about Christianity. Let us assume that this anthroposophical Buddhist hears what such a Christian has to say about the Christ impulse itself. He hears that within Christianity, within Christian esotericism, it has been recognized that at one point in the course of Earth’s evolution, what is called Lucifer approached humanity in its development; he then hears that as a result, this human being descended deeper than would have been the case had no Luciferic influence taken place; and he then hears that it is actually something where we look up as if into a matter of the gods when we consider the rebellion, the revolt of Lucifer against the advancing powers of the gods. So we are looking into a matter of the gods. And then we hear from the Christian who truly understands his Christianity that the resolution to this matter of the gods, which took place between the advancing gods and Lucifer, had to become what we call the Mystery of Golgotha. And why?

[ 7 ] Well, in its present form, death and everything associated with it has indeed come about through the Luciferic influence. Death, however, is something that can only be found in the physical world. Death does not exist in a supersensible world, insofar as supersensible worlds are accessible to human beings through their clairvoyant consciousness. Not even the group souls of animals die; they merely transform. Metamorphosis exists, but not what is called death. The disintegration, the falling apart of a part of a particular being—death—exists only in the physical world. Now, as a form of compensation—this can only be hinted at—supernatural beings had to choose to undergo death in order to have a common cause with human beings, something that could serve as a counterbalance to the Luciferic rebellion. To defeat Lucifer, the Divine had to pass through death; to do so, it had to descend to Earth.

[ 8 ] It is, therefore, what took place through the Mystery of Golgotha—a divine event through which a balance was established to counteract the Luciferic event. It is the only divine event that has taken place before the eyes of humanity. This unique impulse, which can be conceived of only as the Divine passing through death on the physical plane and the outpouring of the Christ impulse into the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth from that point onward. This is what those who know Christianity regard as the very essence of Christianity. In a deeper sense, Christianity differs from all other religions in that the other religions see the main point of their origin in some religious founder, in a personality; whereas Christianity does not see the essential in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but sees in this personal founder only the bearer of the Christ impulse; that Christianity thus sees the essential in a fact. This must be grasped with all possible intensity: in a fact that, as such, had to take place once in the development of the Earth: in the passing of the Divine through death. This is the distinctive nuance of truth in Christianity: that it is not an individuality, but a fact, an event, an experience that is placed at the starting point. Therefore, it naturally does not matter at all if someone were to say to us: “Yes, look, Jesus of Nazareth still has all sorts of passions, all sorts of characteristics that a person who is, let us say, somewhat advanced according to Eastern views, is no longer allowed to have.” That is not what matters at all. Anyone who allows themselves to be misled by this understands nothing of Christianity; for Christianity is not concerned at all with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the event of Golgotha, with that fact. Let other founders of religions have personal qualities that appeal more to other peoples than those of Jesus of Nazareth! But those who, as Buddhists, become anthroposophists, realize that what matters in Christianity is the event of Golgotha, and they will give back to the Christian what he has given them. They will say: Just as you yourself admit that there are Bodhisattvas who develop as individualities, ascend to Buddhahood, and then no longer need to reincarnate, so we admit that once in the course of human evolution such a passing of the Divine through death took place. You acknowledge the nuance of truth in our religion, and we acknowledge the nuance of truth in yours. — Thus both understand one another. They would not understand one another, for example, and discord would be sown if Christians were to come who thought they had become anthroposophists and were to say: I do not believe you that a Buddha can no longer appear in a physical body, but I assume that at a certain time the Buddha will appear again in a physical body. — That would be an impossibility for one who understands the essence of Buddhism. It would be impossible to expect a Buddhist to believe that his Buddha could appear again in the flesh. The Buddhist would say: You do not understand Buddhism. — And it is quite self-evident and should not even be a matter of discussion that just as one who claims a Buddha would return in the flesh does not know Buddhism, so too one who claims a Christ could return in the flesh is not speaking of Christianity—that is, one who does not realize that this concerns the single life of a divine being on Earth, specifically for the purpose of passing through death on the physical plane, and not for anything else. Thus, it is a matter of mutual understanding across the entire Earth, of truly comprehending one another and thereby fostering peace. One would cause discord if one were to claim to a Buddhist that the Buddha would appear again in the flesh; and one would cause discord if one were to claim that the Christ could come again in the flesh. Such things would have to be deeply avenged, for they are impossibilities in the face of what truly lives in the development of humanity. It would be grotesque if anyone were to claim that Christ must return and that people must now understand him better than they did then, and must now prepare themselves better for him and must not kill him: such a person would not know that it was precisely the killing that mattered and that without it there would be no Christianity at all! The good will to understand truly leads to mutual understanding, and we see how Spiritual Science can be an instrument for seeking the central core in every religious creed. If one is willing, one will find it. That is why it is the message of peace throughout the world. Spiritual Science will have to create a cultural soul across the entire earth for the material cultural body that exists today in industrial and commercial terms across the whole earth. Precisely by recognizing the diversity of what has been given to humanity in the various religious denominations, and then relating this to what appears to us as the core of truth through Spiritual Science, we achieve a kind of synthesis, a unification of the various worldviews of our time. One point in particular should be emphasized.

[ 9 ] It has never been the intention within the anthroposophically oriented movement we are engaged in here to present, so to speak, the differences between religious creeds in such a way as to attribute advantages to one creed and disadvantages to another, but rather to characterize them. How often has it been said: The spiritual height that existed immediately after the Atlantean catastrophe in the culture of the ancient Indian rishis has not yet been attained today. Nor has it been attained by Christianity as it exists today. We do not point out advantages and disadvantages, but rather present the individual religions in their essence. Thus, we merely present them when we draw attention to other differences. If we follow the more Eastern way of thinking, namely the one with the most adherents, the Buddhist one, you will see one thing: there, people’s main interest is captured by what is called the passage through the various incarnations. There, one speaks of a Bodhisattva; but a Bodhisattva is not one who lives only from the year of birth to the year of death, but one who returns again and again and then becomes a Buddha; and one speaks of Bodhisattvas as if they appeared in varying numbers within the course of human development. One generalizes more, one grasps more the individualities that remain. But how has this been done so far in the Western view? The exact opposite was the case. When people spoke of Socrates, Plato, Raphael, Michelangelo, they referred to personalities, and there the Western view presents the limited beings as the essential. This had its merits, because it served to provide a special education aimed at chiseling out and bringing to light the individual human personalities. This was essentially the case with those worldviews that, for example, H. P. Blavatsky did not understand: the ancient Hebrew and New Testament worldviews.

[ 10 ] For example, attention was turned to Elijah. The occult research on him reveals something surprising. I need only say that what strikes us is his uniqueness; through which he is like a harbinger of what was to have come about through the Christ impulse. He still conceives of the matter in such a way that the divine being finds expression in the collective ego; but he already draws attention to the fact that the most worthy means of recognition lies within the ego itself. In this respect, Elijah is to be understood as a kind of herald of Christianity, and none of the other prophets seems to me to be a herald in such a way as Elijah. The Jehovah nuance is still present in his words; but already we find in him the Jehovah brought down as close to the human ego as is possible. Then we turn our gaze to another figure, again as an individual personality, to John the Baptist. We see how he precedes the Christ impulse, how John the Baptist truly presents himself as the one who characterizes the Christ impulse in words. He says: Change your mindset, look no longer to the times of ancient clairvoyance, but seek the realms of heaven within your own inner being! — What the Christ impulse actually is: John the Baptist characterizes it. He is a herald of Christianity in a truly wonderful way. What lives in the heart of John the Baptist appears to us as a kind of further development, an inner spiritual development, in contrast to what lived in Elijah.

[ 11 ] We then turn our gaze to Raphael and see him as seemingly a very different figure from John the Baptist; but as we look at Raphael—indeed, we need only delve into him a little more deeply, in a truly human way—we find in him a herald of Christianity.

[ 12 ] Let us consider the following. We turn to a passage in the Acts of the Apostles, the passage where it says: “And Paul came to Athens, and the Athenians gathered around him, and Paul stood before them and said: ‘Women and men of Athens, you have been worshiping your gods through all kinds of symbols; yet the true God does not dwell in external symbols. You also have an altar inscribed: “To the unknown God!” But I tell you, that unknown God is the one who cannot be represented by external symbols in his true form, yet who is the foundation of all that lives and all that exists. He is the one who lived on earth and was raised from the dead, the one who, through the resurrection, will lead humanity itself to resurrection.” And the Acts of the Apostles continues—and we can almost see Paul standing before the Athenians—describing how some Athenians believed and others did not. Among the former was Dionysius the Areopagite. Then let us look at the painting that hangs in the Camera della Signatura in Rome, painted by Raphael, and which is called “The School of Athens.” Let us now assume—as was quite natural at the time—

[ 13 ] Raphael had before him the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that we have just been discussing. It came to life in his work. And now let us look at the various Athenians to whom he gave faces, and—aside from the hand gesture—we see a figure stepping forward, joining the Athenians, a figure we recognize the moment we look into the eyes of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles.

[ 14 ] And so we could go through all sorts of things in Raphael’s work. When we turn our attention to his various Madonnas, however, we must ask ourselves: Isn’t there something peculiar about Raphael? He is great when he paints scenes that depict the emerging, the growing, in the origins of Christianity—the infant Jesus as something that, like a seed, contains the whole of Christianity yet to come. Yet we find no depiction of Judas’ betrayal in Raphael’s work, nor, in fact, any depiction of the Carrying of the Cross, for his Carrying of the Cross appears to us as if pieced together, quite unlike his other works. Instead, we find the Annunciation and the Ascension—that is, the events that point directly to the emergence of Christianity.

[ 15 ] And how did these things speak to people? Indeed, they spoke in a most peculiar way. You know that one of Raphael’s most magnificent works is located in Dresden: the Sistine Madonna. People who think superficially might suppose that this is a painting that entered Germany like a victor. It made no impression whatsoever on Goethe, because he had heard what people generally thought of this work. As a young man, Goethe was not yet as sure in his judgment as he would be in old age, and he was still susceptible to what people said. What did the museum officials in Dresden tell him? Well, that the child’s entire expression was simply vulgar, that the Madonna had been overpainted by a bungler, that the little cherubs at the bottom had been added by some hired hand. That was still the prevailing sentiment toward the Sistine Madonna when Goethe came to Dresden as a young man. But let us see how things stand now. Let us take in what Raphael has actually come to mean to people! Raphael was active in Rome at a time when religious dogmas were the subject of much controversy. The way Raphael paints the Christian mysteries is interdenominational. If we look at the later great Italian painters, we see the religious mysteries painted in such a way that we recognize: this is the Christianity of the Latin race. Raphael paints in such a way that we are dealing with universal representations of Christian mysteries that transcend national boundaries. That is why we see how, in a short time, the Sistine Madonna has found a place in people’s hearts even in Protestant regions. And if anthroposophy is to work toward an understanding of the Christian mysteries, it will find its best reception in those souls in which the feelings live that have been kindled by images such as the Sistine Madonna, in those souls that are prepared in this way. And when we speak today of the fact that Christianity is only at the beginning of its development, that it will only take on its true form through the spiritual key that anthroposophy is able to provide, then we know that Raphael stands before this Christianity like a herald.

[ 16 ] And once again we turn our attention to yet another figure, relying solely on the Western perspective: we turn our attention to the figure of the German poet Novalis. If we open Novalis’s works—everywhere we find hints of the purest anthroposophical teaching, right down to the details; one need only, so to speak, unravel them. Thus we see how Novalis is imbued with an anthroposophical Christianity.

[ 17 ] Thus we have presented four figures as personalities. That was the Western perspective. Now comes the deepening in Spiritual Science. Through this, people will come to understand why, for example, Raphael felt that magnetic pull to incarnate into the earth on Good Friday, in order to outwardly indicate through his birth on Good Friday that he has something to do with the mystery of Easter. These things can only be hinted at today; a few decades will pass, and then people will understand the things asserted here just as they understand scientific facts today: namely, that it is the same Individuality that lived in Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, and Novalis. First they will recognize the personalities, then the Individuality as it passed through them. And now we understand the fourfold heraldry and the ascent within this fourfold heraldry. Now we stand in a completely different relationship to such a matter than we did in the past. Today we already know that the Stanzas in Rome are no longer seen in their original form; they have been defaced, are no longer as they were painted by Raphael’s hand, and it will only take centuries for these things to disappear. Even if the reproductions are to have a longer life, that which the Individuality created will be dissolved into its atoms. But even if Raphael’s physical works are pulverized over time, we know that the same individuality that produced those works was already present again in Novalis and brought about, in a different way, what was within it.

[ 18 ] Thus we see how, in addition to the limited view of personalities that has characterized the Western worldview, individuality is now being added; how, in other words, the best of the Western worldview is being combined with the best of the Eastern worldview. Thus does the course of time advance. As humanity progresses in this way and comes to understand such things, the spiritual world will not remain silent, but will speak to humanity even in the more everyday phenomena. And people will, so to speak, not merely have to rise to the spiritual world through a kind of knowledge, but more and more this knowledge will transform into a kind of—one might say—experience. For this, however, a genuine spiritual movement is necessary today. That such a movement is necessary is simply evident from the fact that people can no longer judge even the simplest things in the right way.

[ 19 ] Let us single out one detail today. When a person leads a healthy life, they alternate between waking and sleeping over the course of twenty-four hours. We know that when they fall asleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while the astral body and the I go out. What, then, happens to what remains in bed? When the clairvoyant looks back from his astral body at what is taking place in the etheric and physical bodies, he sees how a more vegetative life begins there—a life that has actually been destroyed by daytime consciousness. Fatigue is compensated for; that is to say, the etheric body and the physical body now blossom and sprout, and the astral body and the ego have withdrawn. When they re-enter the physical body and the etheric body in the morning, they must once again bring them to a state of fatigue; they graze them down, causing what has sprouted during the night to wither.

[ 20 ] Everything that exists in the microcosm also exists in the macrocosm. When we see in spring how the earth brings forth its greenery in the plants, how blossoms and leaves sprout, and how the plants prepare to bear fruit, what do we have there? Those who make superficial comparisons will say that waking up in the morning can be compared to the awakening of nature in spring. But the opposite is true! We must compare the blossoming in spring with falling asleep. We must compare the emergence and growth of plants in spring with what takes place in the human etheric and physical bodies when falling asleep. Then this becomes ever more alive as it approaches summer, just as in the human physical and etheric bodies in the middle of the night. And in autumn it becomes as if the human being were sinking down into the physical and etheric body in the morning; in autumn, which causes to wither that which has sprouted during spring and summer. One must correctly correlate what happens outside and inside; one must not seek external allegories and compare spring with waking up and autumn with falling asleep, but rather the reverse.

[ 21 ] So we can say: What the spirits of the earth are, goes to sleep in the spring and awakens as earth spirits in the fall and winter. In winter, they are connected to the earth as earth spirits, only to ascend again in spring and summer to the heights of the heavens, to the astral realms, and to the other side of the earth. When spring returns, they go back to sleep.

[ 22 ] This is not contradicted by the fact that the Earth sleeps on one half at one time and on the other half at another. Something similar is also true, in a certain sense, of human beings. Those who observe these processes clairvoyantly see that in spring it is just as it is when humans fall asleep, when the individual spirit withdraws into the astral world; they see that in spring what we call the earth spirits withdraw into the astral world, and vice versa. Indeed, today’s humanity—with the exception of those sitting here—would probably burst into loud laughter if one were to speak in such terms of the earth spirits falling asleep and waking up. One can believe that of this humanity; after all, it does everything to prove that it has no idea of the real processes of the world. But it was not always so, by no means; rather, things used to be different! For there was an ancient human clairvoyance, and it perceived these facts correctly. People saw that what we call Earth spirits withdraw in the spring to ascend, so to speak, to cosmic heights. In the fall, these spirits descend again. This is what was observed in ancient times. It was natural, then, to point out that in the middle of summer there is something like an absence of the actual Earth spirit from the Earth. Instead, there is a surging forth of the elemental nature spirits as in a paroxysm, and a lingering of that which is earthly-physical on the Earth—that which thus emerges through the sensory realm. If one wanted to illustrate this, one could do so best by placing the Festival of St. John precisely at this time, to point out how the sprouting nature spirits are active, while the actual spirits of the Earth—which are the I and the astral body of the Earth—are absent.

[ 23 ] But what happens as winter approaches? Then the earth awakens, and the astral body and the ego are connected to the earth. That is where we must shift the festivals that primarily relate to the spiritual aspect of the human being. That is where the Christmas festival was moved. And then, when the Earth spirit departs upward into the heights—as indicated by the Easter festival—this departure from the Earth, this entry into the astral realm, was related to the relationship between the Sun and the Moon.

[ 24 ] All these things we are looking into connect us in a wonderful way with the ancient art of clairvoyance, showing us that in what has come down to us from ancient times, we have something to see that has to do with the ancient clairvoyance of humankind. It is quite natural for the materialistic worldview to claim that it need only concern itself with the physical body, to say: It is inconvenient for us, particularly with regard to check transactions and similar matters, to have Easter sometimes early in the year and sometimes late, and this must be remedied so that commerce and industry may proceed as smoothly as possible. So, let’s say, Easter must always be celebrated on the first Sunday in April! — This is only fitting for the materialistic age, which is devoid of any connection to the spiritual world. Just as it is fitting for materialism to harbor such ideas, it is equally true that a spiritual movement must preserve the connection with humanity’s ancient festivals. And we will not, for that reason, hold back in any way—especially with regard to practical action—from doing what is appropriate to a spiritual worldview.

[ 25 ] And this is meant to be expressed in what you see in our calendar, which of course seems ridiculous to the outside world, yet we do not wish to withhold it from them, even if they consider us fools for doing so. This calendar expresses our need to maintain a connection with times past. In the illustrations of the calendar, which were created by a member whom we greatly revere and love, you have a renewal of what has already become dry and barren: the imaginations relating to the constellations of the sun and moon and the signs of the zodiac, renewed for the modern soul, presented in such a way that you truly benefit from them when you observe the succession of weeks and days. If you ask the question: How can one arrive at such things oneself? — then do take a look at the “Soul Calendar”: Those meditations are the result of many years of occult research and experience. If you allow these to take effect in your soul, then you will see that what is established in this soul is that which constitutes the connection of the efficacy of spiritual

[ 26 ] We have depicted worlds in chronological order. And what we call the Mystery of Golgotha, we have presented it externally, in an exoteric way, so that it does not come as a shock at first glance. We have drawn a circle around it marked 1912/13, but internally the calendar is calculated so that it begins with the birth of human ego-consciousness, that is, with the Mystery of Golgotha. And furthermore, the year count proceeds in a way that will be quite inconvenient for commercial life, but as is necessary for spiritual life: from Easter to Easter!

[ 27 ] So that we have something that has grown out of our way of thinking and that is useful to everyone, so that by using it, one can take another step closer to the spiritual path than can be achieved by other means.

[ 28 ] It will become increasingly clear how the things we undertake within our anthroposophical movement are actually conceived from a single fundamental principle and impulse, and how the individual element does not owe its existence to a whim, but is placed in such a way that it truly fits into our entire work as a single building block. Of course, this requires that individual members increasingly come to understand this interplay, and that we move beyond special interests and individual aspirations to focus more on what unites us. Certainly, it is understandable that individual members have many special aspirations and wishes, that some would like to bring this and others that into the anthroposophical movement. But especially here in this place, where truly selfless cooperation will be necessary if we are to truly bring the planned project to fruition, it must take deep, deep root in our hearts that we will only have a beneficial effect if we do not assert our individual aspirations, but rather that which integrates itself into the whole that is being strived for, as a building block. For otherwise it cannot become a whole. This is so extraordinarily important, and in this regard, I believe that the realization of what is to take place here is also the foundation for a study of how the anthroposophical movement should develop.

[ 29 ] So today I have tried to present to you some aspects of our anthroposophically oriented perspective, and in doing so we have, so to speak, created a kind of substitute for what should have taken place this time but could not, precisely because not all the necessary official permits have yet been obtained: namely, the laying of the cornerstone for our Johannesbau. But let us hope that we may succeed in making up for this in the not-too-distant future. For perhaps in doing so we will also lay the foundation for a revival of the anthroposophical movement, as we understand it within the Western world. And if we succeed in doing what is right in this area, then we will already provide proof that, in a spirit of faithful truth—which alone we wish to let inspire us, without any inclination toward the sensational—we are making our own those occult endeavors that today’s humanity needs for its further development.