Toward Imagination
GA 169
6 June 1916, Berlin
1. The Immortality of the I
It would not be fitting to speak of Pentecost in our fateful time in the same way as in earlier days. We are living in a time of severe ordeals, and we cannot look only for the lofty feelings that warm our souls. If we have any right and true feeling at all, we cannot possibly, even for a moment, forget the terrible pain and suffering in our time. It would even be selfish for us to want to forget this pain and suffering and to give ourselves up to contemplations that warm our souls. Therefore it will be more appropriate today to speak of what may be useful in these times—useful insofar as we have to look for the reasons of the great sufferings of our time in our prevailing spiritual condition. As we have found in many of our previous talks here, we have to realize that we must work on the development of our souls particularly in these difficult times so that humanity as a whole can meet better days in the future.
Nevertheless, I would like to begin with some thoughts that can lead us to an understanding of the meaning of Pentecost. In the course of the year there are three important festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Everyone will feel the great difference between them—everyone, that is, whose feelings have not become dulled, as in the case of most of our contemporaries, to the meaning of these festivals in the evolution of humanity and the universe. The difference in our feelings for these festivals is expressed in the external symbolism of the festivities connected with them.
Christmas is pre-eminently celebrated as a festival for the joy of children, a festival that in our times—though not always—includes a Christmas tree, brought into our houses from snow- and ice-clad nature. And we remember the Christmas plays we have performed here on several occasions, plays that have for centuries uplifted even the simplest human hearts, guiding them to the mighty event that came to pass once in the evolution of the earth—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus of Nazareth is a festival connected almost by nature to a world of feelings that was born out of the Gospel of St. Luke, particularly out of its most popular parts that are easiest to understand. Thus, Christmas is a festival of what is universally human. It is understood, at least to a certain extent, by children and by people who have remained childlike in their hearts, and it brings into these hearts something great and tremendous that is then taken up into consciousness.
Easter, however, although celebrated at the time of nature's awakening, leads us to the gates of death. We can characterize the difference between the two festivals by saying that while there is much that is lovely and speaks to all human hearts in Christmas, there is something infinitely sublime in Easter. To celebrate Easter rightly, our souls must be imbued with something of tremendous sublimity. We are led to the great and sublime idea that the divine being descended to earth, incarnated in a human body, and passed through death. The enigma of death and of the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death—Easter brings all this before our souls.
We can have deep feelings for these festivals only when we remember what we know through spiritual science. Christmas and the ideas it evokes are closely connected with all the festivals ever celebrated to commemorate the birth of a Savior. Christmas is connected with the Mithras festival, which celebrates the birth of Mithras in a cave. Thus, Christmas is a festival closely linked with nature, as symbolized by the Christmas tree. Even the birth it celebrates is a part of nature. At the same time, because Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which has great significance particularly for us in spiritual science, it includes much that is spiritual. As we have often said, the spirit of the earth awakens in winter and is most active when nature appears to be asleep and frozen. Christmas leads us into elemental nature; the lighting of the Christmas candles should be our symbol of the awakening of the spirit in the darkness of winter, the awakening of the spirit in nature. And if we want to understand the relationship between Christmas and human beings, we have to think of what connects us to nature even when we are spiritually separated from it, as in sleep when our astral body and our I ascend as spirit into the spiritual world. The etheric body, though also spirit, remains bound to the outer, physical body. Elemental nature, which comes to life deep inside the earth when it is shrouded in wintry ice, is present in us primarily in the etheric body.
It is not just a mere analogy, but a profound truth that Christmas also commemorates our etheric, elemental nature, our etheric body, which connects us with what is elemental in nature.
If you consider everything that has been said over many years about the gradual paralyzing and diminishing of humanity's forces, you will be struck by the close relationship between all the forces living in our astral body and the events bringing us this diminishing and death. We have to develop our astral body during life and take in what is spiritual by means of it, and therefore we take into ourselves the seeds of death. It is quite wrong to believe that death is connected with life only outwardly and superficially; there is a most intimate connection between death and life, as I have often pointed out. Our life is the way it is only because we are able to die as we do, and this in turn is connected with the evolution of our astral body.
Again, it is not just an analogy to say that Easter is a symbol of everything related to our astral nature, to that part of our nature through which we leave our physical body when we sleep and enter the spiritual world—the world from which the divine spiritual Being descended who experienced death in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. If I were speaking in a time when the sense for the spiritual was more alive than it is in ours, then what I have just said would quite likely be taken more as reality. However, nowadays it is taken as merely symbolic. People would then realize that the celebration of Christmas and Easter is also intended to remind us of our connection with elemental nature and with the nature that brings spiritual and physical death. In other words, the festivals are tokens reminding us that we bear a spiritual element in our astral and etheric bodies. But in our age these things have been forgotten. They will come to the fore again when people decide to work at understanding such spiritual things.
In addition to the etheric and astral bodies, we bear another spiritual element in us—the I. We know how complex this I is and that it continues from incarnation to incarnation. Its inner forces build the garment, so to speak, that we put on with each new incarnation. We rise from the dead in the I to prepare for a new incarnation. It is the I that makes each of us a unique individual. We can say our etheric body represents in a sense everything birth-like, everything connected with the elemental forces of nature. Our astral body symbolizes what brings death and is connected with the higher spiritual world. And the I represents our continual resurrection in the spirit, our renewed life in the spiritual world, which is neither nature nor the world of the stars but permeates everything.
Just as we can associate Christmas with the etheric body and Easter with the astral body, so Pentecost can be connected with the I. Pentecost represents the immortality of our I; it is a sign of the immortal world of the I, reminding us that we participate not only in the life of nature in general and pass through repeated deaths, but that we are immortal, unique beings who continually rise again from the dead. And how beautifully this is expressed in the elaboration of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Just think, Christmas as we celebrate it is directly connected with earthly events; it follows immediately upon the winter solstice, that is, at the time when the earth is shrouded in deepest darkness.
In a way, our celebration of Christmas follows the laws of the earth: when the nights are longest and the days shortest, when the earth is frozen, we withdraw into ourselves and seek the spiritual insofar as it lives in the earth. Thus Christmas is a festival bound to the spirit of the earth. It reminds us continually that as human beings we belong to the earth, that the spirit had to descend from the heights of the world and take on earthly form to become one of us children of the earth.
On the other hand, Easter is linked to the relationship between sun and moon and is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, that is, the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March. We fix the date of Easter according to the relative position of sun and moon. You see how wonderfully Christmas is connected with the earth and Easter with the cosmos. Christmas reminds us of what is most holy in the earth, and Easter of what is holiest in the heavens.
Our Christian festival of Pentecost is related in a beautiful way to what is above the stars: the universal spiritual fire of the cosmos, individualized and descending in fiery tongues upon the Apostles. This fire is neither of the heavens nor of the earth, neither cosmic nor merely terrestrial, but permeates everything, yet it is individualized and reaches every human being. Pentecost is connected with the whole world! As Christmas belongs to the earth and Easter to the starry heavens, so Pentecost is directly connected to every human being when he or she receives the spark of spiritual life from all the worlds. What all humanity received in the descent of the divine human being to earth is given to each individual in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. The fiery tongues represent what is in us, in the universe, and in the stars. Thus, especially for those who seek the spirit, Pentecost has a special, profound meaning, summoning us again and again to seek anew for the spirit.
I think in our age we have to take these festive thoughts a step further and consider them more deeply than we would at other times. For how we will extricate ourselves from the sorrowful and disheartening events of our times will largely depend on how deeply we can grasp such thoughts. Our souls will have to work their way out of these events. In certain circles people are already beginning to feel that. And I would add that particularly people who are close to spiritual science should increasingly feel this necessity of our times to renew our spiritual life and to rise above materialism. We will overcome materialism only if we have the good will to kindle the flames of the spiritual world within ourselves and to truly celebrate Pentecost inwardly, to take it with inner seriousness.
In our recent talks here we have spoken about how difficult it is for people to find what is right in this area of the renewal of spirituality under the conditions of the present age. We see nowadays a development of forces we cannot admire enough; yet we lack adequate feelings to respond to them. When feelings become as necessary for the spiritual, people will realize that it is important to celebrate and not neglect the inner Pentecost in our soul. Some people—of course, not you, my dear friends, who have after all participated in such studies for several years—might well think our recent talks here smack of hypochondria and carping.1This comment refers to the lecture cycle Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes im Menschengeist, lectures February 13 to May 30, 1916; vol. 167 in the Collected Works, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1962). I think the very opposite is true, for it seems to me absolutely necessary to point out the things we talked about because people should know where to intervene spiritually in the course of human evolution. In fact, here and there other people also realize what is essential for our times.
The grandson of Schiller, Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm, has written a nice little book called Cultural Superstition.2Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, 1759–1805, German poet, playwright, and critic.
Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm, 1865–1947, Kultur-Aber-glaube (“Cultural Superstition”), (Munich: Forum, 1916). As I read it, I was reminded of many things I said to you here. For instance, I told you that spiritual science should not remain merely a lifeless theory. Instead, it must flow into our souls so that our thinking becomes really enlivened, truly judicious, and flexible, for only then can it get to the heart of the tasks of our age. In this connection, let me read you a few sentences from this booklet Cultural Superstition by Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm.
If all of us bear part of the guilt for this terrible tragedy, it is because throughout all of Europe, in spite of culture, schools, and other educational facilities, we have gradually forfeited our independent thinking.
O, freedom of thought, in vain have the greatest poets called for you in the name of humanity. You languished, faded—you sank down as if dead! Unfree, we parroted others, our power of thinking chained, lamed, and weary.
We had time, desire, and ambition for everything except actual thinking. Even here, in the erstwhile nation of poets and philosophers, thought has become an illustrious stranger, a rare, disquieting guest. Reading and writing are no longer of any help to us; indeed, they can only be harmful if we do not know how to think.
Recently everything has been conducive to wean us of thinking altogether—everything, even our education, our art, recreation, work, social life, travel, and domestic life.
But genuine culture should teach us above all to think, for feelings and instincts alone will never suffice to make possible a peaceful coexistence of people and nations. For this, a sound, carefully trained, political mind is necessary.
And von Gleichen-Russwurm, this grandson of Schiller, traces the fact that we have forgotten how to think far back in history:
Since the Vienna Congress of 1815, all nations have made a certain effort to get along and settle down on this planet. Innumerable treaties, attempts of every kind, bear witness to this. People believed that by struggling for a constitution and suffrage they would gain real participation in government and be able to determine their own fate.
Then von Gleichen-Russwurm says we cannot do without thinking. He shows this by painting a strange picture of our present time, which we must always think about and cannot forget even for a moment.
Indeed, we have not made such wonderful progress when everything that formerly would have been spun into the yarns of the most harebrained poets has become reality. We are in such an immense and frantic jumble, more fantastic than anything that happened during the migration of peoples. Senegalese kill our poets, artists groom horses, professors tend sheep. Theater managers give orders of execution over the telephone, pious Indians seek death on our battlefields in accordance with their ancient rites. Beautiful buildings fall into ruins and shelters fit for cave-dwellers are built. Millionaires starve and struggle with vermin, while beggars sit at abandoned sumptuous tables in old castles. Suspicious characters are rehabilitated and the most harmless people languish and die in prisons.
This state of things compels Schiller's grandson to consider the necessity of enlivening thinking. However, I have not been able to find, either in this pamphlet or in his other writings, that he is looking in the right direction for the true sources of enlivened thinking.
It is indeed not easy to celebrate Pentecost in our soul nowadays, not at all easy. Now I have here the book of a man who has taken great pains in the last few years to understand Goethe—as far as he found it possible—and who has gone to great lengths to understand our spiritual science.3Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, leading German poet. Also wrote extensively on botany, optics, and other scientific topics. This very man, who has really tried to understand Goethe and is delighted that he is now beginning to do so, had earlier written nine novels, fourteen plays, and nine volumes of essays. His case is very characteristic of the difficulties people have nowadays in finding their way to spiritual life. In his latest book, the tenth volume of his essays, he says how glad he is to have found Goethe at last and to have the opportunity to try to understand him. One can see from this tenth volume of essays that the author is really trying very hard to comprehend Goethe. But think what it means that a man who has written so many novels, so many plays, and who is quite well-known, admits now when he is perhaps fifty or fifty-one that he is just beginning to understand Goethe.
Now his latest book is called Expressionism. The writer is Hermann Bahr.4Hermann Bahr, 1863–1934, Austrian journalist, playwright, and theater manager. Expressionismus (“Expressionism”), 3rd ed., Munich, 1919. Hermann Bahr is the man I just described. I haven't counted all his plays; he wrote still more, but he disavows the earlier ones. It is not difficult for me to speak about Bahr because I have known him since his student days; indeed I knew him quite well. You see, he wrote on every kind of subject, and much of his writing is very good. He says of himself that he has been an impressionist all his life, because he was born in the age of impressionism.
Now let us define in a few words what impressionism really is. We will not argue about matters of art, but let us try to understand what people like Hermann Bahr mean by impressionism. Consider the work of artists such as Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Dante—or take whomever you want. You will find that what they considered great about their art was that they had perceived the external world and then worked with it spiritually. In art the perception of the outer world unites with what lives in the spirit. Goethe would have denied the status of “art” to all works that do not strive for such a union of nature and spirit.
But in modern times what is called impressionism has emerged. Hermann Bahr grew up with it and is now aware that he has been an impressionist in all he did. When he discussed paintings—and many of his essays are about painting—he did so from the standpoint of impressionism. When he wrote about painting, he wanted to be an impressionist himself, and that is what he was, and still is in his own way. Now what does such a man mean by impressionism in art? He means by impressionism that the artist is utterly afraid to add anything out of his or her own soul to the external impression given by nature. Nothing must be added by the soul.
Of course, under such conditions no music could be created; but Bahr excluded music. Neither could there be architecture. Music and architecture can therefore never be purely impressionist. However, in painting and in poetry pure impressionism is quite possible. Very well, as far as possible everything coming out of the artist's own soul was to be excluded. Thus, the impressionist painters tried to create a picture of an object before they had properly perceived it, before they had in any way digested the visual impression. In other words, looking at the object, and then right away, if possible, capturing it before one has added anything to the picture and the impression it evoked—that is impressionism! Of course, there are different interpretations of impressionism, but this is its essential nature.
As I said in a public lecture in Berlin, Hermann Bahr is a man who champions whatever he thinks to be right at the moment with the greatest enthusiasm. When he first came to the university in Vienna, he was heart and soul for socialism; he had a passion for it and was the most ardent social democrat you can imagine. One of the plays he now disavows, The New Humanity, is written from this socialist standpoint. I think it is out of print now. It has many pages of social democratic speeches that cannot be produced on stage. Then the German National Movement developed in Vienna, and Hermann Bahr became an ardent nationalist and wrote his Great Sin, which he now also repudiates. By that time, after having been a socialist and a nationalist, Bahr had reached the age when men in Austria are drafted for military service, and so at nineteen he became a soldier.
He had left behind socialism and nationalism and now became a soldier, a passionate soldier, and developed an entirely military outlook on life. For a year he was a soldier, a one-year volunteer. After this he went for a short time to Berlin. In Berlin he became—well, he did not become a fervent Berliner; he couldn't stand that, so he never became an ardent Berliner. But then he went to Paris where he became an enthusiastic disciple of Maurice Barrès and people of his ilk. He was also an ardent follower of Boulanger who just at that time was playing an important role.5Georges-Ernest-Jean-Marie Boulanger, 1837–1891, French general and politician, became figurehead among revanchists, including Bonapartists, royalists, and leftists. Aroused popular enthusiasm among elements antagonistic to government. Fled to England. Well, I don't want to rake up old stories, and so I will not tell you of the passionate Boulangist letters the enthusiastic Bahr wrote from Paris at that time.
Then he went to Spain, where he became inflamed with enthusiasm for Spanish culture, so much so that he wrote an article against the Sultan of Morocco and his rotten behavior toward Spanish politics. Bahr then returned to Berlin and worked for a while as editor of the journal Freie Bühne, but, as I said, he never became an ardent Berliner. Then he went back and gradually discovered Austria. After all, he was born in Linz. Oh, sorry, I didn't mention that before all this he had also been to St. Petersburg where he wrote his book on Russia and became a passionate Russian. Then he returned and discovered Austria, its various regions and cultural history and so on.
Bahr was always brilliant and sometimes even profound. He always tried to convey what he saw by just giving his first impression of it, without having mentally digested it. As you can imagine, it can work quite well to give only the first impression. A socialist—nothing more than the first impression; German nationalist or Boulangist—nothing more than the first impression; Russian, Spaniard, and so on and so forth. And now to be looking at the different aspects of the Austrian national character—doubtlessly an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon! But just imagine: Bahr has now reached the age of fifty, and suddenly expressionism appears on the scene, the very opposite of impressionism.
For many years Hermann Bahr has been lecturing in Danzig. On his way there he always passed through Berlin, but without stopping. He is fond of the people of Danzig and claims that when he speaks to them, they always stimulate him to profound thoughts, something that does not happen in any other German town. Well, the people of Danzig asked him to give a lecture there on expressionism. But just think what that means to Hermann Bahr, who has been an impressionist all his life! And only now does expressionism make its appearance! When he was young and began to be an impressionist, people were far from delighted with impressionist pictures. On the contrary, all the philistines, the petty bourgeois—and of course other people too—considered them mere daubing. This may often have been true, but we will not argue about that now. Hermann Bahr, however, was all aglow and whosoever said anything against an impressionist painting was of course a narrow-minded, reactionary blockhead of the first order who would have nothing unless it was hoary with age and who was completely unable to keep pace with the progress of mankind. That is the sort of thing you could often hear from Hermann Bahr. Many people were blockheads in those days.
There was a certain coffee-house in Vienna, the Café Griensteidl , where such matters were usually settled. It used to be opposite the old Burgtheater on the Michaeler Platz but is now defunct. Karl Kraus, the writer who is also known as “cocky Kraus” and who publishes small books, wrote a pamphlet about this coffee-house, which back in 1848 had Lenau and Anastasius Grün among its illustrious guests.6Karl Kraus, 1874–1936, Austrian satirist, critic, and poet. In his writings attacked middle-class circles and the liberal press. Wrote dramas, essay collections, and translated Shakespeare.
Nikolaus Lenau, pseudonym of Nikolaus Niembsch von Strehle- nau, 1802–1850, Austrian poet, bom in Hungary. Wrote in tradition of German Romantic pessimism; known for his lyric verse.
Anastasius Griin, pseudonym of Anton Alexander von Auersperg, Duke, 1806–1876. Austrian poet and politician. Outspoken leader of liberal sentiment. Wrote verse and ironic epics. When the building was torn down, Kraus wrote a booklet entitled Literature Demolished.7Karl Kraus, Die demolierte Liteiatur (“Literature Demolished”), Vienna, 1896.
The emergence of impressionism was often the topic of discussion in this coffee-house. As we have seen, Hermann Bahr had been speaking for years about impressionism, which runs like a red thread through all the rest of his metamorphoses. But now he has become older; expressionists, cubists, and futurists have come along, and they in turn call impressionists like Hermann Bahr dull blockheads who are only warming over the past. To Hermann Bahr's surprise the rest of the world was not greatly affected by their comments. However, he was annoyed, for he had to admit that this is exactly what he had done when he was young. He had called all the others blockheads and now they said he was one himself. And why should those who called him a blockhead be less right than he had been in saying it of others?
A bad business, you see! So there was nothing else for Hermann Bahr but to leam about expressionism, particularly as he had been asked by the people of Danzig, whom he loved so much, to speak about it. And then it was a question of finding a correct formula for expressionism. I assure you I am not making fun of Hermann Bahr. In fact, I like him very much and would like to make every possible excuse for him—I mean, that is, I like him as a cultural phenomenon.
Hermann Bahr now had to come to terms with expressionism. As you will no doubt agree, a man with a keen and active mind will surely not be satisfied to have reached the ripe age of fifty only to be called a blockhead by the next generation—especially not when he is asked to speak about expressionism to the people of Danzig who inspire him with such good thoughts. Perhaps you have seen some expressionist, cubist, or futurist paintings. Most people when they see them say, We have put up with a great deal, but this really goes too far! You have a canvas, then dashes, white ones running from the top to the bottom, red lines across them, and then perhaps something else, suggesting neither a leaf nor a house, a tree nor a bird, but rather all these together and none in particular.
But, of course, Hermann Bahr could not speak about it like this. So what did he do? It dawned upon him what expressionism is after much brooding on it. In fact, through all his metamorphoses he gradually became a brooding person. Now he realized (under the influence of the Danzig inspiration, of course!) that the impressionists take nature and quickly set it down, without any inner work on the visual impression. Expressionists do the opposite. That is true; Hermann Bahr understood that. Expressionists do not look at nature at all—I am quite serious about this. They do not look at anything in nature, they only look within. This means what is out there in nature—houses, rivers, elephants, lions—is of no interest to the expressionist, for he looks within. Bahr then went on to say that if we want to look within, such looking within must be possible for us. And what does Bahr do? He turns to Goethe, reads his works, for example, the following report:
I had the gift that when I closed my eyes, and with bowed head imagined a flower in the center of my eye, it did not stay for even a moment in its first form, but unfolded itself and new flowers with colored as well as green leaves grew out of it. They were not natural flowers, but imaginary ones, yet regular as the roses of a sculptor.8Goethe, quoted in Bahr, Expressionismus, p. 85.
Goethe could close his eyes, think of a flower, and it would appear before him as a spiritual form and then of itself take on various forms.
It was impossible to fix this creation welling forth in me, but it lasted as long as I wished, and neither faded nor grew stronger. I could produce the same thing by imagining an ornamental, many-colored disc, which also continually changed from the center to the periphery, exactly like the recently discovered kaleidoscope ...
Here afterimage, memory, creative imagination, concept and idea are all at work at once, manifesting with complete freedom in the inherent living nature of the organ, without design or guidance.
Now if you are not familiar with Goethe and with the world view of modern idealism and spiritualism, you will find it impossible to make something of this right away. Therefore, Hermann Bahr continued reading the literature on the subject. He lighted on the Englishman Galton who had studied people with the kind of inner sight Goethe had according to his own description.9Sir Francis Galton, 1822–1911, English scientist. Traveled widely. His studies of meteorology form basis of modern weather maps. Best known for his work in anthropology and the study of heredity; founder of eugenics; devised system of fingerprint identification. As is customary in England, Galton had collected all kinds of statistics about such people. One of his special examples was a certain clergyman who was able to call forth an image in his imagination that then changed of itself, and he could also return it to its first form through willing it. The clergyman described this beautifully. Hermann Bahr followed up these matters and gradually came to the conclusion that there was indeed such a thing as inner sight. You see, what Goethe described—Goethe indeed knew other things too—is only the very first stage of being moved in the etheric body. Hermann Bahr began to study such fundamental matters to understand expressionism, because it dawned on him that expressionism is based on this kind of elementary inner sight. And then he went further. He read the works of the old physiologist Johannes Müller, who described this inner sight so beautifully at a time when natural science had not yet begun to laugh at these things.10Johannes Müller, 1801–1858, German physiologist and comparative anatomist. Taught Virchow, DuBois-Reymond, and Haeckel.
So, Bahr gradually worked his way through Goethe, finding it very stimulating to read Goethe, to begin to understand him, and in the process to realize that there is such a thing as inner sight. On that basis he arrived at the following insight: in expressionism nature is not needed because the artist captures on canvas what he or she sees in this elementary inner vision. Later on, this will develop into something else, as I have said here before. If we do not view expressionism as a stroke of genius, but as the first beginnings of something still to mature, we will probably do these artists more justice than they do themselves in overestimating their achievements. But Hermann Bahr considers them artists of genius and indeed was led to admit with tremendous enthusiasm that we have not only external sight through our eyes, but also inner sight. His chapter on inner sight is really very fine, and he is immensely delighted to discover in Goethe's writings the words “eye of the spirit.”
Just think for how many years we have already been using this expression. As I said, Bahr has even tried to master our spiritual science! From Bahr's book we know that so far he has read Eugene Levy's description of my world view.11Eugene Levy, Rudolf Steiners Weltanschauung und ihre Gegner (“Rudolf Steiner's World View and its Opponents”), Berlin, 1913. Apparently, Bahr has not yet advanced to my books, but that day may still come. In any case, you can see that here a man is working his way through the difficulties of the present time and then takes a position on what is most elementary. I have to mention this because it proves what I have so often said: it is terribly difficult for people in our age to come to anything spiritual. Just think of it: a man who has written ten novels, fourteen plays, and many books of essays, finally arrives at reading Goethe. Working his way through Goethe's writings, he comes to understand him—though rather late in his life. Bahr's book is written with wonderful freshness and bears witness to the joy he experienced in understanding Goethe. Indeed, in years past I often sat and talked with Hermann Bahr, but then it was not possible to speak with him about Goethe. At that time he naturally still considered Goethe a blockhead, one of the ancient, not-yet-impressionist sort of people.
We have to keep in mind, I think, how difficult it is for people who are educated in our time to find the way to the most elementary things leading to spiritual science. And yet, these are the very people who shape public opinion. For example, when Hermann Bahr came to Vienna, he edited a very influential weekly called Die Zeit. No one would believe us if we said that many people in the western world whose opinions are valued do not understand a thing about Goethe, and therefore cannot come to spiritual science on the basis of their education—of course, it is possible to come to spiritual science without education. Yet Bahr is living proof of this because he himself admits at the age of fifty how happy he is finally to understand Goethe. It is very sad to see how happy he is to have found what others were looking for all around him when he was still young. By the same token, to see this is also most instructive and significant for understanding our age. That somebody like Hermann Bahr needs expressionism to realize that one can form ideas and paint them without looking at nature shows us that the trend-setting, so-called cultural world nowadays lives in ideas that are completely removed from anything spiritual. It takes expressionism for him to understand that there is an inner seeing, an inner spiritual eye. You see, all this is closely connected with the way our writers, artists, and critics grow up and develop.
Hermann Bahr's latest novel is characteristic of this. It is called Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”).12Hermann Bahr, Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”), Berlin, 1916. The end of the book indicates that Bahr is beginning to develop yet another burning enthusiasm on the side—all his other passions run like a red thread through the novel—namely, a new enthusiasm for Catholicism. Anyone who knows Bahr will have no doubt that there is something of him in the character of Franz, the protagonist of his latest novel. The book is not an autobiography, nor a biographical novel; yet a good deal of Hermann Bahr is to be found in this Franz. A writer—not one who writes for the newspapers; let's not talk about how journalists develop because we don't want the word “develop” to lose its original meaning—but a writer who is serious about writing, who is a true seeker, such as Hermann Bahr, cannot help but reveal his own development in the character of his protagonist. Bahr describes Franz's gradual development and his quest. Franz tries to experience everything the age has to offer, to learn everything, to look for the truth everywhere. Thus, he searches in the sciences, first studying botany under Wiessner, the famous Viennese botanist, then chemistry under Ostwald, then political economy and so on.13Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, 1854–1932, German physical chemist. Invented a process for preparation of nitric acid by oxidizing ammonia, important in the production of explosives during World War I. Was awarded 1909 Nobel prize for chemistry. He looks into everything the age has to offer. He might also have become a student of ancient Greek under Wilamowitz, or have learned about philosophy from Eucken or Kohler.14Rudolph Christoph Eucken, 1846–1926, German philosopher. Wrote on historical philosophy and his own philosophy of ethical activism. Awarded Nobel prize for literature in 1908.
Josef Kohler, 1849–1919, German jurist and writer. After that, he studies political economy under Schmoller; it might just as well have been in somebody else's course, possibly Brentano's.15Gustav von Schmoller, 1838–1917, German economist.
Lujo Brentano, 1844–1931, German economist. A leading pacifist and opponent of German militarism. Awarded Nobel prize for peace in 1927. After that, Franz studies with Richet how to unravel the mysteries of the soul; again it might just as well have been with another teacher.16Charles-Robert Richet, 1850–1935, French physiologist. Conducted research in serum therapy, epilepsy; discovered phenomenon of anaphylaxis. Awarded 1913 Nobel prize for physiology. Also studied psychic phenomena. He then tries a different method and studies psychoanalysis under Freud.17Sigmund Freud, 1856–1939, Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis. However, none of this satisfies him, and so he continues his quest for the truth by going to the theosophists in London. Then he allows someone who has so far remained in the background of the story to give him esoteric exercises. But Franz soon tires of them and stops doing them. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to continue his quest.
Then Franz happens upon a medium. This psychic has performed the most remarkable manifestations of all sorts for years. And then the medium is exposed after Franz, the hero of the book, has already fallen in love with her. He goes off on a journey, leaving in a hurry as he always does. Well, he departs again all of a sudden, leaving the medium to her fate. Of course, the woman is exposed as a spy—naturally, because this novel was written only just recently.
There are many people like Franz, especially among the current critics of spiritual life. Indeed, this is how we must picture the people who pronounce their judgments before they have penetrated to even the most elementary first stages. They have not gone as far as Hermann Bahr, who after all, by studying expressionism, discovered that there is an inner seeing. Of course, Hermann Bahr's current opinions on many things will be different from those he had in the past. For example, if he had read my book Theosophy back then, he would have judged it to be—well, never mind, it is not necessary to put it into Bahr's words.18Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man, (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1988). Today he would probably say there is an inner eye, an inner seeing, which is really a kind of expressionism. After all, now he has advanced as far as the inner seeing that lives today in expressionism. Well, never mind. These are the ideas Hermann Bahr arrived at inspired by the people of Danzig, and out of these ideas he then wrote this book.
I mention this merely as an example of how difficult it is nowadays for people to find their way to spiritual science. This example also shows that anyone with a clear idea of what spiritual science intends has the responsibility, as far as possible and necessary, to do everything to break down prejudices. We know the foundations of these prejudices. And we know that even the best minds of our age—those who have written countless essays and plays—even if they are sincerely seeking, reach the most elementary level only after their fiftieth year. So we have to admit that it is difficult for spiritual science to gain ground. Even though the simplest souls would readily accept spiritual science, they are held back by people who judge on the basis of motivations and reasons such as the ones I have described.
Well, much is going on in our time, and, as I have often said, materialistic thinking has now become second nature with people. People are not aware that they are thinking up fantastic nonsense when they build their lofty theories. I have often entertained you with describing how the Kant- Laplace theory is taught to children in school. They are carefully taught that the earth at one time was like a solar nebula and rotated and that the planets eventually split off from it. And what could make this clearer than the example of a drop: all you need is a little drop of oil, a bit of cardboard with a cut in the middle for the equatorial plane, and a needle to stick through it. Then you rotate the cardboard with the needle, and you'll see the “planets” splitting off just beautifully. Then the students are told that what they see there in miniature happened long ago on a much larger scale in the universe. How could you possibly refute a proof like this? Of course, there must have been a big teacher out there in the universe to do the rotating. Most people forget this. But it should not be forgotten; all factors must be taken into account. What if there was no big teacher or learned professor standing in the universe to do the rotating? This question is usually not asked because it is so obvious—too obvious. In fact, it is really a great achievement to find thinking people in what is left of idealism and spiritualism who understand the full significance of this matter. Therefore I have to refer again and again to the following fine passage about Goethe by Herman Grimm, which I am also quoting in my next book.19Herman Grimm, Goethe, vol. 2, Lecture 23, p. 171f., Berlin, 1817.
Long ago, in the time of his [Goethe's] youth, the famous Kant-Laplace fantasy [you see, Grimm calls it a fantasy!] about the origin and future destruction of the earth had taken root. Out of the rotating cosmic nebula our children leam about in school, a central nucleus of gas forms, which later becomes the earth. During unfathomable periods of time, this congealing globe goes through all its developmental phases, including that of human habitation, until it finally falls back into the sun as a piece of burnt-out slag. This long, but to the public fully comprehensible, process would need no outside intervention to run its course, except the exertion of some exterior force to keep the sun at an equal temperature. It is impossible to conceive of a more barren prospect for the future than this, urged upon us as scientifically logical and necessary. A carrion bone that a hungry dog would not go near would be a refreshing, appetizing morsel compared to this final excrement of creation our earth is supposed to be when it finally falls back into the sun. The eagerness for knowledge that makes our generation accept and believe theories of this kind is a sign of a sick imagination, a historical phenomenon it will take future scholars a lot of ingenuity to explain.
Indeed, later generations will wonder how we could ever have taken such nonsense for the truth—nonsense that is now taught as truth in all our schools! Herman Grimm goes on to say:
Goethe never entertained such comfortless theories ... Goethe would have taken care not to derive the Darwinists' conclusions from what he had first learnt in this respect from nature and has expressed in his works.
As you know, a more spiritual understanding of Darwinism would have led to quite different results. What Grimm meant here and what I myself have to say is not directed against Darwinism as such, but rather against the materialistic interpretation of it, which Grimm characterized in one of his talks as violating all human dignity by insisting that we have evolved in a straight line from lower animals. As you know, Huxley was widely acclaimed for his answer to all kinds of objections against the evolution of human beings from the apes—I think the objections were raised by a bishop, no less.20Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825–1895, English biologist. Foremost advocate in England of Darwin's theory of evolution. Engaged Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) in famous exchange at Oxford (1860). In later years wrote philosophy. People applauded Huxley's reply that he would rather have descended from an ape and have gradually worked his way up to his current world view from there, than have descended in the way the bishop claimed and then have worked his way down to the bishop's world view. Such anecdotes are often very witty, but they remind me of the story of the little boy who came home from school and explained to his father that he'd just learnt that humans are descended from apes. “What do you mean, you silly boy?” asked the father. “Yes, it's true, father, we do all come from the apes,” said the boy, to which the father replied, “Perhaps that may be the case with you, but definitely not with me!” I have often called your attention to many such logical blunders perpetrated against true thinking and leading to a materialistic interpretation of Darwinism.
But these days, people always have to outdo themselves. We have not yet reached the point where people would say they have gone far enough; no, they want to go still further and outdo themselves grandiosely. For example, there is a man who is furious about the very existence of philosophy and the many philosophers in the world who created philosophies. He rails at all philosophy. Now this man recently published a volley of abuse against philosophy and wanted to find an especially pithy phrase to vent his rage. I will read you his pronouncement so you can see what is thought in our time of philosophy, by which people hope to find the truth and which has achieved a great deal, as you will see from my forthcoming book: “We have no more philosophy than animals.”
In other words, he not only claims we are descended from animals, but goes on to demonstrate that even in our loftiest strivings, namely in philosophy, we have not yet advanced beyond the animals because we cannot know more than the animals know. He is very serious about this: “We have no more philosophy than animals, and only our frantic attempts to attain a philosophy and the final resignation to our ignorance distinguish us from the animals.” That is to say, knowing that we know as little as cattle is the only difference between us and the animals. This man makes short work of the whole history of philosophy by trying to prove that it is nothing but a series of desperate attempts by philosophers to rise above the simple truth that we know no more of the world than the animals.
Now you will probably ask who could possibly have such a distorted view of philosophy? I think it may interest you to know who is able to come up with such an incredible view of philosophy. As a matter of fact, the person in question is a professor of philosophy at the university in Czernowitz! Many years ago he wrote a book called The End of Philosophy and another one called The End of Thinking, and he just recently wrote The Tragicomedy of Wisdom, where you can find the sentences I quoted. This man fulfills the duties of his office as professor of philosophy at a university by convincing his attentive audience that human beings know no more than animals! His name is Richard Wahle, and he is a full professor of philosophy at the university in Czemowitz.21Richard Wahle, Die Tragikomödie der Weisheit: Die Ergebnisse und die Geschichte des Philosophierens (“The Tragicomedy of Wisdom: The Results and History of Philosophy”), Vienna and Leipzig, 1915, p. 132.
We have to look at things like this, for they bear witness to how “wonderfully far” we have advanced. It is important to look a bit more closely at what is necessary in life, namely, that the time has come when humanity has to resolve to take the inner Pentecost seriously, to kindle the light in the soul, and to take in the spiritual. Much will depend on whether there are at least some people in the world who understand how the Pentecost of the soul can and must be celebrated in our time.
I do not know how long it will be before my book is ready, but I have to stay here until it is finished, and so we may be able to meet again next week for another lecture.
Das Pfingstfest, ein Merkzeichen für die Unvergänglichkeit unseres Ich
Wie in früheren Zeiten auch in dieser schicksaltragenden Zeit in gewöhnlichem Sinne etwa eine Pfingstbetrachtung zu halten, scheint mir dieser Zeit nicht so ganz angemessen; denn wir leben eben in einer Zeit schwerer Menschheitsprüfungen, und da ist es nicht möglich, immer zu suchen nach den bloß erhebenden Gefühlen, die unsere Seele warm machen, da wir ja doch im Grunde genommen, wenn wir richtiges, wahres Gefühl haben, in keinem Augenblick des großen Schmerzes und Leides der Zeit vergessen können, und es in gewissem Sinne sogar egoistisch ist, dieses Schmerzes und dieses Leides vergessen zu wollen und sich nur gewissermaßen erhebenden, die Seele wärmenden Betrachtungen hinzugeben. Daher wird es auch heute angemessener sein, über einiges zu sprechen, was der Zeit dienen kann, dienen kann insoferne, als wir ja gesehen haben aus so mancherlei Betrachtungen gerade, die wir hier in der letzten Zeit angestellt haben, wie schon in der geistigen Verfassung viele der Gründe zu suchen sind dafür, daß wir nun in einer so schweren Leidenszeit leben, und wie sehr es notwendig ist, daran zu denken, daß an der Entwickelung der menschlichen Seele in entsprechender Zeit gearbeitet werde, damit die Menschheit besseren Zeiten entgegengehen könne. Aber ausgehen möchte ich doch wenigstens von einigen Gedanken, welche unsere Sinne hinlenken können zu dem, was mit einem solchen Feste, wie es das Pfingstfest ist, gemeint ist.
Es gibt ja drei bedeutsame Feste im Jahreslaufe: das Weihnachtsfest, das Osterfest, das Pfingstfest. Und wenn man nicht so wie die meisten Zeitmenschen seine Gefühle abgestumpft hat für dasjenige, was aus dem Sinn der Menschheits- und Weltenentwickelung mit solchen Festen gemeint ist, so muß man eigentlich den gewaltigen Unterschied dieser drei Feste wohl empfinden. Sie drücken sich ja schließlich in der äußeren Symbolik dieser Festlichkeiten aus, diese verschiedenen Empfindungen gegenüber den drei Festen. Wir sehen das Weihnachtsfest gefeiert als ein Fest vor allen Dingen mit der Freude für die Kinder, als ein Fest, in dem Ja in unseren Zeiten, wenn auch nicht immer, der Weihnachtsbaum eine Rolle spielt, der hereingetragen ist aus der schnee- und eiserfüllten Natur in den Hausraum. Und wir erinnern uns dabei der Weihnachtsspiele, die wir ja gerade in unserem Kreise mehrfach gepflegt haben, die erhoben haben durch Jahrhunderte hindurch das einfachste Menschengemüt, indem sie dieses einfachste Menschengemüt hingelenkt haben zu dem Großen, das dadurch geschehen ist, daß einmal im Laufe der Erdenentwickelung zu Bethlehem Jesus von Nazareth, das heißt aus Nazareth, geboren worden ist. Die Geburt des Jesus von Nazareth ist ein Fest, an das sich in einer gewissen Weise wie naturgemäß angeschlossen hat eine Empfindungswelt, die aus dem Lukas-Evangelium heraus geboren ist, aus jenen Teilen des Lukas-Evangeliums, die sozusagen am allervolkstümlichsten, am allerleichtesten verständlich sind, also gewissermaßen ein Fest des am allgemeinsten Menschlichen, verständlich, wenigstens bis zu einem gewissen Grade, für das Kind, verständlich für den Menschen, der sich sein kindliches Gemüt bewahrt hat, und dennoch hereintragend in dieses kindliche Gemüt ein Großes, ein Ungeheures, das wir dadurch ins Bewußtsein aufnehmen.
Wir sehen dann das Osterfest gefeiert, das uns, trotzdem es gefeiert wird gegenüber der erwachenden Natur, an die Pforte des Todes führt, jenes Osterfest, das gegenüber dem Weihnachtsfeste vor allen Dingen so charakterisiert werden kann, daß man sagt: Hat das Weihnachtsfest viel Liebliches, viel in allgemeinster Weise zu dem menschlichen Herzen Sprechendes, so hat das Osterfest etwas unendlich Erhabenes. Etwas von einer ungeheuren Größe muß durch die Menschenseele ziehen, die das Osterfest in einer richtigen Weise feiern kann. Wir werden herangeführt an die ungeheuer große Idee, daß das göttliche Wesen herabgestiegen ist, sich verkörpert hat in einem Menschenleibe, daß es durch den Tod gegangen ist. Das ganze Rätsel des Todes und der Bewahrung des ewigen Lebens der Seele im Tode, all dieses Erhabene tritt uns durch das Osterfest an die Seele heran. Ganz tief wird man diese festlichen Zeiten nur empfinden können, wenn man sich an manches erinnert, was uns gerade durch die Geisteswissenschaft nahetreten kann. Man bedenke nur, wie eng dieses Weihnachtsfest in den Vorstellungen, die es entwickelt, zusammenhängt mit all den Festen, die im Zusammenhang mit Heilands-Geburten überhaupt gefeiert worden sind. Mit dem Mithras-Fest hängt es zusammen, wo der Mithras geboren wird in einer Felsenhöhle. All dieses bezeugt uns ein inniges Zusammenhängen mit der Natur. Gewissermaßen ein Fest, das zwar an die Natur herantritt, wie es sich auch im Weihnachtsbaum symbolisiert - und die Geburt führt uns ja auch vorstellungsgemäß an das unmittelbar Natürliche heran -, das aber, weil es ja eine Geburt des Jesus von Nazareth ist, an die sich so viel für uns gerade aus der Geisteswissenschaft heraus anschließt, wiederum eben viel Geistiges in sich enthält. Und erinnern wir uns, wie wir öfter gesagt haben, daß der Geist der Erde eigentlich zur Winterzeit aufwacht, daß er am regsten in derjenigen Zeit ist, in der die äußere Natur wie schlafend und wie eisig erscheint, so können wir uns sagen, daß wir gerade durch das Weihnachtsfest in die elementarische Natur hineingeführt werden, und daß, indem die Weihnachtskerzen entzündet werden, sie uns erscheinen sollen wie ein Symbolum gerade dafür, wie der Geist aufwacht in der Finsternis der Winternacht, der Geist in der Natur. Und wollen wir an den Menschen herantreten und das Weihnachtsfest zu dem Menschen in eine Beziehung bringen, dann müssen wir sagen: Wir können das vor allen Dingen dadurch, daß wir gedenken dessen, wodurch der Mensch mit der Natur auch dann noch zusammenhängt, wenn er sich geistig, wie im Schlafe, von der Natur getrennt hat, wenn er geistig in seinem Ich und seinem astralischen Leib aufgestiegen ist in die geistige Welt. Sein Ätherleib bleibt als Geistiges an den äußeren physischen Naturleib gebunden, und sein Ätherleib stellt gerade dar dasjenige, was in ihm ist von der elementarischen Natur, von dem Elementarischen, das auflebt im Innern der Erde, wenn die Erde in Winters-Eisigkeit gehüllt ist. Man sagt mehr als einen bloßen Vergleich, man sagt eine tiefe Wahrheit, wenn man sagt: Neben allem übrigen ist das Weihnachtsfest zugleich wie ein Gedenkzeichen dafür, daß der Mensch eine ätherische, elementarische Natur hat, einen ätherischen Leib hat, durch den er mit dem Elementarischen der Natur zusammenhängt.
Und nehmen Sie all das zusammen, was über die allmähliche Ablähmung und Abdämpfung der Menschheitskräfte gesagt worden ist im Laufe vieler Jahre schon, so werden Sie auf den Gedanken kommen können, wie nahe all die Kräfte, die in unserem astralischen Leibe leben, im Grunde genommen stehen zu dem, was die abdämpfenden, die todbringenden Ereignisse für den Menschen sind. Dadurch, daß wir unseren astralischen Leib ausbilden müssen während unseres Lebens, daß wir in ihm das Geistige aufnehmen müssen, dadurch tragen wir ja die Todeskeime in uns hinein. Es ist ganz unrichtig, zu glauben, daß der Tod mit dem Leben nur in äußerlicher Weise zusammenhängt: Er hängt in innerlichster Weise, wie oftmals gesagt worden ist in unserem Kreise, mit ihm zusammen. Und unser Leben ist nur deshalb so, wie es ist, weil wir so sterben können, wie wir sterben. Aber dies hängt für den Menschen mit der ganzen Entwickelung seines astralischen Leibes zusammen. Und es ist wiederum mehr als ein Vergleich, wenn wir uns sagen: Es ist das Osterfest wie ein Symbolum für alles dasjenige, was mit der astralischen Natur des Menschen zusammenhängt, mit derjenigen Natur, durch die er sich in jedem Schlafe entfernt von seinem physischen Leibe und in die geistige Welt eintritt, in diejenige Welt, aus der heruntergekommen ist jenes geistig-göttliche Wesen, das durch den Jesus von Nazareth selber den Tod erfahren hat. Und würde man in einer Zeit sprechen, in der der Sinn für das Geistige mehr lebendig ist als in unserer Zeit, so würde schon dasjenige, was ich eben gesagt habe, mehr genommen werden als eine Wirklichkeit, während es vielleicht in unserer Zeit mehr als eine bloße Symbolik genommen wird. Und man würde einsehen, daß gerade mit der Einsetzung des Weihnachtsfestes, des Osterfestes auch gemeint ist, der Menschheit Erinnerungszeichen dafür zu geben, wie sie mit der elementarischen, wie sie mit der geistigen und physisch todbringenden Natur zusammenhängt, oder gewissermaßen Erinnerungszeichen dafür zu geben, daß der Mensch ein Geistiges in seinem Ätherleibe und in seinem astralischen Leibe in sich trägt. Nur vergessen sind diese Dinge in unseren Tagen. Sie werden wiederum an die Oberfläche kommen. wenn die Menschheit sich entschließen wird, für solche geistigen Dinge sich Verständnis zu erwerben.
Wir tragen nun außer dem ätherischen Leibe und dem astralischen Leibe als Geistiges vor allen Dingen unser Ich in uns. Wir kennen die komplizierte Natur dieses Ich. Wir wissen aber auch, wie dieses Ich es ist, das von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation geht, wie die inneren Kräfte dieses Ich selbst bauend und bildend an demjenigen sind, das wir mit jeder neuen Inkarnation gewissermaßen anziehen. In diesem Ich erstehen wir aus jedem Tode von neuem zur Vorbereitung für eine neue Inkarnation. Dieses Ich ist auch dasjenige, was uns zu einer individuellen Wesenheit macht. Können wir sagen, daß uns unser Ätherleib in gewissem Sinne das Geburtsartige repräsentiert, das mit den elementarischen Kräften der Natur zusammenhängt, daß uns unser astralischer Leib das Todbringende symbolisiert, welches mit dem höheren Geistigen zusammenhängt, so können wir sagen, daß uns das Ich repräsentiert unser ständiges Wiederauferstehen im Geistigen, unser Wiederaufleben im Geistigen, in der gesamten geistigen Welt, die weder Natur ist, noch Sternenwelt ist, sondern dasjenige, was alles durchdringt. Und ebenso, wie man das Weihnachtsfest mit dem Ätherleib, das Osterfest mit dem astralischen Leib zusammenbringen kann, kann man das Pfingstfest mit dem Ich zusammenbringen, als dasjenige Fest, das uns die Unvergänglichkeit unseres Ich darstellt, das ein Merkzeichen für diese unvergängliche Welt unseres Ich ist, das ein Merkzeichen zugleich dafür ist, daß wir als Menschen nicht nur im allgemeinen Naturleben mitleben, nicht bloß durch Tode gehen, sondern daß wir als Menschen ein unsterbliches, immer wieder erstehendes individuelles Wesen sind. Und wie schön ist im Grunde genommen in der weiteren Ausgestaltung der Weihnachts-, Oster- und Pfingstidee dieses zum Ausdruck gekommen! Denken Sie sich: Das Weihnachtsfest steht im Zusammenhange mit den Erdenereignissen ganz unmittelbar, so wie es als Weihnachtsfest unter uns ist; es schließt sich unmittelbar an die Wintersonnenwende an, das heißt an diejenige Zeit, in welcher die Erde in tiefste Finsternis gehüllt ist. Gewissermaßen der GesetzmäRigkeit des Erdendaseins folgt man mit dem Weihnachtsfest: Wenn die Nächte am längsten, die Tage am kürzesten sind, wenn die Erde erstarrt ist, da zieht man sich in sich zurück und sucht das Geistige auf, insoferne es in der Erde lebt. Also ein Fest, das sozusagen an den Geist der Erde gebunden ist. Mit dem Weihnachtsfest werden wir gewissermaßen immer wieder und wiederum erinnert, wie wir als Erdenmenschen der Erde angehören, wie der Geist aus den Höhen der Welt herunterziehen mußte und irdische Gestalt annehmen mußte, um mit Erdenkindern selber Erdenkind zu sein.
Anders mit dem Osterfest! Das Osterfest, Sie wissen es, ist angeknüpftan die Beziehung von Sonne und Mond. Es ist am ersten Sonntag nach dem Frühlingsvollmonde, dem Vollmonde, der auf den 21. März folgt. Also aus der Verhältnisstellung der Sonne zum Mond sehen wir das Osterfest festgesetzt. Wir sehen also, in welch wunderbarer Weise das Weihnachtsfest an das Irdische, das Osterfest an das Kosmische angeknüpft ist. Wir werden gewissermaßen beim Weihnachtsfest an das Heiligste der Erde, beim Osterfest an das Heiligste des Himmels erinnert. In einer wunderschönen Weise hat sich verbunden für das christliche Pfingsten der Gedanke an etwas, das, man möchte sagen, noch über den Sternen ist. Das allgemein-geistige Weltenfeuer, das sich individualisiert und in den feurigen Zungen auf die Apostel herniederkommt, das Feuer, das weder bloß himmlisch, noch bloß irdisch ist, weder kosmisch, noch bloß tellurisch ist, das Feuer, das alles durchdringt, und das Feuer, das sich zugleich individualisiert und zu jedem einzelnen Menschen hingeht! An die ganze Welt angeschlossen ist das Pfingstfest. Wie das Weihnachtsfest an die Erde, wie das Osterfest an die Sternenwelt, so ist das Pfingstfest angeschlossen unmittelbar an den Menschen, insofern er den Funken des geistigen Lebens empfängt aus allen Welten. Wir sehen gewissermaßen dasjenige, was der Menschheit allgemein gegeben ist, indem der Gottmensch herunterzieht auf die Erde, für jeden einzelnen Menschen zubereitet in der feurigen Zunge des Pfingstfestes. Wir sehen da dasjenige repräsentiert in der feurigen Zunge, was im Menschen, in Welt und Sternen ist. Und so erhält gerade für denjenigen, der nach dem Geistigen sucht, dieses Pfingstfest einen besonders tiefen Inhalt, der immer wieder auffordert, neu nach dem Geistigen zu suchen. Ich möchte sagen, in unserer Zeit ist es vonnöten, diese Gedanken, auch diese festlichen Gedanken noch um ein Stückchen tiefer zu nehmen, als man sie in anderen Zeiten nimmt. Denn es wird viel davon abhängen, wie tief man solche Gedanken nehmen kann, in welcher Weise wir wiederum herauskommen aus den schmerzlich niederschlagenden Ereignissen dieser Zeit. Die Seelen werden sich herausarbeiten müssen, das fühlt man in einzelnen Kreisen heute schon. Und ich möchte sagen, gerade derjenige, der der Geisteswissenschaft nahegetreten ist, sollte in erhöhtem Maße mitfühlen diese Notwendigkeit der Zeit, die man ausdrücken kann als Notwendigkeit, das geistige Leben überhaupt wiederum zu beleben, hinauszukommen über den Materialismus. Man wird über den Materialismus nur hinauskommen, wenn der gute Wille dazu vorhanden ist, die geistige Welt in sich zu entfachen, gewissermaßen das Pfingstfest wirklich innerlich zu feiern und es innerlich ernst zu nehmen.
Wir haben ja gerade in den Betrachtungen, die wir hier in den letzten Stunden angestellt haben, gesehen, wie schwer es der Menschheit heute gerade durch die Zeitverhältnisse wird, auf diesem Gebiete das Richtige zu finden. Auf der einen Seite haben wir heute eine Entwickelung von Kräften, die nicht genug zu bewundern sind, für die nicht genug Gefühle aufgefunden werden können, um ihnen entgegenzukommen. Aber wenn einmal Gefühle so notwendig werden für das Geistige, dann wird man schon sehen, wie notwendig es ist, daß dieses innere Pfingstfest von der Menschenseele gefeiert werden könne, daß die Menschenseele dieses innere Pfingstfest nicht vergesse. Nicht Sie, die jahrelang teilgenommen haben an diesen Betrachtungen, aber andere könnten leicht meinen, es läge etwas Hypochondrisches, etwas von Kritikasterei in manchem, was in den letztverflossenen Betrachtungen hier vorgebracht worden ist. Es scheint mir dies nicht der Fall zu sein, sondern es scheint mir im Gegenteil durch und durch notwendig zu sein, daß auf solche Dinge hingesehen wird, wie sie eben gerade in den letzten Betrachtungen vorgebracht worden sind, damit man weiß, wo man gerade geistig anzugreifen hat im Entwickelungsgange der Menschheit. Und ich möchte sagen: Es sehen schon auch einzelne andere, worauf es in unserer Gegenwart ankommt.
Eine hübsche Broschüre ist erschienen von dem Urenkel Schillers, Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm: «Kultur- Aberglaube», im Forum-Verlag in München. Ich mußte mich erinnern beim Lesen dieser Broschüre an manches, was ich genötigt war, zu Ihnen hier zu sprechen. Davon zu sprechen war ich Ja genötigt, wie Geisteswissenschaft nicht bloß unlebendig bleiben soll, nicht bloß eine Theorie bleiben, sondern einfließen soll in die Seele, so daß sie unser Denken belebt, so daß dieses Denken wirklich umsichtig wird, beweglich wird, um in die Aufgaben der Gegenwart eindringen zu können. Lassen Sie mich gerade im Anschluß an diesen Satz von der Notwendigkeit der Belebung des Denkens einige Sätze aus der Broschüre «Kultur-Aberglaube» von Alexander von GleichenRußwurm anführen. Er sagt:
«Denn, wenn uns alle ein Teil der tragischen Schuld in dieser furchtbaren Tragödie belastet, so ist es, weil wir alle in ganz Europa trotz Kultur, Schulen und Bildungsmöglichkeiten das selbständige Denken immer mehr eingebüßt haben.
Gedankenfreiheit, umsonst hatten dich die größten Dichter im Menschheitsnamen gefordert. Du erschlafftest, erstarbst, du sankst dahin und warst wie tot! Unfrei plapperten wir nach, gebunden war unsere Denkkraft, lahm und müd.
Wir hatten zu allem Zeit, Lust und Ehrgeiz, außer dem eigentlichen Denken. Sogar hier» — wohlgemerkt, nicht ich sage es: der Schiller-Enkel Gleichen-Rußwurm sagt es! - «im einstigen Land der Denker war der Gedanke der erhabene Fremdling, ein seltener, nur mit Unbehagen gesehener Gast.
Lesen und Schreiben nützt uns nicht, ja es schadet nur, wenn wir nicht zu denken verstehen.
In letzter Zeit war alles dazu angetan, das Denken abzugewöhnen. Unsere Erziehung, Kunst, Erholung, Arbeit, Geselligkeit, Reisen und Zuhausesein.
Echte Kultur aber sollte vor allem denken lehren, denn bloße Gefühle und Instinkte genügen nicht, um ein erträgliches Zusammenleben der Menschen untereinander, der Völker untereinander zu ermöglichen.
Dazu nötig ist ein gesunder, sorgfältig geschulter politischer Verstand.»
Und weit zurück, im Grunde genommen, verfolgt GleichenRußwurm, der Urenkel Schillers, dieses, daß wir verlernt haben zu denken. Er sagt:
«Seit dem Wiener Kongreß - 1815 — haben sich die Völker eine gewisse Mühe gegeben, sich miteinander auf diesem Stern häuslich einzurichten. Unzählige Verträge, Versuche aller Art zeugen davon. Man glaubte durch Erringen von Verfassungen, Wahlrechten wirklichen Anteil an der Regierung zu erhalten und sein Schicksal selbst zu bestimmen», - und so weiter.
Aber dann sagt er: Ohne das Denken geht es nicht. — Er sagt das, indem er ein merkwürdiges Bild entwirft von der Gegenwart, von jener Gegenwart, an die wir immer denken müssen, die wir eigentlich in keinem Augenblick vergessen können.
«Nein! Wir hatten es noch nicht herrlich weit gebracht, wenn das alles Wirklichkeit werden konnte, was sonst nur hirnverbrannte Dichter gefabelt, ein solch namenlos tolles Durcheinander, phantastischer als je zur Zeit der Völkerwanderung. Senegalneger mordeten unsere Dichter, Kunstgelehrte putzten Pferde, Professoren hüteten Schafe.» - Es ist wahrhaftig nicht zum Lachen! - «Theaterdirektoren gaben telephonisch Todesbefehle weiter, fromme Inder versuchten auf unseren Schlachtfeldern nach ihrem uralten Ritus korrekt zu sterben. Kunstbauten sanken in Trümmer und Unterstände entstanden, würdig der Höhlenmenschen. Der Millionär hungerte und kämpfte mit Ungeziefer, indes der Bettler sich im alten Schloß an verlassene Prunktafeln setzte. Zweifelhafte Existenzen wurden rehabilitiert und die harmlosesten Leute schmachteten als Zivilgefangene im Gefängnis und starben darin.»
Es ist gewissermaßen dasjenige, was anregte den Enkel Schillers, den Gedanken von der Notwendigkeit einer Belebung des Denkens zu hegen. Ich kann allerdings in seiner Broschüre und auch in seinen sonstigen Schriften nicht finden, daß er darauf ausgeht, die richtigen Quellen zur Belebung des Denkens zu suchen.
Ja, das aber ist auch gar nicht so leicht in der Gegenwart, das Pfingstfest in der Seele zu feiern. Hier habe ich das Buch eines Mannes, der sich eigentlich in der letzten Zeit ganz redliche Mühe gegeben hat, sogar Goethe zu verstehen, soweit er das eben in seinen Möglichkeiten finden konnte, der sogar sich redliche Mühe gegeben hat, etwas an unsere Geisteswissenschaft heranzukommen. Und gerade dieser Mann, der sich, wie gesagt, in den letzten Jahren redliche Mühe gegeben hat, Goethe zu verstehen, der jetzt ungeheuer froh ist, daß er anfängt, Goethe zu verstehen, gerade dieser Mann - es ist sehr, sehr charakteristisch für die Schwierigkeiten, die der Mensch hat, hineinzukommen in ein geistiges Leben heute — hat, bevor er das getan hat, was ich Ihnen jetzt erzählt habe, geschrieben 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 9 Romane, 1, 2, 3 — 14 Theaterstücke, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 EssayBücher. Und jetzt sagt er in dem letzten Buch, welches also das zehnte Essay-Buch ist, daß er nun froh ist, daß er endlich an Goethe herangekommen ist und versuchen kann, Goethe zu verstehen. Und man sieht schließlich auch aus diesem zehnten Essay-Buch, daß er sich alle redliche Mühe gibt, Goethe zu verstehen. Aber bedenken Sie doch, was das alles heißt, daß ein Mann, der heute so viele Romane, so viele Theaterstücke geschrieben hat, der ein ganz bekannter Mann ist, jetzt in seinem etwa fünfzigsten oder einundfünfzigsten Jahre gesteht, daß er nun dazu kommt, Goethe einigermaßen zu verstehen. Es ist das eine bedeutsame Tatsache. Nun, dieses neueste Buch, das hat den Titel «Expressionismus». Der Mann, der es geschrieben hat, heißt Hermann Bahr. Und Hermann Bahr ist auch der Mann, von dem ich Ihnen sage, daß er sich alle redliche Mühe gibt, jetzt ein bißchen in die Lektüre Goethes hineinzukommen. Es sind da noch nicht einmal alle Theaterstücke angeführt, denn er hat noch mehr geschrieben, nur die früheren verleugnet er. Es ist mir auch gerade nicht schwer, über diesen Mann zu sprechen, aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil ich ihn kenne seit seiner Studentenzeit, und weil ich ihn ganz gut früher gekannt habe. Sehen Sie, das ist ein Mann, der eigentlich über alles geschrieben und mancherlei sehr Gutes geschrieben hat und der von sich sagt: Er war eigentlich sein Leben lang, weil er einmal in der Zeit des Impressionismus geboren war, Impressionist. Machen wir uns nun mit ein paar Worten klar, was eigentlich Impressionismus ist. Wir wollen jetzt nicht über Kunstfragen streiten, aber machen wir uns klar, was gerade solche Leute, wie Hermann Bahr einer ist, denken über Impressionismus. Wenn man noch zurückdenkt an die Kunst Goethes, so sehen ja Goethe — auch Schiller, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Dante, wen Sie wollen - das Große ihrer Kunst darinnen, daß sie die äußere Welt wahrnehmen und sie dann geistig verarbeiten. Das äußere Wahrgenommene vereinigt sich in der Kunst mit dem, was im Geistigen lebt. Kunstwerke, die weniger dasjenige anstreben, was Vereinigung des Geistes mit der Natur ist, ließ Goethe gar nicht als Kunstwerke gelten. Aber in der neueren Zeit ist etwas heraufgestiegen, was man Impressionismus genannt hat, und Hermann Bahr war aufgewachsen mit dem Impressionismus und war selber, wie er sich bewußt ist, Impressionist in allem. Wenn er Gemälde beurteilt hat - er hat ja viele Essays über die Malerei geschrieben -, war es vom Standpunkte des Impressionismus aus. Wenn er selber darüber geschrieben hat, wollte er Impressionist sein, und er war es in seiner Art, er ist es in seiner Art. Nun, was versteht ein solcher Mensch unter Impressionismus in der Kunst? Ja, unter Impressionismus versteht er, daß man eigentlich eine heillose Angst davor hat, aus der Seele selber etwas zu dem dazuzutun, was der äußere Eindruck von der Natur hergibt. Ja nichts von der Seele selber hinzutun! Musik könnte ja dann eigentlich überhaupt nicht zustande kommen; aber die Musik schließt er aus. Architektur kann auch nicht zustande kommen. Architektur und Musik können daher auch niemals rein impressionistisch sein. Aber in der Malerei, in der Dichtung, da geht es schon. Also möglichst ausschließen dasjenige, was die Seele selbst gibt! Daher versuchte die impressionistische Malerei gewissermaßen ein Bild von irgend etwas darzustellen in dem Augenblicke, wo man’s noch gar nicht recht angeschaut hat, wo man noch gar nicht irgendwie den Eindruck innerlich verarbeitet hat. Wie gesagt: Anschauen — aber nun, möglichst bevor man irgend etwas von sich zu dem Bild hinzugebracht hat, das den Eindruck hervorruft, es gleich festhalten: Impressionismus! Diesen Impressionismus hat man natürlich in der verschiedensten Weise aufgefaßt; aber das ist das Wesentliche.
Hermann Bahr ist ein Mensch, der, wie ich einmal auch schon in Berlin in einem öffentlichen Vortrag gesagt habe, immer mit größtem Enthusiasmus für dasjenige eintritt, was er augenblicklich für richtig hält. Hermann Bahr war, als er zuerst an die Hochschule in Wien gekommen war, sehr, sehr eingenommen für den Sozialismus, schwärmte für den Sozialismus, war einer der glühendsten Sozialdemokraten, die man sich denken kann. Eines der verleugneten Dramen, «Die neuen Menschen», ist vom sozialistischen Standpunkte aus geschrieben. Ich glaube nicht, daß man es heute noch bekommt, es sind Reden darinnen, sozialdemokratische Reden, die Männer und Frauen halten, die über viele, viele Seiten gehen; das kann man überhaupt nicht aufführen. Dann entwickelte sich in Wien mehr die deutschnationale Bewegung. Hermann Bahr wurde ein glühender Nationaler und schrieb seine «Große Sünde». Die steht natürlich nicht drinnen, die ist heute auch verleugnet. Dann wurde Hermann Bahr, nachdem er Sozialist und Nationaler gewesen war, so alt, wie man in Österreich wird, wenn man gemustert wird, wurde Soldat mit neunzehn Jahren. Er hatte den Sozialismus und den Nationalismus hinter sich, wurde nun Soldat und wurde ein «glühender» Soldat, eignete sich eine ganz soldatische Weltanschauung an. Er war ein Jahr Soldat, Einjährig-Freiwilliger. Dann ging er für kurze Zeit nach Berlin. In Berlin wurde er - - nicht glühender Berliner! Das konnte er am allerwenigsten leiden! Also glühender Berliner wurde er nie. Aber dann ging er nach Paris. Und da wurde er glühender Anhänger von Maurice Barr&s und ähnlichen Leuten, wurde auch - Boulanger hat dazumal gerade eine große Rolle gespielt - glühender Boulangist. Ich möchte nicht alte Dinge aufrühren und es Ihnen deshalb auch nicht erzählen, welche glühenden boulangistischen Briefe dazumal der enthusiasmierte Hermann Bahr aus Paris schrieb. Dann ging er nach Spanien, wurde entflammt für die spanische Kultur, so stark, daß er Artikel schrieb gegen den Sultan von Marokko und die Gemeinheit, die dieser beging gegenüber der spanischen Politik. Dann ging er wiederum zurück nach Berlin und redigierte hier kurz an der «Freien Bühne», wurde aber nicht glühender Berliner. Dann ging er zurück und entdeckte nacheinander in verschiedenen Stadien Österreich! Er ist nämlich ein Linzer. Ach, pardon, er ging ja auch nach Petersburg und schrieb sein Buch über Rußland, wurde glühender Russe. Das liegt noch dazwischen. Dann ging er zurück und entdeckte Österreich in den verschiedensten Partien, in allen Kulturgeschichten und so weiter. Immer sehr geistreich, manchmal geistvoll. Bahr ist wirklich immer bestrebt gewesen, dasjenige, was er gesehen hat, so zu geben, daß er es nicht geistig weiter verarbeitete, sondern nur den ersten Eindruck gab. Nun denken Sie sich, das geht ja auch sehr gut, wenn man nur den ersten Eindruck gibt. Sozialist: nichts weiter als den ersten Eindruck; Deutsch-Nationaler: nichts weiter als den ersten Eindruck; Boulangist: nichts weiter als den ersten Eindruck; Russe, Spanier und so weiter. Und jetzt hat er die verschiedenen Sphären des Österreichertums gesucht. Eine außerordentlich interessante Erscheinung in unserem Geistesleben, da ist gar kein Zweifel! - Nun denken Sie, da ist er fünfzig Jahre alt geworden, und nun plötzlich taucht der Expressionismus auf, das Gegenteil des Impressionismus.
Hermann Bahr spricht schon seit einer Reihe von Jahren - oder sprach schon seit einer Reihe von Jahren - immer in Danzig. Da fährt er immer durch Berlin durch! Die Danziger hat er nämlich sehr gern. Er behauptet, daß, wenn er vor den Danzigern spreche, sie ihm immer besonders geistvolle Gedanken eingäben, was eigentlich sonst in gar keiner deutschen Stadt der Fall wäre, wie just in Danzig. So wurde er aufgefordert - nun auch von den Danzigern -, über den Expressionismus zu reden. Aber er war sein ganzes Leben lang Impressionist! Nun, nicht wahr, man muß sich nur denken, was das für Hermann Bahr hieß. Er ist sein ganzes Leben Impressionist. Jetzt taucht der Expressionismus erst auf. Wie er ganz jung war und anfing, Impressionist zu werden, da waren die Leute von den impressionistischen Bildern keineswegs entzückt, sondern das ganze Philisterium sah - selbstverständlich andere auch - die impressionistischen Bilder für eine Kleckserei an. Das mag ja auch in bezug auf manches richtig sein, darüber wollen wir uns, wie gesagt, jetzt nicht streiten. Aber Hermann Bahr «glühte», und wenn man nur irgend etwas sagte gegen ein impressionistisches Bild, war man selbstverständlich ein philiströser, ein ganz furchtbarer Schafskopf, der nichts anderes behält als dasjenige, was seit uralten Zeiten hergebracht ist, der sich nicht aufschwingen kann zu den Fortschritten der Menschheit. Ja, solche Reden konnte man von Hermann Bahr viele hören. Mancher war da ein Schafskopf!
Es gab in Wien ein Kaffeehaus, das sogenannte Cafe Griensteidl, da wurden diese Fragen immer entschieden. Heute besteht es nicht mehr; es war vis-a-vis dem alten Kleinen Burgtheater, am Michaeler Platz. Karl Kraus, den man in Wien auch den «frechen Kraus» nennt, der kleine Hefte herausgibt, schrieb dann ein Büchelchen über das Café Griensteidl, das schon im Jahre 1848 Lenau und Anastasius Grün zu seinen Gästen hatte. Als es demoliert wurde, schrieb er ein Büchelchen: «Die demolierte Literatur». - Da konnte man schon viel hören von dem Aufkommen des Impressionismus. Nun redete Hermann Bahr seit Jahren viel über Impressionismus, der sich so durchzog wie ein roter Faden durch seine übrigen Verwandlungen. Nun wurde er aber selber älter. Es kamen die Expressionisten, Kubisten, Futuristen, die wieder sagten, die Impressionisten von der Sorte des Hermann Bahr wären ganz öde Schafsköpfe, die das Frühere nur aufwärmen. Und nun fand Hermann Bahr, daß das im Grunde genommen ja die andere Welt gar nicht so furchtbar berührt: Dieselbe Erscheinung! Aber ihn ärgerte es, denn er sagte sich: Ich hab’s ja in der Jugend ebenso gemacht, ich habe die anderen alle Schafsköpfe genannt, und jetzt soll ich auch ein Schafskopf sein. Und warum sollen diejenigen, die mich jetzt Schafskopf nennen, weniger recht haben, mich Schafskopf zu nennen, als ich, der ich die anderen dazumal Schafskopf genannt habe? — Nicht wahr, also eine schlimme Geschichte! Da gab es natürlich kein anderes Mittel, sintemalen Hermann Bahr auch noch aufgefordert wurde von den Danzigern, die er so liebte, über den Expressionismus zu reden, als sich mit dem Expressionismus etwas näher zu beschäftigen. Und nun handelt es sich darum, für den Expressionismus eine richtige Formel zu finden. Wirklich, ich mache mich nicht lustig über Hermann Bahr, ich habe ihn sehr gern und ich möchte ihn in jeder Weise verteidigen - ich meine: Ich habe ihn als geistige Erscheinung sehr gern.
Aber nun handelte es sich für ihn darum, mit dem Expressionismus zurechtzukommen. Nicht wahr, fünfzig Jahre alt geworden zu sein, nur um für die folgende Generation ein Schafskopf zu sein, das genügt schließlich einem geistig regsamen Menschen nicht, insbesondere wenn man vor den Danzigern, die einem so gute Gedanken eingeben, über den Expressionismus zu sprechen hat. Nun, vielleicht haben Sie schon expressionistische, kubistische, futuristische Bilder gesehen. Die meisten Leute sagen, wenn sie sie sehen: Ja, wir haben uns viel gefallen lassen, aber da können wir schon nicht mehr mitgehen! - Nicht wahr: Leinwand, Striche, weiße, die von oben nach unten gehen, rote Striche hindurch, dann irgendwie noch etwas da drinnen, das nicht erinnert an ein Blatt oder an ein Haus oder an einen Baum oder an einen Vogel, sondern eher an alles zusammen und wiederum an keines von allem. - Aber selbstverständlich konnte Hermann Bahr das nicht so sagen. Ja, was ist das? Nun kam er darauf, was das eigentlich ist, denn er ist wirklich ein Grübler und ist immer mehr zum Grübler geworden durch seine verschiedenen Metamorphosen. Jetzt sagte er sich - unter dem Einfluß der Inspiration der Danziger, selbstverständlich -: Die Impressionisten haben die Natur genommen, sie rasch festgehalten, Ja nichts innerlich verarbeitet; die Expressionisten machen das Gegenteil. - Das machen sie auch! Hermann Bahr hat sie schon verstanden: Sie sehen sich die Natur überhaupt nicht an! Das meine ich jetzt ganz ernst: Sie sehen sich in der Natur überhaupt nichts an, sondern sie sehen nur innerlich. Das heißt also, was da auch draußen ist in der Natur, ob Häuser, Flüsse, Elefanten, Löwen, das interessiert den Expressionisten nicht, denn er sieht innerlich. Nun sagte sich Hermann Bahr: Wenn man innerlich sehen will, dann muß ein innerliches Sehen möglich sein. - Und was tut er? Jetzt wendet er sich an Goethe, liest allerlei bei Goethe wie zum Beispiel das Folgende. Goethe erzählt:
«Ich hatte die Gabe, wenn ich die Augen schloß und mit niedergesenktem Haupte mir in der Mitte des Sehorgans eine Blume dachte, so verharrte sie nicht einen Augenblick in ihrer ersten Gestalt, sondern sie legte sich auseinander und aus ihrem Innern entfalteten sich wieder neue Blumen aus farbigen, wohl auch grünen Blättern; es waren keine natürlichen Blumen, sondern phantastische, jedoch regelmäßig wie die Rosetten der Bildhauer.»
Das konnte Goethe tun: Er schloß die Augen, dachte sich eine Blume - da stand sie auch schon als Geistgestalt; und dann verwandelt sie sich von selber!
«Es war unmöglich, die hervorquellende Schöpfung zu fixieren, hingegen dauerte sie so lange, als mir beliebte, ermattete nicht und verstärkte sich nicht. Dasselbe konnte ich hervorbringen, wenn ich mir den Zierat einer buntgemalten Scheibe dachte, welcher denn ebenfalls aus der Mitte gegen die Peripherie sich immerfort veränderte, völlig wie die in unseren Tagen erst erfundenen Kaleidoskope ..
Hier ist die Erscheinung des Nachbildes, Gedächtnis, produktive Einbildungskraft, Begriff und Idee alles auf einmal im Spiel und manifestiert sich in der eigenen Lebendigkeit des Organs mit vollkommener Freiheit ohne Vorsatz und Leitung.»
Nun, nicht wahr, wenn man mit Goethe und mit der Weltanschauung des neueren Idealismus und Spiritualismus nicht bekannt geworden ist, so ohne weiteres gleich etwas daran zu knüpfen, das geht ja natürlich nicht. Da machte sich Hermann Bahr weiter an die Literatur, kam an den Engländer Galton, der allerlei Statistisches, wie’s dort üblich ist, gesammelt hat über Leute, die innerlich sehen, so wie Goethe auch innerlich gesehen hat, wie es eben aus seiner Beschreibung hervorging. So hat er namentlich es abgesehen auf einen Reverend. Dieser Reverend konnte in der Imagination ein Bild hervorrufen, dann verwandelte sich das Bild selber, und er konnte dann durch seinen Willen es wiederum auf die erste Gestalt zurückfahren. Das beschreibt dieser Reverend sehr schön. Hermann Bahr geht diesen Dingen nach und kommt nach und nach darauf, daß es so etwas wie ein innerliches Sehen gibt. Sie wissen, das, was Goethe da beschreibt —- Goethe wußte ja auch anderes -, das ist nur der allererste Anfang eines inneren Bewegtwerdens des Ätherleibes. Mit solchen elementarsten Sachen fing Hermann Bahr an, sich zu beschäftigen, um den Expressionismus zu verstehen, weil er darauf kam, daß der Expressionismus auf einem solchen innerlichen Sehen elementarster Art beruht. Und jetzt ging er weiter. Jetzt las er den alten Physiologen Johannes Müller, der so wunderschön dieses elementare innere Sehen beschrieben hat in einer Zeit, wo die Naturforschung noch nicht über alle diese Dinge gelacht hat. Und so arbeitet Hermann Bahr sich allmählich zu Goethe durch und findet es außerordentlich anregend, Goethe zu lesen, anzufangen, Goethe zu verstehen und dadurch darauf zu kommen, daß es ein innerliches Sehen gibt. So hat er nun den Expressionismus verstanden: Da braucht man die Natur nicht, sondern da hält man das auf der Leinwand fest, was man so im elementarischen Schauen hat. Es wird sich schon später einmal - ich habe darüber schon einmal hier gesprochen — zu etwas anderem ausbilden. Wenn man darin nicht gleich eine geniale Leistung sieht, sondern einen allerersten Anfang von dem, was kommen soll, so wird man ja vielleicht den Leuten gerechter werden, als sie sich selbst in ihrer Überschätzung werden. Aber Hermann Bahr versteht es so und wird namentlich dazu geführt, wirklich mit einem ungeheuren Enthusiasmus sich zu sagen: Ja, es gibt nicht nur ein äußeres Sehen, wie man mit dem Auge sieht, ein inneres Sehen gibt es! - Sehr schön ist dieses Kapitel über das innere Sehen, und er ist ganz ungeheuer entzückt, als er bei Goethe das Wort «Geistesauge» entdeckt. Denken Sie, wie viele Jahre wir dieses Wort gebrauchen! Wie ich sagte, hat er auch versucht, sich heranzubändigen an das, was unsere Geisteswissenschaft ist. Aus dem Buch geht hervor, daß er bis jetzt das Buch von Eugene Levy gelesen hat, worin dieser meine Weltanschauung schildert. An meine Bücher scheint er noch nicht gekommen zu sein; aber was nicht ist, kann werden. Jedenfalls sieht man, daß sich ein Mensch durch die Schwierigkeiten der Gegenwart hindurcharbeitet, und daß er darauf kommt, zu dem Elementarsten Stellung zu nehmen, zu dem Allerelementarsten. Ich muß das anführen, weil man daraus sieht, wie wahr das ist, was ich öfter gesagt habe: Der Mensch der Gegenwart hat es ja ungeheuer schwer, aus dieser Zeitenbildung heraus zu einem Geistigen zu kommen. Nun denken Sie sich, ein Mensch, der zehn Romane, vierzehn Theaterstücke und so viele EssayBücher geschrieben hat, kommt endlich dazu, Goethe zu lesen und sich durch ihn durchzuarbeiten, und so gewissermaßen spät diesem Buch, das mit ungeheurer Frische geschrieben ist, sieht man an, welche Frohheit er erlebt - nun Goethe zu verstehen. Wahrhaftig, ich habe oftmals mit Hermann Bahr zusammengesessen, es war nicht möglich, mit ihm über Goethe zu reden, denn dazumal war Goethe selbstverständlich ein Schafskopf in seinen Augen, denn er war ja auch von der alten, noch nicht impressionistischen Sorte von Menschen.
Das, glaube ich, muß man sich überlegen, wie schwierig es denjenigen Menschen ist, die aus der heutigen Zeitbildung heraus kommen, sich nur durchzuarbeiten zu dem Elementarsten, was an die Geisteswissenschaft heranführt. Das aber sind die Menschen, die gewissermaßen das öffentliche Urteil in der Hand haben. Denn Hermann Bahr hat, als er dann nach Wien gekommen war, eine sehr tonangebende Wochenschrift, «Die Zeit», redigiert. Wenn heute einer behaupten würde, daß zahlreiche Menschen in der abendländischen Menschheit, auf deren Urteil man viel gibt, nichts von Goethe verstehen und daher auch gar nicht die Wege haben, um von ihrer Bildung aus an die Geisteswissenschaft heranzukommen — man kann natürlich an Geisteswissenschaft auch ohne Bildung herankommen ‚so würde man es nicht glauben. Aber bei Hermann Bahr haben wir den lebendigen Beweis, weil er selber als Fünfzigjähriger gesteht, wie froh er ist, endlich Goethe zu verstehen. Es ist natürlich etwas ungeheuer Trauriges, zu sehen, wie der Mann, der sich durchgearbeitet hat bis zu Goethe, nun froh ist, dasjenige zu finden, was in seiner allernächsten Nähe gesucht worden ist, als er ein junger Mensch war; aber es hat zu gleicher Zeit etwas ungeheuer Belehrendes, etwas ungeheuer Bedeutsames für unser Verständnis der Zeit. Es lehrt uns, wie die tonangebende sogenannte geistige Welt heute in Vorstellungen lebt, die ganz und gar von allem Geistigen entfernt sind; wie solch ein Mensch wie Hermann Bahr erst den Expressionismus nötig hat, um zu sehen, wie einer sich etwas vorstellen und das sogar malen kann, der an der Natur vorbeigeht. Dadurch kommt er darauf, daß es ein inneres Sehen, ein inneres geistiges Auge gibt. Das ist ungeheuer bedeutsam. Aber das hängt innig zusammen mit der Art, wie gerade heute solche Literaten, solche Künstler, solche Kunstbeurteiler heranwachsen. Dafür ist charakteristisch der neueste Roman, den Hermann Bahr geschrieben hat.
Der Roman heißt «Himmelfahrt». Aus dem Schluß des Romans sieht man, daß er jetzt schon anfängt, etwas wie einen glühenden Enthusiasmus nebenbei zu haben — das andere geht alles wie ein roter Faden durch - für den Katholizismus. Das hat er ja früher nicht gehabt. Nun aber, wer Hermann Bahr kennt, der wird nicht zweifeln, daß in dem Franz, den er in diesem neuen Roman beschreibt, etwas von ihm drinnen steckt. Es ist nicht etwa eine Selbstbiographie, ein biographischer Roman, aber es steckt vieles von Hermann Bahr in diesem Franz drin. Aber wie sich solch ein Literat heute entwickelt — nicht einer, der Zeitungsmensch wird, darüber wollen wir nicht reden, wie sich der entwickelt, weil das Wort «entwickelt» seinen ursprünglichen Sinn behalten sollte -, aber so einer, der es wirklich ernst nimmt und ein ehrlicher Sucher ist, wie Hermann Bahr: so etwas färbt doch auf diesen Franz etwas ab. Und den schildert er, wie er sich nach und nach heranentwikkelt hat, wie er gesucht hat. Wie schildert er nun diesen Franz, auf den er selber abgefärbt hat? Dieser Franz versucht eigentlich alles zu erfahren, was die Zeit einem geben kann, alles kennenzulernen, überall nach der Wahrheit zu suchen. So hat er die Wissenschaften abgesucht, war erst Botaniker bei Wiesner — Wiesner war ein sehr berühmter Botaniker in Wien -, wurde dann Chemiker bei Ostwald, dann Nationalökonom und so weiter. Also so geht er durch alles das, was die Zeit bietet. Er könnte ja auch Gräcist werden bei Wilamowitz, oder sich Philosophie ansehen bei Eucken oder Kohler. Dann lernt er Nationalökonomie kennen in Schmollers Seminar; es hätte auch bei Brentano oder in irgendeinem anderen Seminar sein können. Dann lernt er kennen, wie man versucht, hinter die Seelengeheimnisse zu kommen bei Richet; es hätte auch bei einem andern sein können. Er suchte auf eine andere Weise bei Freud Psychoanalyse kennenzulernen. Und als ihn dies alles nicht befriedigt, geht er zu den Theosophen nach London. Er sucht also immer nach Wahrheit. Und dann läßt er sich auch einmal von einem, der sich mehr zurückgehalten hat, esoterische Übungen geben. Doch die treibt er nicht lange, die freuen ihn nicht sehr lange. Aber er denkt, doch noch weiter suchen zu müssen.
Zuletzt ist er ja dann hereingefallen, der Franz, denn nachdem er alles mögliche gesucht hat, da kommt er an ein Medium. Dieses Medium macht jahrelang die ausgezeichnetsten Manifestationen, alles mögliche. Dann wird es entlarvt, nachdem sich der Franz, der Held dieses Romans, schon längst in dieses Medium verliebt hatte. Aber er reist ab, er muß rasch abreisen, wie er immer rasch abreisen muß. Nun, er reist auch da rasch ab, überläßt das Medium seinem Schicksal. Die Frau wird selbstverständlich — etwas bringt jeder jetzt der Zeit als Tribut — als Spionin entlarvt. Natürlich, der Roman ist ja auch erst in der allerneuesten Zeit geschrieben.
Aber solcher Menschen gibt es zahlreiche, gerade unter denjenigen, die heute über das geistige Leben urteilen. Und im Grunde genommen: So muß man sich diejenigen vorstellen, die dazu kommen, heute ihr Urteil abzugeben, bevor sie auch nur in die allerersten Elemente hineingedrungen sind — nicht wie Hermann Bahr, der ja am Expressionismus etwas entdeckt davon, daß es ein inneres Schauen gibt, und dazu bringen es ja die anderen, die urteilen, nicht. Hermann Bahr wird heute natürlich einsehen, daß er über manches anders urteilen wird, als er früher geurteilt hat. Früher würde er selbstverständlich, wenn er, sagen wir, meine «Theosophie» in die Hand bekommen hätte, darüber geurteilt haben - na, was weiß ich, es ist ja auch nicht nötig, das gerade mit Hermann Bahrs Worten zu treffen —. Heute würde er sagen: Ja, es gibt ein inneres Auge, es gibt ein inneres Schauen, das ist eben auch so eine Art Expressionismus. — Das ist, weil er gerade bis zu dem inneren Schauen kommt, das sich heute auf dem Wege des Expressionismus auslebt. Aber das macht ja nichts, das sind die Ideen; unter den Inspirationen der Danziger ist Hermann Bahr dazu gekommen und hat dieses Buch daraus gemacht.
Ich wollte Ihnen dies nur als ein Beispiel anführen, wie schwierig es heute ist, sich hindurchzuarbeiten, und wie gerade dem, der eine klare Anschauung, einen klaren Begriff davon hat, was Geisteswissenschaft will, eine Verantwortung obliegt, überall, wo es möglich und nötig ist, alles zu tun dafür, daß die Vorurteile sich zerstreuen. Wenn wir wissen, aus welchen Untergründen diese Vorurteile entstehen, und wie heute die Besten sozusagen, die unzählige Essays und Dramen geschrieben haben, wenn sie ehrliche Sucher sind, nach ihrem fünfzigsten Jahre an die allerelementarsten Dinge herankommen, dann muß man schon sagen: Man begreift, wie schwierig es ist, mit der Geisteswissenschaft heute durchzudringen; denn das einfachste Gemüt würde Geisteswissenschaft natürlich aufnehmen, aber es wird zurückgehalten durch diejenigen Leute, die urteilen aus solchen Untergründen heraus, wie ich es Ihnen dargestellt habe. |
Aber schließlich erleben wir ja in unserer Zeit allerlei, und ich habe öfter darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie, ich möchte sagen, das materialistische Denken unserem Zeitalter schon in Fleisch und Blut übergegangen ist, so daß wirklich die Menschen gar nicht wissen, daß sie eigentlich ein phantastisches Zeug ausdenken, indem sie erhabene Theorien bauen. Ich habe Sie ja öfter unterhalten mit dem, was heute als Kant-Laplacesche Theorie gelehrt wird, was den Kindern in der Schule gezeigt wird. Es wird ihnen so hübsch beigebracht, wie die Erde allmählich wie ein Sonnennebel war, wie sich der gedreht hat, wie sich dann die Planeten abgespalten haben. Und was wäre denn auch einleuchtender, als diese Anschauung des Tropfens: Man braucht nur ein kleines Öltröpfelchen zu nehmen, eine Karte, durchteilen - Äquatorebene -, eine Nadel hinein, dann das drehen, da spalten sich so hübsch die Planetchen ab und dann sagt man: Nun seht ihr, so ist es auch im großen draußen gewesen, wie es sich hier im kleinen vollzieht. -— Wie könnte denn ein Mensch sich dieser Beweisführung entziehen? Nur müßte natürlich ein großer Herr Lehrer da draußen im Weltenall sein, der das gedreht hat, nicht wahr? Das vergißt man meist dabei. Man darf aber nichts vergessen, alle Faktoren müssen in Betracht gezogen werden. Wenn aber nicht ein großer Herr Lehrer oder ein großer Herr Professor im Weltenall steht und dreht? Das vergißt man in der Regel, weil es zu einleuchtend ist. Man möchte sagen, es ist schon ein Großes, wenn sich genügend denkende Menschen aus dem, was vom Idealismus und Spiritualismus da noch geblieben ist, dazu finden, diese Sache in ihrer vollen Bedeutung zu charakterisieren. Und deshalb muß ich immer wieder und wiederum auf den schönen Satz in dem Goethe-Buch von Herman Grimm hinweisen. Ich führte ihn auch jetzt in dem Buch, das demnächst von mir erscheinen wird, an. Herman Grimm sagt:
«Längst hatte, in seinen [Goethes] Jugendzeiten schon die große Laplace-Kant’sche Phantasie» - sehen Sie, Grimm nennt es seine Phantasie! — «von der Entstehung und dem einstigen Untergange der Erdkugel Platz gegriffen. Aus dem in sich rotierenden Weltnebel — die Kinder bringen es bereits aus der Schule mit - formt sich der zentrale Gastropfen, aus dem hernach die Erde wird, und macht als erstarrende Kugel in unfaßbaren Zeiträumen alle Phasen, die Episode der Bewohnung durch das Menschengeschlecht mit inbegriffen, durch, um endlich als ausgebrannte Schlacke in die Sonne zurückzustürzen; ein langer, aber dem heutigen Publikum völlig begreiflicher Prozeß, für dessen Zustandekommen es nun weiter keines äußeren Eingreifens bedürfe, als die Bemühung irgendeiner außenstehenden Kraft, die Sonne in gleicher Heiztemperatur zu erhalten. - Es kann keine fruchtlosere Perspektive für die Zukunft gedacht werden als die, welche uns in dieser Erwartung als wissenschaftlich notwendig heute aufgedrängt werden soll. Ein Aasknochen, um den ein hungriger Hund einen Umweg machte, wäre ein erfrischendes, appetitliches Stück im Vergleich zu diesem letzten Schöpfungsexkrement, als welches unsere Erde schließlich der Sonne wieder anheimfiele, und es ist die Wißbegier, mit der unsere Generation dergleichen aufnimmt und zu glauben vermeint, ein Zeichen kranker Phantasie, die als ein historisches Zeitphänomen zu erklären die Gelehrten zukünftiger Epochen einmal viel Scharfsinn aufwenden werden.»
In der Tat wird man zukünftig nachdenken: Wie ist denn einmal die Menschheit darauf gekommen, solch ein Zeug als Wahrheit zu denken, das heute selbstverständlich in allen Schulen schon als Wahrheit gelehrt wird!
«Niemals», sagt Herman Grimm weiter, «hat Goethe solchen Trostlosigkeiten Einlaß gewährt ... Goethe würde sich wohl gehütet haben, die Folgerungen der Schule Darwins aus dem abzuleiten, was in dieser Richtung er zuerst der Natur abgelauscht und ausgesprochen hatte ...»
Sie wissen ja, bei einer geistigeren Auffassung des Darwinismus würde etwas anderes. herauskommen. Gegen den Darwinismus als solchen richtet sich das ja nicht, was Herman Grimm meinte, noch dasjenige, was ich zu sagen habe, aber gegen die materialistische Ausdeutung, die nun wirklich zu dem gekommen ist, was Herman Grimm im mündlichen Vortrage eine die Menschenwürde verletzende Vorstellung genannt hat: daß der Mensch in geradliniger Entwickelung von niederen Tieren durch die Affen herauf zum Menschen sich entwickelt hat. - Wir wissen ja, wieviel Beifall Huxley einstmals gefunden hat, als ihm — es war allerdings von einem Bischof - alles mögliche erwidert worden ist gegen die Affenabstammung des Menschen. Huxley hat viel Beifall gefunden, als er damals die Worte fand: Er stamme doch lieber vom Affen ab und habe sich allmählich vom Affendasein zu seiner Weltanschauung heraufgearbeitet, als daß er diese Abstammung behaupte, zu der der Bischof sich bekennte, und sich dann heruntergearbeitet habe bis zu dessen Weltanschauung. - Solche Dinge sind ja oftmals sehr geistreich, sie erinnern mich aber immer an die Anekdote von jenem kleinen Knaben, der aus der Schule nach Hause kommt und seinem Vater erklärt: «Vater, ich habe jetzt in der Schule gelernt, daß wir alle vom Affen abstammen.» — «Was fällt dir denn ein, du dummer Junge!» — «Ja, ja, Vater», sagt der Junge, «wir stammen alle vom Affen ab.» — «Bei dir kann das der Fall sein», sagt der Vater, «bei mir aber nicht!» — Ich habe Sie ja öfter schon auf allerlei logische Schnitzer gegen ein wirkliches Denken aufmerksam gemacht, das zu solch materialistischer Ausdeutung der Darwinischen Anschauung führt.
Aber in unserer Zeit wird wirklich alles noch überboten. Jegliches Ding ist noch nicht so, daß sich alle Leute sagen, daß man es damit schon herrlich weit gebracht hat, sondern sie gehen noch weiter, bringen es noch herrlich weiter! So könnte ich Ihnen von einem Manne erzählen, der eine furchtbare Wut hat darüber, daß es eine Philosophie gibt, und daß es in der Welt so viele Philosophen gegeben hat, die immer Philosophien gemacht haben. Er schimpft auf alle Philosophie ganz schrecklich. Und nun hat dieser Mann in den letzten Zeiten wiederum recht viel drucken lassen an Geschimpfe gegen die Philosophie und will einen besonders prägnanten Satz finden, durch den er seine ganze Wut auf die Philosophie auslassen kann. Da hat er folgenden Satz gefunden, den ich Ihnen vorlesen will, damit Sie ihn wörtlich kennenlernen, denn es ist doch gut zu wissen, was in der Gegenwart gerade über die Philosophie gedacht wird, durch die die Menschen zur Wahrheit kommen wollen, und durch die doch mancherlei geleistet worden ist, wie Sie es auch aus dem Buch, das in nächster Zeit von mir erscheinen wird, ersehen können. Dieser Mann sagt: «Wir haben nicht mehr Philosophie als ein Tier.» Er behauptet also nicht nur, daß wir von den Tieren abstammen, sondern er beweist sogar, daß man mit dem Höchsten, was die Menschheit bis jetzt gesucht hat, mit der Philosophie, wirklich nicht über das Tier hinauskommt, weil man nichts anderes wissen kann, als das Tier wissen kann. Er meint das ganz im Ernste, man könne nicht mehr wissen als das Tier: «Wir haben nicht mehr Philosophie als das Tier, und nur die rasenden Versuche, zu einer Philosophie zu kommen, und die endliche Ergebung in Nichtwissen, unterscheiden uns von dem Tier.» — Also bloß, daß wir verstehen, daß wir wie ein Vieh nichts wissen, das unterscheidet uns vom Tier, und die ganze Geschichte der Philosophie wird von diesem Manne abgetan, indem er nachzuweisen versucht, daß das alles rasende Versuche sind, die die Philosophen angestellt haben, um über diese einfache Wahrheit, daß man nicht mehr weiß von der Welt als ein Tier, hinauszukommen. Sie werden mich fragen: Wer kann denn nur eine solch vertrackte Anschauung über die Philosophie aufstellen? Ich meine, es könnte Sie vielleicht doch interessieren, wer eine solch unglaubliche Anschauung über die Philosophie haben kann. Sehen Sie, derjenige, der diese Ansicht über die Philosophie hat, ist Professor der Philosophie an der Universität in Czernowitz! Der betreffende Mann hat vor längeren Jahren schon ein Buch geschrieben: «Das Ende der Philosophie», hat ein Buch geschrieben: aDas Ende des Denkens» und hat jetzt ein Buch geschrieben: «Die Tragikomödie der Weisheit», in dem Sätze wie diese drinnen stehen! — Also der Mann versieht sein Amt als Professor der Philosophie an einer Universität, indem er die lauschende Zuhörerschaft davon überzeugt, daß der Mensch nicht mehr weiß als ein Tier! Es ist Professor Dr. Richard Wahle, Ordinarius der Philosophie an der Universität in Czernowitz.
Es ist doch ganz gut, auf solche Dinge hinzusehen, denn sie bezeugen uns, wie wir es «so herrlich weit» gebracht haben. Und es ist schon notwendig, wie gesagt, daß man diese Notwendigkeiten des Lebens ein wenig näher ins Auge faßt, die darinnen bestehen, daß die Zeit wirklich herangerückt ist, wo die Menschen sich schon entschließen müssen, dieses innere Pfingstfest ernst zu nehmen, das Licht in der Seele zu entzünden, das Geistige in sich aufzunehmen. Viel wird davon abhängen, daß es wenigstens einige gibt in der Welt, die verstehen, wie in unserer Zeit das innere Pfingstfest der Seele gefeiert werden kann, aber auch gefeiert werden muß.
Ich weiß nicht, wie lange es noch dauert, bis mein Buch fertig ist; so lange muß ich da bleiben. Wir werden uns also vielleicht noch heute über acht Tage weiter sprechen können.
Pentecost, a Sign of the Immortality of Our Ego
As in earlier times, it does not seem entirely appropriate to me to hold a Pentecost meditation in the usual sense during this fateful time; for we are living in a time of severe trials for humanity, and it is not possible always seek merely uplifting feelings that warm our souls, since, if we have true, genuine feelings, we cannot forget the great pain and suffering of the times for a single moment, and in a certain sense it is even selfish to want to forget this pain and suffering and to indulge only in contemplations that are, so to speak, uplifting and warming to the soul. Therefore, it will also be more appropriate today to talk about some things that can serve the present time, serve insofar as we have seen from many of the reflections we have made here recently that many of the reasons for our present time of great suffering are to be found in the spiritual condition of humanity, and how necessary it is to remember that work must be done at the appropriate time for the development of the human soul, so that humanity may move toward better times. But I would like to begin with at least a few thoughts that can direct our senses to the meaning of a festival such as Pentecost.
There are three significant festivals in the course of the year: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. And if one has not, like most people of our time, dulled one's feelings for what is meant by such festivals in the sense of human and world evolution, one must actually feel the tremendous difference between these three festivals. These different feelings toward the three holidays are ultimately expressed in the external symbolism of these festivities. We see Christmas celebrated above all as a holiday for children, a holiday in which, in our times, if not always, the Christmas tree plays a role, brought into the house from the snow- and ice-filled outdoors. And we remember the Christmas plays that we have performed many times in our circle, which have uplifted the simplest human spirit through the centuries by directing it toward the great event that took place when, once in the course of Earth's evolution, Jesus of Nazareth, that is, from Nazareth, was born in Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus of Nazareth is a festival that has been naturally accompanied by a world of feelings born out of the Gospel of Luke, out of those parts of the Gospel of Luke that are, so to speak, the most popular, the easiest to understand, thus in a sense a festival of the most universal humanity, understandable at least to a certain degree, for the child, understandable for the person who has retained his childlike mind, and yet bringing into this childlike mind something great, something immense, which we thereby take into our consciousness.
We then see the celebration of Easter, which, despite being celebrated in contrast to the awakening of nature, leads us to the gates of death, that Easter which, in contrast to Christmas, can be characterized above all by saying: If Christmas has much that is lovely, much that speaks to the human heart in the most general way, then Easter has something infinitely sublime. Something of immense greatness must pass through the human soul that is able to celebrate Easter in the right way. We are led to the immense idea that the divine being descended, incarnated itself in a human body, and passed through death. The whole mystery of death and the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death, all this sublime thing comes to our soul through Easter. One can only feel these festive times deeply if one remembers many things that can come close to us through spiritual science. Just consider how closely Christmas, in the ideas it develops, is connected with all the festivals that have been celebrated in connection with the birth of saviors. It is connected with the festival of Mithras, where Mithras is born in a rock cave. All this testifies to a deep connection with nature. In a sense, it is a festival that approaches nature, as symbolized by the Christmas tree—and the birth also brings us closer to the immediate natural world in our imagination—but because it is the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, to whom so much connects us through spiritual science, it also contains a great deal of spirituality. And let us remember, as we have often said, that the spirit of the earth actually awakens in winter, that it is most active at the time when outer nature appears to be asleep and icy, so we can say that it is precisely through the Christmas festival that we are led into elemental nature, and that when the Christmas candles are lit, they should appear to us as a symbol of how the spirit awakens in the darkness of the winter night, the spirit in nature. And if we want to approach human beings and relate Christmas to them, then we must say: We can do this above all by remembering that which connects human beings to nature even when they have separated themselves spiritually from nature, as in sleep, when they have ascended spiritually in their ego and their astral body into the spiritual world. His etheric body remains bound to the outer physical body as something spiritual, and his etheric body represents precisely that which is in him from elemental nature, from the elemental that comes to life within the earth when the earth is shrouded in winter's ice. It is more than a mere comparison, it is a profound truth to say that, apart from everything else, Christmas is also a memorial sign that human beings have an etheric, elemental nature, an etheric body through which they are connected with the elemental nature of the world.
And if you take together everything that has been said over many years about the gradual paralysis and dampening of the human forces, you will be able to see how closely all the forces that live in our astral body are connected to the dampening, death-bringing events for human beings. Because we have to develop our astral body during our life, because we have to take in the spiritual in it, we carry the seeds of death within us. It is completely wrong to believe that death is only connected with life in an external way: it is connected with it in the most inner way, as has often been said in our circle. And our life is only as it is because we can die as we die. But this is connected with the entire development of the human astral body. And it is more than a comparison when we say to ourselves: Easter is like a symbol for everything connected with the astral nature of human beings, with that nature through which they depart from their physical bodies during every sleep and enter the spiritual world, the world from which descended that spiritual-divine Being who experienced death through Jesus of Nazareth himself. And if one were to speak at a time when the sense for the spiritual is more alive than in our time, then what I have just said would be taken more as a reality, whereas in our time it is perhaps taken as mere symbolism. And one would understand that the institution of Christmas and Easter was intended to give humanity a reminder of how it is connected with the elemental, spiritual, and physically deadly nature, or, in a sense, to give it a reminder that human beings carry a spiritual element within themselves in their etheric and astral bodies. But these things have been forgotten in our time. They will come to the surface again when humanity decides to acquire an understanding of such spiritual things.
In addition to the etheric body and the astral body, we carry within us, above all, our I as a spiritual entity. We know the complicated nature of this I. But we also know how this I passes from incarnation to incarnation, how the inner forces of this I itself are constructive and formative in that which we, as it were, attract with each new incarnation. In this I, we arise anew from each death in preparation for a new incarnation. This I is also what makes us individual beings. Can we say that our etheric body represents, in a certain sense, the birth-like aspect connected with the elemental forces of nature, that our astral body symbolizes the death-bringing aspect connected with the higher spiritual, then we can say that the I represents our constant resurrection in the spiritual, our revival in the spiritual, in the entire spiritual world, which is neither nature nor the starry world, but that which permeates everything. And just as Christmas can be associated with the etheric body and Easter with the astral body, so Pentecost can be associated with the I, as the festival that represents the immortality of our I, which is a sign of this immortal world of our I, which is also a sign that we as human beings do not merely live in general natural life, do not merely pass through death, but that we as human beings are immortal, ever-resurrecting individual beings. And how beautifully this is expressed in the further development of the ideas of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Think about it: Christmas is directly connected to earthly events, just as it is among us as Christmas; it follows immediately after the winter solstice, that is, the time when the earth is shrouded in deepest darkness. In a sense, Christmas follows the law of earthly existence: when the nights are longest and the days shortest, when the earth is frozen, we withdraw into ourselves and seek the spiritual, insofar as it lives in the earth. It is therefore a festival that is, so to speak, bound to the spirit of the earth. Christmas reminds us again and again how we, as human beings, belong to the earth, how the spirit had to descend from the heights of the world and take on earthly form in order to be an earth child itself with the children of the earth.
Easter is different! As you know, Easter is linked to the relationship between the sun and the moon. It is on the first Sunday after the full moon in spring, the full moon following March 21. So we see that Easter is determined by the relationship between the sun and the moon. We see, then, how wonderfully Christmas is linked to the earthly and Easter to the cosmic. At Christmas we are reminded, as it were, of the most sacred thing on earth, and at Easter of the most sacred thing in heaven. In a wonderful way, the idea of something that is, one might say, still above the stars has become associated with the Christian Pentecost. The universal spiritual world fire that individualizes itself and descends upon the apostles in fiery tongues, the fire that is neither merely heavenly nor merely earthly, neither cosmic nor merely telluric, the fire that permeates everything, and the fire that simultaneously individualizes itself and goes out to each individual human being! The feast of Pentecost is connected to the whole world. Just as Christmas is connected to the earth and Easter to the starry world, so Pentecost is directly connected to human beings insofar as they receive the spark of spiritual life from all worlds. We see, as it were, what is given to humanity in general when the God-man descends to earth, prepared for each individual human being in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. We see represented in the fiery tongues what is in human beings, in the world, and in the stars. And so, especially for those who seek the spiritual, this feast of Pentecost takes on a particularly deep meaning, one that repeatedly calls us to search anew for the spiritual. I would like to say that in our time it is necessary to take these thoughts, even these festive thoughts, a little deeper than they are taken in other times. For much will depend on how deeply we can take such thoughts, on how we emerge from the painful events of this time. The souls will have to work their way out of this; one can already sense this in certain circles today. And I would like to say that those who have come close to spiritual science should feel this necessity of the times even more keenly, which can be expressed as the necessity to revive spiritual life in general, to go beyond materialism. We will only overcome materialism if we have the good will to kindle the spiritual world within ourselves, to truly celebrate Pentecost inwardly, so to speak, and to take it seriously within ourselves.
In the reflections we have made here in the last few hours, we have seen how difficult it is for humanity today, precisely because of the circumstances of the times, to find the right path in this area. On the one hand, we have today a development of forces that cannot be admired enough, for which no feelings can be found that are sufficient to meet them. But once feelings become so necessary for the spiritual, then we will see how necessary it is that this inner Pentecost can be celebrated by the human soul, that the human soul does not forget this inner Pentecost. Not you, who have participated in these reflections for years, but others might easily think that there is something hypochondriacal, something of the critic in some of what has been said here in the last reflections. This does not seem to me to be the case. On the contrary, it seems to me to be absolutely necessary to look at such things as have just been brought up in the last reflections, so that we know where we need to take action spiritually in the course of human development. And I would like to say that there are already a few others who see what is important in our present time.
A nice little book has been published by Schiller's great-grandson, Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm: Kultur-Aberglaube (Cultural Superstition), by Forum-Verlag in Munich. Reading this brochure reminded me of many things I felt compelled to say to you here. I felt compelled to speak about them in order to show that spiritual science must not remain lifeless, must not remain merely a theory, but must flow into the soul so that it enlivens our thinking, so that this thinking becomes truly prudent and flexible, enabling us to penetrate the tasks of the present. Following on from this sentence about the necessity of enlivening thought, let me quote a few sentences from the brochure “Kultur-Aberglaube” (Cultural Superstition) by Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm. He says:
“For if we all bear a share of the tragic guilt in this terrible tragedy, it is because we all, throughout Europe, despite our culture, schools, and educational opportunities, have increasingly lost our ability to think independently.”
Freedom of thought, the greatest poets had demanded you in vain in the name of humanity. You slackened, you withered away, you sank down and were as good as dead! Unfree, we parroted, our powers of thought were bound, lame and weary.
We had time, desire, and ambition for everything except actual thinking. Even here” — mind you, it is not I who says this: Schiller's grandson Gleichen-Rußwurm says it! — ”in the former land of thinkers, thought was a sublime stranger, a rare guest viewed with unease.”
Reading and writing are of no use to us; indeed, they are harmful if we do not know how to think.
In recent times, everything has been geared toward discouraging thinking. Our education, art, recreation, work, socializing, travel, and home life.
But true culture should above all teach thinking, for mere feelings and instincts are not enough to enable people to live together in harmony, nor peoples to live together in harmony.
This requires a healthy, carefully trained political mind."
And far back, basically, Gleichen-Rußwurm, Schiller's great-grandson, pursues this idea that we have forgotten how to think. He says:
“Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, nations have made a certain effort to settle down together on this planet. Countless treaties and attempts of all kinds bear witness to this. It was believed that by achieving constitutions and voting rights, people would gain a real share in government and be able to determine their own destiny,” and so on.
But then he says: Without thinking, it cannot be done. He says this by painting a strange picture of the present, of that present that we must always think about, that we cannot actually forget for a moment.
“No! We had not yet come very far when all that could become reality, which otherwise only hot-headed poets had fabled, such a nameless, crazy mess, more fantastic than ever at the time of the migration of peoples. Senegalese Negroes murdered our poets, art scholars cleaned horses, professors herded sheep.” “It's really no laughing matter!” ”Theater directors passed on death orders by telephone, pious Indians tried to die correctly on our battlefields according to their ancient rites. Artistic buildings sank into ruins and shelters arose, worthy of cave dwellers. The millionaire starved and fought with vermin, while the beggar sat down at abandoned banquet tables in the old castle. Dubious existences were rehabilitated and the most harmless people languished as civilian prisoners in jail and died there.”
It is, in a sense, what inspired Schiller's grandson to entertain the idea of the need to revive thinking. However, I cannot find in his pamphlet or in his other writings that he sets out to seek the right sources for reviving thinking.
Yes, but it is not so easy in the present day to celebrate Pentecost in one's soul. Here I have the book of a man who has actually made a sincere effort in recent times to understand Goethe, as far as he was able to do so, who has even made a sincere effort to approach our spiritual science. And it is precisely this man, who, as I said, has made a sincere effort in recent years to understand Goethe, who is now immensely happy that he is beginning to understand Goethe, precisely this man — it is very, very characteristic of the difficulties people have in entering into a spiritual life today — before he did that, what I have just told you, he wrote 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 novels, 1, 2, 3 — 14 plays, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 essay books. And now, in his last book, which is his tenth essay book, he says that he is now happy that he has finally come to Goethe and can try to understand him. And one can see from this tenth essay book that he is making every honest effort to understand Goethe. But consider what this all means: a man who has written so many novels and plays, who is a very well-known man, now in his fifties or early sixties, admits that he is only now beginning to understand Goethe to some extent. This is a significant fact. Now, this latest book is entitled Expressionism. The man who wrote it is called Hermann Bahr. And Hermann Bahr is also the man I am telling you about who is making every honest effort to get into reading Goethe a little. Not even all of his plays are listed, because he wrote more, but he disavows the earlier ones. It is not difficult for me to talk about this man, for the simple reason that I have known him since his student days and knew him quite well in the past. You see, this is a man who has written about everything and has written many good things, and who says of himself that he was actually an impressionist all his life because he was born during the Impressionist period. Let us now clarify in a few words what Impressionism actually is. We don't want to argue about questions of art, but let's clarify what people like Hermann Bahr think about Impressionism. If you think back to the art of Goethe, you see that Goethe—and Schiller, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Dante, whoever you want—saw the greatness of their art in the fact that they perceived the external world and then processed it intellectually. What is perceived externally is united in art with what lives in the mind. Goethe did not consider works of art that strive less for the union of the mind with nature to be works of art at all. But in more recent times, something has emerged that has been called Impressionism, and Hermann Bahr grew up with Impressionism and was himself, as he was aware, an Impressionist in everything. When he judged paintings—he wrote many essays on painting—he did so from the standpoint of Impressionism. When he wrote about it himself, he wanted to be an impressionist, and he was one in his own way, he is one in his own way. Now, what does such a person understand by impressionism in art? Well, by impressionism he means that one is actually terrified of adding anything from one's own soul to what the external impression of nature provides. Nothing from the soul itself must be added! Music could then not exist at all, but he excludes music. Architecture cannot exist either. Architecture and music can therefore never be purely impressionistic. But in painting, in poetry, it is possible. So exclude as much as possible what the soul itself gives! That is why impressionist painting attempted, in a sense, to depict an image of something at the moment when one has not yet really looked at it, when one has not yet processed the impression internally in any way. As I said: look—but now, if possible, before you have added anything of yourself to the image that causes the impression, capture it immediately: impressionism! This impressionism has, of course, been interpreted in many different ways, but that is the essence of it.
Hermann Bahr is a person who, as I once said in a public lecture in Berlin, always advocates with the greatest enthusiasm for what he currently believes to be right. When he first came to the university in Vienna, Hermann Bahr was very, very taken with socialism, raved about socialism, and was one of the most ardent social democrats imaginable. One of his rejected dramas, Die neuen Menschen (The New People), was written from a socialist point of view. I don't think you can still get it today; it contains speeches, social democratic speeches, given by men and women, which go on for many, many pages; it's impossible to perform. Then the German nationalist movement developed more in Vienna. Hermann Bahr became a fervent nationalist and wrote his “Große Sünde” (The Great Sin). Of course, it's not in there; it's also denied today. Then Hermann Bahr, after having been a socialist and a nationalist, reached the age in Austria when you are drafted, and became a soldier at nineteen. He had left socialism and nationalism behind him, became a soldier and a “fervent” soldier, and adopted a completely soldierly worldview. He was a soldier for a year, a one-year volunteer. Then he went to Berlin for a short time. In Berlin he became – not an ardent Berliner! That was the last thing he could stand! So he never became an ardent Berliner. But then he went to Paris. And there he became an ardent supporter of Maurice Barr&s and similar people, and also – Boulanger was playing a major role at the time – an ardent Boulangist. I don't want to stir up old things, so I won't tell you about the ardent Boulangist letters that the enthusiastic Hermann Bahr wrote from Paris at the time. Then he went to Spain and became so enamored with Spanish culture that he wrote articles against the Sultan of Morocco and the cruelty he committed against Spanish politics. Then he went back to Berlin and edited the Freie Bühne for a short time, but did not become an ardent Berliner. Then he went back and discovered Austria in various stages! He is actually from Linz. Oh, pardon me, he also went to St. Petersburg and wrote his book about Russia, becoming an ardent Russian. That happened in between. Then he went back and discovered Austria in its most diverse aspects, in all its cultural history and so on. Always very witty, sometimes ingenious. Bahr has always strived to present what he has seen without processing it intellectually, but simply giving his first impression. Now you might think that works very well if you only give your first impression. Socialist: nothing more than the first impression; German nationalist: nothing more than the first impression; Boulangist: nothing more than the first impression; Russian, Spaniard, and so on. And now he has sought out the various spheres of Austrianism. An extraordinarily interesting phenomenon in our intellectual life, there is no doubt about that! Now think about it, he has reached the age of fifty, and suddenly Expressionism appears, the opposite of Impressionism.
Hermann Bahr has been speaking in Danzig for a number of years now – or rather, he has been speaking there for a number of years. He always travels through Berlin on his way there! He is very fond of the people of Danzig. He claims that when he speaks to them, they always inspire him with particularly witty thoughts, which is not the case in any other German city, but only in Danzig. So he was asked—now also by the people of Danzig—to talk about Expressionism. But he had been an Impressionist all his life! Well, you can imagine what that meant for Hermann Bahr. He has been an impressionist all his life. Now expressionism is just appearing. When he was very young and began to become an impressionist, people were by no means enchanted by impressionist paintings; on the contrary, the entire philistine class—and others, of course—considered impressionist paintings to be mere daubing. That may well be true in some cases, but as I said, we don't want to argue about that now. But Hermann Bahr was “on fire,” and if you said anything against an Impressionist painting, you were automatically considered a philistine, a terrible sheep who could only accept what had been handed down since time immemorial and was incapable of embracing the progress of humanity. Yes, you could hear Hermann Bahr say things like that all the time. Many were sheep in that place!
There was a coffee house in Vienna, the so-called Cafe Griensteidl, where these questions were always decided. It no longer exists today; it was opposite the old Kleines Burgtheater on Michaeler Platz. Karl Kraus, also known in Vienna as the “cheeky Kraus,” who published small booklets, wrote a little book about Café Griensteidl, which had already welcomed Lenau and Anastasius Grün as guests in 1848. When it was demolished, he wrote a little book called “Die demolierte Literatur” (Demolished Literature). At that time, there was already much talk about the emergence of Impressionism. Hermann Bahr had been talking a lot about Impressionism for years, which ran like a thread through his other transformations. But now he was getting older himself. The Expressionists, Cubists, and Futurists came along and said that Impressionists of the Hermann Bahr variety were boring sheep who were just rehashing the past. And now Hermann Bahr found that, basically, the other world wasn't so terrible after all: it was the same phenomenon! But it annoyed him, because he said to himself: I did the same thing in my youth, I called all the others sheep's heads, and now I'm supposed to be a sheep's head too. And why should those who now call me a sheep's head be less right to call me a sheep's head than I, who called the others sheep's heads back then? — Isn't that a terrible story? Of course, there was no other way out, since Hermann Bahr was also asked by the people of Danzig, whom he loved so much, to talk about Expressionism, to take a closer look at Expressionism. And now it is a matter of finding the right formula for Expressionism. Really, I'm not making fun of Hermann Bahr, I like him very much and I want to defend him in every way—I mean, I like him very much as an intellectual figure.
But now it was a matter of coming to terms with Expressionism. After all, reaching the age of fifty only to be a sheep's head for the next generation is not enough for an intellectually active person, especially when one has to talk about Expressionism in front of the Danzigers, who inspire such good thoughts. Well, perhaps you have already seen Expressionist, Cubist, Futurist paintings. Most people say when they see them: Yes, we've put up with a lot, but we can't go along with that anymore! - Isn't that right: canvas, lines, white ones going from top to bottom, red lines running through them, then somehow something else in there that doesn't resemble a leaf or a house or a tree or a bird, but rather everything together and yet none of it. - But of course Hermann Bahr couldn't say that. Yes, what is it? Now he realized what it actually was, because he is a real thinker and has become more and more of a thinker through his various metamorphoses. Now he said to himself—under the influence of the Danziger, of course—: The Impressionists took nature, captured it quickly, without processing it internally; the Expressionists do the opposite. That's what they do too! Hermann Bahr had already understood them: they don't look at nature at all! I mean that quite seriously: they don't look at anything in nature, they only see inwardly. That means that whatever is out there in nature, whether houses, rivers, elephants, lions, is of no interest to the Expressionist, because he sees inwardly. Now Hermann Bahr said to himself: if you want to see inwardly, then inward seeing must be possible. And what does he do? He turns to Goethe and reads all sorts of things by him, such as the following. Goethe recounts:
“I had the gift that when I closed my eyes and bowed my head, I could imagine a flower in the center of my visual organ, it did not remain in its original form for a moment, but spread out, and from its center new flowers unfolded from colored, probably green leaves; they were not natural flowers, but fantastic ones, yet regular like the rosettes of sculptors."
Goethe could do that: he closed his eyes, imagined a flower—and there it was, as a ghostly figure; and then it transformed itself!
"It was impossible to fix the emerging creation, but it lasted as long as I pleased, neither weakening nor intensifying. I could produce the same thing when I thought of the ornamentation of a colorfully painted disc, which also changed continuously from the center toward the periphery, completely like the kaleidoscopes invented in our day ...
Here, the phenomenon of afterimages, memory, productive imagination, concept, and idea are all at play at once and manifest themselves in the organ's own vitality with complete freedom, without intention or direction."
Well, if you are not familiar with Goethe and the worldview of modern idealism and spiritualism, it is of course impossible to immediately connect with something like this. Hermann Bahr then turned to literature and came across the Englishman Galton, who had collected all kinds of statistics, as is customary there, about people who see inwardly, just as Goethe also saw inwardly, as emerged from his description. He took particular interest in a reverend. This reverend was able to conjure up an image in his imagination, then the image itself transformed, and he was then able to return it to its original form through his will. This reverend describes this very beautifully. Hermann Bahr investigates these things and gradually comes to the conclusion that there is such a thing as inner vision. You know what Goethe describes there—Goethe also knew other things—that is only the very beginning of an inner movement of the etheric body. Hermann Bahr began to study such elementary things in order to understand Expressionism, because he came to the conclusion that Expressionism is based on such inner vision of the most elementary kind. And now he went further. He read the old physiologist Johannes Müller, who described this elementary inner vision so beautifully at a time when natural science had not yet laughed at all these things. And so Hermann Bahr gradually worked his way through Goethe and found it extraordinarily stimulating to read Goethe, to begin to understand Goethe, and thereby to arrive at the conclusion that there is an inner vision. This is how he came to understand Expressionism: You don't need nature; instead, you capture on canvas what you see in your elementary vision. Later on, as I have already mentioned here, this will develop into something else. If you don't immediately see this as a stroke of genius, but rather as the very first beginnings of what is to come, you will perhaps do people more justice than they do themselves in their overestimation. But Hermann Bahr understands it this way and is led to say with tremendous enthusiasm: Yes, there is not only external seeing, as one sees with the eye, there is also internal seeing! This chapter on internal seeing is very beautiful, and he is utterly delighted when he discovers the word “Geistesauge” (spiritual eye) in Goethe. Think how many years we have been using this word! As I said, he also tried to familiarize himself with what our spiritual science is. The book shows that he has read Eugene Levy's book in which he describes my worldview. He does not seem to have come across my books yet, but what is not yet may come to be. In any case, one can see that a person is working his way through the difficulties of the present and that he is coming to take a stand on the most elementary, the most fundamental. I must mention this because it shows how true it is what I have often said: the person of the present has an enormously difficult time coming to a spiritual understanding out of this formation of the times. Now imagine a man who has written ten novels, fourteen plays, and so many books of essays, finally coming to read Goethe and working his way through him, and so, in a sense, late to this book, which is written with tremendous freshness, one can see the joy he experiences in now understanding Goethe. Truly, I often sat with Hermann Bahr, and it was impossible to talk to him about Goethe, because at that time Goethe was, of course, a sheep's head in his eyes, for he was also of the old, not yet impressionistic type of people.
I think we need to consider how difficult it is for people who come from today's culture to work their way through to the most elementary aspects of the humanities. But these are the people who, in a sense, hold public opinion in their hands. When Hermann Bahr came to Vienna, he edited a very influential weekly newspaper, Die Zeit. If someone were to claim today that many people in Western society, whose judgment is highly valued, understand nothing about Goethe and therefore have no way of approaching spiritual science on the basis of their education — although, of course, one can approach spiritual science without education — one would not believe it. But in Hermann Bahr we have living proof, because he himself admits at the age of fifty how happy he is to finally understand Goethe. It is, of course, incredibly sad to see how a man who worked his way up to Goethe is now happy to find what he sought in his immediate surroundings when he was a young man; but at the same time, it is incredibly instructive, incredibly significant for our understanding of the times. It teaches us how the so-called intellectual world of today lives in ideas that are completely removed from anything intellectual; how a man like Hermann Bahr first needs Expressionism to see how someone who ignores nature can imagine something and even paint it. This leads him to the conclusion that there is an inner vision, an inner spiritual eye. This is tremendously significant. But it is closely connected with the way in which such writers, such artists, such art critics are growing up today. Hermann Bahr's latest novel is characteristic of this.
The novel is called “Himmelfahrt” (Ascension). From the end of the novel, you can see that he is already beginning to have something like a glowing enthusiasm on the side—the rest runs like a thread through the book—for Catholicism. He didn't have that before. But anyone who knows Hermann Bahr will have no doubt that there is something of him in the Franz he describes in this new novel. It is not an autobiography or a biographical novel, but there is a lot of Hermann Bahr in this Franz. But how such a writer develops today—not one who becomes a newspaper man, we don't want to talk about how he develops, because the word “develops” should retain its original meaning—but someone who takes it really seriously and is an honest seeker, like Hermann Bahr: something like that rubs off on this Franz. And he describes how he gradually developed, how he searched. How does he describe this Franz, on whom he himself has rubbed off? This Franz actually tries to experience everything that time has to offer, to learn everything, to search for the truth everywhere. So he explored the sciences, was first a botanist with Wiesner — Wiesner was a very famous botanist in Vienna — then became a chemist with Ostwald, then an economist, and so on. So he goes through everything that time has to offer. He could also become a Greek scholar with Wilamowitz, or study philosophy with Eucken or Kohler. Then he learns about economics in Schmoller's seminar; it could also have been with Brentano or in some other seminar. Then he learns how to try to get behind the secrets of the soul with Richet; it could also have been with someone else. He sought to learn about psychoanalysis in a different way with Freud. And when none of this satisfies him, he goes to the theosophists in London. So he is always searching for truth. And then he allows himself to be given esoteric exercises by someone who is more reserved. But he doesn't pursue them for long; they don't give him much pleasure. However, he thinks he must continue searching.
In the end, Franz falls for it, because after searching for everything possible, he comes across a medium. For years, this medium performs the most amazing manifestations, everything imaginable. Then it is exposed, after Franz, the hero of this novel, has long since fallen in love with this medium. But he leaves, he has to leave quickly, as he always has to leave quickly. Well, he leaves quickly, leaving the medium to his fate. The woman is, of course—everyone has to pay tribute to the times—exposed as a spy. Of course, the novel was written in the most recent times.
But there are many such people, especially among those who judge intellectual life today. And basically, that is how one must imagine those who come to pass judgment today before they have even penetrated the very first elements—not like Hermann Bahr, who discovered something in Expressionism, namely that there is an inner vision, which the others who pass judgment are unable to do. Hermann Bahr will of course realize today that he will judge some things differently than he did in the past. In the past, if he had come across my “Theosophy,” for example, he would naturally have judged it—well, what do I know, it's not necessary to quote Hermann Bahr's exact words—but today he would say: Yes, there is an inner eye, there is an inner vision, that is also a kind of Expressionism. That is because he has arrived at the inner vision, which is also a kind of Expressionism. Today he would say: Yes, there is an inner eye, there is inner vision, that is also a kind of expressionism. — That is because he has just arrived at the inner vision that is being lived out today through expressionism. But that doesn't matter, those are just ideas; under the inspiration of the Danzigers, Hermann Bahr arrived at this and made this book out of it.
I just wanted to give you this as an example of how difficult it is today to work your way through, and how those who have a clear view, a clear concept of what the humanities want, have a responsibility to do everything possible and necessary to dispel prejudices. When we know the background from which these prejudices arise, and how even the best, so to speak, who have written countless essays and dramas, if they are honest seekers, arrive at the most elementary things after the age of fifty, then one must say: One understands how difficult it is to make spiritual science understood today; for the simplest mind would naturally accept spiritual science, but it is held back by those people who judge from the background I have described to you.
But after all, we experience all kinds of things in our time, and I have often pointed out how, I would say, materialistic thinking has become second nature to our age, so that people really do not know that they are actually inventing fantastic things when they construct sublime theories. I have often entertained you with what is taught today as the Kant-Laplace theory, which is shown to children in school. They are taught in such a nice way how the earth was gradually like a sun nebula, how it rotated, how the planets then split off. And what could be more plausible than this view of the drop: you only need to take a small drop of oil, a card, divide it in half—the equatorial plane—insert a needle, then turn it, and the little planets split off so nicely, and then you say: Now you see, that's how it was out there in the big world, just as it happens here in the small world. How could anyone escape this line of reasoning? Of course, there would have to be a great teacher out there in the universe who turned it, wouldn't there? People usually forget that. But we mustn't forget anything; all factors must be taken into account. But what if there isn't a great teacher or a great professor standing in the universe turning it? People usually forget that because it is too obvious. One might say that it is already a great thing if enough thinking people, from what remains of idealism and spiritualism, can find their way to characterise this matter in its full significance. And that is why I must refer again and again to the beautiful sentence in Herman Grimm's book on Goethe. I also quoted it in the book that will be published by me shortly. Herman Grimm says:
“Long ago, in his [Goethe's] youth, the great Laplace-Kant fantasy” — you see, Grimm calls it his fantasy! — “about the origin and eventual demise of the globe had taken hold. From the rotating nebula — children already learn this in school — the central gas drop forms, which then becomes the Earth, and as a solidifying sphere, it goes through all phases in inconceivable periods of time, including the episode of habitation by the human race, to finally fall back into the sun as burnt-out slag; a long, but to today's audience completely comprehensible process, for whose realization no external intervention is now required other than the effort of some external force to maintain the sun at the same heating temperature. No more fruitless perspective for the future can be imagined than the one that is being imposed on us today as scientifically necessary in this expectation. A carcass around which a hungry dog makes a detour would be a refreshing, appetizing morsel compared to this last excrement of creation, as which our earth would finally fall back to the sun, and it is the thirst for knowledge with which our generation accepts such things and believes them to be a sign of a sick imagination, which scholars of future epochs will one day devote much ingenuity to explaining as a historical phenomenon of their time."
Indeed, in the future people will wonder: How did humanity ever come to believe such nonsense as truth, which today is taught as truth in all schools as a matter of course!
“Never,” Herman Grimm continues, “did Goethe allow such desolation to enter ... Goethe would have been careful not to derive the conclusions of Darwin's school from what he had first gleaned from nature and expressed in this direction ...”
You know, of course, that a more intellectual understanding of Darwinism would lead to something else. What Herman Grimm meant, and what I have to say, is not directed against Darwinism as such, but against the materialistic interpretation that has now really come to what Herman Grimm called in his oral lecture an idea that violates human dignity: that man has developed in a straight line from lower animals through apes to man. We know how much applause Huxley once received when he was countered—admittedly by a bishop—with all sorts of arguments against the monkey ancestry of man. Huxley received much applause when he said at the time that he would rather descend from apes and have gradually worked his way up from ape existence to his worldview than claim the ancestry to which the bishop professed and then have worked his way down to the bishop's worldview. Such things are often very witty, but they always remind me of the anecdote about the little boy who comes home from school and explains to his father: “Father, I have now learned at school that we are all descended from monkeys.” “What are you talking about, you stupid boy!” “Yes, yes, Father,” says the boy, “we are all descended from monkeys.” “That may be true for you,” says the father, ‘but not for me!’ I have often pointed out to you all kinds of logical blunders against real thinking that lead to such a materialistic interpretation of Darwin's view.
But in our time, everything is really being surpassed. Nothing is yet such that all people say that we have already come a long way with it, but they go even further, take it even further! I could tell you about a man who is terribly angry that there is such a thing as philosophy and that there have been so many philosophers in the world who have always been philosophizing. He rails against all philosophy in the most terrible way. And now this man has recently had a great deal of his tirades against philosophy printed and wants to find a particularly concise sentence with which he can vent all his rage against philosophy. He has found the following sentence, which I will read to you so that you can hear it word for word, because it is good to know what people think about philosophy at present, through which they want to arrive at the truth, and through which many things have been achieved, as you will see in the book that I will be publishing shortly. This man says: “We have no more philosophy than an animal.” He therefore not only claims that we are descended from animals, but even proves that with the highest thing that humanity has sought so far, namely philosophy, we really cannot go beyond the animal, because we cannot know anything more than the animal can know. He means this quite seriously, that we cannot know more than animals: “We have no more philosophy than animals, and only our frantic attempts to arrive at a philosophy and our final resignation to ignorance distinguish us from animals.” — So it is merely that we understand that we know nothing, like animals, that distinguishes us from animals, and this man dismisses the entire history of philosophy by attempting to prove that all of it is nothing but frantic attempts by philosophers to get beyond this simple truth that we know no more about the world than animals do. You will ask me: Who can possibly hold such a convoluted view of philosophy? I think you might be interested to know who could have such an incredible view of philosophy. Well, the person who holds this view of philosophy is a professor of philosophy at the University of Czernowitz! This man wrote a book many years ago called “The End of Philosophy,” then wrote a book called “The End of Thinking,” and has now written a book called “The Tragicomedy of Wisdom,” which contains statements such as these! — So this man fulfills his duties as a professor of philosophy at a university by convincing his attentive audience that humans know no more than animals! He is Professor Dr. Richard Wahle, full professor of philosophy at the University of Czernowitz.
It is quite good to look at such things, because they show us how “wonderfully far” we have come. And it is necessary, as I have said, to take a closer look at these necessities of life, which consist in the fact that the time has really come when people must decide to take this inner Pentecost seriously, to kindle the light in their souls, to take in the spiritual within themselves. Much will depend on whether there are at least a few people in the world who understand how the inner Pentecost of the soul can be celebrated in our time, but also must be celebrated.
I don't know how long it will take to finish my book; I have to stay here until then. So perhaps we will be able to talk again in a week or so.