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Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind
GA 197

21 September 1920, Stuttgart

Lecture VIII

As you are well aware, it is often said today that spiritual science cannot have anything to do with real knowledge, with genuine perception, and that it can only be a matter of faith, a subjective way of believing things to be true. This kind of attitude then leads to a distinction being made between knowledge and belief, as is the general custom. A frequent objection raised against spiritual science working towards anthroposophy is that a kind of subjective knowledge that really can only be a matter of belief—perhaps one should not even call it knowledge but merely the subjective belief that something is true—is to be elevated, jumped up, to the level of certain and exact knowledge, to the level of a genuine science.

This distinction that is made between science and belief is quite a recent development. The view is that science should only concern itself with things perceptible to the senses, or at most with things that can be established and explored on the basis of experiments, and that certain knowledge can solely and exclusively come from such depths. Belief is seen as going beyond the physical realm and it is said that one should never assume that anything that is the subject of belief can be transformed into certain knowledge. Thus we have science on one side, a science limited to the physical world, and a supersensible, non-physical world on the other that may be accepted by anyone who finds it acceptable but cannot be known with certainty and must remain a matter of subjective faith.

Anyone who takes life seriously really ought to feel that the supposed distinction made by so many people between knowledge and belief poses a riddle which must be solved. Fundamentally speaking, however, only initiation science can genuinely show the reason for the efforts that are being made at the present time—and indeed have already been made for a long time, for centuries—to teach humankind the difference between knowledge of the finite, transitory realm of the senses and belief in something that is infinite, permanent, supersensible. You know that everything that is presented here from the point of view of spiritual science working towards anthroposophy is thoroughly scientific in spirit and asks to be considered as fully equal to the science relating to the physical world. It represents knowledge, perception, of the supersensible. Initiation knowledge has to look far back into human evolution, however, if it is to help us understand why in the present age humankind has been taught that there is such a difference between knowledge and faith.

Going back a long way in human evolution we come to a time when People had a primal knowledge—we have discussed this a number of times—that was inherited from the gods, as it were. Such things as proof, as demonstrating the truth of something, were not known then. Knowledge came to people at that time when a power arose in their hearts and minds that was not the power of empty, abstract thinking, or something like that, but a power filled with divine light substance, divine life substance, that felt itself to be in communion with divine worlds. Human beings knew that they were connected with divine spheres; they felt this and perceived it the way we perceive colours and sounds outside us. There was no need for proof, for there was perception of the immediate presence. People knew nothing of proof, nor of logical demonstration. All they knew was that as human beings they were filled with what the gods instilled into them. This certainly was ‘knowledge’ in the earliest stages of human evolution, and it had to do with perception of the divine origin of human beings. Knowing themselves to be united with the gods, and being given the Power by their initiates to look up to this union with the gods, people were also aware of the divine origin of man. They were aware that humankind had descended to earth from the world where it had existed as soul and spirit. The divine and spiritual origin of humankind was taken as a matter of course when this primal knowledge existed all over the globe in the early times of human evolution.

This primal knowledge had to develop further, however. If it had remained as it was, people would in a sense have continued to be filled with the divine spirit for ever, but they could not have achieved freedom, the ability to make free decisions. As soon as their arms moved, they would have had to say: ‘A god within me is moving my arms.’ When they were walking, they would have had to say: ‘A god within me is moving my feet.’ Those early human beings certainty. felt like that. They felt, as it were, that a divine spirit was present inside their skin. That is also the origin of the idea that the human body is a temple. In early times a human being was indeed like the earthly home of a god who descended to earth to take up his abode among human beings. Human beings had to become independent, however. As a result this primal divine knowledge gradually faded and the divine heritage grew less and less. To achieve freedom, human beings had to develop knowledge, perception, thinking, feeling and will activity out of their own resources. In a way the gods abandoned them, but it was for their own good, if I may put it like this. Divine knowledge withdrew so that human knowledge might develop. In later times the whole path to be taken by the divine knowledge that had once existed all over the globe, the path to earthly and human knowledge, had to be watched over from the mystery centres. It was the task of initiates to regulate the way humankind were to be trained, as it were, so that human beings would find the right way of growing out of that ancient divine knowledge and into earthly and human knowledge.

At a time when much of the original divine knowledge had faded and the mysteries had assumed the task of guiding human beings—by and large instructing them in such a way that the right transition could be made from primal wisdom to human knowledge and ultimately freedom—it happened that a certain number of people came together from the far reaches of the earth to look for a way in which the purpose of guiding humankind in the right way, purposes originating in the mystery centres, could be crossed. Human associations were formed, in a way, that considered it their mission to go against the proper course of progress. We really have to use spiritual science if we want to consider the activity of a widespread association of human beings in post-primeval times. History does not go that fax back and there are no documents to bear outer witness to that time. Such an association developed and adopted the mystery knowledge in a certain way, still using the methods that had been employed in the mysteries to maintain contact with the divine source and origin. By that time however the mystery centres where honest work was being done had long since been concentrating on guiding the transition from the divine knowledge of the ancients to human and earthly knowledge. Thus there was a time in earthly history when the rightful representatives of mystery knowledge were totally involved in guiding the transition from the divine knowledge of the ancients to human and earthly knowledge. That was the healthy feeling and attitude, healthy for that time. Mingled into this was an element arising because a well organized association wanted to restore to humankind an antiquated primal divine knowledge at a time when it was out of date, when the murmur of ancient divine knowledge was no longer supposed to reach human ears. At a time when they had grown beyond the state where they had divine knowledge, people found that there Was a group that still wanted the old knowledge to be widely accessible.

Why did the members of this association in post-primeval times want such a thing? They wanted to strike at the root, as it were, of the knowledge then evolving. They did not want humanity to achieve freedom. Efforts were indeed made in post-primeval times to prevent humankind from developing the faculties that would lead to freedom, and for that purpose the aim was to strike at the root of earthly and physical knowledge. These people, who may be called the 'enemies' of human evolution in post-primeval times, made the distinction between human knowledge and divine knowledge, a divine knowledge that was no longer legitimate at the time. To deluge human beings with divine knowledge, which they had grown out of by that time, meant to induce a dreamy, visionary state of conscious awareness. Vast masses of people lived in that kind of fanciful, visionary state in post-primeval times. Their inclinations to develop human knowledge were stifled. The reason why human knowledge came to be so deficient in many respects as time went on—I have given many examples of this—and why defects have even crept into the development of speech and language, was that a form of divine knowledge was presented to people in a way that appealed to their vanity.

Let us investigate the influences that made people endeavour to befog the minds of the masses and strike at the root of the new knowledge that was evolving and also at the root of a language that arose from the depths of human nature. It has to be said that the individuals concerned were totally under the influence of luciferic powers. Luciferic powers were alive in them, luciferic powers that did not want human thinking, feeling and will activity to descend as far as the earth, as it were. Human beings were supposed to grow more and more physical, but these individuals wanted to keep theft) spiritual, to stop them from achieving their mission on earth. The individuals concerned were the spiritualists of post-primeval times. They were against human progress. The divine intention was that human beings should find ways of letting their souls and spirits enter more and more deeply into physical bodies. The individuals of whom I am speaking wanted to prevent this, however. Considering this in present-day terms—because it is difficult to give an accurate characterization of the state human beings had reached during the post-primeval period—we might say that more than a little of a certain unconscious untruthfulness was apparent in those individuals. The impulse to descend into the material world, to make it part of oneself, had of course been given through the mysteries. The Lucifer-dominated individuals of post-primeval times certainly could not deny this. They therefore did not call themselves 'spiritualists' but actually ‘protagonists of the material world’—to put it in present-day terms; these words would have to be translated into the terms in which people thought in primeval times. They told people: 'You will come to materiality if you follow us, if you make use of the power we provide in the form of later divine knowledge, if you use it to strengthen your soul and spirit. You will then find yourselves the conquerors of all that this earth holds for you; you will conquer the earth quickly and easily when you have a share in the power of the gods.' The Lucifer-dominated leaders of certain parts of humanity gave themselves the honourable title ‘fighters for the material world.’

Those individuals created a certain schism between human evolution as it was intended and the wrong notions which they presented to humanity, notions that the ideal was to conquer materiality rather than coming to be at home in it gradually. They said people should make certain divine powers their own by having supersensible knowledge at the wrong time, and that they should use this knowledge to conquer the material world that is perceptible to the senses.

Today we have the reverse picture of what existed in those primeval times. Certain confessions have started to oppose the regular progress of science, the acquisition of knowledge. Science has had its roots damaged, as it were. The result is that science and language show Certain defects throughout the course of Earth evolution. Science has nevertheless come about, for sufficient numbers of people who were under the influence of the true mysteries and corrupted initiation knowledge stood up against the individuals whose real aim was to strike at the root of knowledge and eradicate it. Science has come about. It has taken the road I have often characterized in detail. It reached the level it did by the middle of the 15th century, when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began, and it has continued to the present time. According to present-day initiation knowledge, however, science has now reached a further turning point. Today it is ripe to enter into human freedom, as it were. Essentially modern science still considers only physical things to be valid and exact; it is only prepared to consider things that are perceptible to the senses or may be established on the basis of experiments. As I have often said, this science is now ripe to develop to a point where it can grasp Imagination, the inspired, the intuitive world; where it can find its ways to experience, to grasp the spirit. This science is ordained to grow and in growing to assume the form of spiritual vision. It is ripe for this today.

For the regular progress of science it will however be necessary for humanity to develop an inner attitude that wants to use the same conscientious approach to investigation and research that is used in botany, physics, chemistry and so on to explore the outer world of the senses and make outer science triumph. People must want to use that same attitude when it comes to the inner life of human beings. We must want the attitude and approach used in outer science to be transformed into a way of taking hold of the supersensible world in a living way. I have pointed the way in my Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, in Occult Science53Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß 1910. GA 13. English translation: Occult Science. An Outline. G and M. Adams tr. London Rudolf Steiner Press 1969. and other books of this kind. It has to be clearly understood that the true aim we have at the bottom of our hearts, the only viable aim for spiritual science working towards anthroposophy, differs from Jesuitism, which is more or less its polar opposite. The difference is that Jesuitism in particular wants to keep science, knowledge as such, at the level of pure experimentation and observation. Take a look—but a careful look—at the scientific literature from Jesuit sources. The approach, the way of thinking, is as materialistic as it can be. It aims to keep knowledge entirely in the world of the senses, and strictly separate the knowledge that can only be obtained by observation based on the physical senses and by experimentation from anything that is a matter of belief or revelation. The reasoning is that no bridge shall ever be built between outer knowledge or science and anything to do with faith. Spiritual science working towards anthroposophy on the other hand is aiming to do just that, to find the way from a science of the physical, sense-perceptible world to a science of the spirit. This science of the spirit would however apply the same stringent standards as the outer science of the sense-perceptible world.

The picture, then, is as follows: The science of the physical, sense-perceptible world is the root. Supersensible knowledge is to evolve from the same impulses that govern botany, physics, chemistry and so on, except that they will be applied in a different field. In certain quarters it was foreseen that this was to come. It was however in the interests of these people to prevent it happening, and they therefore introduced something into human evolution that now presents itself as a sharp contrast. This is the sharp contrast I have spoken of earlier: the distinction made between ancient ways of knowing that in the regular course of events became human knowledge, human science, and a divine knowledge used to drug human minds. The sharp distinction between knowledge and belief was presented to human minds and the true aim turned into its opposite. Knowledge of the sense-perceptible world was to be firmly retained and given great emphasis. It simply has to be admitted that Jesuit literature on materialistic science is extraordinarily brilliant in the clarity of its reasoning, its sheer readability. The Jesuit literature on the material world is much more brilliantly written than the works of many others writers on the subject today. Father Erich Wasmann's54Wasmann, Erich, entomologist. Major researches on ants. The MS of the lecture is not quite clear at this point, and the German editors have added the words in [ ]. work on ants, for example, is really good, you will gain more from reading it than from the pedantic, uninspired writings of other scientists. Many more examples could be given. The [work of the] Jesuits would be excellent if they confined themselves to the material world; it is a deliberate aim [of the Jesuits] to use their description of the material world to encourage people to associate knowledge with the materialistic aspect of the physical world only. The intention is to pretend to human minds that the methods used to gain knowledge cannot be used to investigate the supersensible world. In ancient times Lucifer-dominated individuals suggested that human beings would gain mastery of the world if they made use of ancient divine knowledge, yet evolution had already gone beyond this point. Now we have late followers of those people from post-primeval times pretending to the world that it is not possible to extend knowledge to the supersensible sphere and that knowledge cannot go beyond the sense-perceptible world. In those early times the intention had been to drug people with supersensible knowledge. Now human beings of the same ilk want to use all possible means to push humanity into the physical world; they want human beings to be stuck in that world and grasp the supersensible world only with the nebulous impulse of faith. In post-primeval times the aim had been to inundate humankind with an excess of supersensible knowledge. Today those late followers want human beings to have less than the right amount of knowledge in this sphere. Past intent was to provide supersensible knowledge that was no longer appropriate. Present intent is to let people have only sense-bound knowledge, making the supersensible world an area where every individual may hold whatever views he or she likes.

What would be the outcome if the group of people to whom we are referring were to achieve some kind of victory? These are the people who deliberately make a sharp distinction between knowledge and belief. There are of course large numbers of easily led people who come across the diatribe on the 'clear distinction between faith and knowledge' and repeat it; they merely repeat it. What is all this about? The aim is to do the opposite of what those individuals in post-primeval times did in their way. In the old days the intention was to prevent humanity from descending completely and taking up its mission on earth. Today the intention is to keep people tied to that mission on earth to prevent their further development, for which the earth would provide the basis. The very people who are now supporting materialism call themselves ‘spiritualists’, or priests of some faith or other, representatives of the supersensible world. In those ancient times the people offering a life in the spirit that was no longer justifiable called themselves materialists. They did so from the point of view which I have characterized. Today a large number of people who really wish to keep humanity bound to the material world call themselves representatives of the spiritual world. The most powerful source of materialism today does not lie in the ideas put forward by Buechner, Moleschott or Vogt. The most powerful source is Rome and anything that is in any way connected with this centre of materialism. They achieved their aims not by saying: ‘I want to encourage materialism’, but by keeping people bound to materialism. This is done by letting them develop faith merely as a nebulous impulse towards supersensible spheres and making sure that no impulse enters into humanity that could lead to comprehension of the supersensible sphere. The idea that Rome might lead the way in conquering the supersensible sphere for humanity is the historical untruth of the present age. This must be clearly and firmly understood. It must also be understood that Protestantism as it has evolved out of Roman Catholicism in recent times contains much that is of Roman Catholic origin. The desire to keep supersensible knowledge nebulous by making it a matter of faith, so that people cannot comprehend the supersensible world, has strongly persisted in the Protestant church. Quite apart from this, the signs of the times may be read to indicate clearly that Rome will overcome the Protestant element, and Rome will continue to make great efforts in the direction I have characterized.

So you see that if one wishes to achieve something in the world that goes against the normal progress of humanity one calls oneself by the opposite name, as it were. Humanity must learn to get beyond putting its trust in mere names, and it is indeed in the process of doing so. Humanity must go to deeper sources than merely living in words and phrases. Basically this is already beginning to happen. Imagine someone calls and you are brought a visiting card on which it says ‘Ernest Miller’. Surely you would not expect to see someone come through the door whose clothes are covered in flour. Nor would you expect ‘Richard Smith’ to come straight from shoeing horses. If you have lived in a village you may still recall people saying ‘There comes the miller’—and that would have been a genuine miller—or 'There comes the smith', meaning a real blacksmith. There names were still more than an outer label. The names we bear have taken a road where it is no longer possible to draw conclusions as to the nature of the individual who calls himself by a particular name. The words that make up people's names give no clue as to the essential characteristics of the person or persons concerned. The name Smith does not tell us whether the person called by that name is a smith or not, nor can we conclude someone is a miller when we hear that his name is Miller. That is the road names have taken. The rest of the language will follow the same road, and people will have to learn to develop their ideas on principles other than words or phrases. You can draw no conclusions as to the nature of a person from the fact that his visiting card says he is Mr Miller. In the same way you will have to get used to the fact that the characteristics of words will not tell you what your ideas about the world ought to be.

If you seriously act in a way that is in accord with the urgent necessity of the present time you find yourself little understood. If I were to present the things I have to present by way of spiritual science in a way that meets the modern desire for scientific terminology, I would not be doing what I have in fact always made efforts to do. This is to present a subject from all kinds of different angles, sometimes more in their material aspect and at other times more in their spiritual aspect, always remembering the principle which Goethe expressed as follows: ‘The truth will certainly never be found exactly half-way between two contradictory statements.’55Literally Goethe said the following:
‘It is said that the truth lies halfway between two contradictor), opinions. Far from it! The problem lies in between, it cannot be beheld; life, for ever active, calmly thought’ Maximen und Reflexionen).
The MS of the lecture had been quoted verbatim in the earlier German edition but has been found to be incomplete and therefore was revised for the German edition on which this translation is based.
At the stage we have now reached in our evolution it simply is no longer possible to think that a particular content can be adequately defined by using words to give a one-sided characterization. The subject has to be characterized from different aspects, and the procedure used to characterize it in words must be similar to that used to make a photographic record of a tree, for instance, by taking pictures of it from a variety of angles. The photographs will look very different, but putting them together one sees something that conveys the tree as a whole.

Read the various courses of lectures and you will see that I have adhered to the principle and presented the subject matter from many different angles. If we wish to present the things human beings need today, things that will serve the progress of humankind, we must get into the habit of proceeding in this way. There are certain groups of people who are against this and want to continue to use rigid terminology. Human concerns cannot be defined in rigid terms and that is why we now see forms of socialism developing that want to go further into terminology definition but can only lead to destruction. Concerning events in Eastern Europe, people think the danger has passed now that the Poles have won; before that the Bolsheviks had the upper hand for a time, but the whole has been the most dreadful tragicomedy of human behaviour. The present war between Russia and Poland provides a good demonstration of the extent to which human beings have lost their moral fibre today.

My book Towards Social Renewal was genuinely based on the social life of the present time and the style was chosen to meet the needs of this present-day life. Yet people come and ask for word definitions more or less the way words are defined in most schoolbooks nowadays—much to the detriment of education and training. Words have more and more come away from the original inner experience, and it is increasingly necessary to draw one's conclusions as to the reality from other sources than the words used. After all, when we hear the name Miller we do not base our conclusions as to the nature of the individual on an analysis of the name Miller but on quite different aspects. It will be necessary for human beings to come away from words and judge the existing world by other criteria.

This had been in preparation for a long time, but it has not always been applied in a sense that would be in accord with human evolution. The outcome has been that widespread societies now say: ‘We declare ourselves for Christ’, yet after all the word used need not apply to the spirit they say they are worshipping. The point is not that something or other is called the Christ and that people have ideas about this Christ. The point is the real nature of the spirit towards whom human feelings are turning. And if one develops a very mundane image of this Christ, if one even undergoes militaristic initiation during one's training to learn how the soul has to be prepared before one forms an idea of the Christ, if one is shown the image of Jesus the King, seeing oneself and other followers as King Jesus' army, it may happen that having created such a material image of Christ one then gives the name of Christ to quite a different spirit. The truth is that one's soul is then turned towards quite a different spirit who is wrongfully called Christ. This happens a great deal nowadays and it happens in such a way that people sometimes have a peculiar awareness of it.

Many years ago I had a conversation in Marburg one day with a Protestant clergyman who had travelled a great deal.56Christlieb, Max, a friend from Rudolf Steiner's time at Weimar who had done much to make The Philosophy of Freedom more widely known when it had just been published. See also Rudolf Steiner and Christlieb Ludwig Kleeberg, Wege und Worte, 2. Aufl. 1961 S. 76 ff. This also refers to the Marburg occasion. We talked of the way the real idea of the Christ has gradually disappeared from modern theology, of the way this modern theology is on the one hand using certain initiation ceremonies to bring Christ down and make Him a physical Jesus even in the picture one has of Him, and how on the other hand certain theologians see Christ only as the ‘simple man of Nazareth’. This Protestant theologian, a man who had travelled widely and seen something of the world, then said to me: 'The younger generation of theologians really no longer have the Christ, they really should no longer called themselves Christians or followers of Christ; they really ought to call themselves Jesuits, except that that name already has another meaning, because all they are left with is Jesus.' Those were not my views but the views of a Protestant theologian who has travelled a great deal. To stop you from developing prejudices and taking too poor a view of theologians, let me add that the man was a Swabian and was also married to a Swabian, a lady from Stuttgart to boot. That is just to stop you from getting prejudiced.

We have tried to see how the separation of knowledge and belief came about. This separation of knowledge and belief also prevents people from knowing that there is a life before birth, or before conception. I also spoke of this yesterday.57‘Die groflen Aufgaben von heute im Geistesleben, Rechtsleben und Wirtschaftsleben. Eine dritte Gegenwartsrede.’ (Major presentday tasks in cultural life, the sphere of rights and in economic life. A third topical talk.) Publ. in Rudolf Steiner: Drei Gegenwartsreden (Three topical talks), Heft 8, Dornach 1952. To be published in GA 335. All that is permitted is belief in life post mortem, i.e. after death, for that is an idea that can be presented to human minds even if one reckons only with egotistical elements in the human soul. The concept of life before birth, the life we have gone through between our last death and our birth into the present life, needs perceptive insight if it is to be grasped; it is no good putting one's money on egotistical soul instincts if one wishes to teach it. The way people are here on earth is that they do not care to know what they have gone through before; egotistical reasons make them interested to know what will happen after death, however. It is easy to preach on what people may expect after death, therefore, for that appeals to the egotistical instincts in their souls. It is difficult to preach on life before birth; instead one must assume that human beings desire to know the truth and want to live a life that is worthy of human beings. This will of course lead us to see education and then also the whole of life on earth in a new light. Life on earth must be seen as the fulfilling of a mission we have been given before we descended from the spiritual world into physical existence.

This new approach that simply must come to be widely accepted in the outside world, an approach that will also have to create new social forms, has many enemies. You can guess this from various hidden trends. I want to end today be telling you something—this is something I am forced to do—of the murky sources and origins of the elements that want to destroy our spiritual science. The sheer effrontery is staggering and there will be more and more of this unless souls come awake to a much greater degree than has been the case until now.

You know, and our friends here have fought against it, that the abominable slander has been spread about all over Germany and beyond of German officers being betrayed to the Entente due to the efforts of the Threefold Order people and so forth.58See conclusions of lectures given on 11 and 17 January 1920 in Geistige und soziale Wandlungen in der Menschheitsentwickelung. GA 196, S. 52 & 82 ff. (Cultural and social changes in the evolution of humanity). No record of translation into English. I have recently been supplied with copies of some of the abominable documents that are widely distributed at present—fake letters reputedly written by our people, cunningly designed to spread the most dreadful slander, and faked interviews. Their character will be obvious to you as soon as I tell you that one of them concludes with the words: ‘D.H. is not in fact part of the Steiner fraternity. He has merely infiltrated the organization to spy on them, to get on to their tricks. He has reported his findings to a small group of patriotic people, and the word is that Steiner is committing high treason and is in league with the Entente.’ That is just a small sample of the murky work that is being done, and it it much more widespread than you would think.

Another very pretty example comes from someone in this area59Rohm, Karl, editor of the journal Der Leuchtturm, Lorch (Württemberg). whom I once called a swine in a public lecture—because everything this person is instigating against me simply cannot be called by any other name. This person is now using the black art of printing to spread things against me in an article headed ‘Threefold Order Plagiarized’. This says no less than that a lady had created a threefold order some time ago. (The lady was not quite careful enough, however, for she failed to find out from the literature that my threefold order was known before that in certain circles; she gives a time that is somewhat later than the time when I was talking to a great many people about the threefold order in question.) This lady, then, is said to have created a threefold order and to have sent the manuscript to a philanthropic society; it is then said to have gone to Hamburg where the person Concerned kept it for four weeks rather than two, and that I probably read it in that time and took the threefold idea from that manuscript. Of course the lady cannot very well say that there is any agreement between the threefold order I am presenting and whatever she had put in her manuscript. She therefore maintains that the threefold idea was plagiarized from her manuscript, but that it has been messed about. Oh yes. He's pinched my watch, but that one looks quite different! She has now written a work about her threefold order. According to her this consists of the golden section ‘state, cultural sphere, church’, with everything again determined by the golden section. So we get a centralized state and within it two parts—exactly the same as postulated in the threefold order; so the threefold order is a botch job.—if you want to get an idea, let me recommend this work to you; the title is 3:5, 5:8 = 21:34. The secret of clearing the debts in reasonable time’ [English rendering of the original German title] by Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner,60Further details in E. Uehli, ‘Die gestohlene Dreigliederung’ in Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus 2. Jahrg. Nr. 11 (Sept. 1920). published by the author in 1920. Maybe you could make amends by saying: ‘We have been working for the threefold order, but we really only did this in Mrs Elizabeth Metzdorff-Teschner's name.’ That is another thing she expects of us, and she is writing letters to all kinds of people.

That is Mr Rohm's source, and the things he writes are now reaching Switzerland where they are presented to the people by every Roman Catholic parish priest. No one of course has even the least idea of the actual source. These articles say something very different, and people find it quite easy to believe, for the idiocy at the source of it is not apparent. That is the way people work nowadays and they know very well what they are doing. They are deliberately working against the sincere efforts that are being made to serve the true progress of humankind. In Switzerland it is above all the Roman Catholic Parish priests who are using that style, reprinting everything that comes from the centres run by Mr Knapp61Knapp, Alfred, established 'Internationaler Orden fiir Ethik und Kultur' (International Order for Ethics and Culture). and others, everything disgorged from the rubbish bins of Mr Rohm and so forth. I cannot help remembering that until recently there have been—and indeed still are—many people even among anthroposophists who are faithful subscribers to Mr Rohm's Leuchtturm [Lighthouse]. They keep dishing up Mr Rohm's views, keep coming up with one thing or another

I am sorry, I had to give you some small samples—there are plenty more—so that you can see the methods that are used.

The strength inherent in spiritual science working towards anthroposophy should give anthroposophy the strength to gain more than just names from words—a feeling for the truth. Once you have a feeling for the truth you will find the road, and it lies in a very different region from what people generally find comfortable in the present time. It is a road to be sought in the kind of way I have described today. It would be more comfortable in this day and age to talk of other things rather than refer to the powerful adversaries who are responsible for distinction being made between knowledge and belief and who aim to block the road by which knowledge of the sense-perceptible world can become knowledge of spheres beyond the senses.

Achter Vortrag

Sie wissen wohl, daß von vielen Seiten in der Gegenwart, wenn von Geisteswissenschaft die Rede ist, gesagt wird, das, worauf durch eine solche Geisteswissenschaft hingewiesen wird, könne niemals Gegenstand eines Wissens, einer Erkenntnis sein, das könne nur Gegenstand eines Glaubens sein, einer Art subjektiven Fürwahrhaltens. Aus einer solchen Gesinnung geht dann die Unterscheidung hervor, die man überhaupt macht zwischen Wissen und Glauben, und ein großer Teil der Einwendungen, die auch gegen unsere anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft gemacht werden, besteht immer wieder darin, daß man sagt, man wolle hier dasjenige, was man eigentlich nur glauben könne, was im Grunde genommen eine Art subjektiver Erkenntnis oder vielleicht gar nicht einer Erkenntnis, sondern eines subjektiven Fürwahrhaltens ist, das wolle man hier gewissermaßen hinaufheben und hinaufschrauben bis zu der Höhe einer sicheren, exakten Erkenntnis, einer wirklichen Wissenschaft.

Nun ist es erst in der neueren Zeit dahin gekommen, daß unterschieden wird überhaupt zwischen der Wissenschaft, die sich nur mit dem beschäftigen dürfe, was in der sinnlichen Welt geboten wird, was höchstens noch durch das Experiment erfaßt und erkundet werden kann, der Wissenschaft, die aus solchen Tiefen heraus einzig und allein eine sichere Erkenntnis liefere, und dem Glauben, der sich über das Sinnliche erhebe und von dem man niemals annehmen dürfe, daß seine Gegenstände umgewandelt werden könnten in sichere Erkenntnis. Wissenschaft also auf der einen Seite - aber bloß für die sinnliche Welt; die übersinnliche Welt auf der andern Seite, für jeden annehmbar, soweit er sie annehmbar findet, aber nicht einer sicheren Erkenntnis zugänglich, sondern nur einem subjektiven Glauben.

Es müßte eigentlich jeder Mensch, der es mit dem Leben ernst nimmt, das, was da in weiten Kreisen über einen angeblichen Gegensatz zwischen Wissen und Glauben gesagt wird, als ein notwendig zu lösendes Rätsel empfinden. Aber im Grunde genommen ist es nur möglich, von dem Standpunkt der Initiationswissenschaft aus eine wirkliche Auskunft zu geben, was es eigentlich für eine Bewandtnis hat, wenn in unserer Zeit - und schon lange, schon Jahrhunderte hindurch — darauf hingearbeitet wird, der Menschheit diesen Unterschied beizubringen zwischen der Wissenschaft vom Endlichen, Vergänglichen, Sinnlichen und dem Glauben an ein Unendliches, ein Unvergängliches, ein Übersinnliches. Denn Sie wissen, alles, was hier vom Gesichtspunkte anthroposophisch orientierter Geisteswissenschaft vorgebracht wird, atmet durchaus wissenschaftlichen Geist, macht darauf Anspruch, als Wissen, als Erkenntnis vom Übersinnlichen sich vollberechtigt neben die Wissenschaft vom Sinnlichen hinzustellen. Nur muß die Wissenschaft der Initiation weit zurückgehen in der Zeit der Menschheitsentwickelung, wenn sie begreiflich machen will, warum in unserer Zeit ein solcher Gegensatz von Wissenschaft und Glauben der Menschheit beigebracht wurde.

Wenn wir in der Zeit zurückgehen, so finden wir in ganz alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung — wir haben das öfter besprochen ein gewissermaßen als Erbschaft der Götter anzusehendes Urwissen, ein Wissen, welches so etwas wie beweisen, wie demonstrieren nicht kannte, ein Wissen, das ganz und gar darauf beruhte, daß im Inneren des Menschen eine Kraft aufstieg, die nicht nur ein leeres, abstraktes Denken oder so etwas war, sondern die erfüllt war von göttlicher Lichtsubstanz, von göttlicher Lebenssubstanz, die sich fühlte wie im Verkehre mit den göttlichen Welten. Ein Wissen von diesem Zusammenhange des Menschen mit den göttlichen Welten hatte man, das man noch empfand und das man wahrnahm, so wie man äußerlich Farben und Töne wahrnimmt, so daß man es nicht zu beweisen brauchte, weil man es ja in unmittelbarer Gegenwart wahrnehmbar hatte. Das Beweisen kannte man nicht, auch nicht das logische Demonstrieren, sondern einfach das Erfülltsein des Menschen mit dem, was in sein Inneres die Götter einträufeln ließen. Aber das war durchaus «Wissen» in den ältesten Zeiten der Menschheit und dieses Wissen war verbunden mit einer Erkenntnis des göttlichen Ursprunges des Menschen. Denn da man sich auf Erden in Verbindung mit den Göttern wußte, da man von den Eingeweihten, von den Inititerten jene Kraft bekam, die einen aufblicken ließ zu dieser Verbindung mit den Göttern, so war man sich auch bewußt des göttlichen Ursprungs des Menschen, war sich bewußt, daß die Menschheit zur Erde heruntergestiegen ist aus einer Welt, in der sie in geistig-seelischer Gestalt vorhanden war. Dieser göttlich-geistige Ursprung der Menschheit war eine Selbstverständlichkeit für jenes Urwissen, das überall über die Erde hin in den alten Zeiten der Menschenentwickelung vorhanden war.

Aber dieses Urwissen wollte sich weiter fortentwickeln. Wäre dieses Urwissen geblieben, so wären die Menschen zwar in einer gewissen Beziehung fortdauernd gotterfüllte Wesen geblieben, aber zur Freiheit, zur freien Willensentschließung hätten sie nicht kommen können. Sie hätten, wenn nur ihre Arme sich bewegten, gewissermaßen sich sagen müssen: Ein Gott in mir bewegt meine Arme -, oder wenn sie gingen, hätten sie sich sagen müssen: Ein Gott in mir bewegt meine Füße. So haben auch durchaus die Urmenschen empfunden. Sie haben gewissermaßen innerhalb ihrer Haut ein göttlich-geistiges Wesen, das mit ihnen war, empfunden, und daher ist auch jene Bezeichnung geblieben, von der wir von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten aus schon gesprochen haben, der menschliche Leib sei ein Tempel des Gottes, weil der Mensch in der Urzeit in der Tat wie das irdische Wohnhaus des Gottes war, der selber herunterstieg auf die Erde, um Wohnung zu nehmen unter den Menschen. Aber der Mensch sollte selbständig werden. Daher kam es, daß das ursprüngliche göttliche Wissen immer mehr und mehr verglomm, daß diese Göttererbschaft immer mehr und mehr zurückging. Um zur Freiheit zu kommen, mußte der Mensch aus seiner eigenen Kraft ein Wissen, eine Erkenntnis, ein Denken, ein Fühlen, ein Wollen entwickeln. Er wurde gewissermaßen von den Göttern verlassen, aber er wurde — wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf — zu seinem eigenen Heil von den Göttern verlassen. Damit er eine menschliche Wissenschaft entwickeln könne, zog sich die göttliche Wissenschaft von ihm zurück. Und so kam es in späteren Zeiten, daß der ganze Weg, den eine einstmals über die Erde verbreitete göttliche Wissenschaft zu nehmen hatte ‚zur irdisch-menschlichen Wissenschaft, überwacht werden mußte von den Mysterien aus, daß die Eingeweihten, die Initiierten der Mysterien dazu berufen wurden, gewissermaßen zu regeln, wie die Menschheit erzogen werden sollte, damit sie in der richtigen Weise herauswuchs aus dem alten Götterwissen und hineinwachsen konnte in das irdischmenschliche Wissen.

Da aber, nachdem schon so ziemlich das ursprüngliche Götterwissen im Abglimmen war und die Mysterien schon die Aufgabe übernommen hatten, die Menschheit so zu leiten, sie so im großen zu unterrichten, daß der Übergang von der Urweisheit in das menschliche Wissen, das zur Freiheit führen sollte, in der rechten Weise geschehen konnte, da kam es, daß eine gewisse Anzahl von Menschen über weite Gebiete der Erde hin sich zusammenfand, um einen gewissen Weg zu suchen, um diese Absichten der richtigen Menschheitsleitung, die von den Mysterien kam, zu durchkreuzen. Es bildeten sich gewissermaßen Menschengesellschaften, die sich geradezu die Aufgabe stellten, diese richtige Entwickelung zu durchkreuzen. Wir müssen schon zur Geisteswissenschaft gehen, wenn wir die Tätigkeit einer weitverbreiteten Menschengesellschaft der Nachurzeit ins Auge fassen wollen. Denn die Geschichte selbst reicht nicht bis in jene Zeiten zurück; äußere Urkunden aus jenen Zeiten gibt es nicht. Aber eine solche Gesellschaft war es, die sich in einer gewissen Weise das Mysterienwissen aneignete, aus dem Mysterienwissen auch die Methoden, um mit der göttlichen Urquelle des Wissens noch in einer Zeit in Verbindung zu kommen, in welcher die ehrlich arbeitenden Mysterien schon längst damit beschäftigt waren, das alte Götterwissen überzuleiten in das menschlich-irdische Wissen. Und so gab es einmal auf der Erde eine Zeit, wo die berufenen Vertreter des Mysterienwissens ganz damit beschäftigt waren, das alte Götterwissen überzuleiten in menschlich-irdische Wissenschaft; aber in das, was so als eine gesunde, für die damalige Zeit gesunde Anschauung und Empfindung über die Menschheit sich verbreitete, in das tönte hinein — und zwar in einer Zeit, als es schon zu spät dazu war und der Menschheit nicht mehr das alte Götterwissen in die Ohren geraunt werden sollte, was eine gut organisierte Gesellschaft damals gewissermaßen verspätet als alte Urweisheit der Menschheit wiederum bringen wollte. Es erlebten also die Menschen in einer Zeit, wo sie schon hinausgewachsen waren über den Zustand des göttlichen Wissens, daß von denen, die ein Interesse daran hatten, weiten Kreisen der Menschheit jenes alte Götterwissen noch weiter zugeführt werden sollte.

Welches Interesse hatten denn diese Mitglieder der Nachurzeit? Sie hatten das Interesse, daß sie die Entstehung des Wissens gewissermaßen in seiner Wurzel vernichten wollten. Sie wollten das äußere menschliche Wissen nicht in der Menschheit entstehen lassen, sie wollten die Menschen nicht zur Freiheit kommen lassen. Ja, es gibt in der Nachurzeit Bestrebungen, die verhindern wollten, daß die Menschheit die Entwickelungsanlage zur Freiheit aufnehmen sollte und die daher das irdisch-physische Wissen in der Wurzel vernichten wollten. Und so machten diese, gewissermaßen «Feinde» der menschlichen Entwickelung der Nachurzeit, einen Unterschied zwischen menschlichem Wissen und Götterwissen, einem Götterwissen, das damals schon nicht mehr berechtigt war. Und die Menschheit, als sie hinausgewachsen war über das Götterwissen, mit diesem zu überfluten, bedeutete, sie dadurch in einen Bewußtseinszustand zu bringen, der träumerisch, schwärmerisch war. Breite Massen der Menschheit lebten in einer solchen Schwärmerei in der Nachurzeit, in der der Sinn erstickt wurde für die Entstehung menschlicher Wissenschaft. Und wenn manches in der menschlichen Wissenschaft, wie wir oft charakterisieren konnten, in späteren Zeiten sehr mangelhaft entstanden ist, wenn bis in die Sprachbildung hinein Mangelhaftes sich eingeschlichen hat, dann war dieses den Menschen schmeichelnde Heraufheben zu einem Götterwissen daran schuld.

Wenn wir nachgehen, unter welchem Einfluß diejenigen standen, die so bestrebt waren, die Menschen zu benebeln und die Entstehung von Wissenschaft und auch von einer aus den Menschheitstiefen herauskommenden Sprache in der Wurzel abzuschneiden, dann müssen wir sagen: Diese Geister, diese menschlichen Persönlichkeiten waren durch und durch von luziferischen Kräften beherrscht. Luziferische Kräfte lebten in ihnen, solche luziferische Kräfte, welche den Menschen mit seinem ganzen Empfinden, Wollen und Denken gewissermaßen nicht bis zur Erde herabkommen lassen wollten. Der Mensch sollte immer materieller und materieller werden, aber diese Persönlichkeiten wollten ihn geistig, spirituell erhalten, um ihn den Erdenaufgaben zu entziehen. Diese Geister waren die der Menschheitsentwickelung feindlichen Spiritualisten der Nachurzeit. Denn damals sollte der Mensch die Wege finden, um mit seinem Seelisch-Geistigen immer gründlicher und gründlicher in das Körperliche hineinzusteigen. Das aber sollte von diesen Geistern verhindert werden. Wenn wir etwa im Bilde der Gegenwart sprechen — weil es ja schwierig ist, in genau zutreffenden Vorstellungen jenen Zustand der Menschheit in der Nachurzeit zu charakterisieren —, so könnten wir sagen, diese Geister treten auf mit einem starken Anflug von einer gewissen unbewußten Unwahrhaftigkeit. Denn es war ja selbstverständlich durch die Mysterien der Impuls gegeben, in die materielle Welt herunterzusteigen, sich mit ihr zu durchdringen. Das durften diese luziferbesessenen Menschen der Nachurzeit natürlich nicht verleugnen. Deshalb nannten sich diese Menschen nicht etwa — im Bilde der Gegenwart gesprochen; es müßte dann übersetzt werden in die Denkweise der Urzeit — «Spiritualisten», sondern sie nannten sich gerade «Vertreter des Materiellen». Denn sie sagten den Menschen: Ihr erreicht das Materielle, wenn ihr uns folgt, wenn ihr die Macht, die wir euch mit dem späteren göttlichen Wissen geben, ausnutzt, wenn ihr euch seelisch-geistig dadurch stärkt. So könnt ihr als Eroberer über das, was euch auf der Erde zugedacht ist, euch erleben; ihr könnt euch die Erde im Fluge erobern dadurch, daß ihr der Göttermacht teilhaftig werdet! — Und den Ehrennamen «Kämpfer für das Materielle» gaben sich solche luziferbesessenen Führer gewisser Kreise der Menschheit.

So war damals durch diese Persönlichkeiten eine Art Zwiespalt in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineingekommen zwischen dem, was da sein sollte an regulärer Entwickelung der Menschheit und dem, was der Menschheit vorgemacht wurde dadurch, daß man vor sie hinstellte das Ideal der Materialität, das auf ein Erobern des Materiellen ausging — aber nicht durch ein allmähliches Einleben, sondern indem man darauf hinwies, daß man gewissermaßen Göttermacht sich aneignen sollte durch übersinnliches Wissen zur Unzeit, mit dem man dann die sinnlich-materielle Welt erobern sollte.

Das Gegenbild von dem, was da in der Urzeit vorhanden war, erleben wir heute. Wir sehen, daß, von gewissen Konfessionen ausgehend, ein Kampf gegen den regulären Gang, den die Wissenschaft nun nehmen soll, stattfindet. An der Wurzel ist sie gewissermaßen schadhaft geworden. Dadurch tragen die Wissenschaft und die Sprache durch die Erdenentwickelung hindurch gewisse Mängel. Aber die Wissenschaft ist doch gekommen, denn es haben sich genügend unter dem Einfluß der ehrlichen Mysterien und der ehrlichen Initiationswissenschaft stehende Menschen gefunden, welche jenen Geistern, die das Wissen in der Wurzel eigentlich austilgen wollten, entgegengetreten sind. Und so hat sich die Wissenschaft entwickelt. So hat sie jenen Weg genommen, den ich im einzelnen oftmals charakterisiert habe, ist bis zu jenem Zustande gekommen, den sie hatte in der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts, als der fünfte nachatlantische Zeitraum begonnen hat, und ist bis in unsere Zeit hineingekommen, wo aber für diese Wissenschaft nun wieder — nach der Wissenschaft der Initiation der Gegenwart — ein neuer Wendepunkt da ist. Heute ist diese Wissenschaft dazu reif, gewissermaßen in die Freiheit des Menschen gestellt zu werden. Heute ist diese Wissenschaft, die ja im wesentlichen doch sich heute noch so verhält, daß sie nur Sinnlich-Physisches als exakt, als sicher betrachtet, das was durch Beobachtung oder durch das Experiment gewonnen wird, die Wissenschaft ist dazu reif, wie ich oft ausgeführt habe, sich hineinzuentwickeln in die Erfassung der Imagination, der inspirierten, der intuitiven Welt, sich hineinzufinden in das Erleben, in das Ergreifen des Geistigen. Fortzuwachsen ist diese Wissenschaft berufen, um im Fortwachsen anzunehmen die Gestalt eines geistigen Schauens. Dazu ist sie heute reif. |

Damit aber diese Wissenschaft sich regulär fortentwickeln kann, muß jene Gesinnung in der Menschheit ausgebildet werden, die da will, daß dieselben gewissenhaften Untersuchungs- und Forschungstendenzen, die für die äußere sinnliche Welt in Botanik, Physik, Chemie und so weiter vorhanden sind zum Triumphe der äußeren Wissenschaft, auch angewendet werden im Inneren der Menschen, daß dasjenige, was Gesinnung in der äußeren Wissenschaft ist, übergeführt werde in ein solch lebendiges Ergreifen der übersinnlichen Welt, wie es angedeutet ist in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» oder in andern entsprechenden Büchern. Und wir müssen uns darüber klar sein: Was eigentlich als Streben auf dem Grunde unserer Seele liegen soll und was allein in der anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft leben kann, das ist von etwas, was seinem Gegenpole gleicht, dem Jesuitismus, dadurch unterschieden, daß gerade der Jesuitismus es ist, welcher die Wissenschaft, das eigentliche Wissen halten möchte auf dem bloß experimentellen oder Beobachtungsfelde. Prüfen Sie einmal — aber prüfen Sie genau die wissenschaftliche Literatur, die von den Jesuiten ausgeht: Sie ist in der Gesinnung, in der Vorstellungsweise die denkbar materialistischste; sie ist bestrebt, das Wissen ganz in der sinnlichen Welt zu erhalten und streng abzutrennen das Wissen, das nur mit sinnlicher Beobachtung oder mit den durch das Experiment zu beobachtenden Tatsachen zu tun haben soll, von dem, was Gegenstand des Glaubens oder der Offenbarung sein soll. Niemals soll eine Brücke geschlagen werden im Sinne dieser Denkungsart zwischen dem, was äußere Wissenschaft ist, und dem, was Glauben ist. Das will aber gerade anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft suchen: den Weg heraus aus einer physisch-sinnlichen Wissenschaft in eine Geisteswissenschaft, aber in eine Geisteswissenschaft, die so streng erkenntnismäßig gehalten ist wie die äußere sinnliche Wissenschaft.

So haben wir uns also vorzustellen: Diese physisch-sinnliche Wissenschaft ist die Wurzel und herauswachsen soll aus denselben Impulsen, die in Botanik, Physik, Chemie und so weiter walten — nur daß auf ein anderes Territorium gegangen wird -, die übersinnliche Erkenntnis, das übersinnliche Wissen. In gewissen Kreisen sah man voraus, daß dies kommen wird. Daher legte man dort, wo man ein Interesse daran hat, daß dies nicht komme, in die menschliche Entwickelung das hinein, was jetzt als ein anderer Gegensatz erscheint: der Gegensatz, den ich angeführt habe, von dem regulär zur menschlichen Wissenschaft herüberkommenden alten Wissen und dem Betäuben der Menschheit mit der göttlichen Wissenschaft. Man legte in die Menschheit hinein den Gegensatz zwischen Wissen und Glauben. Man tat das Entgegengesetzte: die Wissenschaft vom Sinnlichen wollte man gerade halten, die betonte man scharf, und es ist einfach wahr, wenn man gerade die jesuitische Literatur über die materialistische Wissenschaft auf Lesbarkeit, auf das Einleuchtende der Darstellung hin durchsieht, daß sie etwas außerordentlich Begabtes darstellt, daß tatsächlich diese von Jesuiten geschriebene Literatur über die materialistische Welt begabter geschrieben ist als manches andere, was über diese Welt heute von anderer Seite geschrieben wird. Es ist gut, was zum Beispiel ein Mensch wie der Pater Erich Wasmann über die Ameisen schreibt, und wenn Sie das lesen, so werden Sie davon mehr haben als von den pedantisch-philiströsen Ameisenbeschreibungen der anderen Forscher. So könnte man Beispiel über Beispiel anführen. Die Jesuiten[-Schriften] wären gut, wenn sie nur Materialistisches beschreiben würden; denn es ist bewußtes Bestreben [der Jesuiten],durch dieBeschreibung des Materialistischen die Menschen dabei zu halten, das Wissen überhaupt nur auf die materialistisch-physische Welt zu beziehen. Und das soll hauptsächlich der Menschheit vorgemacht werden, daß man das Übersinnliche nicht mit dem Wissen erforschen kann. Wie jene alten, von Luzifer besessenen Menschen damals den Menschen vorgemacht haben, sie bekommen Macht über die Welt, wenn sie sich des alten Götterwissens bedienen — während aber schon andere Zeiten der Entwickelung da waren -, so kommen jetzt die Nachzügler jener Menschen aus den Nachurzeiten und machen den Menschen vor, daß es nicht möglich ist, das Wissen in die übersinnliche Welt hinein auszudehnen, daß man mit dem Wissen vor der übersinnlichen Welt haltmachen müsse. Wie jene Menschen der früheren Zeit mit dem übersinnlichen Wissen die Menschheit betäuben wollten, so wollen die heutigen, ihnen entsprechenden menschlichen Wesenheiten nun die Menschheit recht hineintreiben in die physische Welt, damit sie dort drinnen stecken bleibe und nur mit dem stumpfen Impuls des Glaubens die übersinnliche Welt ergreife. Wie man in der Nachurzeit den Menschen zu viel Wissen über das Übersinnliche geben wollte, so wollen ihnen heute die Nachzügler zu wenig Wissen darüber geben. Jene wollten übersinnliches Wissen unberechtigterweise geben, diese wollen ihnen nur sinnliches Wissen lassen und ihnen über das Übersinnliche etwas lassen, worüber jeder Mensch seine beliebige Stellung haben kann.

Was würde nun geschehen, wenn der Kreis von Leuten, auf den hier hingewiesen ist, irgendeinen Sieg erringen würde, jener Kreis von Leuten, welcher bewußt Wissenschaft und Glauben unterscheidet, während natürlich eine große Anzahl von am Gängelbande geführten Leuten die Tirade vorfinden von der «Trennung von Glauben und Wissen» und sie nachsprechen, aber doch nur nachsprechen? Was hat man da? Im entgegengesetzten Sinne will man das ausführen, was auch jene alten Persönlichkeiten der Nachurzeit, nur in ihrem Sinne, ausgeführt haben. Wie man in der alten Zeit die Menschheit nicht ganz hinuntersteigen lassen wollte zur vollen Erdenaufgabe, so will man sie jetzt in der Erdenaufgabe drinnen erhalten, will sie nicht sich weiterentwickeln lassen von der Erde aus. Und die, welche heute gerade den Materialismus fördern, nennen sich heute «Spiritualisten» oder die Priester dieses oder jenes Glaubens, die Vertreter des Übersinnlichen. Wie in jenen alten Zeiten die, welche ein unberechtigtes Geistesleben gaben, sich von dem charakterisierten Gesichtspunkte aus - Materialisten nannten, so nennen sich heute zahlreiche Menschen, die eigentlich die Menschheit beim Materiellen erhalten wollen, Vertreter des Spirituellen. Es ist heute der stärkste Quell des Materialismus nicht dasjenige, was etwa von Büchner, Moleschott oder dem dicken Vogt ausgegangen ist, sondern dieser stärkste Quell ist Rom und alles, was mit diesem Zentrum des Materialismus irgend etwas zu tun hat. Und erreicht wird das, was man erreichen will, indem man nicht sagt: Ich will den Materialismus fördern -, sondern indem man die Menschen dadurch im Materialismus erhält, daß man in ihnen nur einen stumpfen Impuls für das Übermaterielle aufkommen läßt als Glauben, aber darüber hinaus keinen Impuls in die Menschheit hineinkommen läßt, der das Übersinnliche ergreifen kann. Daß man etwa von Rom aus das Übersinnliche für den Menschen erobern wollte, das ist die weltgeschichtliche Unwahrheit der neueren Zeit, und das muß klar und deutlich durchschaut werden! Und wenn in der neueren Zeit das Protestantentum, das Evangelische aus dem Römischen sich herausgebildet hat, so müssen wir uns klar sein: Es ist manches innerhalb des Protestantismus entstanden aus dem Römischen, allein jene Bestrebung, durch die Abstumpfung des übersinnlichen Wissens in dem Impulse des Glaubens die Menschheit nicht zum Übersinnlichen kommen zu lassen, die ist gerade auch im Evangelischen sehr stark geblieben, abgesehen davon, daß heute ja schon die Zeichen der Zeit sehr dahin deuten, daß das Evangelische von Rom, das neue und immer neue Anstrengungen machen wird nach der Richtung hin, die ich charakterisiert habe, überwunden wird.

Sie sehen, will man in der Welt etwas erreichen, dann handelt es sich darum, wenn das Erreichte das Gegenteil von dem sein soll, was eigentlich im Sinne der normalen Fortentwickelung der Menschheit liegt, daß man sich gewissermaßen einen entgegengesetzten Namen zulegt. Die Menschheit muß lernen, über den Glauben an die Namen hinauszukommen, und sie ist auf dem Wege dazu. Die Menschheit muß zu tieferen Quellen als zu dem Leben in Worten kommen. Angefangen hat die Sache ja im Grunde schon. Denken Sie sich, es läßt sich heute jemand bei Ihnen melden mit seiner Visitenkarte, auf der steht «Ernst Müller». Sie werden wahrscheinlich nicht vermuten, daß nun ein Mensch hereinkomme, mehlbestaubt und so weiter, der also ein Müller ist. Ebensowenig werden Sie vermuten, wenn sich jemand als «Richard Schmied» meldet, daß ein Mensch hereinkommt, der eben noch Pferdehufe beschlagen hat. Aber wenn man auf dem Dorfe gelebt hat, dann erinnert man sich noch, daß da die Leute gesagt haben: Jetzt kommt der Müller —, da’ war der wirkliche Müller damit gemeint, oder sie sagten: Jetzt kommt der Schmied -, und meinten den wirklichen Schmied. Da hat der Name noch etwas anderes bedeutet als die äußere Kennzeichnung. Unsere Eigennamen haben den Weg genommen, der es nicht mehr möglich macht, daß wir vom Namen aus auf das Wesen schließen, das diesen Namen trägt. Wir können heute nicht die Sprache nehmen in bezug auf die Eigennamen, um aus diesen etwas herauszubekommen, was das Wesen charakterisiert, das die Namen trägt. Wir wissen heute nicht, wenn wir den Namen Schmied hören für einen Menschen, ob der ein Schmied ist, oder bei einem andern, ob er ein Müller ist, wenn wir den Namen Müller hören. Aber denselben Weg, den bis heute schon unsere Worte gemacht haben in bezug auf unsere Eigennamen, denselben Weg wird die ganze Sprache nehmen, und der Mensch wird lernen müssen, aus andern Bedingungen heraus sich seine Vorstellungen zu bilden als aus den Worten. So wie Sie, wenn ein Herr Müller mit der Visitenkarte sich melden kommt, sich kein Bild machen können über das Wesen dieses Menschen, so müssen Sie sich gewöhnen, nicht aus dem Charakter der Worte das zu entnehmen, was man über die Welt denken muß.

Wenn man Ernst macht mit dem, was eine dringende Forderung der Zeit ist, dann wird man heute noch wenig verstanden. Bedenken Sie nur, wenn ich das, was ich als Geisteswissenschaft vorzutragen habe, so bringen würde, wie man es heute fordert nach den Wortwissenschaften, dann würde ich ja nicht dasjenige tun, was ich mich immer bemüht habe zu tun, von den verschiedensten Seiten her irgend etwas zu charakterisieren, bald mehr von der materiellen Seite, bald mehr von der spirituellen Seite her, immer eingedenk des Grundsatzes, den Goethe ausgesprochen hat: Die Wahrheit ist keineswegs zwischen zwei entgegengesetzten Behauptungen in der Mitte zu suchen. Man kann gar nicht bei der Entwickelung, bei der wir angekommen sind, heute noch glauben, daß man durch eine einseitige Charakteristik in Worten den Inhalt, den man zu geben hat, treffen könne. Man muß von verschiedenen Seiten her charakterisieren, muß in der Wortcharakteristik so vorgehen, wie man vorgeht, wenn man zum Beispiel einen Baum von verschiedenen Seiten her photographisch aufnimmt, wo dann die photographischen Bilder ganz verschieden sind. Hält man sie aber dann zusammen, so schaut man hin auf etwas, was man sich vorstellen kann als den Baum.

Lesen Sie nun die verschiedenen erschienenen Vortragszyklen durch und Sie werden sehen, wie dieser Grundsatz bei der Darstellung eingehalten ist, wie da die Dinge wirklich von verschiedenen Seiten her dargestellt sind. Will man das, was den Menschen zum Heile ist und was sie brauchen, heute darstellen, dann muß man sich angewöhnen, so zu sprechen, wie das geschehen ist. Und weil man in gewissen Kreisen das nicht will, weil man in den Wortwissenschaften fortfahren möchte, aber das, was menschliche Angelegenheit ist, nicht in der Wortwissenschaft gegeben werden kann, deshalb kommen in der jetzigen Zeit jene Sozialismen auf, die weiter in die Wortwissenschaft hineingehen wollen, die aber nur in die Zerstörung führen können. Heute glauben die Menschen mit Bezug auf die Ereignisse im Osten, es sei nun die Gefahr vorüber, nachdem jetzt die Polen gesiegt haben, nachdem vorher eine Zeitlang die Bolschewiki gesiegt haben, aber unter furchtbar tragikomischer Art des menschlichen Verhaltens. Gerade am jetzigen russisch-polnischen Kriege kann man aber sehen, wie haltlos im Grunde die heutige Menschheit geworden ist.

Wenn nun so etwas, was nun wirklich aus dem sozialen Leben der Gegenwart heraus geschrieben ist wie die «Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage», was auch seinem Stile nach aus den Bedürfnissen dieses Lebens der Gegenwart geschrieben ist, vor die Menschen hingestellt wird, dann kommen die Leute und verlangen, man solle Wortdefinitionen geben — ungefähr nach dem Muster, wie man noch in den meisten heute gebräuchlichen Schulbüchern Wortdefinitionen findet zum Unheil alles Erziehens und Unterrichtens! Aber indem immer mehr und mehr das Wort sich loslöste von dem, was man innerlich erlebte, indem man immer mehr aus andern Verhältnissen als aus den Wortquellen auf die Wirklichkeit schließen muß, ist man ja schließlich auch beim Namen Müller dahin gekommen, aus ganz andern Verhältnissen heraus darnach zu fragen, wer das sein kann, wer sich da präsentieren könnte, als durch eine Analyse des Namens Müller. So wird es nötig sein für die Menschheit, daß sie sich vom Worte loslöst und aus andern Quellen heraus das Dasein beurteilt.

Aber lange hat sich so etwas schon vorbereitet, nur wurde es nicht immer im richtigen Sinne der Menschheitsentwickelung angewendet. Daher ist es denn gekommen, daß weit ausgebreitete Gesellschaften heute sagen: Wir bekennen uns zu dem Christus! — Aber das Wort muß ja nicht das Wesen bezeichnen, das sie eigentlich anzubeten vorgeben. Es kommt nicht darauf an, daß man irgend etwas den Christus nennt, daß man sich von diesem Christus Vorstellungen macht, sondern es kommt darauf an, nach welchem realen Wesen die menschliche Empfindungswelt hingeht. Und wenn man dann zum Beispiel von diesem Christus-Wesen sich ein sehr irdisches Bild macht, wenn man sogar während seiner Lehrzeit in militaristischer Weise darin eingeweiht wird, wie man die Seele zuzubereiten hat, damit man sich eine ChristusVorstellung machen kann, wie man ihn als den König Jesus und seine Anhänger und sich als die Heerschar des Königs Jesus vorstellt, da kann es denn sein, wenn man sich ein so materielles Christus-Bild zurechtgemacht hat, daß man den Christus-Namen einer ganz andern Wesenheit gibt. Dann richtet man in Wahrheit seine Seele nach einer ganz andern Wesenheit hin und nennt diese zu Unrecht Christus. Und das geschieht heute sehr oft, geschieht so, daß es manchmal in ganz merkwürdiger Weise empfunden wird.

Ich hatte einmal vor vielen Jahren in Marburg ein Gespräch mit einem vielgereisten evangelischen Geistlichen. Wir sprachen darüber, wie die eigentliche Christus-Auffassung in der neueren Theologie immer mehr und mehr verlorengegangen ist, wie eigentlich diese neuere Theologie den Christus auf der einen Seite durch gewisse Einweihungszeremonien zu dem Jesus schon im Bilde heruntermaterialisiert und wie auf der andern Seite gewisse Theologen in dem Christus nur den «schlichten Mann von Nazareth» sehen. Da sagte mir dieser vielgereiste, daher die Welt etwas sich angeschaut habende protestantische Theologe: Ja, unsere jüngeren Theologen haben eigentlich keinen Christus mehr, könnten sich gar nicht mehr Christen oder ChristusBekenner nennen; die müßten sich eigentlich, wenn der Name nicht schon vergeben wäre, Jesuiten nennen, denn sie haben nur noch einen Jesus! — Das ist nicht mein Urteil, sondern eines, das eben dem Kopfe eines vielgereisten protestantischen Theologen entsprungen ist. Und damit Sie nicht ein Vorurteil haben und die Theologen hier gar zu sehr verachten, will ich auch noch hinzufügen: dieser Mann war ein Schwabe und hat sogar eine Schwäbin, noch dazu eine Stuttgarterin, zur Frau gehabt! Aber das nur, damit Sie kein Vorurteil haben.

Wir haben versucht, das zu erklären, was heute zur Trennung von Wissenschaft und Glauben geführt hat. Diese Trennung zwischen Wissen und Glauben ist es ja auch, die nicht aufkommen läßt, worauf ich schon gestern hingewiesen habe, die Erkenntnis von dem vorgeburtlichen oder vor der Empfängnis liegenden übersinnlichen Leben, die nur aufkommen lassen will den Glauben an das Post-mortem-Leben, den man auch den Menschen beibringen kann, wenn man nur mit einer egoistischen Seelenanlage rechnet. Das vorgeburtliche Leben, das wir durchlaufen haben zwischen dem letzten Tode und der jetzigen Geburt, läßt sich dem Menschen nur beibringen durch Erkenntnis, nicht durch ein Spekulieren auf seelen-egoistische Instinkte. Denn die Menschen sind ja so beschaffen, wenn sie hier leben, daß es ihnen ganz egal ist, was sie vorher durchgemacht haben, ehe sie in dieses Dasein hier eingetreten sind; aber aus egoistischen Gründen interessiert es sie, was nach dem Tode mit ihnen geschehen wird. Daher kann man gut predigen über das, was nach dem Tode den Menschen erwarten wird, denn das appelliert an die egoistischen menschlichen Seeleninstinkte. Man kann schlecht predigen, aber muß voraussetzen menschlichen Erkenntnisdrang, Streben nach menschenwürdigem Dasein, wenn man von der vorgeburtlichen Existenz des Menschen sprechen will. Und das führt dazu, selbstverständlich, daß uns zunächst die Erziehung und dann das Erdenleben so erscheinen, daß das Erdenleben aufgefaßt werden muß als die Erfüllung einer Aufgabe, die uns mitgegeben ist, nachdem wir aus der geistigen Welt heruntergekommen sind in das physische Dasein.

Das, was sich so unbedingt verbreiten muß in der äußeren Welt, was auch sozial gestaltend wirken muß, das hat, wie Sie aus verschiedenen Untergründen heraus ahnen können, viele Feinde. Und nun will ich heute am Schluß — denn ich muß es tun — Ihnen einiges von den trüben Quellen erzählen, aus denen das kommt, was heute gegen unsere Geisteswissenschaft vernichtend auftreten will. Es sind schon starke Stücke, die da kommen und sie werden sich immer verstärken, wenn nicht in noch stärkerem Maße, als es bisher der Fall war, die Seelen aufwachen.

Sie wissen ja und unsere Freunde hier haben dagegen gekämpft, daß über ganz Deutschland und darüber hinaus einmal die abscheuliche Verleumdung aufgetreten ist von jenem Verrat deutscher Offiziere an die Entente durch die Bestrebungen der Dreigliederungsleute und so weiter. Ich habe nun in der letzten Zeit einiges aus jenen abscheulichen Schriftstücken geliefert bekommen, die in weiten Kreisen heute verbreitet werden: gefälschte Briefe, von denen gesagt wird, daß sie aus unseren Reihen stammen, die mit aller Raffiniertheit die schlimmsten Verleumdungen verbreiten, gefälschte Interviews, deren Charakter ich Ihnen nur dadurch zu charakterisieren brauche, daß ich Ihnen mitteile, daß ein solches gefälschtes Interview damit schließt: «D.H. gehört in Wirklichkeit nicht zum Steiner-Bunde. Er hat sich nur als Spion eingeschlichen, um hinter die Schliche zu kommen, und das Ergebnis hat ‘er einem kleinen Kreis vaterländisch Gesinnter mitgeteilt, damit gesagt wird, daß der Steiner Hochverrat treibt und mit der Entente im Bunde steht!» Das ist nur ein kleines Pröbchen von den trüben Bestrebungen, die eine viel größere Verbreitung haben, als Sie glauben.

Ein sehr niedliches Beispiel in dieser Beziehung ist etwas, was auch jene Persönlichkeit der hiesigen Nachbarschaft, die ich in einem öffentlichen Vortrage einmal mit dem Worte «Schwein» bezeichnet habe — weil alles, was von dieser Persönlichkeit gegen mich gerichtet ist, mit keinem andern Worte bezeichnet werden kann -, jetzt von dort durch die schwarze Kunst verbreitet wird unter dem Titel: «Die gestohlene Dreigliederung.» Da wird nichts Geringeres behauptet, als daß einmal eine Dame eine Dreigliederung geschaffen habe - allerdings ist die Dame nicht vorsichtig genug, weil sie nichts darüber gelesen hat, wie früh in gewissen Kreisen meine Dreigliederung verbreitet worden ist; sie gibt einen Zeitpunkt an, der etwas später liegt als der Zeitpunkt, wo ich mit sehr vielen Leuten über die hier vertretene Dreigliederung gesprochen habe -, aber diese Dame habe auch eine Dreigliederung geschaffen; das Manuskript habe sie einer philanthropischen Gesellschaft geschickt, es sei dann nach Hamburg gewandert, dort habe es der Betreffende statt vierzehn Tage für vier Wochen behalten, dadurch sei es wahrscheinlich von mir gelesen und so die Dreigliederung aus diesem Manuskript von mir genommen worden. Allerdings kann die Dame nicht gut sagen, daß irgend etwas zwischen der hier vertretenen Dreigliederung und dem, was sie damals in jenes Manuskript hineingeschrieben hat, übereinstimmt. Deshalb sagt sie: «Die Dreigliederung ist zwar aus diesem Manuskript gestohlen — aber sie ist verpfuscht!» Jawohl: Der hat mir meine Uhr gestohlen, aber das ist eine ganz andere! Nun hat sie eine Schrift verfaßt über ihre Dreigliederung. Die besteht, wie sie angibt, in dem Goldenen Schnitt «Staat, Kulturreich, Kirche», wobei dann wieder alles durch den Goldenen Schnitt gefordert sein soll. Also wir haben den Einheitsstaat und darin zwei Teile, also genau «dasselbe», was auch die Dreigliederung will; deshalb ist die verpfuscht! — Damit Sie sich eine Vorstellung machen können, empfehle ich Ihnen sehr diese Schrift; der Titel heißt: «3:5, 5:8 = 21:34 — Das Geheimnis, die Schuldenlasten in absehbarer Zeit tilgen zu können», von Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner, erschienen 1920 im Selbstverlag. — Sie könnten etwas gut machen, wenn Sie jetzt sagten: Wir haben gearbeitet für die Dreigliederung, aber wir haben eigentlich nur im Auftrage der Frau Elisabeth Metzdorff-Teschner gearbeitet. - Denn das mutet sie uns auch noch zu, indem sie an allerlei Leute Briefe schreibt.

Das sind die Unterlagen für das, was ein Herr Rohm schreibt und was jetzt in die Schweiz geht und von allen katholischen Seelenhirten den Leuten dort aufgetischt wird. Natürlich hat niemand eine Ahnung davon, was an der Quelle steht, sondern es wird den Leuten in den Artikeln etwas ganz anderes erzählt, was die Leute ganz gut glauben könnten, da man nicht auf diese Narrheit als Quelle hinweist. So wird heute gearbeitet, aber nicht etwa unbewußt, sondern ganz bewußt. Gegen das wird bewußt gearbeitet, was aus ehrlicher Bestrebung heraus dem wirklichen Fortschritt der Menschheit dienen will! Und die, welche allen voran in der Schweiz zum Beispiel in solchem Stile arbeiten, sind für den Augenblick die katholischen Seelenhirten, die alles das nachdrucken, was von jenen Zentralen ausgeht, die von Herrn Knapp und andern befehligt werden und was in den Schmutzkübeln des Herrn Rohm abgeladen wird und so weiter. Dabei fällt mir immer ein, wieviel Leute es bis vor kurzem gegeben hat und noch gibt, die in der Schar der Anthroposophen wackere Abonnenten des «Leuchtturms» des Herrn Rohm sind und die einem immer mit den Ansichten des Herrn Rohm, mit dem oder jenem kamen!

Ich mußte Ihnen aber diese kleinen Proben - ich könnte die Beispiele reichlich vermehren - schon einmal vorführen, damit Sie sehen, mit welchen Mitteln gearbeitet wird.

Anthroposophie soll durch die Kraft, die in der anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft liegt, auch die Kraft bekommen, noch etwas anderes aus den Worten zu haben, als den Namen: die Empfindung für die Wahrheit. Wer die Empfindung für die Wahrheit hat, wird auf den Weg kommen, der in etwas ganz anderem liegt, als es die Menschen heute vielfach bequem finden, der aber gesucht wird durch solche Dinge, wie sie auch heute wieder geschildert werden mußten. Denn es ist heute bequemer, etwas anderes zu sagen, als auf die starken feindlichen Kräfte hinzuweisen, die die Direktion sind für das Unterschiedmachen zwischen Wissenschaft und Glauben und die darauf ausgehen, den Weg zu versperren zum Hineinführen der sinnlichen Wissenschaft in die übersinnliche Wissenschaft.

Eighth Lecture

You are well aware that many people today, when speaking of spiritual science, say that what such a spiritual science points to can never be the object of knowledge or insight, but can only be the object of faith, a kind of subjective belief. This attitude gives rise to the distinction that is generally made between knowledge and belief, and a large part of the objections that are raised against our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science consist again and again in that people say they want to take what can actually only be believed, what is basically a kind of subjective knowledge or perhaps not even knowledge at all, but rather a subjective belief, and elevate it, so to speak, to the level of certain, exact knowledge, of real science.

Now, it is only in recent times that a distinction has been made between science, which is only allowed to deal with what is offered in the sensory world, what can at most be grasped and explored through experimentation, and science, which delivers certain knowledge solely from such depths, and belief, which rises above the sensory and whose objects can never be assumed to be capable of being transformed into certain knowledge. Science, then, on the one hand—but only for the sensory world; the supersensible world on the other hand, acceptable to everyone insofar as they find it acceptable, but not accessible to certain knowledge, only to subjective belief.

Every person who takes life seriously should actually regard what is said in wide circles about a supposed contradiction between knowledge and faith as a puzzle that must be solved. But basically, it is only possible from the standpoint of initiatory science to give a real explanation of what is actually going on when, in our time — and for a long time, for centuries — efforts have been made to teach humanity this distinction between the science of the finite, the transitory, the sensory, and the belief in an infinite, an imperishable, the supersensible. For you know that everything presented here from the perspective of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is imbued with a thoroughly scientific spirit and claims to stand alongside the science of the sensible as knowledge and insight into the supersensible. But the science of initiation must go far back in the history of human evolution if it is to make it understandable why such a contrast between science and faith has been taught to humanity in our time.

If we go back in time, we find in the very early stages of human development — we have often discussed this — a kind of primordial knowledge that can be regarded as a legacy from the gods, a knowledge that did not know anything like proof or demonstration, a knowledge that was based entirely on the fact that a force arose within human beings that was not just empty, abstract thinking or something like that, but was filled with divine light substance, with divine life substance, which felt as if it were in communication with the divine worlds. People had a knowledge of this connection between humans and the divine worlds, which they still felt and perceived, just as one perceives colors and sounds externally, so that there was no need to prove it because it was perceptible in the immediate presence. People did not know how to prove it, nor could they demonstrate it logically, but simply felt themselves filled with what the gods had instilled in their inner being. But this was definitely “knowledge” in the earliest times of humanity, and this knowledge was connected with an awareness of the divine origin of human beings. For since people knew that they were connected with the gods on earth, since they received from the initiated, from the initiates, that power which enabled them to look up to this connection with the gods, one was also aware of the divine origin of man, aware that humanity had descended to earth from a world in which it existed in spiritual and soul form. This divine-spiritual origin of humanity was a matter of course for the ancient knowledge that was everywhere present on earth in the early days of human development.

But this primordial knowledge wanted to develop further. If this primordial knowledge had remained, human beings would have continued to be beings filled with God in a certain sense, but they would not have been able to attain freedom and free will. If only their arms moved, they would have had to say to themselves: A god within me moves my arms—or if they walked, they would have had to say: A god within me moves my feet. This is exactly how primitive humans felt. They felt, as it were, a divine-spiritual being within their skin that was with them, and that is why the designation we have already mentioned from various points of view has remained, that the human body is a temple of God, because in primeval times man was indeed like the earthly dwelling place of God, who himself descended to earth to take up residence among men. But human beings were meant to become independent. That is why the original divine knowledge gradually faded away and this divine inheritance receded more and more. In order to attain freedom, human beings had to develop knowledge, insight, thinking, feeling, and will out of their own strength. He was, in a sense, abandoned by the gods, but he was — if I may express it thus — abandoned by the gods for his own good. In order that he might develop human science, divine science withdrew from him. And so it came about in later times that the entire path that divine science, once spread throughout the earth, had to take to become earthly-human science had to be supervised by the mysteries, that the initiates, the initiates of the mysteries, were called upon, as it were, to regulate how humanity should be educated so that it could grow out of the old knowledge of the gods in the right way and grow into earthly-human knowledge.

But since the original knowledge of the gods was already fading and the mysteries had already taken on the task of guiding humanity, of teaching it in a broad sense, so that the transition from the original wisdom to human knowledge, which was to lead to freedom, could take place in the right way, a certain number of people gathered together over wide areas of the earth to seek a certain path to thwart these intentions of the right guidance of humanity that came from the mysteries. In a sense, human societies were formed that set themselves the task of thwarting this right development. We must turn to spiritual science if we want to understand the activities of a widespread human society in later times. For history itself does not go back to those times; there are no external documents from those times. But it was such a society that, in a certain way, acquired the mystery knowledge and, from this mystery knowledge, also the methods for connecting with the divine source of knowledge at a time when the honestly working mysteries had long been engaged in transferring the ancient knowledge of the gods into human-earthly knowledge. And so there was once a time on earth when the appointed representatives of mystery knowledge were entirely occupied with transferring the ancient knowledge of the gods into human-earthly science; but into what was spreading as a healthy view and feeling about humanity, healthy for that time, there sounded — and indeed at a time when it was already too late and humanity should no longer have the old knowledge of the gods whispered into its ears, which a well-organized society at that time wanted to bring back, belatedly, as the ancient wisdom of humanity. So people experienced, at a time when they had already outgrown the state of divine knowledge, that those who had an interest in it wanted to continue to impart this old knowledge of the gods to large circles of humanity.

What interest did these members of the post-ur-time have? They had an interest in destroying the emergence of knowledge at its very root, so to speak. They did not want external human knowledge to arise in humanity; they did not want people to attain freedom. Yes, in the post-Ahrimanic era there were efforts to prevent humanity from taking up the potential for development toward freedom, and therefore to destroy earthly-physical knowledge at its root. And so these “enemies” of human development in the post-Aryan era made a distinction between human knowledge and divine knowledge, a divine knowledge that was no longer justified at that time. And when humanity outgrew the knowledge of the gods, flooding it with this knowledge meant bringing it into a state of consciousness that was dreamy and enthusiastic. Broad masses of humanity lived in such enthusiasm in the post-Apostolic Age, in which the sense for the emergence of human science was stifled. And if, as we have often been able to characterize, some things in human science emerged very deficiently in later times, if deficiencies crept into language formation itself, then this was due to the flattering elevation of human knowledge to divine knowledge.

If we investigate the influence under which those stood who were so eager to cloud people's minds and cut off at the root the emergence of science and also of a language emerging from the depths of humanity, then we must say: these spirits, these human personalities, were thoroughly dominated by Luciferic forces. Luciferic forces lived in them, forces that did not want human beings, with all their feelings, will, and thinking, to come down to earth. Human beings were to become more and more materialistic, but these personalities wanted to keep them spiritually intact in order to withdraw them from their earthly tasks. These spirits were the spiritualists of the post-Apostolic era who were hostile to human evolution. For at that time, human beings were to find ways to penetrate more and more deeply into the physical realm with their soul and spirit. But these spirits wanted to prevent that. If we speak in terms of the present—because it is difficult to characterize the state of humanity in the post-Apostolic era with precisely accurate ideas—we could say that these spirits appear with a strong hint of a certain unconscious untruthfulness. For it was, of course, through the mysteries that the impulse was given to descend into the material world and permeate it. These Lucifer-obsessed people of the post-Ahrimanic era could not deny this, of course. That is why these people did not call themselves — speaking in the language of the present, which would then have to be translated into the thinking of primeval times — “spiritualists,” but rather “representatives of the material.” For they told people: You will attain the material when you follow us, when you make use of the power we give you with the later divine knowledge, when you strengthen yourselves spiritually and soulfully through it. In this way, you can experience yourselves as conquerors of what is intended for you on earth; you can conquer the earth in flight by becoming partakers of the power of the gods! And such Lucifer-possessed leaders of certain circles of humanity gave themselves the honorary title “fighters for the material.”

Thus, through these personalities, a kind of conflict arose in human evolution between what should have been the normal development of humanity and what was presented to humanity by setting before them the ideal of materialism, which was aimed at conquering the material world — but not through gradual assimilation, but by pointing out that one should, as it were, appropriate divine power through supersensible knowledge at the wrong time, with which one should then conquer the sensory-material world.

We are experiencing today the opposite of what existed in primeval times. We see that, starting from certain denominations, a struggle is taking place against the regular course that science should now take. At its root, it has become defective, so to speak. As a result, science and language have certain deficiencies throughout the Earth's evolution. But science has nevertheless come into being, because enough people have been found who, under the influence of honest mysteries and honest initiation science, have opposed those spirits who actually wanted to destroy knowledge at its root. And so science has developed. It has taken the path that I have often described in detail, reaching the state it was in in the middle of the 15th century, when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began, and has continued into our time, where, however, a new turning point now lies ahead for this science — following the science of initiation of the present age. Today, this science is ripe, so to speak, to be placed in the freedom of the human being. Today, this science, which essentially still behaves in such a way that it considers only the sensory-physical to be exact and certain, that which is gained through observation or experiment, is ripe, as I have often explained, to develop into the comprehension of the imagination, the inspired, the intuitive world, to find its way into experience, into the grasping of the spiritual. This science is destined to continue growing in order to take on the form of spiritual vision. It is now ready for this. |

However, in order for this science to develop properly, a mindset must be cultivated in humanity that desires the same conscientious tendencies toward investigation and research that exist for the external sensory world in botany, physics, chemistry, and so on, for the triumph of external science, also be applied within human beings, so that what is a disposition in external science may be transferred into such a living grasp of the supersensible world as is indicated in How to Know Higher Worlds, in Outline of the Secret Science, or in other corresponding books. And we must be clear about this: what should actually lie at the bottom of our souls and what alone can live in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is distinguished from something that resembles its opposite pole, Jesuitism, in that it is precisely Jesuitism that wants to keep science, actual knowledge, in the realm of mere experimentation or observation. Examine — but examine carefully — the scientific literature that comes from the Jesuits: It is, in its attitude and way of thinking, the most materialistic conceivable; it strives to keep knowledge entirely within the sensory world and to strictly separate knowledge that has to do only with sensory observation or with facts observable through experiment from what is to be the object of faith or revelation. According to this way of thinking, there should never be a bridge between what is external science and what is faith. But this is precisely what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks: a way out of physical-sensory science into spiritual science, but into a spiritual science that is as strictly epistemological as external sensory science.

So we must imagine that this physical-sensory science is the root, and that supersensible knowledge, which is based on the same impulses that prevail in botany, physics, chemistry, and so on—only that it enters a different territory—will grow out of it. Certain circles foresaw that this would happen. Therefore, those who had an interest in preventing this from happening introduced into human development what now appears as another opposition: the opposition I have mentioned between the old knowledge that regularly passes over into human science and the dulling of humanity with divine science. The opposition between knowledge and faith was introduced into humanity. The opposite was done: they wanted to keep the science of the senses intact, they emphasized it sharply, and it is simply true, if one looks through Jesuit literature on materialistic science for readability and clarity of presentation, that it is extraordinarily gifted, that in fact this literature on the materialistic world written by Jesuits is more skillfully written than much of what is written about this world today from other quarters. What a person like Father Erich Wasmann writes about ants, for example, is good, and if you read it, you will gain more from it than from the pedantic, philistine descriptions of ants by other researchers. One could cite example after example. The Jesuit writings would be good if they only described material things, because it is a conscious effort on the part of the Jesuits to keep people's knowledge limited to the material, physical world by describing material things. And the main thing they want to teach humanity is that the supernatural cannot be explored through knowledge. Just as those ancient people possessed by Lucifer taught people back then that they would gain power over the world if they made use of the ancient knowledge of the gods — even though other times of development had already arrived — so now the stragglers of those people from the post-earth times come and teach people that it is not possible to extend knowledge into the supersensible world, that one must stop with knowledge before the supersensible world. Just as those people of earlier times wanted to stupefy humanity with supersensible knowledge, so today's human beings, corresponding to them, want to drive humanity right into the physical world so that it remains stuck there and can only grasp the supersensible world with the dull impulse of faith. Just as in the post-Christian era people wanted to give people too much knowledge about the supersensible, so today the laggards want to give them too little knowledge about it. Those wanted to give supersensible knowledge unjustifiably, these want to leave them only with sensory knowledge and leave them something about the supersensible about which every person can have their own opinion.

What would happen now if the circle of people referred to here were to achieve some kind of victory, that circle of people who consciously distinguish between science and faith, while of course a large number of people who are led by the nose find the tirade about the “separation of faith and knowledge” and repeat it, but only repeat it? What do we have then? In the opposite sense, people want to carry out what those ancient personalities of later times carried out, only in their own sense. Just as in ancient times people did not want to let humanity descend completely to the full task of the earth, so now they want to keep it within the task of the earth and do not want to let it develop further from the earth. And those who promote materialism today call themselves “spiritualists” or priests of this or that faith, representatives of the supernatural. Just as in ancient times those who gave an unjustified spiritual life called themselves materialists from their characteristic point of view, so today numerous people who actually want to keep humanity in the material realm call themselves representatives of the spiritual. Today, the strongest source of materialism is not what emanated from Büchner, Moleschott, or the fat Vogt, but rather Rome and everything that has anything to do with this center of materialism. And what one wants to achieve is achieved not by saying, “I want to promote materialism,” but by keeping people in materialism by allowing only a dull impulse for the super-material to arise in them as a belief, but not allowing any impulse to enter into humanity that can grasp the supersensible. That one wanted to conquer the supersensible for human beings from Rome, for example, is the world-historical untruth of modern times, and this must be clearly and distinctly understood! And if Protestantism, Evangelicalism, has developed out of Romanism in modern times, we must be clear that much within Protestantism has arisen out of Romanism, but that striving to prevent humanity from reaching the supersensible through the dulling of supersensible knowledge in the impulse of faith has remained very strong in Evangelicalism, apart from the fact that today the signs of the times already indicate that Evangelicalism will be overcome by Rome, which will make new and ever new efforts in the direction I have characterized.

You see, if you want to achieve something in the world, then if what you achieve is to be the opposite of what actually lies in the normal development of humanity, you have to give yourself a name that is, in a sense, the opposite. Humanity must learn to go beyond belief in names, and it is on the way to doing so. Humanity must come to deeper sources than life in words. The process has already begun, in essence. Imagine that someone comes to you today with a business card that says “Ernst Müller.” You probably won't assume that a person covered in flour and so on, who is therefore a miller, is about to enter. Nor would you assume, if someone introduced himself as “Richard Smith,” that a man who had just been shoeing horses would enter. But if you have lived in a village, you will remember that people used to say, “Here comes the miller,” and they meant the actual miller, or they would say, “Here comes the blacksmith,” and they meant the actual blacksmith. In those days, names had a meaning beyond their external characteristics. Our proper names have taken a path that makes it impossible for us to infer the essence of the person bearing the name from the name itself. Today, we cannot use language in relation to proper names to extract something that characterizes the essence of the person bearing the name. Today, when we hear the name Smith for a person, we do not know whether he is a blacksmith, or when we hear the name Miller, whether he is a miller. But the same path that our words have already taken with regard to our proper names will be taken by the whole language, and man will have to learn to form his ideas from conditions other than words. Just as you cannot form a picture of the nature of a person when Mr. Miller comes to you with his business card, so you must get used to not deriving what you must think about the world from the character of words.

If we take seriously what is an urgent demand of the times, then we will still be little understood today. Just consider, if I were to present what I have to say as spiritual science in the way that is demanded today by the linguistic sciences, then I would not be doing what I have always endeavored to do, namely to characterize something from various sides, sometimes more from the material side, sometimes more from the spiritual side, always mindful of the principle expressed by Goethe: The truth is by no means to be found in the middle between two opposing assertions. At the stage of development we have reached today, it is impossible to believe that a one-sided characterization in words can convey the content that needs to be conveyed. One must characterize from different sides, one must proceed in the verbal characterization as one does, for example, when photographing a tree from different sides, where the photographic images are then completely different. But when one holds them together, one looks at something that one can imagine as the tree.

Now read through the various lecture cycles that have been published and you will see how this principle is adhered to in the presentation, how things are really presented from different sides. If one wants to present what is good for people and what they need today, then one must get into the habit of speaking as this has been done. And because certain circles do not want this, because they want to continue with the science of words, but what is human cannot be given in the science of words, that is why we are now seeing the rise of those socialisms that want to go further into the science of words, but which can only lead to destruction. Today, with regard to the events in the East, people believe that the danger is now over, now that the Poles have won, after the Bolsheviks had been victorious for a while, but in a terribly tragicomic manner of human behavior. However, the current Russian-Polish war shows just how groundless modern humanity has become.

If something like this, which is truly written out of contemporary social life, like the “Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage” (Key Points of the Social Question), which is also written in a style that reflects the needs of contemporary life, is presented to people, then people come and demand that definitions of words be given — roughly along the lines of the definitions of words found in most schoolbooks in use today, to the detriment of all education and teaching! But as words have become increasingly detached from what is experienced inwardly, as we have been forced to draw conclusions about reality from circumstances other than the sources of words, we have finally arrived at the point where, in the case of the name Müller, we have to ask, based on circumstances entirely different from those that gave rise to the name, who this person might be, who could present himself as Müller, other than by analyzing the name Müller. Thus it will be necessary for humanity to detach itself from words and judge existence from other sources.

But something like this has been in preparation for a long time, only it has not always been applied in the right sense of human development. That is why it has come about that widespread societies today say: We profess our faith in Christ! — But the word does not necessarily describe the being they actually claim to worship. It does not matter that one calls something Christ, that one forms ideas about this Christ, but rather it matters toward what real being the human world of feeling is directed. And if, for example, one forms a very earthly image of this Christ being, if one is even initiated in a militaristic manner during one's period of instruction on how to prepare the soul so that one can form an idea of Christ, how to imagine him as King Jesus and his followers and oneself as the army of King Jesus, then it can happen that, having formed such a material image of Christ, one gives the name Christ to a completely different being. Then one actually directs one's soul toward a completely different being and wrongly calls it Christ. And this happens very often today, in such a way that it is sometimes perceived in a very strange way.

Many years ago in Marburg, I had a conversation with a well-traveled Protestant clergyman. We talked about how the true understanding of Christ has been increasingly lost in modern theology, how this modern theology, on the one hand, through certain initiation ceremonies, has reduced Christ to the image of Jesus, and how, on the other hand, certain theologians see in Christ only the “simple man from Nazareth.” Then this well-traveled Protestant theologian, who had seen something of the world, said to me: Yes, our younger theologians no longer really have Christ; they can no longer call themselves Christians or followers of Christ. If the name were not already taken, they would have to call themselves Jesuits, because they only have Jesus! That is not my opinion, but one that has sprung from the mind of a well-traveled Protestant theologian. And so that you do not have a prejudice and despise theologians here too much, I would like to add that this man was a Swabian and even had a Swabian woman, from Stuttgart no less, as his wife! But that is only so that you do not have a prejudice.

We have tried to explain what has led to the separation of science and faith today. It is this separation between knowledge and faith that prevents the realization of what I pointed out yesterday, namely, the recognition of the pre-birth or pre-conception supernatural life, which only allows for the belief in post-mortem life, which can be taught to people if one only reckons with an egoistic soul disposition. The pre-birth life that we have gone through between our last death and our present birth can only be taught to human beings through knowledge, not through speculation about egoistic instincts of the soul. For human beings are so constituted when they live here that they do not care what they went through before they entered this existence; but for selfish reasons they are interested in what will happen to them after death. Therefore, it is easy to preach about what awaits people after death, because this appeals to the selfish instincts of the human soul. It is difficult to preach, but one must presuppose a human thirst for knowledge and a striving for a dignified existence if one wants to speak of the pre-birth existence of human beings. And this leads, of course, to the fact that education and then earthly life appear to us in such a way that earthly life must be understood as the fulfillment of a task that has been given to us after we have come down from the spiritual world into physical existence.

That which must spread so unconditionally in the outer world, which must also have a socially formative effect, has, as you can guess from various sources, many enemies. And now, at the end of today's lecture, I must tell you something about the murky sources from which comes that which today seeks to destroy our spiritual science. These are powerful forces that are coming, and they will grow stronger and stronger unless souls awaken to an even greater extent than they have done so far.

You know, and our friends here have fought against it, that throughout Germany and beyond, the abominable slander has arisen that German officers betrayed the Entente through the efforts of the threefold social order people and so on. I have recently received some of those abominable documents that are being widely distributed today: forged letters, which are said to have come from our ranks, spreading the worst slander with great sophistication; forged interviews, the character of which I need only characterize by telling you that one such forged interview concludes: “D.H. does not really belong to the Steiner group. He only infiltrated as a spy to get behind the scenes, and he communicated the results to a small circle of patriotic people so that it would be said that Steiner is committing high treason and is in league with the Entente!” This is only a small sample of the murky endeavors that are much more widespread than you believe.

A very cute example in this regard is something that a certain personality in the local neighborhood, whom I once referred to in a public lecture as a “swine” — because everything this personality has directed against me cannot be described in any other words — is now spreading through black magic under the title: “The Stolen Threefold Order.” Nothing less is claimed than that a lady once created a threefold division — although the lady is not careful enough, because she has not read anything about how early my threefold division was disseminated in certain circles; she gives a date that is somewhat later than the time when I spoke to a great many people about the threefold division presented here — but this lady also created a threefold division; she sent the manuscript to a philanthropic society, where it ended up in Hamburg, where the person concerned kept it for four weeks instead of fourteen days, so that I probably read it and took the threefold division from this manuscript. However, the lady cannot say for certain that anything in the threefold social order presented here corresponds to what she wrote in that manuscript at the time. That is why she says: “The threefold social order was stolen from this manuscript — but it has been botched!” Yes, indeed: someone stole my watch, but this is a completely different one! Now she has written a treatise on her threefold division. According to her, it consists of the golden ratio “state, cultural realm, church,” whereby everything is again supposed to be determined by the golden ratio. So we have the unified state and within it two parts, exactly “the same” as what the threefold division wants; that is why it is botched! — To give you an idea, I highly recommend this text; the title is: “3:5, 5:8 = 21:34 — The secret of being able to pay off debt burdens in the foreseeable future,” by Elisabeth Mathilde Metzdorff-Teschner, published in 1920 by the author. — You could do something good if you said now: We have worked for the threefold social order, but we have actually only worked on behalf of Mrs. Elisabeth Metzdorff-Teschner. — For she also imposes this on us by writing letters to all kinds of people.

These are the documents for what a Mr. Rohm writes and what is now going to Switzerland and being served up to the people there by all the Catholic soul shepherds. Of course, no one has any idea what the source says, but the articles tell people something completely different, which they are quite likely to believe, since no reference is made to this nonsense as the source. This is how things are done today, but not unconsciously, rather quite deliberately. Deliberate efforts are being made to counteract what, out of honest endeavor, seeks to serve the real progress of humanity! And those who work in this style, especially in Switzerland, for example, are at the moment the Catholic shepherds of souls, who reprint everything that comes from those centers commanded by Mr. Knapp and others, and what is dumped into Mr. Rohm's trash cans, and so on. This always reminds me of how many people there were until recently, and still are, among the ranks of the anthroposophists who are staunch subscribers to Mr. Rohm's “Leuchtturm” (Lighthouse) and who always came to you with Mr. Rohm's views, with this or that!

But I had to show you these small samples—I could give many more examples—so that you can see the means by which they work.

Through the power inherent in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, anthroposophy should also gain the power to derive something else from words than just their names: a sense of truth. Those who have a feeling for truth will find themselves on a path that is quite different from what many people today find comfortable, but which is sought through things that had to be described again today. For it is more convenient today to say something else than to point to the powerful hostile forces that are directing the distinction between science and faith and that are seeking to block the way for the introduction of sensory science into supersensible science.