The Anthroposophic Movement
GA 258
10 June 1923, Dornach
First Lecture
Homeless Souls
My Dear Friends:
The course of observations, upon which we are about to enter, has in view a kind of self-recollection amongst those persons who are met together for Anthroposophy. It will afford opportunity for a self-recollection of this kind,—a self-recollection to which they may be led by a description of the anthroposophic movement and its relation to the Anthroposophical Society. And so you must let me begin to-day by referring to the people to whom this self-recollection applies. And these people are you yourselves,—all those who, through one occasion or another, have been led to find their way to Anthroposophy.
One person has found the way, as though, I might say, by an inner compulsion of the soul, an inner compulsion of the heart; another, maybe, for reasons based in the under-standing. But there are many again, who have come into the anthroposophic movement through some more or less exterior occasion, and have then perhaps, inside the anthroposophic movement itself, been led into profounder depths of the soul, and found more than at first they looked for. One characteristic, however, is common to all the people who find their way to the anthroposophic movement. And if one looks back through all the various years, and sums up what the characteristic feature is amongst all those who come into the anthroposophic movement, one finally can but say: They are people of a kind, who are forced by their particular fate,—their inner fate, their karma, in the first instance,—to turn aside from the ordinary highroad of civilization, along which the bulk of mankind to-day are marching, to abandon this highroad, and to seek out paths of their own.
Let us but clearly consider for a moment, what the way actually is, in which most people in our day grow up into life from their childhood on.—They are born of parents, who are Frenchmen, or Germans, Catholics, or Protestants, or Jews, or belong to some other of the creeds. They are born perhaps of parents who hold peculiar opinions. But in any case, there is always some kind of pre-recognized assumption, directly the people are born at the present day, amongst the parents, amongst the members of the family into which these people are born out of their pre-earthly lives, there exists so to speak a pre-recognized assumption,—not indeed uttered, but which is felt, even though perhaps not thought, (and. thought too, very often, when occasion gives rise to it!) ... looking out generally upon life, they think as a matter of course: We are French Catholics, or German Protestants, and our children will naturally be so too.
And the circumstance, that such a sentiment exists, naturally creates a social atmosphere,—and not a social atmosphere only, but a concatenation of social forces, which do then, in actual reality, work more or less obviously or non-obviously, so as to shove these children into the lines of life already marked out for them in advance by these sentiments, by these more or less definitely conceived thoughts.
And then all rolls on to begin with as though by matter of course in the life of the child. As though by matter of course these children are supplied with their education, their school-training. And all the time again the parents are filled with all sorts of thoughts about the children,—thoughts which again are not uttered, but which give the presuppositions for life, which are extraordinarily determinative for life;—such thoughts, for instance, as, My son will of course be a civil servant with a pension; or, My son is heir to the family estates; or, My daughter is to marry the son of the man who owns the neighbouring property.—Well, of course it is not always so definitely materialized, but it gives a certain prospective outlook, and this again always prescribes a line of direction. And the lines of external life are as a matter of fact so mapped out to-day, that, even down into our present times of chaos (which are felt by people however, for the most part, to be unusual), this life does go on externally in obedience to impulses given to it in this way. And then there is nothing for it, but that the man should, somehow or other, grow up to be a French Catholic, or a German Protestant: he cannot grow up to be anything else, for the forces of life impel him that way. And though it may not come directly from the parents' side with quite such definiteness, yet still, life catches him fresh from school, lays its grip on the man whilst he is still quite fresh, emerging from young life, from a state of childhood, and plants him down in some post in life. The State, the religious community, draw the man into their vortex.
And if the majority of people to-day were to try and account to themselves for how they came to be there, they would find it hard to do so. For too keen reflection on the subject would mean something intolerable. And so this intolerable something is driven as far down as possible into the sub-depths of consciousness,—driven under into the sub-conscious, or unconscious, regions of the soul's life. And there it remains; unless the psychoanalyst happens to fish it up again, if it behave with more than usual pertinacity in these unknown soul-regions down below. But, for the most part, the strength is wanting, to take any sort of stand in proper person, as an individual, in the midst of all this, that one has simply ‘grown into’ in this fashion.
One has moments of revolt perhaps, when of a sudden one finds oneself quite unexpectedly realizing in life that one is, say, a clerk,—perhaps even a town-clerk! But then, most likely, one clenches one's fists in one's trouser-pockets; or,—if it happens to be a woman,—one makes one's husband a scene about a disappointed life, and so forth. ... Well,—there are these reactions against the things which a man simply grows into.
And then very often too, you know, it happens, that there are the little pleasures attached to the various things, which deaden one's sense of the things themselves. One goes to public balls; and then the next day of course is occupied with sleeping them off; and so the time is filled up in one way or another. Or else one joins a strictly patriotic association. Because, being a town-clerk, you know, one must belong to something or other which absorbs one into its ranks. One has been absorbed into the ranks of the State, into the ranks of a religious community; and now one must needs shed a sort of halo in this way over the thing which one has inconsciently grown into.—Well, I need not pursue the description further.
This is, in fact, the way, more or less, in which those people, who follow along the beaten highroad of life to-day, grow into their external lives.
And the others, who are unable to go along with them,—they find themselves on side-tracks;—and this kind of people, who are unable to follow along most of the prescribed routes to-day, are to be found scattered about on any number of paths, possible and impossible. But, amongst these other paths, there is the anthroposophic path too, where the man is bent upon what lies within himself,—where he is bent on living through it in a more conscient fashion,—where he wants to live out his part conscientiously in something that lies to some extent at least in his own choice.
They are people such as these for the most part, whose path does not lie along the beaten highroad of life, who are Anthroposophists. Whether they find their way to Anthroposophy in youth, or in older years, one form or other, they are people of this kind. And if one examines further what the origin of it is, then again one comes to circumstances connected with the spiritual world:—
The souls, as they come to-day out of their pre-earthly state of life into their earthly one, have, for the most part, spent a long while in that condition preceding their birth, which I have often described in my lectures.—Man, after he has finished travelling over his life's road in the spiritual world between death and new birth, comes next into the region where he enters more and more into the life of the spiritual world, where his own life consists in working in company with the beings of the higher hierarchies, and where everything that he does is a work amidst this world of substantive spirit.
But in the course of this passage from death to a new birth there comes a particular point of time, when the man, as it were, turns his eyes down again towards earth. There, in soul, the man begins, for a long time in advance, to unite himself with the successive generations, at the end of which stand finally the parent pair that give him birth.—So that a man looks down beforehand, not only upon his fathers' fathers, but to his ancestors of faraway back generations, and unites himself with the line of direction, with the current, that runs through the generations of his fore-bears.
And so it happens with the majority of souls at the present day, that during the time when they are making ready to come down to earth again, they have a burning interest already in what is going on upon earth. They gaze as it were from the spiritual world upon the earth below, and are keenly interested in all that goes on with their forefathers on the earth.
Souls of this kind become, in fact, what I have described as being the case with those who follow the stream along the broad highway of modern life.
In contrast to these, there are, especially at the present day, a number of souls, whose interest, when their pre-earthly life begins to tend downwards again towards earth-life, lies less with what is going on upon earth, but for whom the subject of principal interest is: How are we maturing in the spirit-world? They continue to interest themselves down to the very last moment, so to speak, when they take their way back to earth, in the spiritual world.
Whereas the others have a profound desire for an earthly state of existence, these souls have to the last a lively interest in the things that are going on in the spiritual world, and come upon earth accordingly, when they do embody, with a mind that draws its consciousness from spiritual impulses, and affords less inclination to the kind of impulses which I described as existing in the case of the broad highroaders. They outgrow the impulses of their surroundings; in particular, they outgrow their surroundings in their spiritual aspirations. And they are thus pre-destined,—ready prepared,—for going simply their own way.
And so one might divide the souls into two kinds, which come down to-day out of their pre-earthly existence into earthly existence. The first kind, which still at the present day includes the majority of people, are remarkably ‘home-gifted’ souls, who feel so thoroughly at home as souls in their warm nest,—even though at times they may think it uncomfortable; but that is only in appearance, is only maya;—they feel comfortable in this warm nest, in which they have already taken an interest for so long, before coming down to earth.
Others perhaps,—the external maya, is not always a good guide,—others, who may go through their child-life quite acquiescently as souls, are not so home-gifted, are homeless souls, grow out of the snug nest rather than into it.
And to those of this latter species belong undoubtedly those souls too, who afterwards find their way into the anthroposophic movement.
It is therefore certainly a matter, in one way or other, of predetermination, whether one is impelled by one's fate into Anthroposophy.
It may truly be said, however, that the impulse manifests itself in all manner of ways, which leads these souls to search along side-paths, off the track of life's great highroad. And anyone, who has gone through life with a certain conscientness during the last twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century and the first twenty to thirty of the twentieth, will have observed, that everywhere, amongst the others, there were to be seen these homeless souls—soul-homeless souls, that is,—in numbers,—numbers relatively speaking, of course. A great many souls, in fact, to-day, have what I might call a certain streak of this homelessness.
If the others did not find it so comfortable to keep along the beaten tracks, and did not put such difficulties in the way of the homeless souls, these homeless souls would be much more striking in their numbers to the eyes of their contemporaries. But even so, one can perceive everywhere, I might say, to-day a certain streak of this homelessness in a great number of souls.
Only quite a short while ago, there was a report of an incident, which shows how even such things as this may happen. A professor at a certain university gave a set of lectures, a course of collegiate addresses, announced for schoolmen, with the title, ‘The evolution of mystic-occult philosophy from Pythagoras to Steiner’. And the report says, that when the course was announced, so many people came to the very first lecture, that he was not able to give it in one of the ordinary lecture-rooms, but had to hold it in the Great Auditorium, which as a rule is used only for the addresses on big University occasions.
From facts such as this, one can see how things stand at the present day, and how in fact this tendency to homelessness has spread extremely deep into men's souls. And one could watch this thing, so to speak, which to-day grows week by week to an ever more intense longing in the souls of those who bear about this homelessness within them,—the longing for something which is not a ready planned, ready mapped-out post in life,—this longing for something spiritual,—which shows itself in this corner of life from week to week, one might say, with greater insistence and ever increasing force amid the chaotic spiritual life of the day one could watch all this growing up. And if to-day I succeed in sketching the gradual growth of it for you in a few brief touches, you may be able to find in this sketch, through a sort of self-recollection, just a little perhaps of what I might term the common anthroposophic origin of you all.
To-day I will do no more than pick out some characteristic features by way of introduction.—Look back to the last twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century. We might quite well take any other field; but let us take a very characteristic field; and here we find coming into prominence at a particular time what one may call ‘Wagnerianism’: the cult of Richard Wagner.
There was, no doubt, mixed up with this Richard Wagner cult, a great deal of fashionable affectation, desire for sensation, and so forth. But amongst the people who showed themselves at Bayreuth, after Bayreuth was started, there were not only gentlemen in the latest cut of frock-coat, and ladies in the newest and smartest frocks; but at Bayreuth there was everything conceivable, side by side. Even then, one might see there gentlemen with their hair very long and ladies with their hair cropped short. People might be seen, who felt it like a sort of modern pilgrimage to travel from long distances to Bayreuth. I even knew one man, who, when he set out for Bayreuth, drew off his boots at a place on the road a very long way off, and pilgrimaged to Bayreuth barefoot.
Amongst the people who turned up like this,—the gentlemen with the long, and the ladies with the short hair, there were undoubtedly many who belonged in some form or other to the homeless-soul class. But amongst those, too, who were dressed, if not in the very latest, yet at any rate in a fairly respectable fashion, there were also such as were homeless souls.
Now, what made such an effect upon the people in this Wagnerianism,—what there actually was in it, (I am not talking now of the musical element only, but of Wagnerianism as a social phenomenon)—what made itself felt in Wagnerianism as a force, was something that in this Wagnerianism stood out quite distinct from anything else that the materialist age had to offer. It was something that went out quite peculiarly, and almost suggestively I might say, from this Wagnerianism, and acted upon people in such a way as to give them the feeling: It is like a door into another and more spiritual world, quite different from the one we usually have round about us.
And round Bayreuth and all that went on there, there sprung up a whole crop of longing aspirations after pro-founder depths of spiritual life.—To understand Richard Wagner's personages and dramatic compositions was at first certainly difficult. But that they were the creations of quite another element than merely the crass materialism of the age,—this at any rate was felt by numbers of people. And if these happened to be persons, who as homeless souls were more particularly impelled in this direction, they were stirred up by what I might call a sort of suggestive force in the Wagner dramas, particularly in the life that the Wagner dramas brought with them into our civilization, and began to have all sorts of hazy, emotional intuitions.
There were also, for instance, amongst the many people who came into this Wagnerian life, the readers of the Bayreuth Papers. It is interesting, historically,—to-day it has already all come to be history,—historically it is interesting to take up one of the annual sets of the Bayreuth Papers, and to look through it and see, how they start out with an interpretation of Tristan and Isolde, of the Nibelung Ring, of the Flying Dutchman even, how they start out from the dramatic composition, take the individual figures in the Wagner dramas, the incidents in them, and thence, in an extremely subjective and unreal way, it is true,—unreal even in the spiritual sense,—but nevertheless with a great yearning of spirit, how they attempt to arrive at a more spiritual aspect of the things and of human life in general. And one can truly say, that in the multifarious interpretations of Hamlet and other interpretations of works of art that have since been brought out by theosophists, there is much that reminds one of certain articles, written in the Bayreuth Papers, not by a theosophist, but by an expert Wagnerian, Hans von Wolzogen. And if you woke up one morning, let us say, and if, instead of a theosophist paper that you read perhaps fifteen years ago, some mischievous fairy had laid beside your bed a batch of the Bayreuth Papers, you might really mistake the tone and style of them for something you had come across in the theosophist paper,—if it happened to be an article of Wolzogen's, or one of the kind.
So that this Wagnerianism, one might say, was for many persons, in whom there dwelt homeless souls, an opening, through which to come to some aspect of the world that led away from the crassly material that led them into a spiritual region.
And of all these people who, not externally out of fashion-able affectation, but from an inner impulse of the soul, had grown into a stream of this kind, it may truly be said of them all, that whatever else they might be in life, whether they were lawyers, or lords, or artists, or M.P.s, or whatever else they might be, who had grown into this stream,—even the scientists, for there were some of these too,—they pursued the direction into the spiritual world from an inner longing of their souls, and troubled themselves no further about hard and fast proofs, of which there were plenty to be found everywhere for the world-conception of materialistic construction.
As said before, I might have mentioned other fields as well, where homeless souls of this kind were to be found; one did find plenty of such homeless souls. But this Wagner field was especially characteristic; there these homeless souls might be found in numbers.
Well, it was my lot, I might say, personally, to make acquaintance with a number of souls of this kind (but in company also with others), who had gone, so to speak, through their spiritual novitiate as Wagnerians, and were as I knew them, again in a different metamorphosis. These were souls whom I learnt to know towards the end of the eighteen eighties in Vienna, amongst a group of people, collected together entirely one might say out of homeless souls.
How this homelessness displayed itself in those days, even on the surface, is something of which people no longer form any true conception at all to-day; for many things, which then required a good courage,—courage of soul,—have to-day become quite commonplace.
This, for instance, is something, which I think not many people at the present day will be able to conceive.—I was sitting in a group of such homeless souls, and we had been talking of all sorts of things, when one of them came in, who either had been kept longer than the others by his work, or else maybe he had stayed sitting at home, busied with his own thoughts. At any rate, he came later, and began talking about Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov [Known in English under the title ‘Crime and Punishment’], and spoke of Raskolnivok in such a way that it struck like lightning into the company,—just like a flash of lightning. A new world opened up, a world which ... well, it was very much as though one were transported all of a sudden into another planet:—that was how these souls felt.
Perhaps I may be allowed to say something:—In all these observations of life, which I am telling you by way of introduction to the history of the anthroposophic movement, during all the time that I was impelled by my fate to make these observations in life, there was for myself never any sort of interruption of the contact with the spiritual world. The direct association with the spiritual world was never in any way broken; it was always there. I am obliged to mention this, because this must form the background of these contemplations: namely, the spiritual world as a self-obvious reality, and the human beings on earth seen accordingly as the images of what they really are as spiritual individualities within the spiritual world. I want just to indicate this frame of mind, so that you may take it as spiritual background all through.
Of course, ‘making observations’ did not mean sniffing about like a dog with a cold nose, but taking a warm, whole-hearted interest in everything, and not with the intention of being an observer, but simply because one is in the midst of it, in all good-fellowship and friendliness and courtesy, as a matter of course. So one really was in it all, and became acquainted with the people, not in order to observe them, but because it naturally came about in the course of actual life. And so I made acquaintance at the end of the 'eighties with a group of this kind, composed in other respects of people of every variety of calling, with every different shade of colouring in life, but who were all homeless souls of this kind; and of whom a number, as I said, had come over from the Wagner region, and were people whose spiritual novitiate, so to speak, had been made in the Wagner region. The man of whom I told you, who took off his boots in Vienna and walked barefoot to Bayreuth, he was one of them, and was, in matter of fact, a very clever man. For a while I used to come together with these people quite frequently, often indeed every day. They were now living, as I might say, in a second metamorphosis. Having gone through their Wagner metamorphosis, they were now in their second one.
There were three of them, for instance; people who knew H. P. Blavatsky well, who had been indeed intimate acquaintances of H. P. Blavatsky, and who were zealous theosophists, as theosophists were at that time, when Blavatsky was still living. About the theosophists of that time,—the time just after Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine had appeared,—there was something quite peculiar. They all had a marked tendency to be extremely esoteric. They had a contempt for the external life in which they were placed, and a contempt of course for their own profession in life; but were nevertheless under the obligation of mingling in external existence:—that lay in the order of nature. But, as for everything else,—that is ‘esoteric’; there one converses only with Initiates, and only within a small circle. And one looks upon all the people, who, in one's opinion, are not worthy of conversing on such matters, as the sort of people, to whom one talks about the common things of life;—the others, are the people to whom one talks esoterics. They were readers, and good readers too, of Sinnett's newly-published book, Esoteric Buddhism, but all of them people eminently belonging to the class of homeless souls I have just described: people, namely, who, the moment they stepped into practical life, were engineers, electricians, and so forth, and yet again studied with deep interest, with the keenest eagerness, a book like Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism. And with these people too, there was a sort of tendency,—inherited partly from their Wagner phase,—to seize on everything available in the way of myths and legends, and explain, or interpret, them in ‘an esoteric sense’, as they called it.
One might observe, however, as these homeless souls really began more and more to make their appearance with the close of the nineteenth century, that the most interesting of all were not those, who after all, if I may say so, with only nine-tenths honest minds—nine-tenths honest, at most — used to study the writings of Blavatsky and Sinnett, but the others,—those who would listen, but were not willing to read for themselves. (In those days people were still exceedingly shy of such things.) They were not willing to read the things personally, but would listen with open mouths, when the people, who had read, expounded them. And it was very interesting to watch how the listeners, who were often more honest-minded than the narrators, would drink in these things, in the homelessness of their souls, like a spiritual nourishment of which they were in need,—and who indeed, out of the comparative lack of sincerity with which this spiritual nourishment was presented to them, converted it into something absolutely sincere, through the superior honesty of their own souls. And the way they drank it in! One could see the longing there was in them, to hear for once something quite different from what is to be found on the ordinary highroad of civilization. How these people gulped down what they heard! And it was extra-ordinarily interesting to see, on the one side the long arms of the highroad life snatching up the people ever and again in their clutches ... and then again, you know, how these people would turn up afresh in some drawing-room where they used to meet,—often it was a coffee-house,—and there would listen with hungry eagerness to what somebody or other had just been reading in some book of this kind that had newly appeared,—and who often laid it on pretty thick with what he had read. But there were these honest souls there too, most unquestionably, who were tossed in this way to-and-fro by life.
In the early days, especially, towards the close of the nineteenth century, one saw these souls regularly tossed to-and-fro, and unwilling really to admit to themselves their own homelessness. For there would be one of them, you know, listening with every sign of the deepest interest to what was being said about physical body, ether body, astral body, kama-manas, manas, budhi, and so on. And then, afterwards, he must go off and write the article the news-paper expected from him, into which of course he must stick the usual plums,—These people, truly, were the kind of souls that quite peculiarly showed, how difficult it really was, particularly at the commencement of the new spiritual period of evolution (which we must reckon really from the end of the nineteenth century), how difficult it was for many a one to abandon the broad highway of life. For indeed, from the way many of them behaved, it looked as though, when they wanted to go to the really important thing, to the thing which interested them above all else in life, they crept away on the sly as it were, and wanted if possible to avoid any one's knowing where they had crept to.—It really was most interesting, the manner in which, amid this European civilization, the spiritual life,—the spiritual volition,—the seeking for a spiritual world,—made its way in.
Now you must consider: it was the end of the 'eighties, in the nineteenth century, and so much more difficult really even than to-day,—less detrimental perhaps than to-day, but more difficult,—to come out straight away with a confession of the spiritual world. For the physical, sensible world, with all its magnificent laws ... why, that was all demonstrated fact; how could one hope to be any match for it! It had on its side any number of demonstrable proofs. The laboratories testified to it, the physical test-room, the medical clinics,—all testified to this demonstrated world!—But the demonstrated world was, for many homeless souls, one so unsatisfying, one which, for the soul's inner life, was so altogether impossible, that they simply, as I said, crept aside. And whilst in huge masses,—not in buckets, but in barrels,—the great civilization of the age was laid before them, they turned aside, to sip such drops as they might catch from the stream which trickled in as it were out of the spiritual world into modern civilization.—It was, in fact, by no means easy to begin straight away to speak of the spiritual world. It was necessary to find something on to which to connect.
If I may here introduce something which is again a personal remark, it is this: For myself ... one couldn't break so to speak into people's houses with the spiritual world; above all, one couldn't break into the whole civilized edifice with it! I had to take something to connect onto; not for an external reason; something that could be quite honestly internal. At this time, the end of the 'eighties, I took in many places, as connections for the remarks I had to make about more intimate aspects of the spiritual world, Goethe's Story of the Green Serpent and the Lovely Lily. That was something onto which one could connect; because, well, Goethe had, at any rate, a recognized standing; Goethe was, after all, Goethe, you know! It was possible, if one took something which had, after all, been written by Goethe, and where the spiritual influences running through it are so patent as in the Story of the Green Serpent and the Lovely Lily, it was possible then to connect onto these things. For me, indeed, it was the obvious course at that time to connect on-to Goethe's Story of the Green Serpent and the Lovely Lily; for I certainly could not connect onto the thing which was then being carried on as ‘Theosophy’, such as a group of at least very enterprising people towards the end of the 'eighties had extracted at that time out of Blavatsky and out of Sinnet's Esoteric Buddhism and similar books. For someone who proposed to carry over a scientifically trained mode of thought into the spiritual world, it was simply impossible to come in any way into association with the kind of mental and spiritual atmosphere which grew up in immediate connection with Blavatsky and the Esoteric Buddhism of Sinnet.
And again on the other side the matter was not easy; and for this reason:—Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism no doubt is a book which one very soon found to be a spiritually dilettante work, pieced together out of old, misunderstood esotericisms. But to a work like Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine as a phenomenon of the times, it was not so very easy to arrive at a definite relation. For it is a work, which betrays after all in numerous passages, that what is said in them proceeds from direct and forceful impulses of the spiritual world; so that in numerous passages of this Secret Doctrine of Blavatsky's one finds the spiritual world revealing itself in fact through a particular personality,—which was the personality of Blavatsky.
And here there was one thing above all, which could not but especially strike one, which struck one particularly in the course of the search so intently pursued by the people who had come in this way either to Blavatsky personally, or to Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.
Through this book, The Secret Doctrine, a great mass of ancient truths had been voiced to the world,—old-world truths, obtained by atavistic clairvoyance in the pre-historic ages of mankind. It was like a re-awakening, as I might say, of old-world civilizations. One had there before one, coming to one from the world outside, not merely out of one's own self,—one had there, before one, a thing, of which one could but say to oneself: Here lies unearthed a vast treasure of ancient wisdom, which men once possessed, and which was a wondrous source of light to them. And, patched between it all, pieces of the most incredible kind, which continually amaze one; for the book is a slovenly piece of work, quite dilettante as regards any sort of scientific thinking, and nonsensical with respect to a lot of superstitions and similar stuff. Altogether a most extraordinary book, this Secret Doctrine of Blavatsky; grand truths, along with terrible rubbish. It was, one might say ... the sort of thing, which ... very well characterized the kind of soul-phenomena to which those were exposed, who were beginning little by little to grow up into homeless souls in the new age. And I really learnt in those days to know a great number of such souls, one could see these homeless souls gradually growing up on earth.
After this, during the time that immediately followed, I was intensely busy with other things, in my time at Weimar. Although, there too, there was plenty of opportunity for observing such souls on the search. For during my Weimar time especially, every sort of person, if I may say so, came through Weimar to visit the Goethe and Schiller archives, and from all the leading countries of the world. One learnt to know the people quite remarkably, on the good and on the bad sides of their souls, as they came through Weimar. Queer-fish, as well as highly educated men of fine breeding and distinction: one learnt to know them all. My meeting with Herman Grimm, for instance, in Weimar is described by me in the last number but one of the “Goetheanum.” [‘A personal recollection etc.’ ‘Goetheanum’ Year 2. (1923), No. 43.]
With Herman Grimm it was really so,—to my feeling at least,—that when he was in Weimar ... he came very often; for when he was on his way from Berlin to Italy or back, and at other times as well, he frequently came to Weimar; and I had grown to have the feeling: Weimar is somehow different, when Herman Grimm is in the place, and when he has left it. Herman Grimm was something that made one understand Weimar particularly well. One knew, what Weimar is, better when Herman Grimm was staying there, than when he was not there.
One need only recall Herman Grimm's novel, Powers Unconquerable, to remark at once, that in Herman Grimm there is at any rate an unmistakably strong impulse towards spiritual things. Read the conclusion of this novel, Powers Unconquerable, and you will see how the spiritual world there plays into the physical one through the soul of a dying woman. There is something grand—tremendous—about it, that lays hold of one. I have spoken of it in previous lectures.
And then, of course, there were queer fish too, that came through Weimar. For instance, there was a Russian State Councillor who was looking for something. One couldn't make out what it was he was looking for,—something or other in the second part of Goethe's Faust. In what way he exactly proposed to find it in the Goethe Archives, that one couldn't make out. Nor did anyone exactly know how to help him. They would have been very glad in the Goethe Archives to help him. But he always went on looking. He was looking for the Point in the second part of Faust; and no one could succeed in discovering what kind of a point he wanted. All one could ever learn was that he was looking for the Point, the Point. And so one could only let him look. But he was so talkative with this Point of his, that in the evening, when we used to be sitting at supper, and he drew near, the whisper would go round: ‘Don't look round you! The Councillor's prowling about!’ Nobody wanted to be caught by him.
Well, next to him again, there sat a very curious visitor, who was a very clever fellow, an American, but who had the peculiarity that his favourite position was sitting on the floor, with his legs cocked one over the other; and he used to sit in this fashion with his books before him on the ground. It was a weird sight. But, as I said, one met with these things too there, and had, in fact, opportunities of seeing a sort of sample slice out of the life of modern civilization, and in an unusually striking way.
Later on, however, when I went to Berlin, my destiny again led me more especially into a circle, made up of the kind of souls whom I spoke of as being ‘homeless souls’. Destiny led me indeed so deep into it that from this particular circle there came the request that I would give them some lectures, the same which have since been published in my book, Mysticism at the Dawn of the New Age of Thought. (In the preface to the book I have also given an account of how these things came about.)
This particular circle happened now to be people who had found their way into the Theosophical Society at a somewhat later period, as I may say, than my Vienna acquaintances. And they occupied a different position towards all that had been Blavatsky. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine was a work to which but few of them gave any study; but they were well-versed in all that Blavatsky's successor, Mrs. Annie Besant, was giving forth in her lectures as the Theosophy of the day. In this they were well-versed, these people, to whom I was saying something quite different in my lectures on ‘Mysticism’. They were very well-versed in it indeed; and I remember still, for instance, hearing a lecture by a member of this same group, which was based upon a little book of Mrs. Annie Besant's, in which Mrs. Annie Besant, on her part, had divided up Man into physical body, ether body, astral body, and so on. I can't help often recalling how awful, how appalling, this description seemed to me at the time, of the human being as drawn from Mrs. Annie Besant. I had not read anything of Mrs. Besant's. The first which I heard of her things was this lecture, given by a lady on the strength of Mrs. Annie Besant's newest pamphlet of the day.—It was quite awful, how in those days the different parts of the human being used to be told off in a string, one after the other, with, at bottom, very little understanding,—instead of letting them proceed out of the whole totality of man's being.
And so once more, as in Vienna at the end of the 'eighties, I was in the midst of such homeless souls, and with every opportunity of observing them. And, as you well know, what since has come to be Anthroposophy first grew up in all essentials then, with as many as were there of these homeless souls,—grew up, not in, I would say, but with these homeless souls, who had begun by seeking a new home for their souls in Theosophy.
I wished to carry our observations to this point to-day, my dear friends, and tomorrow will then continue, and try to lead you further in this study in self-recollection, upon which we have only just embarked to-day.
Erster Vortrag
[ 1 ] Durch die Betrachtungen, die hiermit begonnen werden sollen, wird eine Art Selbstbesinnung derjenigen beabsichtigt, die sich zur Anthroposophie zusammengefunden haben. Gelegenheit wird gegeben werden zu einer solchen Selbstbesinnung, einer Selbstbesinnung, die durch eine Charakteristik der anthroposophischen Bewegung und ihres Verhältnisses zur Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft herbeigeführt werden soll. Und da gestatten Sie mir einmal, daß ich heute beginne hinzuweisen auf diejenigen Menschen, auf die es bei dieser Selbstbesinnung ankommt. Das sind Sie selbst, das sind all diejenigen, welche ihren Weg, durch das eine oder andere veranlaßt, zur Anthroposophie gefunden haben.
[ 2 ] Der eine hat diesen Weg gefunden, ich möchte sagen, wie durch einen inneren Zwang seiner Seele, durch einen inneren Zwang seines Herzens, der andere vielleicht aus Erkenntnisuntergründen heraus. Viele sind aber auch mehr oder weniger durch äußere Veranlassungen in die anthroposophische Bewegung hereingekommen und haben vielleicht innerhalb dieser anthroposophischen Bewegung dann durch eine Vertiefung der Seele mehr gefunden, als sie zunächst gemeint haben. Aber ein gemeinschaftliches Charakteristikon haben doch all diejenigen Menschen, die sich zur anthroposophischen Bewegung finden. Und wenn man aus den verschiedenen Jahren her zusammenfaßt das, was das Charakteristische ist bei denjenigen, die sich in die anthroposophische Bewegung hereinfinden, so kann man doch zuletzt nur sagen: es sind solche Menschen, die durch ihr Schicksal, durch ihr inneres Schicksal, durch ihr Karma zunächst genötigt sind, von der gewöhnlichen Heerstraße der Zivilisation, auf der sich eben der größte Teil der gegenwärtigen Menschheit bewegt, wegzugehen und eigene Wege zu suchen.
[ 3 ] Man mache sich nur einmal klar, wie in unserem Zeitalter die meisten Menschen eben in das Leben hineinwachsen von Kindheit auf. Sie werden geboren von Eltern, die Franzosen oder Deutsche, Katholiken, Evangelische oder Juden sind, oder auch zu irgendeiner anderen Konfession sich bekennen. Sie werden vielleicht geboren von Eltern, welche diese oder jene Meinungen haben. Aber immer ist eine Art selbstverständlicher Voraussetzung da, wenn diese Menschen der Gegenwart geboren werden, zunächst bei den Eltern, bei den Angehörigen der Familie, in die diese Menschen aus ihrem vorirdischen Leben heraus hineingeboren werden. Es ist sozusagen die selbstverständliche Voraussetzung, die man ja nicht ausspricht, aber die man empfindet, ohne sie zu denken vielleicht — oftmals denkt man sie auch, wenn gerade Veranlassung dazu ist —, daß man so im allgemeinen hin auf das Leben sieht und selbstverständlich denkt: Wir sind katholische Franzosen oder evangelische Deutsche, und so werden ja wohl auch die Kinder werden.
[ 4 ] Dadurch, daß man das so empfindet, wird natürlich eine soziale Atmosphäre, und nicht nur eine soziale Atmosphäre, sondern ein sozialer Kräftezusammenhang geschaffen, der dann wirklich mehr oder weniger klar oder auch unklar diese Kinder hineinschiebt in dasjenige Leben, das schon durch diese Empfindungen, durch diese mehr oder weniger deutlich vorgestellten Gedanken vorgezeichnet ist. Wie durch eine Selbstverständlichkeit verfließt dann zunächst das Leben des Kindes, wie durch eine Selbstverständlichkeit wird dann die Erziehung, das Schulmäßige, an die Kinder herangebracht. Und während dieser Zeit herrschen wieder allerlei Gedanken bei den Eltern über die Kinder, Gedanken, die wieder nicht ausgesprochen werden, die aber Voraussetzungen sind für das Leben, die das Leben außerordentlich bestimmen. Zum Beispiel der Gedanke: Selbstverständlich wird mein Sohn ein pensionsfähiger Staatsbeamter, - oder: Mein Sohn erbt das väterliche Gut — oder: Meine Tochter heiratet den Nachbarsohn vom nächsten Gut.
[ 5 ] Nun, es geht ja nicht immer so ins Konkrete hinein, aber es ist damit eine Orientierung gegeben, immer wiederum eine Richtung vorgezeichnet. Es ist ja nun einmal das äußere Leben heute so eingerichtet, daß tatsächlich dieses äußere Leben bis in unsere chaotischen Zeiten herein, die aber die Menschen zum großen Teil als ungewohnt empfinden, diesen Impulsen, die auf solche Weise geschaffen werden, auch gehorcht. Und dann ist es nötig, daß der Mensch auf irgendeine Art, nun, sagen wir, ein katholischer Franzose oder ein evangelischer Deutscher wird. Er muß es werden, denn so wirken die Impulse des Lebens. Wenn es schon auch nicht gerade von Elternseite aus mit einer solchen Bestimmtheit auftritt, so nimmt doch wiederum das Leben aus der Schule heraus, oder aus den ganzen jugendlichen, kinderhaften Lebensverhältnissen heraus den Menschen gefangen, stellt ihn hinein in irgendeine Lebensposition. Der Staat, die Religionsgemeinschaft zieht den Menschen herbei.
[ 6 ] Wenn die Mehrzahl der Menschen sich heute im späteren Leben Rechenschaft geben sollten, wie sie eigentlich dahinein gekommen sind, dann könnten sie das kaum. Denn ein energisches Darübernachdenken würde etwas Unerträgliches haben. Dieses Unerträgliche wird dann womöglich in die Untergründe des Bewußtseins, in unterbewußte oder unbewußte Provinzen des Seelenlebens hinuntergedrängt. Da wird es dann höchstens einmal durch den Psychiater heraufgeholt, wenn es sich da unten in den unbekannten Seelenprovinzen ganz besonders störrisch verhält. Aber zumeist ist eben die Kraft nicht da, irgendwie Stellung zu nehmen mit der eigenen Persönlichkeit, der Individualität, innerhalb dessen, in das man auf diese Weise hineingewachsen ist.
[ 7 ] Man muckt ja zuweilen vielleicht auf, wenn man so auf eine ganz unvorhergeschene Weise sich plötzlich im Leben bewußt als Referendar fühlt oder gar als Assessor. Dann ballt man vielleicht die Hände in der Hosentasche, oder man macht, wenn es gerade der Frau passiert, dem Mann Krakeel über das unbefriedigte Leben und dergleichen. Ja, das sind solche Reaktionen gegenüber demjenigen, in das da der Mensch eben hineinwächst. Oftmals geschieht es auch so, daß man sich dann durch das Schöne, das die einzelnen Dinge haben, hinwegbetäubt über die Dinge. Man geht auf Bälle, da hat man dann zu tun am nächsten Tag mit dem Ausschlafen, nicht wahr. Es ist die Zeit in irgendeiner Weise ausgefüllt. Oder aber man schließt sich einer stramm patriotischen Partei an, weil man doch mit seinem Assessorsein in irgend etwas hineingehören muß, was einen aufnimmt. Man ist schon aufgenommen worden vom Staat, von einer Religionsgemeinschaft, jetzt muß man doch auch so eine Art Gloriole verbreiten über dasjenige, in das man unbewufßt hineingewachsen ist. Nun, ich brauche die Sache nicht weiter zu schildern.
[ 8 ] Es ist so, daß die Menschen, die heute auf der Heerstraße des Daseins sich bewegen, in dieser Art etwa hineinwachsen in das Dasein.
[ 9 ] Diejenigen nun, die da nicht mitkönnen, finden sich eben dann auf Seitenwegen; solche, die eben mit den meisten vorgeschriebenen Bahnen der Gegenwart nicht mitkönnen, die finden sich auf den zahlreichen möglichen und unmöglichen Wegen. Aber eben einer dieser Wege ist dann auch der anthroposophische, wo der Mensch dasjenige will, was nun in ihm selbst liegt, wo er das in einer mehr bewußten Art durchleben will, wo er etwas miterleben will, das wenigstens bis zu einem gewissen Grade in seiner Wahl liegt. Solche nicht auf der Heerstraße des Lebens wandelnde Leute sind eben nun zumeist die Anthroposophen. Ob sie sich in der Jugend oder im Alter zur Anthroposophie finden, auf irgendeine Weise sind es solche Leute. Wenn man weiter nachforscht, woher das kommt, dann findet man da auch Zusammenhänge mit der geistigen Welt.
[ 10 ] Die Seelen kommen heute zumeist so aus dem vorirdischen Dasein in das irdische herein, daß sie lange Zeit denjenigen Zustand vor ihrer Geburt durchmachen, den ich in Vorträgen auch schon öfter charakterisiert habe. Der Mensch kommt, nachdem er seinen Lebensweg zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt in der geistigen Welt durchgemacht hat, zunächst in die Region, wo er sich immer mehr und mehr hineinlebt in die geistige Welt, wo sein Leben in einem Mitarbeiten mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien besteht, wo er in allen seinen Taten eben innerhalb des GeistigSubstantiellen arbeitet. Aber in diesem Verlaufe zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt kommt auch derjenige Zeitpunkt, wo der Mensch den Blick gewissermaßen wieder auf die Erde herunterwendet. Der Mensch verbindet sich da seelisch lange schon mit den Generationen, an deren Ende dann das Elternpaar steht, das ihn gebiert. So daß nicht etwa bloß bis zum Ururgroßvater, sondern bis zu weit vorhergehenden Generationen der Mensch bereits auf seine Vorfahren hinunterblickt, sich verbindet mit der Richtungslinie, mit . der Strömung, die durch die Generationen seiner Vorfahren geht.
[ 11 ] Nun ist es eben bei der Mehrzahl der Seelen der Gegenwart so, daß sie in der Zeit, in der sie sich anschicken, wieder zur Erde herunterzukommen, schon ein brennendes Interesse haben an demjenigen, was sich auf der Erde abspielt. Sie sehen gewissermaßen von der geistigen Welt auf die Erde hernieder und interessieren sich lebhaft für dasjenige, was mit ihren Urvätern sich auf der Erde abspielt. Solche Seelen werden eben so, wie ich es jetzt charakterisiert habe bei denen, die sich auf der breiten Heerstraße des gegenwärtigen Lebens mitbewegen.
[ 12 ] Dagegen gibt es gerade in der Gegenwart eine Anzahl von Seelen, die weniger Interesse haben, wenn sich ihr vorirdisches Dasein wieder zum irdischen Dasein neigt, an dem, was auf der Erde vorgeht, sondern sie wenden ihr hauptsächlichstes Interesse den Tatsachen zu: Wie werden wir reif in der geistigen Welt? Sie interessieren sich sozusagen bis zum letzten Augenblicke, durch den sie wiederum ihren Weg zur Erde finden, für die geistige Welt.
[ 13 ] Während die anderen eine tiefe Begierde haben nach irdischem Dasein, haben diese Seelen bis zuletzt ein lebendiges Interesse an demjenigen, was in der geistigen Welt vor sich geht, kommen daher dann, wenn sie sich auf Erden verleiblichen, mit einem aus geistigen Impulsen erwachsenden Bewußtsein an, das weniger eine Hinneigung gibt zu dem, was nun an solchen Impulsen vorhanden ist, wie ich sie für die breiten Heersträßler charakterisiert habe. Sie wachsen heraus aus den Impulsen ihrer Umgebung, sie wachsen namentlich mit ihren geistigen Ambitionen heraus aus ihrer Umgebung und sind dadurch prädestiniert, vorbereitet dazu, eben ihren eigenen Weg zu gehen.
[ 14 ] So könnte man die Seelen, die da herunterkommen aus dem vorirdischen Dasein in das irdische Dasein, heute in zweierlei Arten gliedern. Die eine Art, welcher die Mehrzahl der Menschen heute noch angehören, umfaßt die außerordentlich heimatbegabten Seelen, die so recht wohl sich fühlen als Seelen in dem warmen Neste, wenn sie es auch manchmal als unangenehm empfinden - aber das ist ja nur scheinbar, das ist Maja -, die sich wohlfühlen in diesem warmen Neste, für das sie sich ja schon lange interessiert haben, bevor sie zur Erde heruntergestiegen sind.
[ 15 ] Andere, die vielleicht — die äußerliche Maja ist ja nicht immer maßgebend - ganz geduldig das Kindesleben mitmachen als Seele, sind weniger heimatbegabt, sind heimatlose Seelen, wachsen aus dem warmen Nestchen viel mehr heraus als hinein. Und eben zu dieser letzteren Gattung gehören durchaus diejenigen auch, die sich dann an die anthroposophische Bewegung heranfinden. Es ist also das durchaus in irgendeiner Weise vorherbestimmt, ob man durch sein Schicksal zur Anthroposophie getrieben wird.
[ 16 ] Man kann nun sagen: In der mannigfaltigen Weise macht sich dasjenige geltend, was solche Seelen nun so auf Seitenwegen, abseits von der großen Heerstraße des Lebens suchen. Derjenige, der das Leben mit einem gewissen Bewußtsein durchgemacht hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten des 19. Jahrhunderts, in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts, der wird gefunden haben, daß überall unter den anderen Menschen solche heimatlose Seelen, namentlich eben seelisch heimatlose Seelen zahlreich, verhältnismäßig natürlich, auftraten. Einen gewissen Anflug, möchte ich sagen, von solcher Heimatlosigkeit haben heute sehr viele Seelen.
[ 17 ] Wenn nicht die anderen es als so wohltuend empfinden würden, in den ausgefahrenen Wegen zu gehen, und nicht solche Hindernisse entgegensetzen würden den heimatlosen Seelen, so würde die Zahl dieser heimatlosen Seelen noch viel deutlicher für die Zeitgenossen ins Auge fallen. Aber man kann, ich möchte sagen, überall sehen, wie einen gewissen Anflug von solcher Heimatlosigkeit heute zahlreiche Seelen haben.
[ 18 ] Erst vor ganz kurzer Zeit wurde berichtet, daß selbst solche Dinge geschehen: Ein Professor hat an einer Universität ein Kolleg gehalten, ein Semestralkolleg angekündigt über die Entwickelung — wie er es nennt — der mystisch-okkulten Anschauungen von Pythagoras bis Steiner, und, nachdem dieses Kolleg angekündigt war, sind zu der ersten Vorlesung schon so viele Leute gekommen, daß er nicht in einem gewöhnlichen Hörsaal lesen konnte, sondern lesen mußte im Auditorium Maximum, wo sonst nur die großen Festvorträge abgehalten werden.
[ 19 ] Man sieht aus solchen Tatsachen, wie heute die Dinge liegen, wie tatsächlich die Neigung zu solcher Heimatlosigkeit außerordentlich in die Seelen eingewachsen ist. Man konnte dasjenige, was ja heute als eine von Woche zu Woche sich immer mehr und mehr steigernde Sehnsucht der Seelen, die in sich solche Heimatlosigkeit tragen, was als Sehnsucht nach einer nicht von vornherein eingerichteten, von vornherein orientierten Lebensposition, was als Sehnsucht nach dem Geistigen von dieser Ecke des Lebens heraus sich immer mehr und mehr geltend macht, von Woche zu Woche, möchte man sagen, in unserem heutigen chaotischen Geistesleben sich stärker geltend macht, man konnte alles das heraufkommen sehen. Indem ich Ihnen das langsame Herankommen mit ein paar Strichen heute zeichnen möchte, werden Sie durch eine Art von Selbstbesinnung in dieser Zeichnung ein klein wenig von dem finden können, was ich Ihrer aller anthroposophischen Ursprung nennen möchte.
[ 20 ] Ich möchte heute einleitungsweise nur aphoristisch charakterisieren. Sehen Sie in die letzten Jahrzehnte des 19. Jahrhunderts zurück — wir können auch irgendein anderes Gebiet nehmen, aber nehmen wir ein sehr charakteristisches Gebiet —, da machte sich dasjenige geltend in einem gewissen Zeitpunkte, was man nennen kann das Wagnertum, das Richard Wagnertum. Gewiß, bei diesem Richard Wagnertum war sehr viel Zivilisationskoketterie, Sensationslust und so weiter. Aber unter denjenigen Leuten, die dann, als Bayreuth eingerichtet war, erschienen, waren ja nicht bloß die Herren im Frack nach der neuesten Mode und die Damen in den letzten Modekostümen, sondern es war in Bayreuth alles mögliche beisammen. Man sah dort schon durchaus Herren in sehr langen Haaren, Damen mit ganz kurz geschorenen Haaren, man sah Leute, welche es als eine Art von moderner Wallfahrt empfanden, nach Bayreuth von weither zu wandern. Ich habe sogar einen gekannt, der hat sich, als er den Weg nach Bayreuth angetreten hat, in einem sehr weit entfernten Orte die Stiefel abgelegt und ist barfuß nach Bayreuth als Wallfahrer: gegangen.
[ 21 ] Unter solchen, die also als Herren mit langen, als Damen mit kurzen Haaren gekommen sind, waren manche, die schon irgendwie doch zu den heimatlosen Seelen gehörten. Aber auch unter denjenigen, die vielleicht nicht gerade nach der allerletzten Mode, aber doch schon nach einer respektableren Mode gekleidet waren, waren solche, die auch heimatlose Seelen waren.
[ 22 ] Nun wirkte da aus dem Wagnertum heraus auf die Leute dasjenige, was wirklich in dem Wagnertum - ich rede jetzt nicht allein von dem musikalischen Elemente im Wagnertum, sondern von dem Wagnertum als Kulturerscheinung — sich geltend machte: das war doch etwas, was aus dem, was sonst die materialistische Zeit darbot, sich heraushob. Es war etwas, was wie suggestiv, möchte ich sagen, gerade vom Wagnertum ausging, was auf die Leute so wirkte, daß sie das Gefühl bekamen: Da ist ein Tor in eine geistigere Welt hinein, eine andere als die, welche unsere gewöhnliche Umgebung ist. Und gelegentlich desjenigen, was in Bayreuth vorging, entwickelte sich eine ganze Menge von Sehnsucht nach geistiger Vertiefung.
[ 23 ] Zunächst war es ja schwierig, Richard Wagners Gestalten und dramatische Kompositionen zu verstehen. Aber daß sie aus einem anderen Elemente heraus geschaffen waren als bloß aus dem grob materialistischen Elemente der Zeit, das empfanden eben zahlreiche Menschen. Und diejenigen, die dann gerade dahin getrieben wurden als heimatlose Seelen, bei denen war es so, daß sie wie, ich möchte sagen, durch eine suggestive Gewalt der Wagnerdramen und namentlich des Lebens, das sich gelegentlich des Hereintretens der Wagnerdramen in unsere Zivilisation abspielte, angeregt worden sind, allerlei dunkle, gefühlsmäßige Intuitionen zu bekommen.
[ 24 ] Es gab ja zum Beispiel auch unter denjenigen, die sich in dieses Wagnerleben hineinfanden, Leser der «Bayreuther Blätter». Nun ist es geschichtlich interessant — heute ist ja das alles schon Geschichte —, so einen Jahrgang «Bayreuther Blätter» sich herzunehmen und anzuschauen, wie da ausgegangen wird von einer Interpretation von «Tristan und Isolde», von dem «Nibelungenring», von dem «Fliegenden Holländer» sogar, wie da ausgegangen wird von dieser dramatischen Gestaltung, von den einzelnen Gestalten innerhalb der Wagnerdramen, von den Vorgängen in denselben, und wie da, allerdings in einer stark subjektivierenden, unrealistischen Weise, auch im spirituellen Sinn unrealistisch, aber doch mit einer geistigen Sehnsucht versucht wird, in eine geistigere Betrachtung der Dinge und des Menschenlebens überhaupt hineinzukommen. Und man kann schon sagen: Manches, was dann an allerlei Hamlet-Interpretationen oder sonstigen Interpretationen von Kunstwerken Theosophen geleistet haben, erinnert sehr stark an gewisse Aufsätze, die der, nicht Theosoph, aber eingeschulte Wagnerianer Hans von Wolzogen in den «Bayreuther Blättern» geschrieben hat. Da konnten Sie zum Beispiel, nun, sagen wir einmal, des Morgens aufwachen: wenn Ihnen irgendein Trollgeist hingelegt hätte statt einer theosophischen Zeitschrift, die Sie vielleicht vor fünfzehn Jahren gelesen haben, ein Heft «Bayreuther Blätter», so könnten Sie den Ton und die Haltung wirklich verwechseln mit dem, was Sie in Ihrer theosophischen Zeitschrift gefunden haben, wenn es gerade ein Wolzogenscher oder ähnlicher Artikel war.
[ 25 ] Also man möchte sagen: Dieses Wagnertum war für viele Leute, in denen heimatlose Seelen wohnten, ein Anlaß, hineinzukommen in eine solche Betrachtungsweise der Welt, die hinwegführte von dem Grob-Materiellen, hineinführte in Geistiges, und alle diejenigen, die aus einem inneren Drang der Seele, nicht aus äußerer Zivilisationskoketterie, in eine solche Strömung hineingewachsen waren, von denen darf man schon sagen: bei diesen, was sie auch sonst im Leben waren, ob nun Advokaten, Künstler, Exzellenzen oder Nationalräte, oder was sie immer für Menschen waren, die da so hineingewachsen waren, selbst wenn es Naturforscher waren — es gab auch solche -, bei diesen war es schon so, daß sie dieses Hineinwachsen in eine geistige Welt verfolgten aus einer inneren Sehnsucht der Seele heraus, und sich dann nicht mehr kümmerten um die sicheren Beweise, die ja überall zu finden waren für die materialistisch gestaltete Weltanschauung.
[ 26 ] Wie gesagt, ich hätte auch andere Gebiete anführen können, wo man solche heimatlosen Seelen gefunden hat. Man fand schon überall solche heimatlosen Seelen. Aber besonders charakteristisch war eben das Gebiet des Wagnertums. Da fanden sich zahlreiche solche heimatlosen Seelen.
[ 27 ] Nun, mir selbst war es dann vorgesetzt, eine Anzahl solcher Seelen, aber im Vereine wiederum mit anderen, die gewissermaßen ihr geistiges Novizentum im Wagnerianismus durchgemacht haben, dann wiederum in einer anderen Metamorphose kennenzulernen. Es waren Seelen, die ich Ende der achtziger Jahre des vorigen Jahrhunderts in Wien kennenlernte, in einer Gruppe von Menschen, wo sich sozusagen lauter heimatlose Seelen zusammenfanden. Wie sich dazumal schon an der Oberfläche die Heimatlosigkeit darstellte, davon machen sich die Leute heute gar nicht mehr den richtigen Begriff, weil vieles von dem, wozu dazumal Courage, Seelencourage gehörte, ja heute etwas Landläufiges geworden ist.
[ 28 ] So zum Beispiel glaube ich nicht, daß sich viele Menschen heute das Folgende vorstellen können: Ich saß in einem Kreise von solchen heimatlosen Seelen; da hatte man schon allerlei gesprochen. Da kam einer später, der eben länger zu tun hatte als die anderen, oder vielleicht auch zu Hause sitzen geblieben war, beschäftigt mit seinen eigenen Gedanken, und fing nun an, von Dostojewskis «Raskolnikoff» zu sprechen, redete von dem «Raskolnikoff» in einer solchen Weise, daß es in die ganze Gesellschaft wie ein Blitz einschlug. Eine neue Welt war da, eine Welt — ja, wie wenn man ungefähr plötzlich auf einen anderen Planeten versetzt würde. So empfanden sich diese Seelen.
[ 29 ] Ich darf vielleicht sagen: Bei diesen Lebensbeobachtungen, die ich Ihnen ja als eine Einleitung zur Geschichte der anthroposophischen Bewegung zu erzählen habe, muß ich eben erwähnen, daß für mich in der Zeit, als ich solche Lebensbeobachtungen zu machen vom Schicksale gedrängt war, niemals irgendwie der Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt, das Drinnenstehen in der geistigen Welt irgendwie abgerissen war. Es war immer da. Ich muß das erwähnen, weil das den Hintergrund dieser Betrachtungen bilden muß: die geistige Welt eine Selbstverständlichkeit, und die Menschen auf Erden eben betrachtet als die Abbilder desjenigen, was sie eigentlich als geistige Wesenheiten innerhalb der geistigen Welt sind. Diese Gemütsverfassung möchte ich eben charakterisieren, damit Sie dieses als geistigen Hintergrund immer voraussetzen.
[ 30 ] Natürlich war dieses Beobachten nicht ein Beobachten wie mit einer kalten Hundeschnauze, sondern mit herzlich warmem Anteil, und ohne daß man ein Beobachter sein will, indem man eben mit drinnen ist - in aller Freundlichkeit und Liebenswürdigkeit und Höflichkeit selbstverständlich. So stand man da drinnen und lernte die Menschen kennen, nicht um sie zu beobachten, sondern weil es das Leben von selber natürlich gab. Da lernte ich Ende der achtziger Jahre solch einen Kreis kennen, der im übrigen aus Menschen aller Berufe, aller Lebensschattierungen bestand, aus Menschen, die aber solche heimatlosen Seelen waren, und von denen eine Anzahl hergezogen waren eben aus der Wagnergegend, die Menschen waren, die sozusagen ihr geistiges Novizentum in der Wagnergegend durchgemacht haben. Der, von dem ich erzählt habe, daß er sich in Wien die Stiefel auszog und dann barfuß nach Bayreuth gegangen ist, war auch darunter, war sogar ein sehr geistreicher Mensch. Diese Persönlichkeiten traf ich eine Zeitlang eigentlich recht oft, manchmal jeden Tag. Und sie lebten nun in einer, ich möchte sagen, zweiten Metamorphose. Nachdem sie ihre Wagnermetamorphose durchgemacht hatten, lebten sie in einer zweiten Metamorphose.
[ 31 ] Es waren zum Beispiel drei darunter, die waren gute Bekannte von H.P.Blavatsky, hatten sogar intim verkehrt mit. H.P.Blavatsky, waren eifrige Theosophen, so wie Theosophen dazumal waren, als die Blavatsky noch lebte. Es war gerade diesen Theosophen dazumal, in der Zeit, nachdem unmittelbar die «Entschleierte Isis» und die «Geheimlehre» der Blavatsky erschienen waren, etwas Besonderes eigen: sie hatten alle den Zug, recht esoterisch zu sein. Sie verachteten das äußere Leben, in dem sie drinnenstanden, verachteten selbstverständlich den eigenen Beruf, aber mußten sich ins exoterische Leben eben hineinbegeben. Das war natürlich. Das übrige aber, das ist - esoterisch: da redet man nur zu Eingeweihten, nur innerhalb eines kleinen Kreises. Und diejenigen, von denen man eben meint, daß sie nicht würdig sind, über solche Dinge zu reden, betrachtet man als solche, mit denen man über die gewöhnlichen Dinge des Lebens redet. Die anderen, mit denen redet man eben esoterisch. Es waren Leser, gute Leser des damals eben erschienenen «Geheimbuddhismus» von Sinnett, alles aber Menschen, im eminentesten Sinne zu den heimatlosen Seelen zählend, die ich eben so charakterisiert habe, Menschen, die trotzdem sie in dem Augenblick, wo sie im praktischen Leben standen, Techniker zum Beispiel waren, dann mit einem großen Anteil, mit regstem Interesse ein solches Buch wie Sinnetts «Geheimbuddhismus» verfolgten. Ein gewisser Drang war ja bei solchen Menschen vorhanden — das kam zum Teil auch noch aus dem Wagnertum her -, alles mögliche, was an Mythen vorhanden war, in, wie sie es nannten, esoterischem Sinne auszulegen, zu interpretieren.
[ 32 ] Nun konnte man aber sehen, als sich wirklich gerade mit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts immer mehr und mehr diese heimatlosen Seelen zeigten, wie gerade diejenigen am interessantesten waren, die nun nicht, ich möchte sagen, aus einem doch nur zu neun Zehntel ganz ehrlichem, höchstens neun Zehntel ehrlichem Bewußtsein heraus die Schriften von Sinnett oder Blavatsky verfolgten, sondern die anderen, die nun zuhörten, die nicht selber heranwollten an das Lesen — es war ja in dieser Zeit noch eine sehr starke Scheu vor solchen Dingen -, aber mit offenem Munde zuhörten, wenn diejenigen, die gelesen hatten, diese Dinge auseinandersetzten. Und man konnte sehr interessant beobachten, wie die Zuhörer, die manchmal ehrlicher waren als die Erzähler, aus der Heimatlosigkeit ihrer Seelen heraus das aufnahmen als eine geistige Nahrung, die sie brauchten, die sie sich sogar aus der relativen Unwahrheit, mit der diese geistige Nahrung dargereicht wurde, in ein ganz Ehrliches durch die eigene ehrlichere Seele übersetzten, wie sie das aufnahmen. Man konnte an ihnen die Sehnsucht, etwas ganz anderes einmal zu hören als dasjenige, was auf der gewöhnlichen Heerstraße der Zivilisation liegt, sehen und wie das so Gehörte verschlungen wurde von solchen Menschen! Es war außerordentlich interessant eben zu sehen, wie auf der einen Seite die Fangarme des Heerstraßenlebens da waren, die immer wiederum die Leute an sich rissen, wie sie dann, nicht wahr, in diesem oder jenem Salon erschienen, wo man sich versammelte — oftmals war’s ein Kaffeehaus — und mit einer ungeheuren Sehnsucht auf dasjenige horchten, was nun wiederum irgendeiner aus einem neuerschienenen Buch von dieser Art eben gelesen hatte, der manchmal recht dick tat mit demjenigen, was er gelesen hatte. Aber es waren eben durchaus auch die ehrlichen Seelen da, die so hin- und hergeworfen wurden vom Leben.
[ 33 ] Gerade in den ersten Zeiten im zu Ende gehenden 19. Jahrhundert sah man, wie so recht die Seelen hin- und hergeworfen waren, die sich ihre Heimatlosigkeit nicht recht gestehen mochten. Denn, nicht wahr, da hörte der eine in einer wirklich außerordentlich interessierten Weise zu, wie da erzählt wurde von physischem Leib, Ätherleib, astralischem Leib, Kama Manas, Manas, Buddhi und so weiter. Ja, und dann hatte er sein Feuilleton zu schreiben, das die Zeitung von ihm haben wollte, in das er die bekannten Rosinen hineintun mußte. Die Leute wurden wirklich solche Seelen, die so recht zeigten, wie schwierig es eigentlich für manche wurde, gerade im Beginne der neueren Geistesentwickelung, die wir doch vom Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts an zählen müssen, die breite Heerstraße des Lebens zu verlassen. Denn manche benahmen sich dabei wirklich so, als ob sie sich gerade dann, wenn sie zu dem Wichtigsten, sie am meisten Interessierenden des Lebens hin wollten, eigentlich so wegschlichen und womöglich haben wollten, daß man nicht erfahre, wo sie sich da hingeschlichen haben. Es war schon recht interessant, wie sich eigentlich das geistige Leben, das geistige Wollen, die Sehnsucht nach einer geistigen Welt gerade innerhalb der europäischen Zivilisation hereinmachte.
[ 34 ] Nun müssen Sie bedenken: es war am Ende der achtziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts denn doch eigentlich noch viel schwieriger als heute; wenn es auch harmloser war, so war es schwieriger als heute, so ohne weiteres sich zu der geistigen Welt zu bekennen, denn die physisch-sinnliche mit all ihren großartigen Gesetzen, die war ja bewiesen! Gegen die konnte man doch nicht aufkommen! Für die gab es doch zahlreiche Beweise, für die sprachen die Laboratorien, die physikalischen Kabinette, die Kliniken, alles sprach für die bewiesene Welt. Aber die bewiesene Welt war für viele heimatlose Seelen eine so unbefriedigende, ja für das Innere der Seelen eine so unmögliche, daß sie sich eben seitwärts schlichen. Und während ihnen nicht nur scheffelweise, sondern tonnenweise, in Riesenmengen, die große Zeitzivilisation dargeboten wurde, nippten sie an demjenigen, was von dem wie eine Art Hereinströmen der geistigen Welt in die moderne Zivilisation eben zu erhaschen war. Es war durchaus nicht leicht, so ohne weiteres von der geistigen Welt zu sprechen, man mußte an irgend etwas anknüpfen.
[ 35 ] Wenn ich da etwas einflechten darf, was wiederum eine persönliche Bemerkung ist, so soll es das Folgende sein: Ich selbst mußte - man konnte nicht mit der geistigen Welt sozusagen den Leuten ins Haus fallen, vor allem konnte man nicht ins Zivilisationshaus hineinfallen — an irgend etwas anknüpfen, nicht aus einem äußerlichen Grunde, das konnte etwas ganz ehrlich Innerliches sein. Gerade am Ende der achtziger Jahre knüpfte ich die Bemerkungen, die ich über die geistige Welt, über deren intimere Seiten zu machen hatte, an zahlreichen Orten gerade an Goethes «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie» an. Da konnte man anknüpfen, weil ja nun schließlich Goethe im Kredit stand; es war immerhin der Goethe, nicht wahr. Wenn man anknüpfte an etwas, was immerhin Goethe gemacht hatte, und wenn es so offensichtlich ist, daß da geistige Impulse hineingeflossen sind wie in das «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie», so konnte man an diese Dinge anknüpfen. Für mich war es sogar etwas Selbstverständliches, dazumal anzuknüpfen an Goethes «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie». Denn an das konnte ich doch nicht anknüpfen, was dazumal als Theosophie getrieben worden ist, was eine immerhin sehr strebsame Gruppe von Leuten Ende der achtziger Jahre sich dazumal herausgeholt hatte aus Blavatsky, aus Sinnetts «Esoterischem Buddhismus» und ähnlichen Büchern. Es war für jemanden, der sich das an der Wissenschaft herangeschulte Denken in die geistige Welt hinein bewahren wollte, eben einfach unmöglich, irgendwie in eine Verwandtschaft hineinzukommen mit dem, was sich als eine geistige Atmosphäre unmittelbar in Anlehnung an Blavatsky und an Sinnetts «Esoterischen Buddhismus» bildete.
[ 36 ] Dabei war auch nach der anderen Seite die Sache nicht leicht. Denn warum? Nicht wahr, Sinnetts «Esoterischer Buddhismus» erkannte man ja bald als ein spirituell dilettantisches Buch, das alte, schlecht verstandene Esoterismen zusammenstellte. Aber zu einem solchen Werk als Zeiterscheinung, wie Blavatskys «Geheimlehre» ist, war es doch nicht leicht ein Verhältnis zu gewinnen. Denn dieses Werk verriet immerhin an zahlreichen Stellen, daß dasjenige, was darinnen sich befindet, aus richtigen schlagkräftigen Impulsen aus der geistigen Welt herauskommt. So daß man an zahlreichen Stellen dieser Blavatskyschen «Geheimlehre» eben findet das Sich-Offenbaren einer geistigen Welt durch eine gewisse Persönlichkeit, die eben die Blavatsky war.
[ 37 ] Vor allen Dingen mußte einem eines besonders auffallen, gerade auffallen im Suchen, dem sich die Menschen, die so an Blavatsky selbst oder an die Blavatskysche «Geheimlehre» herangekommen waren, hingegeben hatten. Es war durch diese «Geheimlehre» eine große Summe von uralten, in der Vorgeschichte der Menschheit durch atavistisches Hellsehen gewonnenen Wahrheiten ausgesprochen. Ich möchte sagen: Es war eine Art Wiederauferweckung von uralten Kulturen. Man hatte vor sich, eben aus der äußeren Welt einem entgegenkommend, nicht bloß aus sich selbst, dasjenige, wovon man sich sagen mußte: Das bringt ein ungeheures altes Weisheitsgut herauf, das die Menschen einmal als etwas außerordentlich Lichtbringendes besessen haben. Dazwischen Partien der unglaublichsten Art, die einen immer wieder staunen machten, weil das Buch lotterig, dilettantisch gearbeitet ist in bezug auf jede wissenschaftliche Denkweise, unsinnig mit Bezug auf manches Abergläubische und so weiter. Überhaupt ein ganz merkwürdiges Buch, diese Blavatskysche «Geheimlehre»: große Wahrheiten neben schauderhaftem Zeug. Man möchte sagen: So etwas charakterisiert ganz gut, welchen Seelenphänomenen ausgesetzt waren diejenigen, die eben als heimatlose Seelen so nach und nach sich heraufentwikkelten in der neueren Zeit. Ich habe wirklich dazumal zahlreiche solcher Seelen kennengelernt. Man konnte eben das Ankommen dieser Heimatlosen Seelen auf der Erde sehen.
[ 38 ] In der darauffolgenden Zeit, in meiner Weimaraner Zeit, war ich ja zunächst intensiv mit anderem beschäftigt, obwohl es auch da zahlreiche Gelegenheiten gab, solche suchenden Seelen zu bemerken. Denn gerade während meiner Weimaraner Zeit kamen, um das Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv zu besuchen, durch Weimar alle Arten von Menschen, wenn ich so sagen darf, auch aus aller Herren Länder. Man lernte die Menschen in ihren guten, in ihren schlechten Seelenseiten gerade ganz merkwürdig kennen, indem sie da durch Weimar durchkamen. Käuze lernte man kennen und hochgebildete, feine, vornehme Menschen. Ich habe zum Beispiel meine Begegnung mit Herman Grimm in Weimar gerade in der vorletzten Nummer des «Goetheanum» beschrieben.
[ 39 ] Bei Herman Grimm war es, wenigstens für mein Gefühl, wirklich so, wenn er da war in Weimar — er kam sehr häufig, wenn er von Berlin aus wiederum nach Italien reiste oder zurück, oder auch sonst kam er sehr häufig nach Weimar -, und für mich hatte sich so die Empfindung herausgebildet: es ist etwas anderes mit Weimar, wenn er da ist, als wenn er wieder fort ist. Herman Grimm war etwas, was einem Weimar besonders erklärte. Man wußte besser, was Weimar ist, wenn Herman Grimm zu Besuch da war, als wenn er nicht da war.
[ 40 ] Es braucht nur erinnert zu werden an Herman Grimms Roman «Unüberwindliche Mächte», um auch bemerklich zu machen, wie immerhin sogar in Herman Grimm ein starker Drang nach Spirituellem lebte. Lesen Sie den Schluß dieses Romans «Unüberwindliche Mächte», wie da die geistige Welt in die physische hereinspielt durch die Seele einer Sterbenden. Es hat etwas ungeheuer Ergreifendes, Großartiges. Ich habe in früheren Vorträgen darüber gesprochen.
[ 41 ] Es waren natürlich dann auch Käuze, die durch Weimar durchkamen. Zum Beispiel kam ein russischer Staatsrat, der etwas suchte. Man konnte nicht herauskriegen, was er suchte: so irgend etwas im zweiten Teil des Goetheschen «Faust». Auf welche Art er es gerade durch das Goethe-Archiv kennenlernen wollte, konnte man nicht herauskriegen. Man wußte ihm auch nicht recht zu helfen. Im Goethe-Archiv hätte man ihm sehr gern geholfen. Er suchte nur immer. Er suchte den Punkt im zweiten Teil des «Faust», und man konnte nicht recht darauf kommen, was das für ein Punkt sein sollte. Immer nur hörte man, den Punkt suche er, den Punkt. Es war dann so, daß man ihn suchen ließ. Aber er war dann mit diesem Punkt so gesprächig, daß wenn wir abends beim Abendbrot saßen, und er in die Nähe kam, wir immer untereinander sagten: Schauts euch nicht um, der Staatsrat geht um. — Man wollte nicht gefunden sein von ihm.
[ 42 ] Nun, neben ihm saß wiederum ein sehr merkwürdiger Besucher, der sehr geistreich war, ein Amerikaner, der aber die Stellung sitzend auf dem Boden liebte, die Beine übereinandergeschlagen, der also in solcher Art vor den Büchern auf dem Erdboden saß; das war ein merkwürdiger Anblick. Wie gesagt, das kam da auch vor, und man konnte schon gewissermaßen einen Ausschnitt aus dem gegenwärtigen Zivilisationsleben in einer außerordentlich prägnanten Weise sehen.
[ 43 ] Aber als ich dann nach Berlin kam, führte mich das Schicksal wiederum ganz besonders hinein in einen Kreis solcher Seelen, von denen ich gesagt habe, sie sind heimatlose Seelen. Und es führte mich das Schicksal so weit hinein, daß eben gerade dieser Kreis von mir verlangte, daß ich ihm Vorträge halte, die ja dann in meiner «Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens» abgedruckt sind. Ich habe auch in der Vorrede zu dieser «Mystik» erzählt, wie die Dinge sich abgespielt haben. Das waren eben Leute, die sich, in einer etwas späteren Zeit als meine Wiener Bekannten, zur Theosophischen Gesellschaft hingefunden hatten. Sie standen auch in einer anderen Weise zu dem, was Blavatsky war. Das Studium von Blavatskys «Geheimlehre» betrieben nur wenige; aber in demjenigen, was nun die Nachfolgerin der Blavatsky, Annie Besant, als die damalige Theosophie vortrug, waren diese Menschen bewandert, denen ich etwas ganz anderes vortrug in meiner «Mystik». Sie waren sehr darin bewandert, und ich erinnere mich noch, daß ich zum Beispiel von einem Mitgliede dieser Gruppe einen Vortrag hörte, der anknüpfte an ein kleines Buch von Annie Besant, worin sie nun ihrerseits den Menschen so gliederte: physischer Leib, Ätherleib, astralischer Leib und so weiter. Ich muß oftmals gedenken, wie furchtbar schrecklich ich dazumal diese Darstellung des Menschen im Sinne der Annie Besant fand. Ich hatte nichts gelesen von Besant. Es war das erste, was ich von ihr hörte, dieser Vortrag, der da von einer Dame gehalten worden ist eben in Anknüpfung an die neueste dazumalige Broschüre von Besant. Es war etwas Schreckliches, wie dazumal hintereinander aufgezählt worden sind die einzelnen Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit, im Grunde ziemlich ohne inneres Verständnis, ohne sie hervorgehen zu lassen aus der Totalität des menschlichen Wesens.
[ 44 ] So war ich wiederum drinnen, wie in Wien Ende der achtziger Jahre, in einer möglichen Beobachtung von solchen heimatlosen Seelen. Und das wissen Sie ja schon: im wesentlichen ist dann dasjenige, was Anthroposophie ist, zunächst aufgewachsen, möchte ich sagen, mit dem, nicht in dem, aber mit dem, was von solchen heimatlosen Seelen da war, die zunächst bei der Theosophie eine neue Heimat für ihre Seelen gesucht haben.
[ 45 ] Ich wollte, meine lieben Freunde, heute die Betrachtungen bis zu diesem Punkte führen, werde dann morgen fortsetzen und versuchen, Sie weiterzuführen in dieser Selbstbesinnung, die ja heute kaum erst begonnen hat.
First lecture
[ 1 ] The reflections that are to begin here are intended to bring about a kind of self-reflection among those who have come together around anthroposophy. Opportunity will be given for such self-reflection, a self-reflection that is to be brought about by a characterization of the anthroposophical movement and its relationship to the Anthroposophical Society. And so allow me today to begin by pointing out those people who are important for this self-reflection. These are you yourselves, all those who, prompted by one thing or another, have found their way to anthroposophy.
[ 2 ] One person has found this path, I would say, through an inner compulsion of their soul, through an inner compulsion of their heart, another perhaps out of a desire for knowledge. But many have also come to the anthroposophical movement more or less through external circumstances and have perhaps found more within this anthroposophical movement through a deepening of the soul than they initially intended. But all those people who find their way to the anthroposophical movement have a common characteristic. And if one summarizes what is characteristic of those who find their way into the anthroposophical movement over the years, one can ultimately only say: these are people who, through their fate, their inner destiny, their karma, are initially compelled to leave the ordinary highway of civilization, on which the majority of humanity currently travels, and seek their own paths.
[ 3 ] Just consider how most people in our age grow into life from childhood. They are born to parents who are French or German, Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, or who profess some other denomination. They may be born to parents who hold this or that opinion. But there is always a kind of self-evident prerequisite when these people are born into the present, first of all in their parents, in the members of the family into which these people are born from their pre-earthly life. It is, so to speak, the natural prerequisite that one does not express, but that one feels without perhaps thinking about it — often one thinks about it when there is a reason to do so — that one generally looks at life and naturally thinks: We are Catholic French or Protestant Germans, and so will our children be.
[ 4 ] The fact that one feels this way naturally creates a social atmosphere, and not only a social atmosphere, but a social context of forces that then, more or less clearly or even unclearly, pushes these children into the life that is already predetermined by these feelings, by these more or less clearly imagined thoughts. As if it were a matter of course, the child's life then flows by, and as if it were a matter of course, education and schooling are brought to the children. And during this time, all kinds of thoughts prevail among the parents about their children, thoughts that are again not spoken aloud, but which are prerequisites for life and determine life to an extraordinary degree. For example, the thought: Of course my son will become a civil servant with a pension, or: My son will inherit his father's estate, or: My daughter will marry the neighbor's son from the next estate.
[ 5 ] Well, it doesn't always go into such concrete detail, but it provides an orientation, always pointing in a certain direction. The external life today is structured in such a way that, even in our chaotic times, which most people find unfamiliar, it obeys the impulses that are created in this way. And then it is necessary for a person to become, in some way, let's say, a Catholic Frenchman or a Protestant German. He must become one, because that is how the impulses of life work. Even if it does not appear with such certainty on the part of the parents, life in school, or in the whole of youthful, childlike living conditions, captures the person and places him in some position in life. The state and the religious community draw people to them.
[ 6 ] If the majority of people today were to give an account of how they actually got there later in life, they would hardly be able to do so. For energetic reflection on this would be unbearable. This unbearable feeling is then possibly pushed down into the depths of consciousness, into subconscious or unconscious provinces of the soul. At most, it is brought up by a psychiatrist when it behaves particularly stubbornly down there in the unknown provinces of the soul. But in most cases, the strength is simply not there to take a stand with one's own personality, one's individuality, within the environment into which one has grown in this way.
[ 7 ] One may occasionally rebel when one suddenly finds oneself consciously feeling like a trainee lawyer or even an assessor in a completely unexpected way. Then one may clench one's hands in one's pockets, or, if it happens to a woman, one may complain to one's husband about one's unsatisfactory life and the like. Yes, these are the kinds of reactions to the role that people grow into. Often, people numb themselves to things by focusing on the beauty of individual things. They go to balls, and then they have to sleep in the next day, don't they? Their time is filled in some way. Or you join a staunchly patriotic party because, as an assessor, you have to belong to something that accepts you. You have already been accepted by the state, by a religious community, and now you have to spread a kind of halo over the thing you have unconsciously grown into. Well, I don't need to describe the matter any further.
[ 8 ] The fact is that people who are moving along the highway of existence today grow into existence in this way.
[ 9 ] Those who cannot keep up find themselves on side roads; those who cannot keep up with most of the prescribed paths of the present find themselves on the numerous possible and impossible paths. But one of these paths is the anthroposophical one, where people want what lies within themselves, where they want to live through it in a more conscious way, where they want to experience something that is at least to a certain extent their own choice. Such people, who do not walk the main road of life, are mostly anthroposophists. Whether they find their way to anthroposophy in their youth or in old age, in one way or another they are such people. If one investigates further where this comes from, one also finds connections with the spiritual world.
[ 10 ] Today, souls usually enter earthly existence from their pre-earthly existence in such a way that they spend a long time in the state before their birth, which I have often described in lectures. After going through their life journey between death and a new birth in the spiritual world, people first come to the region where they increasingly live into the spiritual world, where their life consists of working together with the beings of the higher hierarchies, where they work within the spiritual-substantial in all their deeds. But in the course of this journey between death and a new birth, there also comes a point when the human being turns their gaze back down to earth, so to speak. The human being has long since connected spiritually with the generations, at the end of which stand the parents who gave birth to him. So that the human being looks down not only to his great-great-grandfather, but to generations far before him, connecting with the direction, with the current that runs through the generations of his ancestors.
[ 11 ] Now, the majority of souls in the present day, as they prepare to descend to earth again, already have a burning interest in what is happening on earth. They look down from the spiritual world onto the earth, as it were, and take a keen interest in what is happening on earth to their forefathers. Such souls become, as I have just characterized them, those who move along the broad highway of present life.
[ 12 ] On the other hand, there are a number of souls, especially in the present, who, when their pre-earthly existence is drawing to a close, are less interested in what is happening on earth, but turn their main interest to the facts: How do we mature in the spiritual world? They are interested in the spiritual world, so to speak, until the very last moment, through which they find their way back to earth.
[ 13 ] While the others have a deep desire for earthly existence, these souls have a lively interest in what is happening in the spiritual world until the very end. and therefore, when they incarnate on earth, they arrive with a consciousness that has grown out of spiritual impulses, which is less inclined toward the impulses that are now present, as I have characterized them for the broad masses. They grow out of the impulses of their environment, they grow out of their environment with their spiritual ambitions, and are thus predestined and prepared to go their own way.
[ 14 ] Thus, the souls that descend from pre-earthly existence into earthly existence can be divided into two types today. The first type, to which the majority of people still belong today, comprises the souls who are exceptionally gifted in their homeland, who feel quite at home as souls in their warm nest, even if they sometimes find it unpleasant — but that is only apparent, that is Maya — who feel comfortable in this warm nest, in which they have been interested for a long time before they descended to earth.
[ 15 ] Others, who perhaps — the outer Maya is not always decisive — patiently participate in childhood as souls, are less gifted with a sense of home, are homeless souls, growing out of the warm nest much more than into it. And it is precisely to this latter category that those who then find their way to the anthroposophical movement belong. So it is in some way predetermined whether one is driven to anthroposophy by one's destiny.
[ 16 ] One can now say: In manifold ways, what such souls seek on side roads, away from the main highway of life, makes itself felt. Those who have lived through the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century with a certain awareness will have found that such homeless souls, especially souls that are spiritually homeless, appeared everywhere among other people, in large numbers and relatively naturally. I would like to say that of such homelessness today.
[ 17 ] If others did not find it so beneficial to follow the beaten track and did not place such obstacles in the way of homeless souls, the number of these homeless souls would be even more striking to their contemporaries. But I would say that everywhere you look, you can see how many souls today have a certain touch of such homelessness.
[ 18 ] Just recently, it was reported that even such things are happening: a professor at a university announced a semester-long course on the development — as he calls it — of mystical-occult views from Pythagoras to Steiner, and after this lecture series was announced, so many people came to the first lecture that he could not give it in a normal lecture hall, but had to give it in the auditorium maximum, where otherwise only the big ceremonial lectures are held.
[ 19 ] Such facts show how, as things stand today, the tendency toward such homelessness has indeed become deeply ingrained in people's souls. One could say that what is now becoming more and more apparent in our chaotic spiritual life today, what is becoming more and more apparent week by week, is the longing of souls that carry such homelessness within themselves, which is increasing more and more from week to week, the longing for a position in life that is not predetermined, not oriented from the outset, the longing for the spiritual. one might say, in our chaotic spiritual life today, one could see all of this coming to the fore. By sketching this slow approach for you today with a few strokes, you will be able to find a little bit of what I would like to call your anthroposophical origins through a kind of self-reflection in this drawing.
[ 20 ] Today, I would like to begin with an aphoristic characterization. Look back at the last decades of the 19th century — we could take any other area, but let's take a very characteristic one — at a certain point in time, what we might call Wagnerism, Richard Wagnerism, came to the fore. Certainly, there was a great deal of civilizational coquetry, sensationalism, and so on in this Richard Wagnerism. But among the people who appeared when Bayreuth was established, there were not only gentlemen in the latest fashionable tailcoats and ladies in the latest fashionable costumes, but all kinds of people were gathered in Bayreuth. There you could see gentlemen with very long hair, ladies with very short hair, people who regarded it as a kind of modern pilgrimage to walk to Bayreuth from far away. I even knew someone who, when he set out for Bayreuth, took off his boots in a place far away and walked barefoot to Bayreuth as a pilgrim.
[ 21 ] Among those who came as gentlemen with long hair and ladies with short hair, there were some who somehow belonged to the homeless souls. But even among those who were perhaps not dressed in the very latest fashion, but still in a more respectable fashion, there were those who were also homeless souls.
[ 22 ] Now, Wagnerism had an effect on people that was truly evident in Wagnerism itself—I am not referring solely to the musical element in Wagnerism, but to Wagnerism as a cultural phenomenon—and this was something that stood out from what the materialistic age otherwise had to offer. It was something that, I would say, emanated suggestively from Wagnerism itself, which had such an effect on people that they felt: here is a gateway to a more spiritual world, a world different from our ordinary surroundings. And in connection with what was happening in Bayreuth, a great longing for spiritual deepening developed.
[ 23 ] At first, it was difficult to understand Richard Wagner's characters and dramatic compositions. But many people sensed that they were created from an element other than the crude materialistic element of the time. And those who were then driven there as homeless souls were, I would say, stimulated by the suggestive power of Wagner's dramas and, in particular, by the life that unfolded when Wagner's dramas entered our civilization, to gain all kinds of dark, emotional intuitions.
[ 24 ] Among those who found themselves drawn into this Wagnerian life were, for example, readers of the Bayreuther Blätter. Now it is historically interesting—today, of course, all this is already history— to take a volume of the Bayreuther Blätter and see how it starts from an interpretation of Tristan und Isolde, the Ring of the Nibelung, even the Flying Dutchman, how it starts from this dramatic composition, from the individual characters within Wagner's dramas, from the events in them, and how, admittedly in a highly subjective, unrealistic way, unrealistic also in a spiritual sense, but nevertheless with an intellectual longing to arrive at a more spiritual view of things and of human life in general. And one can already say that some of the various interpretations of Hamlet and other works of art by theosophists are very reminiscent of certain essays written by Hans von Wolzogen, who was not a theosophist but a trained Wagnerian, in the Bayreuther Blätter. For example, let's say you woke up one morning and found that some mischievous spirit had placed a copy of the Bayreuther Blätter magazine next to you instead of a theosophical journal that you might have read fifteen years ago. you could really mistake the tone and attitude for what you found in your theosophical magazine, if it happened to be an article by Wolzogen or similar.
[ 25 ] So one might say: For many people with homeless souls, this Wagnerism was an opportunity to enter into a way of looking at the world that led away from the coarse material world and into the spiritual world, and all those who had grown into such a current out of an inner urge of the soul, not out of external civilizational coquetry, of whom one can already say: whatever else they were in life, whether lawyers, artists, excellencies, or national councilors, or whatever kind of people they were who had grown into it, even if they were natural scientists—there were some like that too—it was already the case with them that they pursued this growth into a spiritual world out of an inner longing of the soul, and then no longer cared about the reliable evidence that could be found everywhere for the materialistic worldview.
[ 26 ] As I said, I could have cited other areas where such homeless souls were found. Such homeless souls were found everywhere. But the area of Wagnerism was particularly characteristic. There were numerous such homeless souls there.
[ 27 ] Well, I myself was then presented with a number of such souls, but in association with others who had, so to speak, gone through their spiritual novitiate in Wagnerianism, and then again in another metamorphosis. These were souls I met in Vienna at the end of the 1880s, in a group of people where, so to speak, nothing but homeless souls came together. People today no longer have a proper understanding of how homelessness manifested itself on the surface back then, because much of what required courage, spiritual courage, back then has become commonplace today.
[ 28 ] For example, I don't think many people today can imagine the following: I was sitting in a circle of such homeless souls; all sorts of things had already been discussed. Then someone arrived who had been busy longer than the others, or perhaps had stayed at home, preoccupied with his own thoughts, and began to talk about Dostoevsky's “Raskolnikov,” speaking about “Raskolnikov” in such a way that it struck the whole company like a bolt of lightning. A new world was there, a world — yes, as if one had suddenly been transported to another planet. That is how these souls felt.
[ 29 ] I may perhaps say: In these observations on life, which I have to tell you as an introduction to the history of the anthroposophical movement, I must mention that for me, at the time when I was compelled by fate to make such observations on life, the connection with the spiritual world, the standing within the spiritual world, was never broken in any way. It was always there. I must mention this because it forms the background to these observations: the spiritual world is a matter of course, and human beings on earth are regarded as reflections of what they actually are as spiritual beings within the spiritual world. I would like to characterize this state of mind so that you always assume this as the spiritual background.
[ 30 ] Of course, this observation was not like observing with a cold dog's snout, but with warmhearted sympathy, and without wanting to be an observer, simply by being inside – in all friendliness and kindness and politeness, of course. So you stood there and got to know people, not to observe them, but because that was the natural way of life. At the end of the 1980s, I got to know such a circle, which, incidentally, consisted of people from all professions and all walks of life, but who were homeless souls, and a number of whom had moved there from the Wagner region, people who had, so to speak, undergone their spiritual novitiate in the Wagner region. The one I mentioned who took off his boots in Vienna and then walked barefoot to Bayreuth was also among them; he was even a very witty person. I actually met these personalities quite often for a while, sometimes every day. And they were now living in what I would call a second metamorphosis. After going through their Wagner metamorphosis, they were living in a second metamorphosis.
[ 31 ] For example, there were three among them who were good acquaintances of H.P. Blavatsky, had even been intimate with her. H.P. Blavatsky, were avid theosophists, just as theosophists were at the time when Blavatsky was still alive. It was precisely these theosophists at that time, immediately after the publication of Blavatsky's “Isis Unveiled” and “The Secret Doctrine,” who had something special about them: they all had a tendency to be quite esoteric. They despised the outer life in which they lived, despised their own profession, of course, but had to enter into exoteric life. That was natural. The rest, however, is esoteric: one speaks only to initiates, only within a small circle. And those whom one considers unworthy of discussing such matters are regarded as people with whom one talks about the ordinary things of life. With the others, one talks esoterically. They were readers, good readers of Sinnett's “Secret Buddhism,” which had just been published at that time, but all people who, in the most eminent sense, belonged to the homeless souls I have just characterized, people who, despite being technicians, for example, in their practical lives, followed a book like Sinnett's “Secret Buddhism” with great interest. There was a certain urge in such people—partly stemming from Wagnerism—to interpret all possible myths in what they called an esoteric sense.
[ 32 ] Now, however, as more and more of these homeless souls appeared at the end of the 19th century, it became apparent that the most interesting ones were not those who I would say, out of a consciousness that was only nine-tenths honest, at most nine-tenths honest, but rather the others who now listened, who did not want to read themselves — at that time there was still a very strong aversion to such things — but listened with open mouths when those who had read discussed these things. And it was very interesting to observe how the listeners, who were sometimes more honest than the narrators, took this in from the homelessness of their souls as spiritual nourishment that they needed, which they even translated from the relative untruth with which this spiritual nourishment was presented into something completely honest through their own more honest souls, as they took it in. One could see in them the longing to to hear something completely different from what lies on the ordinary highway of civilization, and how what they heard was devoured by such people! It was extremely interesting to see how, on the one hand, the tentacles of highway life were always pulling people back, how they then appeared in this or that salon where people gathered — often a coffee house — and listened with tremendous longing to what someone had just read from a newly published book of this kind, sometimes acting quite pompous about what he had read. But there were also honest souls who were tossed back and forth by life.
[ 33 ] Especially in the early days of the late 19th century, one could see how tossed about were those souls who did not really want to admit their homelessness. For, wasn't it true that one listened with great interest to what was being said about the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, kama manas, manas, buddhi, and so on? Yes, and then he had to write his feature article that the newspaper wanted from him, into which he had to put the familiar highlights. People really became such souls, showing how difficult it actually was for some, especially at the beginning of the newer spiritual development, which we must count from the end of the 19th century, to leave the broad highway of life. For some really behaved as if, just when they wanted to go to the most important, most interesting things in life, they actually wanted to sneak away and, if possible, not let anyone know where they had sneaked off to. It was quite interesting to see how spiritual life, spiritual will, and the longing for a spiritual world made their way into European civilization.
[ 34 ] Now you must bear in mind that at the end of the 1880s it was actually much more difficult than it is today; even though it was less dangerous, it was more difficult than today to openly profess belief in the spiritual world, because the physical-sensory world with all its magnificent laws had been proven! You couldn't argue with that! There was plenty of proof for it, with labs, physics departments, clinics, everything pointing to the proven world. But for many homeless souls, the proven world was so unsatisfying, even impossible for their inner selves, that they just slipped away. And while the great civilization of their time was presented to them not only by the bushel, but by the ton, in huge quantities, they nibbled at what could be gleaned from what seemed like a kind of influx of the spiritual world into modern civilization. It was by no means easy to speak of the spiritual world just like that; one had to tie it to something.
[ 35 ] If I may interject something here, which is again a personal remark, it should be the following: I myself had to — one could not, so to speak, burst into people's homes with the spiritual world, above all one could not burst into the home of civilization — connect to something, not for an external reason, it could be something quite honestly internal. At the end of the 1980s, I linked the remarks I had to make about the spiritual world, about its more intimate aspects, to Goethe's “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” in numerous places. It was possible to connect because Goethe was, after all, in good standing; it was Goethe, after all. If one connected to something that Goethe had done, and if it is so obvious that spiritual impulses flowed into it, as in the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” then it was possible to connect to these things. For me, it was even a matter of course to build on Goethe's “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” at that time. For I could not follow up on what was being pursued as theosophy at that time, which a very ambitious group of people at the end of the 1880s had gleaned from Blavatsky, Sinnett's “Esoteric Buddhism,” and similar books. For someone who wanted to preserve a scientific approach to the spiritual world, it was simply impossible to relate in any way to the spiritual atmosphere that had formed directly in the wake of Blavatsky and Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism.
[ 36 ] The situation was not easy on the other side either. Why? Sinnett's “Esoteric Buddhism” was soon recognized as a spiritually amateurish book that compiled old, poorly understood esotericism. But it was not easy to relate to a work such as Blavatsky's “The Secret Doctrine,” which was a product of its time. For this work revealed in numerous places that what it contained came from genuine, powerful impulses from the spiritual world. So that in numerous places in Blavatsky's “The Secret Doctrine” one finds the revelation of a spiritual world through a certain personality, namely Blavatsky herself.
[ 37 ] Above all, one thing was particularly striking, especially in the search to which people who had approached Blavatsky herself or Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” had devoted themselves. Through this “Secret Doctrine,” a great sum of ancient truths, gained in the prehistory of humanity through atavistic clairvoyance, was expressed. I would say it was a kind of resurrection of ancient cultures. One had before one, coming from the outside world, not just from within oneself, that which one had to say: This brings forth an immense ancient wealth of wisdom that people once possessed as something extraordinarily enlightening. In between are passages of the most incredible kind, which never cease to amaze us, because the book is sloppy and amateurish in terms of any scientific way of thinking, nonsensical in terms of some superstitions, and so on. All in all, Blavatsky's “The Secret Doctrine” is a very strange book: great truths alongside appalling stuff. One might say that this characterizes quite well the soul phenomena to which those were exposed who, as homeless souls, gradually developed in more recent times. I really got to know many such souls at that time. One could see the arrival of these homeless souls on earth.
[ 38 ] In the following period, during my time in Weimar, I was initially intensely occupied with other things, although there were also numerous opportunities to notice such searching souls. For it was precisely during my time in Weimar that all kinds of people, if I may say so, from all over the world came to visit the Goethe and Schiller Archive. One got to know people's good and bad sides in a very strange way as they passed through Weimar. One met oddballs and highly educated, refined, distinguished people. For example, I described my encounter with Herman Grimm in Weimar in the penultimate issue of the Goetheanum.
[ 39 ] With Herman Grimm, at least in my opinion, it was really like that when he was in Weimar — he came very often when he was traveling from Berlin to Italy or back, or even otherwise he came to Weimar very often — and for me the feeling had developed that Weimar was different when he was there than when he was away. Herman Grimm was someone who explained Weimar in a special way. You understood Weimar better when Herman Grimm was visiting than when he was not there.
[ 40 ] One need only recall Herman Grimm's novel “Unüberwindliche Mächte” (Unconquerable Powers) to realize how even Herman Grimm had a strong urge for the spiritual. Read the conclusion of this novel, “Unüberwindliche Mächte,” and see how the spiritual world enters the physical world through the soul of a dying person. There is something tremendously moving and magnificent about it. I have spoken about this in previous lectures.
[ 41 ] Of course, there were also oddballs who passed through Weimar. For example, a Russian state councilor came looking for something. It was impossible to find out what he was looking for: something in the second part of Goethe's Faust. It was impossible to find out how he wanted to learn about it through the Goethe Archive. No one really knew how to help him. The Goethe Archive would have been very happy to help him. He just kept searching. He was looking for the point in the second part of “Faust,” and no one could figure out what that point was supposed to be. All we ever heard was that he was looking for the point, the point. So they let him search. But he was so talkative about this point that when we sat down to supper in the evening and he came near, we always said to each other: Don't look back, the State Councilor is walking around. — No one wanted to be found by him.
[ 42 ] Now, next to him sat another very strange visitor who was very witty, an American, but who loved to sit on the floor with his legs crossed, sitting in front of the books on the ground in this manner; it was a strange sight. As I said, that also happened there, and in a sense you could see a snapshot of contemporary civilized life in an extremely concise way.
[ 43 ] But when I came to Berlin, fate led me once again into a circle of such souls, whom I have described as homeless souls. And fate led me so far into this circle that it was precisely this circle that asked me to give lectures, which are then printed in my “Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life.” I also recounted how things unfolded in the preface to this Mysticism. These were people who, somewhat later than my Viennese acquaintances, had found their way to the Theosophical Society. They also had a different attitude toward what Blavatsky was. Only a few studied Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine,” but these people were well versed in what Blavatsky's successor, Annie Besant, presented as theosophy at that time, whereas I presented something completely different in my “Mysticism.” They were very well versed in it, and I still remember, for example, hearing a lecture by a member of this group that was based on a little book by Annie Besant, in which she, in turn, divided human beings into the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and so on. I often think back to how terribly awful I found this description of the human being in Annie Besant's sense at that time. I had read nothing by Besant. It was the first thing I heard from her, this lecture given by a lady in connection with Besant's latest brochure at that time. It was terrible how the individual members of the human being were listed one after the other, basically without any inner understanding, without letting them emerge from the totality of the human being.
[ 44 ] So I was back inside, as in Vienna at the end of the 1880s, in a possible observation of such homeless souls. And you already know this: essentially, what anthroposophy is then grew up, I would say, with, not in, but with what was there of such homeless souls who initially sought a new home for their souls in theosophy.
[ 45 ] My dear friends, I wanted to take our reflections to this point today, and I will continue tomorrow and try to lead you further in this self-reflection, which has only just begun today.