Oswald Spengler, Prophet of World Chaos
GA 214
9 August 1922, Dornach
III. Oswald Spengler II
The author whom I discussed here the last time should really provide much food for thought for those very people who count themselves in the Anthroposophical Movement; for Oswald Spengler is a personality who has a scientific mastery of a very large part of all that can be known today. It can be said that he has complete command of the great variety of thoughts that have become the possession of civilized humanity in the course of recent centuries. Spengler can be regarded as a man who has assimilated a large number of the sciences, or at least the ideas contained in them.
The thought-combinations he achieves are sometimes dazzling. He is in the highest degree what may be called in Central Europe a brilliant man—not in France, but in Central Europe; Oswald Spengler's thoughts are too heavy and too dense for western—that is, French—genius; but, as has been said, in the Central European sense he may undoubtedly be regarded as a brilliant thinker. He can hardly be called an elegant thinker in the best meaning of the word, for the investiture of his thoughts, in spite of all his cleverness, is certainly extremely pedantic. And it can even be seen in various places that out of the sentence-meshes of this gifted man the eye of a Philistine unmistakably peers forth. In any case, there is something unpolished in the thoughts themselves.
Well, this is more what might be called an esthetic consideration of the ideas; but the important point is this: we confront here a personality who has thoughts, and they are in keeping with the spirit of the time, but he really has a poor opinion of thinking in general. For Oswald Spengler regards as decisive for the real happenings in the world not what results from thinking, but in his opinion the more instinctive life-impulses are the deciding factors. So that with him thinking really floats above life, as something of a luxury, we might say; and from his point of view, thinkers are people who ponder on life, from who's pondering however nothing can flow into life. Life is already there when thinkers appear who are ready to think about it. And in this connection, it is entirely correct to say that in the world-historical moment when a thinker masters the special form of present-day thoughts with something of universality, at that very moment he senses their actual sterility and unfruitfulness. He turns to something other than these unfruitful thoughts, namely, to what bubbles up in the instinctive life, and from the point of view thus provided he sees the present civilization. This really appears to him in such a way that he says: Everything that this civilization has brought forth is on the way to ruin. We can only hope that something instinctive will emerge once again from what Spengler calls “the blood,” which will have nothing to do with what constitutes present civilization, will even crush it, and put in its place a far-reaching power arising only from the instinctive realm.
Oswald Spengler sees that people of the modern civilization have gradually become slaves of the mechanistic life; but he fails to see that just through reaction, human freedom can result within this mechanistic life—that is, technical science in general—because it is fundamentally devoid of spirit. He has no notion of this; but why is this so?
You know that in the last lecture I quoted the passage in which Spengler says: The statesman, the practical man, the merchant, and so on, all act from impulses other than those that can be gained from thinking; and I said more or less jokingly: Oswald Spengler never seems to have noticed that there are also father-confessors, and others in similar positions. Neither has Spengler adequately observed something else, in regard to which the relation to the father-confessor represents only a decadent side-issue, from a world-historical point of view.
When we go back in humanity's evolution, we find everywhere that the so-called men of action, those people who have outwardly something to do in the world, turned, in later times to the oracles, and in earlier times to what can be recognized in the Mysteries as the decrees of the spiritual world. We need only to observe the ancient Egyptian culture to see that those who learned in the Mysteries the decrees of the spiritual world transmitted what they discovered by spiritual means to those who wished to become, and were intended to be, men of action. So that we have only to look back in the evolution of humanity to find that it is out of the spiritual world, not out of the blood—for this whole theory of the blood is about as mystically nebulous as anything could be—it is not, then, out of the obscure depths of the blood that the impulses were derived which entered into earthly deeds, but out of the spirit. In a certain sense the so-called men of action of that time were the instruments for the great spiritual creations whose directions were learned in the spiritual research of the Mysteries. And I might say that echoes of the Mysteries, which we see everywhere in Greek history, play a part in Roman history, and they are also unmistakably to be found even in the early part of the Middle Ages. I have called your attention, for instance, to the fact that the Lohengrin-legend can be understood only if one knows how to follow it back from the external physical world into the citadel of the Grail in the early, or properly speaking, in the middle part of the Middle Ages.
It is, therefore, a complete misunderstanding of the true progress of humanity's evolution when Oswald Spengler supposes that world-historical events originate in any way in the blood, and that what the human being acquires through thoughts has nothing to do with these events. Looking back into ancient times we find that when people had tasks to perform, they were to a large extent dependent upon research in the spiritual world. The designs of the Gods had to be discovered, if we may so express it. And this dependence upon the Gods existing in ancient times made the human being of that time unfree. Men's thoughts were completely directed toward serving as vessels, as it were, into which the Gods poured their substance—spiritual substance, under whose influence men acted.
In order that men might become free, this pouring of substance into human thoughts on the part of the Gods had to cease; and as a result, human thoughts came more and more to be images. The thoughts of the humanity of earlier times were realities to a far greater degree; and what Oswald Spengler ascribes to the blood are those very realities which lay hidden in the thoughts of ancient humanity, those substances which still worked through men in the Middle Ages.
Then came modern times. The thoughts of men lost their divine, substantial content. They became merely abstract thought-images. But it is only thoughts of this kind that are not constraining and coercive; only by living in such thought-images can man become free.
Now throughout recent centuries and into the twentieth century there was organically present in man scarcely more than the disposition to fashion such thought-images. This is the education of man toward freedom. He did not have the atavistic imaginations and inspirations of ancient times: he experienced only thought-images, and in these he could become ever more and more free, since images do not compel. If our moral impulses manifest in images, these impulses no longer compel us as they once did when they lay in the ancient thought-substance. They acted upon human beings at that time just as nature-forces; whereas the modern thought-images no longer act in this way. In order, therefore, that they might have any content whatsoever, the human being had, on the one hand, either to fill them with what natural science knows through ordinary sense-observation, or, on the other, to develop in secret societies, in rites or otherwise, something which was derived more or less from ancient times through tradition. By means of sense-observation he thus gained a science which filled his thoughts from without, but these thoughts rejected more and more anything from within; so that if man's thoughts were to have any inner content at all, he was compelled to turn to the ancient traditions, as they had been handed down either in the religious denominations or in the various kinds of secret societies which have flourished over the whole earth. The great mass of mankind was embraced in the various religious denominations, where something was presented whose content was derived from ancient times, when thoughts still had some content. Man filled his thoughts from without with a content of sense-observation, or from within with ancient impulses which had become dogmatic and traditional.
It was necessary for this to occur from the sixteenth century up to the last third of the nineteenth; for during that time human cooperation throughout the civilized world was still influenced by that spiritual principle which we may call the principle of the Archangel Gabriel, if we wish to employ an ancient name (it is only a terminology; I intend to indicate a spiritual Power); this Being, then, influenced human souls, albeit unconsciously in modern times. Human beings had themselves no inner content, and because they accepted a merely traditional content for their spirit-soul life, they were unable to feel the presence or influence of this Being.
The first really to become aware of this utter lack of spiritual content in his soul-life was Friedrich Nietzsche; but he was unable to reach the experience of a new spirituality. Actually his every impulse to find a spirit-soul content failed, and so he sought for impulses as indefinite as possible, such as power-impulses and the like.
People need not merely a spiritual content which they may then clothe in abstract thoughts, but they need the thorough inner warming which may be occasioned by the presence of this inner content. This spiritual warming is exceedingly important. It was brought about for the majority of people through the various rituals and similar ceremonies practiced in the religious denominations; and this warmth was poured into souls also in the secret societies of more recent times.
This was possible in the time of Gabriel, because practically everywhere on the earth there were elemental beings still remaining from the Middle Ages. The farther the nineteenth century advanced the more impossible it became—entirely so in the twentieth century—for these elemental beings, which were in all natural phenomena and so forth, to become parasites, as it were, in the human social life. In most recent times there has been much which has unconsciously resisted this condition.
When in these secret societies which followed ancient tradition—it is really unbelievable how “ancient” and “sanctified” all the rituals of these societies are supposed to be—but when rituals were arranged or teachings given, in the sense of ancient tradition, when something was developed in these societies which had been carried over as an echo of the ancient Mysteries, no longer understood, conditions were exactly right for certain elemental beings. For when people went through all sorts of performances—let us say, when they attended the celebration of a mass, and no longer understood anything about it, the people were then in the presence of something filled with great wisdom; they were present, but understood nothing at all of what they saw, although an understanding would have been possible. Then these elemental beings entered the situation, and when the people were not thinking about the mass, the elementals began to think with the unused human intellect. Human beings had cultivated the free intellect more and more, but they did not use it. They preferred to sit and let something be enacted before them from tradition. People did not think. Although conditions are becoming entirely different, it is still true today that people of the present time could do a vast amount of thinking if they wished to use their minds; but they have no desire to do this; they are disinclined to think clearly. They say rather: Oh, that requires too much effort; it demands inner activity.
If people desired to think they would not enjoy so much going to all sorts of moving pictures, for there one cannot and need not think; everything just rolls past. The tiny bit of thinking that is asked of anyone today is written on a great screen where it can be read. It is true that this lack of sympathy with active inner thinking has been slowly and gradually developed in the course of modern times, and people have now almost entirely given up thinking. If a lecture is given somewhere which has no illustrations on the screen, where people are supposed to think somewhat, they prefer to sleep a little. Perhaps they attend the lecture, but they sleep—because active thinking does not enjoy a high degree of favor in our time.
It was precisely to this unwillingness to think, lasting through centuries, that the practices of the various secret societies were in many ways adapted. The same kind of elemental beings were present that had associated with human beings in the first half of the Middle Ages—when experiments were still going on in alchemistic laboratories, where the experimenters were quite conscious that spiritual beings worked with them. These spiritual beings were still present in later times; they were present everywhere. And why should they not have made use of a good opportunity?
In most recent centuries a human brain was gradually developed which could think well, but people had no wish to think. So these elemental beings approached and said to themselves: If man himself will make no use of his brain, we can use it. And in those secret societies which cherished only the traditional, and always kept emphasizing what was old, these elementals approached and made use of human brains for thinking. Since the sixteenth century an extraordinary amount of brain-substance has been thus employed by elemental beings.
Very much has entered human evolution without man's cooperation—even good ideas, especially those appertaining to human social life. If you look around among people of our time who would like to be more or less informed about civilization, you will find that to them it has become an important question to ask what it is, really, that acts from man to man. People should think, but do not; what does act, then, from man to man? That was a great question, for instance, with Goethe, and with this in mind he wrote his Wilhelm Meister. In this story your attention is constantly drawn to all sorts of obscure relations of which people are unconscious, which nevertheless prevail, and are half unconsciously taken up by one and another and spread. All kinds of threads are interwoven; and these Goethe tried to find. He sought for them, and what he could find he aimed to describe in his novel, Wilhelm Meister.
This was the condition existing in Central Europe throughout the nineteenth century. If people today had any kind of inclination to spend more time with a book than between two meals—well, that is speaking figuratively, for usually they go to sleep when they have read one-third between two meals; then they read the next third between the next two meals, and the final third between the next two—and in that way, it is somewhat scattered. It would be good for people if even those novels and short stories that can be read between two meals, or between two railroad stations, stimulated reflection. We can hardly expect that at the present time; but if, for example, you should look up Gutzkow, and see how in his book, The Magician of Rome, and in his The Champions of the Spirit he has searched for such relations; if you take the extraordinarily social concatenations sought by George Sand in her novels, you will be able to notice that in the nineteenth century those threads, arising from indeterminate powers and working into the unconsciousness, everywhere played a part; you will notice that the authors are following up these threads, and that in their efforts they—George Sand, for example—are in many ways absolutely on the right track.
But in the last third of the nineteenth century it gradually came about that these elementals—who in the first place thought with the human brain and then, when they had taken possession of human minds and brought about the social conditions of the nineteenth century, really spun these threads—that these beings now at last had enough. They had fulfilled their world-historical task—we might better say, their world-historical need. And something else occurred which particularly hindered their continuing this kind of parasitic activity. This proceeded exceedingly well at about the end of the eighteenth century, then remarkably so in the nineteenth—but after that point of time these elemental beings attained their aims less and less; this was because an increasing number of souls descended from the spiritual world to the physical plane with great expectations regarding the earth-life.
When people have screamed and kicked as little children—and now in more recent times have had their meager education, they have by no means become conscious that they were equipped with very great expectations before they descended to earth. But this lived on nevertheless in the emotions, in the entire soul-organization, and still continues to live today. Souls really descend to the physical world with exceedingly strong expectations; and thence come the disillusionments which have been unconsciously experienced in the souls of children for some time past, because these expectations are not satisfied.
Chosen spirits who had especially strong impulses of anticipation before descending to the physical plane were the ones, for example, who observed this physical plane, saw that these expectations are not being satisfied here, and who then wrote Utopian schemes of how things should be, and what could be done. It would be exceedingly interesting to study, with regard to entrance through birth into physical existence, how the souls of great Utopianists—even the lesser ones and the more or less queer fellows, who have thought out all kinds of schemes which cannot even be called Utopian, but which reveal much goodwill to form a paradise for people on earth—how these souls who have descended from spiritual worlds were really constituted with regard to their entrance upon the physical earth-plane.
This descent filled with anticipation is distressing for the beings who are to make use of such human brains. They do not succeed in using the brain of the human being when he descends to earth with such anticipation. Up to the eighteenth century those descending had far less expectation. Then the use of the brain by those other beings, not human, went well. But just during the last third of the nineteenth century it became exceedingly uncomfortable for the beings who were to make use of the brains of people descending with such expectations, because these led to unconscious emotions, which were felt in turn by the spiritual beings when they wanted to make use of the human brain. Hence, they no longer do this. And now it is a fact that there exists in modern humanity a very wide-spread and increasing disposition for human beings to have thoughts, but to suppress them. The brain has been gradually ruined, especially among the higher classes, by the suppression of thoughts. Other beings, not human, who formerly took possession of these thoughts no longer approach.
And now—now human beings have thoughts, it is true, but they have no idea how to use them. And the most significant representative of the kind of people who have no understanding of what to do with their thoughts is Oswald Spengler. He is to be distinguished from others—well, now how shall we express it in order not to give offense when these things are repeated outside, as they always are—perhaps we must say that others completely neglect their minds in their early years, so that their brains tend to allow thoughts to disappear in them. Spengler differs from others in that he has kept his mind fresh, so that it has not become so sterile; he is not absorbed only in himself, occupied always with himself alone.
It is true, is it not, that a great part of humanity today is inwardly jellied (yersulzt, if I may make use of a Central European expression that perhaps many may not understand. Sulze is something that is made at the time of hog-slaughter from the various products of the killing which are not of use otherwise, mixed with jelly-like ingredients—what cannot even be employed for sausage-making is used for Sulze.) And I might say that as a result of the many confusing influences of education the brains of most people become thus versulzt. They cannot help it; and of course, we are not speaking at all in an accusing sense, but perhaps rather in an excusing sense, feeling pity for the jellied brains.
I mean to say, when people have only the one thought: that they have no idea what to do with themselves; when they are as if squashed together, compressed and jellied—then these thoughts can be very nicely submerged in the underworlds of the brain, and from there plunged more deeply into the lower regions of the human organization, and so on. But that is not the case with such people as Oswald Spengler. They know how to develop thoughts. And that is what makes Spengler a clever man: he has thoughts. But the thoughts a man may have amount to something only when they receive a spiritual content. For this result a spiritual content is needed. Man needs the content that Anthroposophy wants to give; otherwise he has thoughts, but is unable to do anything with them. In the case of the Spenglerian thoughts it is really—I might almost say—an impossible metaphor comes to me—it is as if a man, who for the occasion of a future marriage with a lady has procured all imaginable kinds of beautiful garments—not for himself, but for the lady—and then she deserts him before the wedding, and he has all those clothes and no one to wear them. And so you can see how it is with these wondrously beautiful thoughts. These Spenglerian thoughts are all cut according to the most modern scientific style of garment, but there is no lady to wear the dresses. Old Boethius still had at least the somewhat shriveled Rhetorica and Dialectica, as I said some weeks ago. These no longer had the vitality of the muses of Homer and of Pindar, but at any rate all seven arts still figured throughout the Middle Ages. There was still someone upon whom to put the clothes.
I might call what has arisen, Spenglerism, because it is something significant; but with it the time has arrived when garments have come into existence, so to speak, but all the beings who might wear these beautiful thought-garments are lacking—in other words, there is no lady. The muse comes not; the clothes are here. And so people simply announce that they can make no use of the whole clothes-closet of modern thoughts. Thinking does not exist at all for the purpose of laying hold on life in any way.
What is lacking is the substantial content which should come from the spiritual worlds. Precisely that is wanting. And so people declare that it is all nonsense anyway; these clothes are here, after all, only to be looked at. Let us hang them on the clothes-racks and wait for some buxom peasant-maid to come forth out of the mystical vagueness, and ... well, she will need no beautiful clothes, for she will be what we may look for from the primordial Source.
This represents Spenglerism: he expects impulses from something indeterminate, undefined, undifferentiated, which need no thought-garments, and he hangs all the thought-garments on wooden racks, so that at least they are there to be looked at; for if they were not even there to be seen, no one could understand why Oswald Spengler has written two such thick books, which are entirely superfluous. For what is anyone to do with two thick books if thinking no longer exists? Spengler allows no occasion to become sentimental, or we should find much that is amusing. A Caesar must come! but the modern Caesar is one who has made as much money as possible, and has gathered together all sorts of engineers who, out of the spirit, have become the slaves of technical science—and then founded modern Caesarism upon blood-borne money or upon money-borne blood. In this situation thinking has no significance whatever; thinking sits back and occupies itself with all sorts of thoughts.
But now the good man writes two thick books in which are contained some quite fine thoughts; yet they are absolutely unnecessary. On his own showing, no use whatever can be made of them. It would have been far more intelligent if he had used all this paper to ... let us say, to contrive a formula by which the most favorable blood-mixtures might come into existence in the world, or something like that. That is what anyone with his views should do.
What anyone should do corresponds not at all with what he advocates in his books. Anyone reading the books has the feeling: Well, this man has something to say; he knows about the downfall of the West, for he has fairly devoured this whole mood of destruction; he himself is quite full of it. Those who are wishing to hasten the decline of the West could do no better than make Oswald Spengler captain, even leader, of this decline. For he understands all about it; his own inner spirit is completely of this caliber. And so he is extraordinarily representative of his time. He believes that this whole modern civilization is going to ruin. Well, if everyone believes likewise, it surely will! Therefore, what he writes must be true. It seems to me that it contains a tremendous inner truth.
This is the way the matter stands; and anyone whose basis is Anthroposophy must really pay attention to just such a personality as Oswald Spengler. For the serious consideration of spiritual things, the serious consideration of the spiritual life, is precisely what Anthroposophy desires. In Anthroposophy the question is certainly not whether this or that dogma is accepted, but the important thing is that this spiritual life, this substantial spiritual life, shall be taken seriously, entirely seriously, and that it shall awaken the human being.
It is very interesting that Oswald Spengler says: When he thinks, a man is awake (that he cannot deny), but anything truly effective comes from sleep, and that is contained in the plant and in the plantlike in man. Whatever in the human being is of a plantlike nature, he really brings forth in a living state: sleep is what is alive. The waking state brings forth thoughts; but the waking existence results only in inner tensions.
Thus it has become possible for one of the cleverest men of the present to indicate something like this: What I do must be planted in me while I sleep, and I really need not wake up at all. To awake is a luxury, a complete luxury. I should really only walk around and, still sleeping, perform what occurs to me in sleep. I should really be a sleep-walker. It is a luxury that a head is still there continually indulging in thinking about the whole thing, while I go about sleep-walking. Why be awake at all?
But this is a prevailing mood, and Spengler really brings it to very clear expression, namely: The modern human being is not fond of this being awake. All sorts of illustrations come to me. For instance: When, at the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society years ago, a lecture was given, there were always in the front rows people who even outwardly accentuated sleeping a little, so that proper participation might be visible in the auditorium, so that properly devoted participants might be visible. Sleeping is really exceedingly popular, is it not? Now most people do it silently: on the occasions I have mentioned the people were well-behaved in this regard; if there are no specific sounds of snoring, then people are well-behaved, are they not? That is, they are at least quiet. But Spengler, who is a strange man, makes a noise over what other people are quiet about. The others sleep; but Spengler says: People must sleep; they should not be awake at all. And he makes use of all his knowledge to deliver an entirely adequate thesis for sleep. So what it comes to is this: that an exceedingly clever man of the present time really delivers an adequate thesis for sleep!
This is something to which we must pay attention. We need not make a noise about it, as Spengler does; but we should consider this, and realize how necessary it is to understand the waking state, the state of being more and more awake, which is to be attained precisely through something like the spiritual impulses of Anthroposophy.
It must be emphasized again and again that it is necessary for wakefulness, actual, inner soul-wakefulness, gradually to become enjoyable. Dornach is really felt to be unsympathetic, because its purpose is to stimulate to wakefulness, not to sleep, and because it would like to take the waking state quite seriously. It would really like to pour awakeness into everything, into art, into the social life, and most of all into the life of cognition, into the whole conduct of life, into everything to which human life is in any way inclined.
You may believe me, it is indeed necessary to call attention to such things now and then; for at least in such moments as this, when we are together again only to interrupt these lectures for a short time until my return from Oxford, it must be pointed out, as so often, that precisely among us a certain inclination to be awake must gain a footing. There must be an appropriation of what Anthroposophy contains, in order to relate it to man's waking existence. For that is what we need in all spheres of life: to be truly awake.
Siebenter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Der Schriftsteller, von dem ich das letzte Mal hier gesprochen habe, sollte eigentlich gerade denen, die sich zur anthroposophischen Bewegung zählen, außerordentlich viel zu denken geben. Denn wir sehen in Oswald Spengler eine Persönlichkeit, welche außerordentlich viel von dem wissenschaftlich beherrscht, was heute beherrscht werden kann. Man kann geradezu sagen: Die verschiedenen Gedanken, welche im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte das Eigentum der zivilisierten Menschheit geworden sind, werden von Spengler durchaus beherrscht. Man kann ihn geradezu wie jemanden betrachten, der eine ganze Reihe von Wissenschaften oder wenigstens von Gedanken aus den Wissenschaften aufgenommen hat.
[ 2 ] Die Gedankenkombinationen, die er zustande bringt, sind zuweilen blendend. Er ist in höchstem Maße das, was man in Mitteleuropa — nicht in Frankreich, aber in Mitteleuropa - einen geistreichen Menschen nennen kann. Für westlich-französische Geistreichigkeit ist allerdings das, was Oswald Spengler an Gedanken bringt, zu schwer und zu dicht. Aber wie gesagt, im mitteleuropäischen Sinne kann er durchaus als ein geistreicher Denker gelten. Man kann ihn kaum irgendwie einen eleganten Denker im besten Sinne des Wortes nennen, denn die Einkleidung seiner Gedanken hat durchaus — trotz aller Geistreichigkeit — etwas arg Pedantisches. Und man kann sogar an den verschiedenen Stellen sehen, wie aus den Satzmaschen dieses geistreichen Mannes ein Philisterauge stark hervorlugt. Jedenfalls aber ist in den Gedanken selber etwas Grobes.
[ 3 ] Nun, das sind mehr, möchte ich sagen, ästhetische Betrachtungen der Gedanken. Das Wichtige ist aber dieses, daß da eine Persönlichkeit vor uns steht, die nun schon einmal Gedanken, und zwar Zeitgemäße Gedanken hat, die aber eigentlich von dem gesamten Denken nichts hält. Denn Oswald Spengler hält ja für das wirkliche Geschehen in der Welt nicht dasjenige, was aus dem Denken kommt, für maßgebend, sondern er hält die mehr instinktiven Lebensimpulse für das Maßgebende. So daß eigentlich bei ihm das Denken immer wie etwas Luxuriöses, möchte man sagen, über dem Leben schwebt, so daß bei ihm die Denker solche Leute sind, die über das Leben nachsinnen; aber aus dem, was in ihrem Ersonnenen ist, kann ins Leben nichts einfließen. — Das Leben ist eben schon da, wenn die Denker kommen, um ihre Gedanken über das Leben zu haben.
[ 4 ] Und es ist dabei durchaus so, daß man sagen muß: In dem weltgeschichtlichen Augenblicke, in dem einmal ein Denker die besondere Form der Gedanken der Gegenwart mit einiger Universalität beherrscht, in diesem selben Augenblicke empfindet dieser Denker eigentlich die Gedanken als steril, als unfruchtbar. Er wendet sich an etwas anderes als an diese unfruchtbaren Gedanken; er wendet sich an dasjenige, was im instinktiven Leben sprudelt, und er sieht von dem Gesichtspunkte aus, der sich ihm auf diese Weise ergibt, nun die gegenwärtige Zivilisation.
[ 5 ] Er sieht sie eigentlich so, daß er sagt: Was diese gegenwärtige Zivilisation hervorgebracht hat, ist überall auf dem Wege, unterzugehen. Man könne nur hoffen, daß einmal wiederum aus dem, was Spengler «das Blut» nennt, etwas Instinktives herauftaucht, das alles dasjenige, was gegenwärtige Zivilisation ist, nicht mitmacht, sogar kurz und klein schlägt und eine ausgebreitete, nur aus dem Instinktiven hervorgehende Macht an die Stelle setzt.
[ 6 ] Oswald Spengler sieht, wie die Menschen der neueren Zivilisation allmählich zu Sklaven des maschinellen Lebens geworden sind. Er sieht aber nicht, wie innerhalb dieses Maschinenlebens, der Technik überhaupt, weil sie im Grunde genommen dem Geistigen gegenüber leer ist, gerade durch Reaktion das Erlebnis der menschlichen Freiheit kommen kann. Von dem hat er keine Ahnung. Und warum hat er von dem keine Ahnung?
[ 7 ] Ja, sehen Sie, ich habe das letzte Mal, ich möchte sagen, mehr spaßhaft darauf hingedeutet, daß ja Spengler sagt: Der Staatsmann, der Praktiker, der Kaufmann und so weiter, sie alle handeln aus anderen Impulsen heraus als aus demjenigen, was im Denken erobert werden kann. — Spaßhaft sagte ich: Oswald Spengler scheint niemals beachtet zu haben, daß es auch Beichtväter gibt und ähnliche Beziehungen. — Oswald Spengler hat auch nicht im ordentlichen Sinne etwas anderes beobachtet, von dem das Verhältnis zum Beichtvater nur eine weltgeschichtlich dekadente Seitensache darstellt.
[ 8 ] Wenn wir zurückgehen in der Menschheitsentwickelung, finden wir überall, wie die sogenannten Tatmenschen, diejenigen Menschen, die äußerlich in der Welt etwas zu tun haben, wie diese sich wenden, sei es in späteren Zeiten an die Orakel, sei es in früheren Zeiten an das, was innerhalb der Mysterien als die Ratschlüsse der geistigen Welt erkannt werden kann. Man braucht nur die ältere ägyptische Kultur ins Auge zu fassen, wie da diejenigen, die in den Mysterien die Ratschlüsse der geistigen Welt erkundeten, übertrugen das, was sie auf geistige Art fanden, auf diejenigen, die nun 'Tatmenschen werden wollten und sollten. So daß gerade dann, wenn man zurückgeht in der Menschheitsentwickelung, man darauf kommt, wie aus der geistigen Welt heraus — nicht aus dem Blute, denn diese ganze Theorie des Blutes ist ja so mystisch-nebulos wie nur irgend etwas —, wie also nicht aus einem dunklen Untergrunde des Blutes heraus, sondern wie aus dem Geiste heraus geschöpft wurden die Impulse, die dann in die irdischen Taten eingingen.
[ 9 ] In gewissem Sinne waren dann die sogenannten Tatmenschen eben die Werkzeuge für die großen geistigen Schöpfungen, deren Richtungen man erkannte innerhalb der geistigen Forschung der Mysterien. Und ich möchte sagen, Nachklänge der Mysterien, die sehen wir ja überall in der griechischen Geschichte, in der römischen Geschichte spielen; wir sehen sie aber auch durchaus noch spielen die erste Zeit des Mittelalters hindurch.
[ 10 ] Ich habe Sie aufmerksarn gemacht, wie man zum Beispiel die Lohengrin-Sage doch nur versteht, wenn man sie zurückzuverfolgen weiß von der äußeren physischen Welt in die Gralsburg des früheren oder eigentlich mittleren Mittelalters hinein.
[ 11 ] Es ist also eine vollständige Verkennung des wirklichen Ganges der Menschheitsentwickelung, wenn Oswald Spengler glaubt, daß irgendwie aus dem Blute herauswachsen die weltgeschichtlichen Ereignisse, und daß dabei dasjenige, was in den Menschen doch hereinkommt durch den Gedanken, eben nichts zu tun habe.
[ 12 ] Wenn wir in die älteren Zeiten zurückgehen, so finden wir ja, daß die Menschen in einem hohen Grade abhängig sind von der Erforschung der geistigen Welt, wenn sie etwas tun wollen. Es müssen dann, wenn man das so ausdrücken darf, die Absichten der Götter erforscht werden. Und dieses Abhängigkeitsverhältnis der Menschen zu den Göttern, auf das wir hinschauen, das machte für ältere Zeiten die Menschen unfrei. Die Gedanken der Menschen waren durchaus darauf gerichtet, daß sie gewissermaßen wie Gefäße behandelt wurden, in welche die Götter ihre Substanzen, die geistigen Substanzen hineingossen, unter deren Einflüssen die Menschen handelten.
[ 13 ] Damit die Menschen frei werden konnten, mußte dieses Hineingießen der Substanzen in die menschlichen Gedanken von seiten der Götter aufhören. Die menschlichen Gedanken wurden dadurch immer mehr und mehr zu Bildern. Die älteren Gedanken der Menschheit waren viel, viel mehr Realitäten. Und was Oswald Spengler dem Blute zuschreibt, sind eben die Realitäten, die in den Gedanken der älteren Menschheit steckten, jene Substanzen, die noch das Mittelalter hindurch eben durch die Menschen wirkten.
[ 14 ] Dann kam die neuere Zeit herauf. Die Gedanken der Menschen verloren ihren göttlichen, ihren substantiellen Inhalt. Die Gedanken der Menschen wurden bloß abstrakte Gedankenbilder. Aber nur diese sind nicht drängend und zwängend. Nur durch ein Leben in solchen Gedankenbildern kann der Mensch frei werden.
[ 15 ] Nun hat der Mensch durch die neueren Jahrhunderte hindurch, bis ins 20. Jahrhundert herein, in sich selber kaum etwas anderes gefunden als die organische Anlage dazu, solche Gedankenbilder auszugestalten. Es war das die Erziehung der Menschheit zur Freiheit. Der Mensch hatte keine, wie es in der alten Zeit noch der Fall war, atavistischen Imaginationen oder Inspirationen. Er hatte nur Gedankenbilder. In diesen Gedankenbildern konnte er immer mehr und mehr frei werden, weil Bilder nicht zwingen können. Hat man in Bildern die sittlichen Impulse, so sind diese sittlichen Impulse nicht mehr zwingend, wie sie waren, als sie in der alten Gedankensubstanz lagen. Sie wirkten: damals eben wie Naturkräfte auf den Menschen. Die neueren Gedankenbilder wirken nicht mehr wie Naturkräfte. Man mußte sie daher, damit sie überhaupt einen Inhalt haben, entweder anfüllen auf der einen Seite mit demjenigen, was die Naturerkenntnis durch die bloße sinnliche Beobachtung weiß. Daher bekam man eine sinnliche Beobachtungswissenschaft, welche die Gedanken von außen anfüllte; von innen wollten sie sich aber immer weniger und weniger mit etwas anfüllen. So daß die Menschen da greifen mußten, wenn sie überhaupt noch angefüllte Gedanken haben wollten, zu den alten Traditionen, wie es entweder der Fall war in den traditionell gewordenen Religionsbekenntnissen, oder in den traditionell gewordenen, verschieden gearteten Geheimgesellschaften, wie sie ja über die ganze Erde hin blühten. Die große Masse der Menschen wurde zusammengefaßt in den verschiedensten Religionsbekenntnissen, wo man vor diesen Menschen etwas vorbrachte, dessen Inhalt aus älteren Zeiten stammte, wo noch den Gedanken ein Inhalt eben gegeben worden war. Oder aber man entfaltete — kultushaft oder auch anders — in Geheimgesellschaften wiederum dasjenige, was mehr oder weniger aus alten Zeiten durch Tradition stammte. Man füllte von außen die Gedanken mit sinnlichem Beobachtungsinhalt an. Man füllte sie von innen an mit den alten, dogmatisch traditionell gewordenen Impulsen.
[ 16 ] Das mußte auch vom 16. Jahrhundert bis herauf ins letzte Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts durchaus geschehen, denn da wirkte im menschlichen Zusammenarbeiten über die ganze zivilisierte Welt hin noch dasjenige geistige Prinzip, das man, wenn man einen alten Namen verwenden will, das Prinzip des Erzengels Gabriel nennen kann; desjenigen Wesens also — es ist nur eine Terminologie, ich will auf eine geistige Macht hindeuten -, das, allerdings in der modernen Zivilisation unbewußt, in die Menschenseelen hineinwirkte. Die Menschen hatten innerlich selbst keinen Inhalt. Sie nahmen nur einen traditionellen Inhalt für ihr geistig-seelisches Leben auf. Aber das bewirkte, daß die Menschen gar nicht hätten fühlen können dieses Dabeisein bei diesem geistigen Inhalte.
[ 17 ] Der erste, der dieses Nichtdabeisein bei dem geistigen Inhalte fühlte, aber es nicht dazu bringen konnte, eine neue Geistigkeit zu erleben, war eigentlich Friedrich Nietzsche. Daher ging im Grunde genommen für den geistig-seelischen Inhalt ihm jeder Impuls verloren. Und er suchte dann nach möglichst unbestimmten Impulsen, nach Machtimpulsen und dergleichen.
[ 18 ] Die Menschen brauchen nämlich nicht bloß einen geistigen Inhalt, den sie nun in abstrakte Gedanken fassen, sondern sie brauchen die innerliche Durchwärmung, die bei diesem geistigen Inhalte eintreten kann. Diese innerliche Durchwärmung ist etwas außerordentlich Wichtiges.
[ 19 ] Diese innerliche Durchwärmung wurde für die große Masse eben durch die verschiedenen Kultus- und ähnlichen Handlungen, die innerhalb der Bekenntnisse ausgeübt wurden, bewirkt. In den Freimaurergemeinschaften oder anderen Geheimgesellschaften der neueren Zeit wurde denn auch diese Wärme in die Seelen hineinergossen.
[ 20 ] Das war in dieser Gabriel-Zeit aus dem Grunde möglich, weil eigentlich überall auf der Erde die elementarischen Wesen, die noch aus dem Mittelalter geblieben waren, vorhanden waren. Nur war es, je mehr das 19. Jahrhundert heraufkam, und schon ganz im 20. Jahrhundert, diesen elementarischen Wesen, die in allen Naturerscheinungen drinnen waren, immer unmöglicher geworden, gewissermaßen im sozialen menschlichen Leben Parasiten zu sein. Es war da vieles, was im Unbewußten dem entgegenwirkte, gerade in der neuesten Zeit.
[ 21 ] Sehen Sie, wenn da in solchen Geheimgesellschaften nach alter Tradition - es ist ja unglaublich, wie «alt» und «geheiligt» alle diese Kulte der Geheimgesellschaften sein sollen -, wenn da im Sinne alter Tradition Kulte veranstaltet wurden, oder Lehren gegeben wurden, wenn man da dasjenige entwickelte, was so heraufgetragen war als ein nicht mehr verstandener Nachklang der alten Mysterien, so war das gewissen elementarischen Wesen gerade recht. Denn indem die Menschen allerlei verrichteten, sagen wir, indem sie vor irgendeiner Messe saßen, die zelebriert wurde, und nichts mehr davon verstanden, so hatten die Menschen ja etwas ungeheuer Weisheitsvolles vor sich: sie waren dabei, verstanden zwar nichts, aber ihr Verstehen wäre möglich gewesen. Da kamen dann diese Elementarwesen, und wenn die Menschen nicht dachten über eine Messe, da dachten diese Elementarwesen dann mit dem menschlichen Verstand, den die Menschen nicht anwendeten. Die Menschen hatten immer mehr und mehr den freien Verstand ausgebildet, aber sie brauchten ihn nicht. Sie setzten sich lieber hin und ließen sich durch Tradition etwas vormachen. Sie dachten nicht, die Menschen. Es ist ja heute noch immer so, obwohl heute durchaus die Verhältnisse ganz anders werden, daß die gegenwärtigen Menschen ungeheuer viel denken könnten, wenn sie sich ihres Verstandes bedienen wollten. Aber sie mögen es nicht, sie tun es nicht, sie sind einem scharfen Denken abgeneigt. Sie sagen gern: Ah, da muß man sich anstrengen, das ist abstrakt, das ist etwas, wo man innerlich arbeiten muß!
[ 22 ] Wenn die Menschen das Denken liebten, würden sie nicht so gerne sich heute in alle möglichen Kinovorstellungen und dergleichen hineinbegeben, denn dabei kann man nicht und braucht man nicht zu denken, da rollt alles ab. Das ganz kleine Bisselchen, das man noch denken sollte, das wird auf große Tafeln aufgeschrieben und kann abgelesen werden. Das ist so, daß sich langsam und allmählich im Laufe der neueren Zeit diese Nichtsympathie mit dem innerlich aktiven Denken herausgebildet hat. Die Menschen haben sich fast ganz das Denken abgewöhnt. Wenn irgendwo ein Vortrag gehalten wird, der keine Lichtbilder hat und wo man etwas denken sollte, da ziehen es doch die Leute mehr oder weniger vor, ein wenig zu schlafen. Sie gehen ja vielleicht noch hin, aber sie schlafen, weil das aktive Denken eben nicht dasjenige ist, das heute sich einer außerordentlichen Beliebtheit erfreut.
[ 23 ] Und gerade diesem Nichtdenkenwollen durch Jahrhunderte hindurch, paßte sich eben an das Mannigfaltigste, was in diesen oder jenen Geheimgesellschaften geübt wurde. Und solche Elementarwesen, die noch da waren, die noch mit dem Menschen verkehrten in der ersten Hälfte des Mittelalters, wo man sogar noch Laboratoriumsversuche anstellte, alchimistische Versuche, bei denen in ganz bewußter Weise die Menschen daran dachten, wie da geistige Wesen mitwirkten, diese geistigen Wesen waren dageblieben, überall waren sie da.
[ 24 ] Und warum sollten sie nicht die gute Gelegenheit benutzen! Die Menschen bekamen allmählich in der neuesten Zivilisation ein Gehirn, das gut denken konnte, aber nicht denken wollte. So kamen diese Elementarwesen heran, und sie dachten sich: Wenn die Menschen selber ihr Gehirn nicht benutzen, können wir es benutzen. Und in denjenigen Geheimgesellschaften, die nur Traditionelles liebten, immer nur Altes und Altes an die Oberfläche brachten, da war es so, daß diese Elementarwesen herankamen und die menschlichen Gehirne zum Denken benutzten. So ist außerordentlich viel an Gehirnsubstanz seit dem 16. Jahrhundert benutzt worden von Elementarwesen.
[ 25 ] Es ist ja ohne Zutun der Menschen in der Menschheitsentwickelung viel hereingekommen, auch an guten Einfällen, namentlich an guten Einfällen, die sich bezogen haben auf das menschliche Zusammenleben.
[ 26 ] Wenn Sie bei Menschen nachsehen, welche in dieser Zeit ein bißchen sich über die Zivilisation aufklären wollten, so werden Sie finden, für diese Menschen wurde das eine große Frage: Ja, was wirkt denn da eigentlich von Mensch zu Mensch? Die Menschen sollten ja denken, aber sie denken nicht. Was wirkt denn da von Mensch zu Mensch?
[ 27 ] Das war zum Beispiel eine große Frage für Goethe. Und aus dieser Stimmung heraus hat er seinen «Wilhelm Meister» geschrieben. Da werden Sie überall hingeführt auf allerlei dunkle Gesellschaftszusammenhänge, die dem Menschen unbewußt bleiben, die da aber walten, die von dem einen oder anderen halb bewußt aufgefangen, weitergetragen werden. Es werden allerlei Fäden gewoben. Goethe versucht, solche Fäden zu finden. Nach solchen Fäden suchte er. Und insofern er sie finden konnte, hat er sie gerade zur Darstellung bringen wollen in der Romankomposition seines «Wilhelm Meister».
[ 28 ] Aber das war etwas, was dann im ganzen 19. Jahrhundert in Mitteleuropa spielte. Wenn heute irgendwie die Menschen noch eine Neigung hätten, länger bei einem Buche zu verweilen als zwischen zwei Mahlzeiten — nun, das ist figürlich gesprochen, denn die meisten, die schlafen ein zwischen zwei Mahlzeiten, wenn sie ein Drittel gelesen haben; dann lesen sie das nächste Drittel zwischen den zwei nächsten Mahlzeiten, und das übernächste Drittel zwischen den übernächsten zwei Mahlzeiten, und dadurch, nicht wahr, verzettelt sich das ein wenig — aber es wäre den Menschen doch gut, wenn selbst diejenigen Romane und Novellen, die man zwischen zwei Mahlzeiten oder zwischen zwei Bahnstationen lesen kann, sie zum Nachdenken anregten. Man kann das der heutigen Zeit ja nicht zumuten, aber wenn Sie nachsehen würden, wie zum Beispiel Gutzkow in seinem Buch «Der Zauberer von Rom» und in seinem «Die Ritter vom Geiste» solche Zusammenhänge gesucht hat, wenn Sie die außerordentlich sozialen Verkettungen nehmen, wie sie George Sand in ihren Romanen gesucht hat, so werden Sie überall bemerken können, wie im 19. Jahrhundert solche Fäden spielen, die von unbestimmten Mächten herkommen und in das Unbewußte hineinspielen; daß die Autoren diese verfolgen, und daß sie, wie zum Beispiel George Sand, darin in der verschiedensten Weise durchaus auf der richtigen Spur dabei sind.
[ 29 ] Aber im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts wurde das allmählich so, daß nun erstens diese elementarischen Wesen, die mit dem menschlichen Gehirn dachten und dann, indem sie sich der menschlichen Gemüter bemächtigten und die sozialen Zusammenhänge im 19. Jahrhundert bewirkten, diese Fäden eigentlich spannen, daß diese Wesen nun endlich genug hatten. Sie hatten ihre welthistorische Aufgabe, man möchte besser sagen, ihr welthistorisches Bedürfnis befriedigt. Und namentlich kam da etwas anderes, was sie hinderte, diese Art Parasitentätigkeit fortzusetzen. Diese ging sogar außerordentlich gut so gegen das Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, dann vorzüglich im 19. Jahrhundert; aber immer weniger und weniger kamen dann diese elementarischen Wesen zu ihrem eigentlichen Rechte. Und zwar aus dem Grunde, weil immer mehr und mehr Seelen herunterstiegen von der geistigen Welt auf den physischen Plan mit großen Erwartungen in bezug auf das Erdenleben.
[ 30 ] Nicht wahr, wenn die Menschen, nachdem sie kleine Kinder gewesen sind und geschrieen und gezappelt haben, in der neueren Zeit nun eben notdürftig erzogen worden sind, dann sind sie sich allerdings nicht bewußt geworden, daß sie mit außerordentlich großen Erwartungen ausgerüstet waren, bevor sie heruntergestiegen sind. Aber das hat doch in den Emotionen, in der ganzen Seelenverfassung weitergelebt und lebt auch noch heute weiter. Eigentlich steigen die Menschenseelen mit außerordentlich starken Erwartungen in die physische Welt herunter. Und daher kommen ja auch die Enttäuschungen, die das Unbewußte in der Seele der Kinder schon seit längerer Zeit erlebt, weil diese Erwartungen nun doch nicht befriedigt werden.
[ 31 ] Auserlesene Geister, die besonders kräftige Erwartungsimpulse hatten, ehe sie herunterstiegen auf den physischen Plan, das waren zum Beispiel diejenigen, die dann diesen physischen Plan sich betrachtet und gesehen haben, daß diese Erwartungen da nicht befriedigt werden, und so haben sie Utopien geschrieben, wie es sein sollte, wie man es machen könnte.
[ 32 ] Und es wäre außerordentlich interessant zu studieren, wie eigentlich, mit Bezug auf das Hereintreten durch die Geburt ins physische Dasein, die Seelen der großen Utopisten, und auch der kleineren und der mehr oder weniger Querköpfigen, die da allerlei ausgedacht haben, was nicht einmal eine Utopie genannt werden kann, aber außerordentlich viel guten Willen verrät, den Menschen auf Erden ein Paradies zu gestalten, wie diese Seelen, die da herunterstiegen aus den geistigen Welten, eigentlich beschaffen waren mit Rücksicht auf ihren Eintritt auf den physischen Erdenplan.
[ 33 ] Dieses erwartungsvolle Heruntersteigen, das macht aber den Wesen, die nun das Gehirn solcher erwartungsvollen Menschen benützen sollen, Pein. Da gedeiht ihnen dann das Benützen des Gehirns nicht, wenn die Menschen mit solchen Erwartungen herunterkommen. Bis ins 18. Jahrhundert sind die Menschen noch mit viel geringeren Erwartungen heruntergestiegen. Da ging es gut mit der Benutzung des Gehirns von seiten anderer, nicht menschlicher Wesenheiten. Aber gerade als das letzte Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts kam, da wurde es den Wesenheiten, die nun dieses menschliche Gehirn benutzen sollten, außerordentlich heiß bei den Menschen, die mit den Erwartungen heruntergekommen sind. Diese Erwartungen, die führten zu unterbewußten Emotionen, und das verspürten dann diese geistigen Wesen, wenn sie die menschlichen Gehirne benutzen wollten. Daher tun sie es eben nicht mehr. Und es ist nun so, daß im weitesten Umfang sich immer mehr und mehr eine gewisse Stimmung verbreitet unter der modernen Zivilisationsmenschheit, das ist diese, daß die Menschen Gedanken haben, aber diese Gedanken unterdrücken. Das Gehirn ist allmählich ruiniert worden, insbesondere bei den höheren Ständen, durch Unterdrücken der Gedanken. Andere, nicht menschliche Wesen, die sich dieser Gedanken bemächtigten, die kommen nicht mehr.
[ 34 ] Und jetzt, jetzt haben zwar die Menschen Gedanken, aber sie wissen nichts damit anzufangen. Und der bedeutendste Repräsentant dieser Art von Menschen, die mit ihren Gedanken nichts anzufangen wissen, das ist Oswald Spengler. Er unterscheidet sich von den anderen dadurch, daß die anderen — ja, wie soll man das im Grunde genommen ausdrücken, um nicht gar zu stark Anstoß zu erregen, wenn, wie es Ja doch immer geschieht, diese Dinge dann wiederum draußen erzählt werden —, da muß man vielleicht sagen: Also die anderen, die vernegligieren schon ganz ihr Gehirn in den früheren Lebensjahren, so daß dieses Gehirn dann geeignet ist, die Gedanken in sich verschwinden zu lassen; Spengler unterscheidet sich wohl dadurch von den anderen, daß er das Gehirn frischer erhalten hat, so daß es nicht so öde ist, daß er nicht immer nur in sich versinkt, nicht immer nur sich mit sich selbst beschäftigt.
[ 35 ] Nicht wahr, es ist ja ein großer Teil der Menschheit heute innerlich — wenn ich mich eines mitteleuropäischen Ausdruckes bedienen möchte, den vielleicht viele nicht verstehen — versulzt. Sulze das ist etwas, das man beim Schweineschlachten aus den verschiedenen Ergebnissen des Schweineschlachtens, die zu nichts anderem zu gebrauchen sind, macht, und auch mit den geleeartigen Bestandteilen vermischt, die nicht zu anderem zu gebrauchen sind, was nicht einmal zum Wurstmachen gebraucht werden kann, das verwendet man dann zur Sulze, nicht wahr. Und ich möchte sagen: Unter den mannigfachen verwirrenden Einflüssen der Erziehung wird nun das Gehirn bei den meisten Menschen so versulzt. Sie können ja nichts dafür, die Menschen. Man redet ja da durchaus nicht im anklagenden Sinne, sondern vielleicht eher sogar in einem entschuldigenden Sinne, und in dem Sinne, daß man sehr viel Mitleid hat mit den versulzten Gehirnen.
[ 36 ] Also ich meine, wenn die Menschen dann so sind, daß sie nur den einen Gedanken haben: sie wissen nicht, was sie mit sich anfangen sollen, sie sind wie in sich selber zusammengematscht, zusammengedrückt und zusammengesulzt, nicht wahr, dann können diese Gedanken sich so hübsch in diese Gehirnunterwelten und von diesen Gehirnunterwelten dann weiter in die unteren Regionen der menschlichen Organisation versenken und so weiter.
[ 37 ] Aber das ist nun bei solchen Menschen wie Oswald Spengler wiederum nicht der Fall. Die können die Gedanken ausbilden. Und dadurch ist Spengler ein geistreicher Mann, er hat die Gedanken. Aber diese Gedanken, die der Mensch haben kann, die werden erst etwas, wenn sie einen geistigen Inhalt bekommen. Dazu braucht man einen geistigen Inhalt. Man braucht den Inhalt, den Anthroposophie geben will; sonst hat man Gedanken, aber man weiß nichts damit anzufangen. Es ist mit den Spenglerschen Gedanken wirklich so — ja, fast möchte ich sagen, ein unmögliches Bild kommt einem — wie bei einem Mann, der gelegentlich einer zukünftigen Verheiratung mit einer Dame sich alle möglichen wunderschönen Gewänder, nicht für sich, sondern für die Dame angeschafft hat, und nun entläuft sie ihm vor der Verheiratung, und er hat nun alle diese Gewänder, aber er hat niemanden, der sie anziehen soll!
[ 38 ] Und so sehen Sie: Was an wunderschönen Gedanken da ist; sie sind ja alle nach dem modernsten wissenschaftlichen Kleiderschnitt zugeschnitten, diese Spenglerschen Gedanken, aber es fehlt die Dame, welche die Kleider anziehen sollte. Der alte Capella, der hatte doch wenigstens noch, wie ich vor einigen Wochen sagte, die etwas dürr gewordene Rhetorik, Grammatik und Dialektik. Nicht wahr, die waren dann nicht mehr so üppig wie die Musen des Homer oder die Musen des Pindar, aber es waren immerhin noch die ganzen sieben freien Künste, die dann das Mittelalter hindurch figurierten; man hatte noch jemanden, dem man die Kleider anziehen konnte.
[ 39 ] Aber nun ist die Zeit herangekommen -— ich möchte das, was da heraufgekommen ist, schon weil es etwas Bedeutendes ist, den «Spenglerismmus» nennen -, die Zeit, in der sozusagen Kleider zustande gekommen sind, aber nun fehlen wirklich alle die Wesen, denen man diese wunderschönen Gedankenkleider anziehen soll, und so, nicht wahr, ist die Dame nicht da! Die Muse kommt nicht, die Kleider sind da. Und so erklärt man eben, man könne nichts anfangen mit der ganzen Kleiderstube der modernen Gedanken. Das Denken ist gar nicht dazu da, daß es ins Leben irgendwie eingreifen soll.
[ 40 ] Es fehlt eben nur das Substantielle, dasjenige, was aus der geistigen Welt kommen sollte. Das fehlt eben. Und so erklärt man: Ach was, das ist doch alles Unsinn, diese Kleider sind doch nur da, daß sie angeschaut werden. Hängen wir sie also lieber auf Kleiderständer und warten wir ab, wie aus der mystischen Unbestimmtheit heraus nun eine dralle Bauerndirne kommt — die nun wiederum keine schönen Kleider braucht, die wird aus dem Ursprünglichen heraus eben dasjenige sein, was man erwarten kann.
[ 41 ] So geht es nun dem Spenglerismus: Er erwartet aus dem Unbestimmten, Undefinierten, Undifferenzierten Impulse, die keine Gedankenkleider brauchen, und die ganzen Gedankenkleider, die hängt er auf Holzständern auf, daß sie da sind zum Anschauen höchstens; denn wenn sie auch nicht einmal zum Anschauen wären, so könnte man nicht begreifen, warum Oswald Spengler schon zwei so dicke Bücher schreibt, die ja ganz unnötig sind. Denn, was soll man anfangen mit zwei dicken Büchern, nicht wahr, wenn das Denken nicht mehr sein soll? Spengler gibt nur keinen Anlaß dazu, sentimental zu werden, sonst würde man manches drollig finden. Da muß der Cäsar kommen! Aber der moderne Cäsar ist derjenige, der nun möglichst viel Geld geschafft hat und alle möglichen Ingenieure, die aus dem Geiste heraus die Sklaven der Technik geworden sind, zusammenfaßt — und nun auf dem blutgetragenen Geld oder auf dem geldgetragenen Blut, den modernen Cäsarismus begründet. Das Denken, das hat dabei gar keine Bedeutung, das Denken sitzt so hinten und beschäftigt sich mit allerlei Gedanken.
[ 42 ] Aber nicht wahr, nun schreibt der gute Mann zwei dicke Bücher, in denen ja ganz schöne Gedanken drinnen sind. Doch die sind ja absolut unnötig. Man kann nach dieser Sache gar nichts damit anfangen. Es wäre ja viel vernünftiger, wenn er dieses sämtliche Papier dafür verwendet hätte, um, sagen wir, auszudenken ein Rezept, nach dem die günstigsten Blutmischungen zustande kommen könnten in der Welt, oder dergleichen. Das wäre ja das, was man nach seiner Ansicht tun sollte.
[ 43 ] Es stimmt gar nicht, was man tun sollte, mit dem, was er in seinen Büchern vertritt, überein. Die Bücher sind so, wenn man sie liest, daß man das Gefühl hat: Nun, der Mann, der weiß etwas zu sagen, weiß, wie der Untergang des Abendlandes ist, denn er hat diese ganze Untergangsstimmung rein aufgefressen; er ist ganz selber erfüllt davon. Man könnte ja, wenn man den Untergang des Abendlandes beschleunigen wollte, nichts Besseres tun, als den Oswald Spengler zum Oberhauptmann, ja, zu dem Anführer zu machen für diesen Untergang. Denn er versteht das alles, er selber ist durchaus innerlich geistig von diesem Kaliber. Und so ist er außerordentlich repräsentativ für seine Zeit. Er findet, daß diese ganze moderne Zivilisation zugrunde geht. Nun ja, wenn es alle so machen wie er, so geht sie sicher zugrunde. Also muß es auch wahr sein, was er schreibt. Ich finde eben, es hat eine ungeheure innere Wahrheit.
[ 44 ] So stehen die Sachen. Und es müßte eigentlich derjenige, der auf dem Boden der Anthroposophie steht, aufhorchen gerade auf einen solchen Geist wie Oswald Spengler. Denn das Ernstnehmen des Geistigen, das Ernstnehmen des spirituellen Lebens, das ist ja gerade dasjenige, was Anthroposophie will. Es kommt in der Anthroposophie wahrhaftig nicht darauf an, ob diese oder jene Dogmen genommen werden, sondern es kommt darauf an, daß dieses geistige Leben, dieses substantielle geistige Leben wirklich ernst, ganz ernst genommen werde, und daß das den Menschen aufweckt.
[ 45 ] Es ist sehr interessant, sehen Sie, Oswald Spengler sagt: Beim Denken, da ist der Mensch wach — das kann er nun nicht leugnen -, aber das eigentlich Wirksame, das kommt aus dem Schlaf, und das ist in den Pflanzen enthalten und in dem Pflanzlichen im Menschen enthalten. Was da im Menschen als Pflanzliches drinnen ist, das bringt er eigentlich lebendig hervor: das Schlafen, das ist das Lebendige. Das Wachen, das bringt die Gedanken hervor; aber mit dem Wachsein sind nur innere Spannungen gegeben.
[ 46 ] Ja, so ist es wirklich dahin gekommen, daß einer der geistreichsten Menschen der Gegenwart so etwa andeutet: Was ich tue, das muß in mir gepflanzt werden, während ich schlafe, und aufwachen brauche ich ja eigentlich gar nicht. Das ist ein Luxus, daß ich aufwache, das ist ein völliger Luxus. Ich müßte eigentlich nur herumgehen und dasjenige, was mir im Schlafe einfällt, eben auch schlafend verrichten. Traumwandeln müßte ich eigentlich. Es ist Luxus, daß, während ich da herumgehe traumwandelnd, da noch ein Kopf oben sitzt, der sich fortwährend in diesen Luxus einläßt, über das ganze Ding zu denken. Wozu das? Wozu wach sein?
[ 47 ] Aber es ist das eine Stimmung. Und Spengler, der bringt im Grunde genommen recht scharf diese Stimmung zum Ausdruck: Der moderne Mensch liebt nicht dieses Wachsein! Ja, es kommen da allerlei solche Bilder! Man möchte sagen: Wenn im Beginne der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft so vor Jahren ein Vortrag gehalten wurde, da gab es immer in den vorderen Reihen Leute, welche sogar äußerlich das Schlafen so ein bißchen markierten, damit richtige Teilnahme da auch sichtbar würde im Auditorium, richtig hingegebene Teilnehmer sichtbar würden. Das Schlafen, das ist schon etwas, was außerordentlich beliebt ist, nicht wahr. Nun, die meisten machen das aber still ab; bei den Gelegenheiten, die ich erwähnt habe, waren in dieser Beziehung die Leute artig. Wenn nicht gerade eigentümliche Töne des Schnarchens erklingen, sind die Leute dann artig, nicht wahr, also wenigstens ruhig. Aber der Spengler, der ist ein merkwürdiger Mensch: der poltert über dasjenige, worüber die anderen ruhig sind. Die anderen, die schlafen; der Spengler aber sagt: Man muß schlafen, man darf gar nicht wach sein. — Und sein ganzes Wissen, das benützt er nun dazu, eine ganz adäquate Rede für das Schlafen zu halten. Und so ist dasjenige, wozu es also gekommen ist, das: daß ein außerordentlich geistreicher Mensch der Gegenwart eigentlich eine adäquate Rede für das Schlafen hält!
[ 48 ] Aber das ist etwas, wo man aufpassen muß. Man braucht nicht zu poltern, wie der Spengler, aber man sollte sich dieses anschauen und dann darauf kommen, wie es notwendig ist, daß das Wachen verstanden werde, dieses immer mehr und mehr Aufwachen, was gerade durch so etwas, wie die spirituellen Impulse der Anthroposophie, gegeben werden soll.
[ 49 ] Es ist notwendig — immer wieder und wiederum muß es betont werden -—, daß das Wachen, das wirkliche, innerlichste seelische Wachen allmählich geliebt werde. Deshalb wird eigentlich dieses Dornach als so unsympathisch empfunden, weil es zum Wachen anregen will, nicht zum Schlafen, und weil es das Wachen ganz ernst nehmen möchte, wirklich in alles Wachheit hineingießen möchte, Wachheit in die Kunst, Wachheit in das soziale Leben, Wachheit vor allen Dingen in das Erkenntnisleben, Wachheit in die ganze Lebenspraxis, in alles dasjenige, dem überhaupt das menschliche Leben zugeneigt ist.
[ 50 ] Und, sehen Sie, es ist ja schon wirklich notwendig, daß ab und zu auf solche Dinge aufmerksam gemacht wird. Denn wenigstens in solchen Momenten, wie diesem jetzt, in dem wir wiederum zusammen sind, um auf eine kleine Weile diese Vorträge zu unterbrechen bis zur Zurückkunft von dem Oxforder Kursus, bei solchen Gelegenheiten muß schon, wie so oft, hingewiesen werden darauf, daß gerade unter uns eine gewisse Neigung für dieses Wachsein Platz greifen muß, ein Aufnehmen desjenigen, was in der Anthroposophie da ist, um es nach dem Wachsein des Menschen hin zu orientieren. Denn das brauchen wir auf allen unseren Gebieten: wirkliches Wachsein.
[ 51 ] Und Wachsein ist nicht ohne Emsigkeit und Fleiß zu erreichen. Wenn nicht ein Interesse für dieses Wachsein, das Anthroposophie eigentlich will, Platz greift, so werden wir vielleicht noch weitere Kongresse veranstalten, ja, vielleicht sehr schön weiter nachtwandeln, aber wir werden nicht eigentlich aufwachen, sondern wir werden mit den anderen schlafenden Menschen der gegenwärtigen Zivilisation weiterschlafen. Und wir werden nicht einmal solche bedeutungsvolle Symptome, die auftreten, im richtigen Sinne fassen wie diesen Polterer für den Schlafzustand in der menschlichen Entwickelung, diesen Oswald Spengler, denn er ist der Polterer für das Schlafen. Er ist derjenige, der eigentlich immer ableugnet, daß er selber wacht, aber er schreit so für dieses Schlafen. Es ist ein so unruhiger Schlaf. Er wälzt sich so furchtbar herum und macht solchen Spektakel aus dem Schlafe. Er redet immer aus dem Schlafe, und sehr schön sogar, aber es ist doch nicht das Richtige, aus dem Schlafe zu reden. Die Menschheit muß erwachen.
[ 52 ] Und das gerade könnte man von Spengler lernen, daß die Menschheit erwachen muß; sonst — sonst geht es immer weiter, sonst werden immer mehr und mehr Leute auftreten, die eigentlich aus dem Schlafe heraus reden, und Wunderschönes aus dem Schlafe heraus reden. Aber es wird damit nichts für eine Weiterentwickelung der Menschheit zustande kommen. Es würde nur das zustande kommen, daß wir unsere abendländische Kultur mit ihrem amerikanischen Anhang weiter und weiter entwickeln, immer mehr und mehr hinein in diese Lazarettanstalten, in denen die Menschen nicht mehr aufstehen wollen, sondern immer schlafen wollen, und in denen sie aus dem Schlafe heraus reden, wunderschöne Reden halten, die dann bewundert werden von anderen; aber die Bewunderung ist dann auch nur ein Schlafen. Dasjenige, was bewundert, schläft, und dasjenige, was bewundert wird, schläft.
[ 53 ] Also ist es durchaus notwendig, daß wir uns dieser Notwendigkeit des Aufwachens bewußt werden. Innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft müßte das wirklich wie eine Art intimstes Programm gefaßt werden: Wir wollen aufwachen! Dann werden wir die Menschen, viele Menschen, ganz anders herumgehen sehen, auch unter den Anthroposophen, wenn sie ganz, ganz wach sein wollten, wach und frisch. Man kann das sein, denn Anthroposophie kann frisch machen. Fühlen Sie nur, wie Anthroposophie frisch machen kann, und wie sie gar nicht geeignet ist, daß man da so sich wälzt auf dem Lager und aus dem Schlafe heraus redet, sondern wie man, wenn man Anthroposophie in ihrem Wesen sozusagen faßt, frisch werden kann, frisch auf allen Gebieten, auf dem Gebiete von Kunst, Religion und Wissenschaft, auf dem Gebiete der gesamten Lebenspraxis.
[ 54 ] Versuchen Sie darüber nachzudenken, während der Zeit gerade, während der wir nicht zusammen sind, wie man nun Beratungen pflegen kann über ein vernünftiges Wachwerden, über eine Überwindung des Spenglerismus. Spengeln sie etwas Besseres zusammen, als dieser Spengler zu spengeln in der Lage ist, und spengeln Sie etwas, was in die Zukunft hineinwirken k.inn, während Spengler doch nur den Untergang des Abendlandes mit seiner Spenglerei zustande bringt.
Seventh lecture
[ 1 ] The writer I spoke about last time should actually give those who consider themselves part of the anthroposophical movement a great deal to think about. For we see in Oswald Spengler a personality who has an extraordinary command of much of what can be mastered scientifically today. One can even say that Spengler has thoroughly mastered the various ideas that have become the property of civilized humanity over the course of the last few centuries. One can regard him as someone who has absorbed a whole range of sciences, or at least of ideas from the sciences.
[ 2 ] The combinations of ideas he produces are sometimes dazzling. He is, to the highest degree, what one might call a man of wit in Central Europe—not in France, but in Central Europe. For Western French wit, however, Oswald Spengler's ideas are too heavy and too dense. But as I said, in the Central European sense, he can certainly be considered a man of wit. He can hardly be called an elegant thinker in the best sense of the word, because the way he clothes his thoughts has, despite all his wit, something rather pedantic about it. And one can even see in various places how the philistine eye peeks out strongly from the sentence patterns of this witty man. In any case, there is something coarse in the thoughts themselves.
[ 3 ] Well, these are more, I would say, aesthetic considerations of the thoughts. The important thing, however, is that we are faced with a personality who has thoughts, and indeed contemporary thoughts, but who actually thinks nothing of thinking as a whole. For Oswald Spengler does not consider what comes from thinking to be decisive for what actually happens in the world, but rather considers the more instinctive impulses of life to be decisive. So that, in his view, thinking always hovers above life like something luxurious, one might say, so that thinkers are people who ponder life; but nothing from what is in their imagination can flow into life. — Life is already there when thinkers come to have their thoughts about life.
[ 4 ] And it is certainly true that one must say: at the moment in world history when a thinker masters the particular form of contemporary thought with some degree of universality, at that very moment this thinker actually perceives his thoughts as sterile, as unfruitful. He turns to something other than these unfruitful thoughts; he turns to that which bubbles up in instinctive life, and from the perspective that this gives him, he now sees contemporary civilization.
[ 5 ] He actually sees it in such a way that he says: What this contemporary civilization has produced is everywhere on the way to destruction.
One can only hope that something instinctive will emerge once again from what Spengler calls “the blood,” something that will not go along with everything that constitutes present-day civilization, but will even smash it to pieces and replace it with a widespread power arising solely from instinct.[ 6 ] Oswald Spengler sees how people in modern civilization have gradually become slaves to machine life. But he does not see how, within this machine life, within technology itself, which is fundamentally empty of spirit, the experience of human freedom can arise precisely through reaction. He has no idea about that. And why does he have no idea about that?
[ 7 ] Yes, you see, last time I pointed out, rather jokingly, that Spengler says: The statesman, the practitioner, the merchant, and so on, all act out of impulses other than those that can be conquered by thought. — I said jokingly: Oswald Spengler seems never to have noticed that there are also confessors and similar relationships. — Oswald Spengler did not observe anything else in the proper sense, of which the relationship to the confessor is only a decadent side issue in world history.
[ 8 ] If we go back in human development, we find everywhere how the so-called men of action, those people who outwardly have something to do in the world, turn to the oracles in later times, or in earlier times to what can be recognized within the mysteries as the decisions of the spiritual world. One need only consider the ancient Egyptian culture, where those who explored the decrees of the spiritual world in the mysteries transmitted what they found in a spiritual way to those who now wanted to and should become “men of action.” So that precisely when one goes back in human evolution, one comes to understand how the impulses that then entered into earthly deeds were drawn not from the spiritual world — not from the blood, for this whole theory of blood is as mystical and nebulous as anything could be — but not from some dark underground of the blood, but rather from the spirit.
[ 9 ] In a certain sense, the so-called men of action were then the tools for the great spiritual creations, the directions of which could be recognized within the spiritual research of the mysteries. And I would like to say that we see echoes of the mysteries everywhere in Greek and Roman history; but we also see them continuing to play a role throughout the early Middle Ages.
[ 10 ] I have pointed out to you how, for example, the Lohengrin legend can only be understood if one knows how to trace it back from the outer physical world to the Grail Castle of the early or, actually, middle Middle Ages.
[ 11 ] It is therefore a complete misunderstanding of the real course of human development when Oswald Spengler believes that world-historical events somehow grow out of the blood, and that what enters into human beings through thought has nothing to do with it.
[ 12 ] If we go back to earlier times, we find that people are highly dependent on exploring the spiritual world when they want to do something. If one may put it that way, the intentions of the gods must be explored. And this relationship of dependence of people on the gods, which we are looking at, made people unfree in ancient times. People's thoughts were entirely focused on being treated, as it were, like vessels into which the gods poured their substances, the spiritual substances, under whose influence people acted.
[ 13 ] In order for people to become free, this pouring of substances into human thoughts by the gods had to cease. As a result, human thoughts became more and more like images. The older thoughts of humanity were much, much more real. And what Oswald Spengler attributes to blood are precisely the realities that were contained in the thoughts of the older humanity, those substances that continued to work through human beings throughout the Middle Ages.
[ 14 ] Then came the newer era. People's thoughts lost their divine, substantial content. People's thoughts became merely abstract thought images. But these alone are not compelling or coercive. Only by living in such thought images can human beings become free.
[ 15 ] Now, throughout the more recent centuries, right up to the 20th century, human beings have found little else within themselves than the organic predisposition to form such thought images. This was the education of humanity toward freedom. Human beings did not have atavistic imaginations or inspirations, as was still the case in ancient times. They only had thought images. In these thought images, he was able to become more and more free, because images cannot compel. If moral impulses are found in images, these moral impulses are no longer compelling as they were when they lay in the old substance of thought. At that time, they acted on human beings like natural forces. The newer thought images no longer act like natural forces. In order for them to have any content at all, they had to be filled, on the one hand, with what is known about nature through mere sensory observation. This resulted in a sensory observational science that filled the thoughts from the outside; but from the inside, they wanted less and less to be filled with anything. So that people had to resort to the old traditions if they wanted to have any thoughts at all, as was the case either in the traditional religious creeds or in the various secret societies that had become traditional and flourished all over the earth. The great mass of people was gathered together in the most diverse religious creeds, where something was presented to them whose content originated in earlier times, when thoughts had still been given content. Or else, in secret societies, what had more or less come down from ancient times through tradition was developed again, either in a cultic manner or in some other way. Thoughts were filled from outside with the content of sensory observation. They were filled from within with the old, dogmatic impulses that had become traditional.
[ 16 ] This had to happen from the 16th century until the last third of the 19th century, because the spiritual principle that, to use an old name, can be called the principle of the archangel Gabriel was still at work in human cooperation throughout the civilized world. that is, the being — it is only a term, I am referring to a spiritual power — that, albeit unconsciously in modern civilization, worked within the souls of human beings. People had no inner content of their own. They only absorbed traditional content for their spiritual and soul life. But this meant that people could not feel this presence of spiritual content.
[ 17 ] The first person to feel this absence of spiritual content, but who was unable to bring about a new spirituality, was actually Friedrich Nietzsche. As a result, he lost all impulse for spiritual and soul content. And he then sought as vague impulses as possible, impulses of power and the like.p>
[ 18 ] For human beings do not merely need spiritual content, which they then grasp in abstract thoughts, but they need the inner warming that can occur with this spiritual content. This inner warming is something extremely important.p>
[ 19 ] This inner warming was brought about for the masses by the various cultic and similar acts that were performed within the confessions. In the Masonic lodges and other secret societies of more recent times, this warmth was also poured into people's souls.
[ 20 ] This was possible in Gabriel's time because the elemental beings that had remained from the Middle Ages were actually present everywhere on Earth. However, as the 19th century progressed and well into the 20th century, it became increasingly impossible for these elemental beings, which were present in all natural phenomena, to continue to exist as parasites in social human life. There was much in the unconscious that counteracted this, especially in recent times.
[ 21 ] You see, when in such secret societies, according to ancient tradition—it is unbelievable how “ancient” and “sacred” all these cults of secret societies are supposed to be—when cults were organized in the spirit of ancient tradition, or teachings were given, when what had been carried up as an no longer understood echo of the ancient mysteries was developed, then this elemental being was just right. what had been brought forth as a no longer understood echo of the ancient mysteries, then that certain elemental being was just right. For by doing all sorts of things, let us say, by sitting in front of some mass that was being celebrated and no longer understanding anything about it, people had something immensely wise before them: they were there, they understood nothing, but their understanding would have been possible. Then these elemental beings came, and when people did not think about a mass, these elemental beings thought with the human intellect that people did not use. People had developed their free intellect more and more, but they did not need it. They preferred to sit down and let tradition fool them. They did not think, the people. It is still the case today, even though conditions are now quite different, that people today could think an enormous amount if they wanted to use their minds. But they don't like to, they don't do it, they are averse to sharp thinking. They like to say: Ah, that takes effort, that's abstract, that's something you have to work on internally!
[ 22 ] If people loved thinking, they would not be so keen on going to all kinds of movies and the like today, because there you cannot and do not need to think, everything just rolls along. The tiny bit that one should still think is written down on large boards and can be read. It is so that slowly and gradually, in the course of recent times, this antipathy toward inwardly active thinking has developed. People have almost completely lost the habit of thinking. When a lecture is given somewhere that has no slides and where one is supposed to think, people more or less prefer to sleep a little. They may still go, but they sleep because active thinking is not what enjoys extraordinary popularity today.
[ 23 ] And it was precisely this unwillingness to think that, over the centuries, adapted itself to the most diverse practices in various secret societies. And such elemental beings, which were still there, which still interacted with humans in the first half of the Middle Ages, when laboratory experiments were even carried out, alchemical experiments in which people consciously thought about how spiritual beings were involved, these spiritual beings had remained, they were everywhere.
[ 24 ] And why shouldn't they take advantage of this opportunity? In the latest civilization, humans gradually developed a brain that was capable of thinking well, but did not want to think. So these elemental beings came along and thought to themselves: If humans themselves do not use their brains, we can use them. And in those secret societies that loved only tradition, that always brought only the old and the old to the surface, it was so that these elemental beings came and used the human brains for thinking. Thus, an extraordinary amount of brain substance has been used by elemental beings since the 16th century.
[ 25 ] Without any intervention on the part of humans, a great deal has come into human development, including good ideas, especially good ideas relating to human coexistence.
[ 26 ] If you look at people who wanted to learn a little about civilization during this period, you will find that one question was very important to them: What actually influences people? People are supposed to think, but they don't. What influences people?
[ 27 ] This was a big question for Goethe, for example. And it was out of this mood that he wrote his “Wilhelm Meister.” There, you are led everywhere to all kinds of dark social connections that remain unconscious to people, but which are at work there, which are half-consciously picked up by one person or another and carried on. All kinds of threads are woven together. Goethe tries to find such threads. He searched for such threads. And insofar as he was able to find them, he wanted to portray them in the novel Wilhelm Meister.
[ 28 ] But that was something that played out throughout the 19th century in Central Europe. If people today still had a tendency to linger over a book longer than between two meals — well, that's figuratively speaking, because most people fall asleep between meals when they've read a third of a book; then they read the next third between the next two meals, and the next third between the next two meals, and that way, you see, it gets a little scattered — but it would be good for people if even those novels and novellas that can be read between two meals or between two train stations made them think. You can't expect that of people today, but if you look at how Gutzkow, for example, sought such connections in his book “The Magician of Rome” and in his “The Knights of the Spirit,” if you take the extraordinary social connections that George Sand sought in her novels, you will notice everywhere how, in the 19th century, such threads play out, coming from indeterminate forces and playing into the unconscious; that authors pursue them, and that they, like George Sand, for example, are thoroughly on the right track in this regard in a variety of ways.
[ 29 ] But in the last third of the 19th century, it gradually became the case that, first, these elemental beings, who thought with the human brain and then, by taking control of the human mind and bringing about the social conditions of the 19th century, actually spun these threads, finally had enough. They had fulfilled their world-historical task, or rather, their world-historical need. And then something else came along that prevented them from continuing this kind of parasitic activity. This went extremely well towards the end of the 18th century, then excellently in the 19th century; but then fewer and fewer of these elemental beings came into their own. This was because more and more souls descended from the spiritual world to the physical plane with great expectations of earthly life.
[ 30 ] Isn't it true that when people, after having been little children and having cried and fidgeted, have been brought up in a makeshift manner in recent times, they have not become aware that they were equipped with extraordinarily high expectations before they descended? But this has lived on in their emotions, in their whole soul state, and continues to live on today. Actually, human souls descend into the physical world with extraordinarily strong expectations. And this is where the disappointments come from, which the unconscious has been experiencing in the souls of children for a long time, because these expectations are not being fulfilled after all.
[ 31 ] Select spirits who had particularly strong expectations before they descended to the physical plane were, for example, those who then looked at this physical plane and saw that these expectations would not be satisfied, and so they wrote utopias about how things should be and how they could be done.
[ 32 ] And it would be extremely interesting to study how, in relation to their entry into physical existence through birth, the souls of the great utopians, and also of the lesser and more or less stubborn ones, who have thought up all kinds of things that cannot even be called utopias, but reveal an extraordinary amount of good will to create a paradise for people on earth, how these souls who descended from the spiritual worlds were actually constituted with regard to their entry into the physical earthly plane.
[ 33 ] This expectant descent, however, causes torment to the beings who are now supposed to use the brains of such expectant people. They cannot thrive in using the brain when people come down with such expectations. Until the 18th century, people still descended with much lower expectations. Then it worked well for other, non-human beings to use the brain. But just as the last third of the 19th century came, the beings who were now supposed to use this human brain found themselves in an extremely difficult situation with the people who had come down with their expectations. These expectations led to subconscious emotions, which these spiritual beings felt when they wanted to use the human brain. That is why they no longer do so. And now, to a large extent, a certain mood is spreading among modern civilized humanity, namely that people have thoughts but suppress them. The brain has gradually been ruined, especially among the higher classes, by the suppression of thoughts. Other, non-human beings who took possession of these thoughts no longer come.
[ 34 ] And now, now people have thoughts, but they do not know what to do with them. And the most significant representative of this type of people who do not know what to do with their thoughts is Oswald Spengler. He differs from the others in that the others — well, how can one express this without causing too much offense, when, as always happens, these things are then repeated outside — one might say: Well, the others completely neglect their brains in their early years, so that these brains are then capable of allowing thoughts to disappear within themselves; Spengler differs from the others in that he has kept his brain fresher, so that it is not so barren that he does not always sink into himself, always preoccupied with himself.
[ 35 ] Isn't it true that a large part of humanity today is inwardly — if I may use a Central European expression that many may not understand — sulze. Sulze is something that is made from the various parts of a pig that are slaughtered and are of no use for anything else, mixed with jelly-like ingredients that are also of no use for anything else, not even for making sausage. That is what is used to make sulze, isn't it? And I would like to say: under the manifold confusing influences of education, the brains of most people are now sulze. It's not their fault, the people. I'm not saying this in an accusatory sense, but perhaps rather in an apologetic sense, and in the sense that I have a great deal of pity for sulze brains.
[ 36 ] So I mean, if people are like that, if they have only one thought: they don't know what to do with themselves, they are as if mashed up inside themselves, compressed and confused, aren't they, then these thoughts can sink so nicely into these brain underworlds and from these brain underworlds then further into the lower regions of the human organization and so on.
[ 37 ] But that is not the case with people like Oswald Spengler. They can develop their thoughts. And that makes Spengler a man of wit; he has thoughts. But these thoughts that human beings can have only become something when they are given spiritual content. For that, you need spiritual content. You need the content that anthroposophy wants to give; otherwise you have thoughts, but you don't know what to do with them. This is really the case with Spengler's thoughts — yes, I am almost tempted to say that an impossible image comes to mind — like a man who, in anticipation of a future marriage to a lady, has bought all kinds of beautiful clothes, not for himself, but for the lady, and now she runs away from him before the wedding, and he is left with all these clothes, but no one to wear them!
[ 38 ] And so you see: what beautiful thoughts there are; they are all tailored according to the latest scientific fashion, these Spenglerian thoughts, but there is no lady to wear the clothes. The old Capella, at least, as I said a few weeks ago, still had his somewhat dry rhetoric, grammar, and dialectic. True, they were no longer as lush as the muses of Homer or the muses of Pindar, but at least they were still the seven liberal arts that figured throughout the Middle Ages; there was still someone to whom one could dress the clothes.
[ 39 ] But now the time has come—I would like to call what has emerged “Spenglerism,” if only because it is something significant—the time when, so to speak, clothes have been created, but now all the beings who are to be dressed in these beautiful garments of thought are missing, and so, you see, the lady is not here! The muse does not come, the clothes are there. And so one explains that one cannot do anything with the whole wardrobe of modern thoughts. Thinking is not there to intervene in life in any way.
[ 40 ] All that is missing is the substance, that which should come from the spiritual world. That is what is missing. And so one explains: Oh, come on, it's all nonsense, these clothes are only there to be looked at. So let's just hang them on clothes racks and wait and see how a buxom peasant girl emerges from the mystical vagueness—who, in turn, doesn't need beautiful clothes, because she will be exactly what one would expect from her origins.
[ 41 ] This is how Spenglerism works: He expects impulses from the vague, undefined, undifferentiated that do not need any intellectual trappings, and he hangs all these intellectual trappings on wooden stands so that they are there to be looked at, at most; for if they were not even there to be looked at, one could not understand why Oswald Spengler wrote two such thick books, which are completely unnecessary. For what is one to do with two thick books, if thinking is no longer to be? Spengler gives no cause for sentimentality, otherwise one would find some things amusing. Here Caesar must come! But the modern Caesar is the one who has amassed as much money as possible and gathered together all kinds of engineers who, out of the spirit of their minds, have become slaves to technology—and now, on the blood-stained money or the money-stained blood, he establishes modern Caesarism. Thinking has no meaning in this; thinking sits in the background and occupies itself with all kinds of thoughts.
[ 42 ] But isn't it true that the good man has now written two thick books containing some very nice thoughts? But they are absolutely unnecessary. You can't do anything with them. It would be much more sensible if he had used all that paper to, say, devise a recipe for the most favorable blood mixtures in the world, or something like that. That would be what he thinks should be done.
[ 43 ] What one should do is not at all consistent with what he advocates in his books. When you read the books, you get the feeling that Well, this man knows something, he knows how the decline of the West will come about, because he has completely absorbed this mood of doom; he is completely filled with it. If one wanted to hasten the decline of the West, one could do nothing better than make Oswald Spengler the leader, yes, the commander of this decline. For he understands it all; he himself is thoroughly of this caliber in his inner spirit. And so he is extraordinarily representative of his time. He believes that this whole modern civilization is going to ruin. Well, if everyone does as he does, it will certainly go to ruin. So what he writes must also be true. I think it has an immense inner truth.
[ 44 ] That is how things stand. And those who stand on the ground of anthroposophy should actually prick up their ears when they hear of a mind like Oswald Spengler's. For taking the spiritual seriously, taking spiritual life seriously, is precisely what anthroposophy wants. In anthroposophy, it really does not matter whether this or that dogma is accepted, but rather that this spiritual life, this substantial spiritual life, is taken seriously, very seriously, and that this awakens people.
[ 45 ] It is very interesting, you see, Oswald Spengler says: When thinking, the human being is awake — he cannot deny that — but what is actually effective comes from sleep, and that is contained in plants and in the plant element in human beings. What is contained in humans as plant life is actually brought to life by sleep: sleep is what is alive. Being awake produces thoughts, but being awake only creates inner tensions.
[ 46 ] Yes, this is really how it has come about that one of the most spiritual people of our time suggests something like this: What I do must be planted in me while I sleep, and I don't really need to wake up. It is a luxury that I wake up, it is a complete luxury. I should really just walk around and do what comes to me in my sleep while I'm asleep. I should really be sleepwalking. It's a luxury that while I'm walking around sleepwalking, there's still a head sitting up there that constantly indulges in this luxury of thinking about the whole thing. What's the point? Why be awake?"
[ 47 ] But it is a certain mood. And Spengler expresses this mood quite sharply: Modern man does not love this state of being awake! Yes, all kinds of images come to mind! One might say: When a lecture was given at the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society years ago, there were always people in the front rows who even outwardly marked their sleep a little, so that real participation would be visible in the auditorium, so that truly devoted participants would be visible. Sleeping is something that is extremely popular, isn't it? Well, most people do it quietly; on the occasions I mentioned, people were well-behaved in this respect. Unless peculiar snoring sounds are heard, people are well-behaved, aren't they, or at least quiet. But Spengler is a strange man: he rants about what the others are quiet about. The others are sleeping, but Spengler says: One must sleep, one must not be awake. — And he uses all his knowledge to make a very adequate speech in favor of sleeping. And so what has come of it is this: that an extraordinarily witty man of the present day actually makes an adequate speech in favor of sleeping!
[ 48 ] But this is something we must be careful about. There is no need to rant and rave like Spengler, but we should look at this and then realize how necessary it is to understand waking, this ever-increasing awakening, which is to be brought about precisely by something like the spiritual impulses of anthroposophy.
[ 49 ] It is necessary — it must be emphasized again and again — that waking, real, innermost soul waking, should gradually be loved. That is why Dornach is actually perceived as so unsympathetic, because it wants to encourage waking, not sleeping, and because it wants to take waking very seriously, to really pour wakefulness into everything, wakefulness into art, wakefulness into social life, wakefulness above all into the life of knowledge, wakefulness into the whole practice of life, into everything to which human life is inclined.
[ 50 ] And, you see, it is really necessary that attention be drawn to such things from time to time. For at least in moments like this, when we are together again to interrupt these lectures for a short while until the return of the Oxford course, on such occasions it is necessary, as so often, to point out that precisely among us a certain inclination for this wakefulness must take hold, a receptiveness to what is present in anthroposophy, in order to orient it toward the wakefulness of human beings. For we need this in all our fields: real wakefulness.
[ 51 ] And wakefulness cannot be achieved without diligence and hard work. If an interest in this wakefulness, which anthroposophy actually wants, does not take hold, then we will perhaps organize further conferences, yes, perhaps continue to sleepwalk very beautifully, but we will not actually wake up; instead, we will continue to sleep along with the other sleeping people of the present civilization. And we will not even grasp in the right sense such significant symptoms as this rumbling voice for the state of sleep in human development, this Oswald Spengler, for he is the rumbling voice for sleep. He is the one who actually always denies that he himself is awake, but he cries out so loudly for this sleep. It is such a restless sleep. He tosses and turns so terribly and makes such a spectacle of his sleep. He always talks in his sleep, and very beautifully at that, but it is not right to talk in one's sleep. Humanity must awaken.
[ 52 ] And that is precisely what we can learn from Spengler, that humanity must awaken; otherwise — otherwise it will go on and on, otherwise more and more people will appear who are actually talking in their sleep, and talking beautifully in their sleep. But that will not bring about any further development of humanity. The only thing that would happen is that we would continue to develop our Western culture with its American appendage further and further, more and more into these infirmaries where people no longer want to get up, but want to sleep forever, and where they talk out of their sleep, making beautiful speeches that are then admired by others; but admiration is also just a form of sleep. That which admires is asleep, and that which is admired is asleep.
[ 53 ] So it is absolutely necessary that we become aware of this necessity of waking up. Within the Anthroposophical Society, this should really be taken as a kind of intimate program: We want to wake up! Then we will see people, many people, walking around in a completely different way, even among Anthroposophists, if they wanted to be completely awake, awake and fresh. This is possible, because Anthroposophy can refresh. Just feel how anthroposophy can refresh, and how it is not at all suitable for rolling around on a bed and talking in your sleep, but how, when you grasp anthroposophy in its essence, so to speak, you can become refreshed, refreshed in all areas, in the areas of art, religion, and science, in the area of the entire practice of life.
[ 54 ] Try to think about this during the time we are not together, how we can hold discussions about a sensible awakening, about overcoming Spenglerism. Spengler something better together than this Spengler is capable of spenglering, and spengler something that will have an effect on the future, while Spengler only brings about the decline of the West with his Spenglerism.