The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1905
The year 1905 opened with an important lecture tour. In Munich Dr. Steiner gave a lecture on January 9 which had been arranged by a group of students. The activity in these circles was comparable with that of a farmer attempting to bring into good heart land which has become infertile through neglect. There was no counting at once upon large and healthy harvests. The inclusive conception of the university (universitas) had become for many a mere phantom; one-sided specialization had taken its toll. Faust withdrew from the university which was not capable of giving through philosophy, law, medicine, and theology a true picture of man. The first question now was, therefore, how to awaken a sense for the possibility that a harmonious world conception can lead antagonistic faculties (the various colleges of a university) again into a higher synthesis. For that reason Dr. Steiner gave during May and June of this year lectures on the tasks of the various faculties in the light of the new world conception; on May 11, under the title Theosophy and the College of Theology; on May 18, The College of Law; on May 25, The College of Medicine; on June 8, The College of Philosophy. Several years passed before he was able to actualize at the Goetheanum, founded by him, the unity of science, art, and knowledge of the spiritual world.
During the months from January to May he devoted a series of lectures to the work of Richard Wagner, in whose treatment of mythological subjects he took a deep interest. Thus on January 13 he gave an introduction to the spiritual background of the figures of Siegfried and Lohengrin; on March 28 and May 5 and 12, to the mythological history of the Nibelungs; and on May 19 to the esoteric meaning of the transformation of Parsival.
The hidden mysteries which are approached in the works of Richard Wagner were expounded by Rudolf Steiner in these lectures on the basis of his unique knowledge of spiritual evolution and were illuminated in a larger historical connection. He brought to remembrance the condition of retrospect and prospect which obtained in the old Nordic Mysteries. For the knowledge was there guarded of the spiritual plan of evolution for mankind and its unfolding in four Atlantean and Post-Atlantean periods. These four stages of development of the consciousness of man are reflected in the Nordic tradition, and are for that reason reflected also in the work of Richard Wagner. “Not in vain,” said Rudolf Steiner, “did Wagner compose the Tetralogy.” Wagner illustrated the mood of the Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), which arose out of the knowledge of the fading of the ancient world of the Gods, and the mood of preparation which grew out of the prophetic vision of the Christ Event in those ages, and this decisive spiritual turning point in world history finds its rhythmic echo in the structure of Wagner’s works:
“It is remarkable that, after Richard Wagner had incorporated the whole of the primitive age of the Germanic folk in the four stages of the Ring of the Nibelungs, he created an outstanding drama of Christianity, the work with which his life ended—Parsifal.”
Rudolf Steiner, after interpreting the main essence of the myths of the North and the South, then related how the myths and sagas had once grown up out of narratives related by the ancient initiates, who tried by this means to convey and to preserve the spiritual truths hidden in these. A later age would require that the eye should be directed away from the external temples and sacred shrines of old to the human body, in which the Divinity works creatively. Thus was the birth of the ego-consciousness in man carefully planned, which gave the stamp to a new evolutionary epoch.
This can be only sketchily indicated at present to show how Rudolf Steiner took as a point of departure the world of mythology in Wagner’s works in order that insight of the deepest kind into the spiritual history of humanity might be made manifest.
During the first half of the year 1905 the preparatory steps toward a further introduction of the theme of Christology were made in lectures on The Apocalypse of St. John; The Book Genesis; The Concept of God; The Nature of Christianity; The Meaning of the Mass in the Sense of Mysticism; The Apostle Paul and the Great Initiates; The Sermon on the Mount; and The Gospel of St. John. These were separate lectures, forming the preparation for those comprehensive Gospel cycles given by Dr. Steiner in the winter of 1906-07 which applied spiritual research with all its force to religious material.
In a number of lecture courses at the Berlin Architektenhaus during January, Dr. Steiner spoke on Goethe and Schiller—in the lectures Goethe’s Gospel; Goethe’s Hidden Revelation; Schiller and Our Age. Unfortunately we have only imperfect reports of lectures of this period, a situation which was remedied at a later stage by competent stenographic records. Dr. Steiner’s work in Berlin was interrupted frequently by lecture tours to no less than sixteen different places during the first half-year and ten during the second of this year, including London. He thus came into contact with a constantly increasing number of spiritual seekers, developed the Groups of members, and aided individuals.
The work of Dr. Steiner was not limited at that time to his own special field, comprehensive as this was. He shared a number of times, upon invitation, in evening programs arranged by the Berlin Schiller Theatre to deal with “poets and tone-poets.” Thus he spoke on January 29 during an evening devoted to Friedrich Hebbel. The world of art was to supplement steadily the realm of knowledge, religious life, and spiritual research.
In a lecture given at this time on The Future of Man and the Great Initiates, a note was struck which Rudolf Steiner treated in a great variety of aspects in later years. It is a fact that, both in the ancient Mysteries and the spiritual centers of the Middle Ages, as well as during later times, the guides and initiates had the task, not only of teaching about the origin of the world, the spiritual laws of cosmic evolution, and the spiritual development of the human individuality—that is, giving a picture of the past and the present—but also the task of conveying to those being schooled above all a clear vision and spiritual knowledge of the future plan of evolution. Thus Rudolf Steiner said in a lecture on January 16, 1905: “In the Mysteries the events of the future were revealed,” and further: “The initiates had to work with the purpose of preparing man for the future.” There are two ways of doing this: first through a knowledge of past evolution, with its laws and rhythms; and, secondly, through a knowledge of the systematically developing changes in the physical nature and the stages of consciousness of the human being: of what Goethe later called “metamorphosis and enhancement.” To confine observation to the bodily nature alone in the manner of modem materialism means to remain more or less a mere statistician of events in the past and the present. But research including the spiritual structure, its organs and metamorphoses, results in a perception of an enlarged horizon of development both backward and forward. The observer passes from the sphere of effects into that of causes, from appearance to essence, from the created to the becoming; he reaches the sphere in which the purpose and plan of evolution originate.
The knowledge of the course of evolution, for instance, in four preceding long epochs of time enables the spiritual researcher to foresee the tasks and objectives of succeeding epochs. To initiates in the Mystery centers of the past, persons who had advanced far ahead of their age, such a prevision was possible and the imparting of such knowledge to those specially trained for it was an essential part of their method of giving guidance to humanity. Each succeeding epoch embodies in culture more or less what was previsioned and inspired from the Mystery centers of the preceding epoch. Hence Rudolf Steiner made the statement: “Each content of initiation becomes manifest at a later time.”
We now come back to the lecture cycles of the following year. In the introductory lectures of the years 1904-05, he intended first of all to convey the knowledge that it is one of the most important duties of spiritual leadership, no less in present-day spiritual science than in the past, to open to mankind a vision of spiritual history of the past, but even more important to reveal that of the future. A merely superficial examination of the phenomena of our time may discover in the daily life of the world little or nothing of the germ which is at the beginning of its development in our epoch in accordance with spiritual law and plan. Indeed, it may even at first discover only the forces of resistance which oppose in every epoch with all their might the spirit of progress. But spiritual laws have ever been in the end more powerful than earthly might. Life in the body may be compelled, restrained, destroyed, but never in the long run the spirit and its planned progression. The initiates of the Greek Mysteries and those of all time were able to look further into the future than the time-bound conquerors, and future evolution will not shape itself according to the will of the conquerors but according to the knowledge of these others. These are important laws for every spiritual movement to be aware of, and Rudolf Steiner made them clear from the beginning.
In these months he frequently spoke also on Nordic Mythology in Its Esoteric Meaning. Spiritual truths in the mythology of peoples and regions of the earth received in the numerous lectures and works of Rudolf Steiner during the coming years detailed emphasis. These were the first steps toward an exploration of how far humanity was yet open to a realistic understanding of the cryptic spiritual language of mythology. The next stage of development was reached when a lecture cycle was given in 1910 in Scandinavia on The Mission of the Folk Souls. To follow the methodical way in which Rudolf Steiner educated his pupils and listeners through the years to a comprehensive acceptance of these truths is most instructive.
Parallel lectures on other week-days in April 1905 dealt with Life between Death and Rebirth; Reincarnation and Karma; Yoga and the Unio Mystica; and, several times, The Fourth Dimension. In May and June followed a significant lecture series on The Lost and Regained Temple, in which exposition of the great allegories, of the Temple Orders, the Cross as symbol, were given,—themes which led to a Whitsun lecture on The Word to Be Regained.
In these lectures Dr. Steiner began from the historical fact, essential for the birth of spiritual science, that mankind has arrived at a decisive turning point in time, when the spiritual knowledge, guarded in the past by only a few persons in the narrowest circles, must henceforth be made accessible to everybody. In the Whitsun lecture mentioned, referring to the essential difference between the past and the present civilization in respect to the manner in which the priest kings once dominated and guided the common mind, he said: “The priestly culture is now replaced by one in which every individual must win knowledge for himself.” He then characterized the early historical records of a transition of the ancient esoteric wisdom, inherited from the Mysteries, to a more intellectual knowledge which arose with Graeco-Latin civilization. Owing, however, to the decadence which later overtook Rome, the ancient wisdom had to be guarded for some centuries in those esoteric centers from which its influence emanated into each new age and condition of consciousness, recognizable in such movements as the Knights of the Round Table, the Knights Templars, the more esoteric current of the Grail, the Rosicrucians, and the noblest representatives of Medieval mysticism.
The basic conception in this tradition in all its forms of expression was that of the world as a mighty temple, the work of the Creator, into the building of which man must consciously merge his own being. From such origins arose the conception of the physical body as a temple, as that member of man’s being which was most perfect, because it was a gift of the Creator, whereas soul and spirit, those members which lift man above nature, are at a stage of imperfection, imposing upon him individual responsibility for their improvement and development. “What you think today that you are tomorrow.”
One who is familiar with the best spiritual traditions will the more readily understand why, in the introduction to spiritual training which Rudolf Steiner gave in the following years in his work Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, such seemingly simple fundamental virtues are made the starting point for spiritual development as: control of thought, inner peace and assurance, self-control as regards both pleasure and pain, reverence, objectivity, the conscious maintenance of rhythm and order in the life of the soul, in thoughts, feelings, and conduct. The purpose of such self-discipline is expressed by Rudolf Steiner in that book in the following way:
“If a person carries out his development in the realm of feelings, thoughts, and moods as this is explained in the chapters on Preparation, Enlightenment, and Initiation, he brings about in his soul and spirit a similar integration to that brought about by nature in his physical body. Before this course of development, soul and spirit are chaotic. Any one arrives at such an orderliness and then at higher knowledge when he brings this order into his feelings, thoughts and states of mind in the same way as nature has done for his body...
“Out of the feelings and thoughts so formed, the spiritual organs, the organs of clairvoyance, are developed, just as the eyes and ears of the physical body have been formed by natural forces out of life-endowed substance...
“For every single step one endeavors to move forward in the knowledge of spiritual truths an effort should be made at the same time to progress by three steps in the perfection of one’s character.”
It is possible to gain an insight into the course of Rudolf Steiner’s development by noting that, in these early years after the turn of the century, by establishing a connection with the spiritual tradition, the most sublime pictures, legends, and esoteric teaching of the past, he prepared his hearers to understand the meaning and purpose of what he revealed in his later works and lectures out of the source of true spiritual science.
In the spirit of the Johannine Annunciation of the creative power of the Word, Rudolf Steiner now recognized one of his most important tasks in his present life on earth to be spiritual research in man’s faculty of speech and fostering of this faculty. In the speech-forces he saw one of the holiest gifts to man from the Divine. Future tasks of these forces, with their transforming effect upon the whole human being, he brought to consciousness in his students in a constantly increasing degree. We shall see also how his indications, lectures, and instructions became consolidated in the following three seven-year periods of the Movement into new methods in the art of speech, intensively cultivated by the Section for Speech and Dramatic Art at the Dornach College, and this has already developed a body of students and teachers in various lands. This planned development of the speech forces in a way conforming with spiritual law was made possible by the cooperation of Frau Marie Steiner, who, because of her artistic training and unique pedagogical gifts, aided in inaugurating a new epoch in the culture of speech.
In the summer of 1905 two journeys abroad were undertaken—to England and Switzerland. From July 8 to 10, the Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Society was held in London, at which Rudolf Steiner spoke on The Occult Basis of the Goethean Life Work. One sees how, with unflinching consistency and loyalty, he adhered to his spiritual principles even in this milieu, which was focused in general upon quite different subjects. If people in many parts of the world discovered in Goethe during the coming decades more than the respected dramatist of a bygone age—discovered, indeed, the initiator of endless possibilities of research and the revealer of hidden laws of nature and of an organic world picture, this is due in great measure to the work of Rudolf Steiner. Who was there in those days that thought of Goethe apart from his aesthetic literary connections: as a researcher in natural science, as a person who had furnished the key to supersensible realms for the succeeding world? It was Rudolf Steiner who, in 1905 in London also, made real the spirit of Goethe as an ever-present factor in genuine research of the future. In Germany he had devoted himself throughout his life to Goethe’s works. In almost all countries of Europe he had made known Goethe’s true stature. It was as a result of his labors also that, in the year 1937, the Goetheanum Stage Group gave at the World Exposition in Paris a representation of scenes from Goethe’s Faust in the German language before an audience crowding the largest theatre in the city. It was his work, too, planned and carried out by Marie Steiner and his co-workers, which ultimately resulted in the unabridged performance of both the first and the second parts of Faust for the first time at the Goetheanum in Dornach in 1938, with visitors coming from all parts of the world to witness it. These facts suffice to show that Rudolf Steiner succeeded in lifting Goethe’s work to an eminence capable of exerting influence the world over.
After the return from London, the month of August could be devoted to a brief period of rest and to writing. Then followed the yearly lecture tour into Switzerland. Lectures were given in September and again in November at St. Gallen, Zurich, and Basel. In St. Gallen he spoke on September 7 on the tasks of the present time, and later on a cosmological theme Regarding Our Planetary System. A public lecture in Zurich on September 9 dealt with Overcoming Materialism from New Points of View. And the title two months later was Haeckel, the Riddle of the Universe, and Theosophy. In Basel, which was later to become the center for lectures on the Gospels, he spoke on The Wisdom Teachings of Christianity.
Between these two periods in Switzerland Dr. Steiner visited cities in southern Germany briefly and then took up again his lectures in Berlin, dealing first in an introductory way with the basic principles of spiritual science. During the same period he gave a very long series of lectures, thirty-one in all, constituting an introduction to the principle of rhythm underlying the cosmological-historical evolution, to the extent that he had carried his research up to that time: the phases in planetary evolution from a new standpoint; the seven-year rhythms in the development of “spheres,” “planes,” and “states”; “root-races” and historical epochs in the development of humanity. Knowledge regarding the organization of certain orders of beings in the cosmos—elementary’ nature-beings; the beings who stand below and above man; the Bodhisattvas; the Spiritual Hierarchies—was both broadened and deepened, and knowledge of the supersensible forces was elaborated. A foundation was given also at this time for the teaching regarding the four kinds of ether, the “etheric formative forces,” which was later to become of such signal importance for spiritual science in its application to research in biology and agriculture, and in its practical application. Conformably with a true Anthroposophy, this accumulation of new insights culminated in a presentment of the physical, soul, and spiritual structure of the human being. He explained concretely the working of destiny and freedom in man and also the higher self, which makes man the lowest member of the hierarchically organized spiritual world; finally the working of the Deity, of the Word, in that universe filled with spiritually active Beings.
One who was so completely a master of the scientific knowledge of his age could reasonably expect that what he presented as findings of spiritual research, on the basis of cognition clearly explained, would be accepted in an open spirit of readiness to test this in thinking. He could reasonably expect that what he presented would be tested to discover whether already known phenomena were better explained on the basis of this new presentation than on the basis of hypotheses of the last century. Or those who heard him could undertake diligently to follow the methods he had clearly set forth in describing the path for development of one’s inner being in the direction of a knowledge of the supersensible.
In October and November 1905, Dr. Steiner again touched upon the social problems which had already been illuminated in their new aspect in 1903 and 1905 for the first time in the magazine. Lectures were given on October 26 in the Architektenhaus on The Social Question; on November 4 on Socialism in the West and in the East. Here questions were introduced which, after 1916, during the third seven-year period of the Movement, bore fruit in the new impulses toward the forming of the social organism. Here again he began characteristically with a presentation of past conditions, the historical aspects of the development of human society, dealt with in great detail.
The annual General Meeting of the German Section of the Society now occurred on October 22, the first such meeting to be reported in the newly established Bulletin of the Society, which was so excellently edited for many years by Frl. Mathilde Scholl The Section had at that time 377 members and there were Branches in 18 different places. Dr. Steiner opened his address with the words: “The Movement has experienced intensive as well as extensive development within Germany and Switzerland.” He then gave a survey of numerous lecture tours and of the development of new Groups in connection with these. Regarding the July Congress in London, he said: “What the Movement signifies has once again been illustrated by the Congress of the Federation of European Sections. However one may criticize these Congresses, we must recall that perfection does not fall from heaven. But it is here a question of intentions. We should hold before ourselves the ideal of improving what is in need of improvement, of cooperating and not criticizing.” He made the members aware that whoever works in spiritual science must himself become a “source of power,” capable of bringing help to others, and he exhorted his hearers always to remember that they were members of a spiritual community. He made it clear that anything taken up in the form of new ideas would fulfill its purpose only if it did not remain merely teaching or theory but continuously “flowed directly into life.”
During the winter season, Dr. Steiner gave at meetings of members every week an introductory lecture on Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, while continuing upon other days of the week the long cycle of thirty-one lectures. Such occasions were frequently interrupted by journeys.
During the Christmas season, he spoke on December 14 publicly in the Architektenhaus on Christmas; on December 24, he spoke to members on The Christmas Festival as a Sign of the Victory of the Sun. Whereas the subject of the Whitsuntide lecture had been the esoteric task of regaining the Word in the future, the Christmas lecture dealt with The Mystery of the Birth of the Logos-Bearer.