The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner

1906

The opening of the year 1906 again called for a journey to Switzerland. On January 7 the Ekkehard Group was founded in St. Gallen. Upon the Group leaders had rested the difficult task of maintaining, during the long intervals between Rudolf Steiner’s visits, the continuity of the work. Now, however, the Group was dedicated by him in person. The members were given personal advice, and the guiding principles for the future work discussed. The next day a public lecture was given on The Wisdom Teaching of Christianity, repeated in Zurich on January 8.

On January 9 followed a lecture to members in Lugano on Spirit, Soul, Body and to an invited audience on The Transitory and the Eternal. In Basel, on January 11, the problem of polarically opposing views was presented under the title Darwinism and Theosophy. The same theme was handled on January 12 in Kolmar: The Origin of the World and the Descent of Man; and in Strassburg: The Origin of the World and of Man. These lectures were followed by a series on fundamental subjects in many German cities. At this time the first impulses were given in Munich for the artistic development of the Movement, and this city later on became the center for this activity. Dr. Steiner had already spoken there on November 10, 1905, on Art and Artists, and now, in conformity with the spirit of the city, he chose for his lectures of January 17 and 18, 1906, the themes Plastic Art and The Art of Sound. What was here initiated achieved its large-scale realization in the second seven-year epoch of the Movement, through the inauguration of the Mystery Dramas, which had the effect of infusing new life into all the arts. This is another example of Rudolf Steiner’s sure intuition for using from the outset as a spiritual reality the “genius loci,” the creative forces of a country or a place, selecting thus the birthplace for new impulses.

For a lecture arranged by students of Marburg on January 20, he chose the theme The Concept of Spirit in German Philosophy, while at Cassel, bearing in mind the particular interest the subject had for the student Kleeberg, he chose for his lecture the theme The Spiritual Significance of Music and the Sanscrit Language. A reference in Kleeberg’s recollections is characteristic. His friend, the leader of the Munich Group, had written to him while he was still a young man, tom between the demands of his university studies, the needs of his future career, and his devotion to Rudolf Steiner’s teaching: “You doubtless remember how the Doctor always stressed to the students: First win a place in life and do your duty to the full, and only then work at Theosophy.” The student adds from his recollections: “One simply cannot ‘think away’ such a demand out of Steiner’s practice of life.” Later on we were to experience how Rudolf Steiner, in replying to young people who came to him for advice, consistently held before them as a guiding principle first to gather all the knowledge which the outside world had to give from university studies and practical life, and fulfill every duty required by society, family, or profession and, only when these conditions could be fulfilled to devote their free time to inner development and spiritual training.

At Goethe’s birthplace, Frankfurt, the foundation of the Goethe Group was signalized on January 12 by a lecture on The Germ of Wisdom in the Religions. There should be mentioned also from a lecture trip of that time the appearance in Stuttgart on January 16 of the theme The Ideals of Humanity and the Ideals of the Initiates; and in Cassel, on January 22, The Future of Man and the Great Initiates.

In February, at the Berlin Architektenhaus Dr. Steiner resumed his regular public lecture course. Here is to be seen an interesting phenomenon in that two of these lectures bore the title Esotericism. At first sight, a contradiction seems to lie in the fact that public lectures dealt with such a theme as esotericism—with something which hitherto had been guarded within the narrowest circles. But this is only another example of an evolutionary change, indicating that Rudolf Steiner held entirely new methods to be necessary, a decision which brought him into conscious and deliberate collision with certain circles in so-called “occultism,” which wished to keep these matters entirely concealed from the public.

It is once more characteristic that, in the midst of his public presentation of a new spiritual science and of the fundamental teachings and tasks of Christianity, he gave a special lecture on January 24, 1906, in Weimar, upon the invitation of a group of Free Masons, entitled The Significance of Free Masonry. He endeavored to win all groups of people seeking for the spirit to a change appropriate to the times in the communication of spiritual substance. The need for such a change was at that time not at all understood. In Weimar, the city of Goethe, who had himself been a Free Mason, and who had developed into a citizen of the world, this endeavor was worth testing.

A symptom of the world situation—just after the close of the RussoJapan War in the autumn of 1905—was the fact that a public lecture on January 23 dealt with the theme Our World Situation (War, Peace, and Theosophy). The decision to open the doorways to the spiritual world had vital importance in relation to the question whether the current developments in process would lead to war or to peace. Here also there is a struggle behind the curtains, as it were, between the past and the present as to whether decisions should be reached in secrecy, unknown to the public, or through the free spiritual insight of all men. Rudolf Steiner was fully aware that the right course for the future could be attained only by a gradual appeal to the cognitional powers of humanity. These public lectures in the Berlin Architektenhaus on Esotericism were also at the same time symbol and symptom of the times, which now demanded, in conformity with spiritual law, methods of a new and different kind. Such a lecture series in 1906 opened with a description of the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries, which he connected with Schuré’s drama The Children of Lucifer, already referred to as having been presented in 1902. These Mysteries he further clarified in a lecture on March 8 by contrasting The Germanic and the Indian Secret Doctrines. He spoke in his next lecture on March 15 on German Theosophists of the Early Nineteenth Century. On the basis of these indications of Rudolf Steiner’s, historical research has since provided ample proof that such knowledge as that, for example, of man’s reincarnation existed not only in Indian teaching but independently in Europe also—for example, in the Celtic-Germanic traditions, and that this had been preserved even down into the nineteenth century by notable representatives of the spiritual life.

The lectures which followed, on March 22 and 29, gave the more exoteric interpretation of the ancient myths and mysteries in the original material, as Richard Wagner has made this material accessible for an expanded public. The last lectures of this cycle, on April 5 and May 3, described the “planetary evolution” and the human “inner evolution,” and also two figures out of medieval mysticism, Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme. Dr. Steiner then gave a series of similar lectures in various cities, culminating in Basel, the place of the later cycles on the Gospels in a lecture on The Christian Mysteries.

Among the themes dealt with in the meanwhile, mention should be . made of a lecture on February 11 dealing with Dante, regarding whose initiation through his teacher, Brunetto Latini, he later spoke in greater detail. Other themes to be specially mentioned are Repeated Lives on Earth as the Key to the Riddle of Man; The Law of Karma as the Effect of the Life of Action; The Causes of the Appearance of Illness and Heredity (Stuttgart, March 13, 14); The Inner Part of the Earth (Munich, April 21); Luciferic Beings (Munich, April 29). In an initial treatment of pedagogical problems to be dealt with in the autumn, he spoke on May 14 under the title Concerning Education.

The next Congress of the Federation of European Sections, for which members from all countries gathered, was now held in Paris in conformity with the practice of choosing each time a different country. The Congress was opened on June 3 at Washington Place, rue Magellan, by the President, Col. H. S. Olcott, now a man of advanced age. A citizen of the United States, he had there become a collaborator with H. P. Blavatsky and had since lived for many years in the bosom of the Theosophical Society in India. Be it noted that in his inaugural address he expressly emphasized that “the principles of the Society guarantee to each individual complete freedom of action,” and that, as regards the work carried on by Mrs. Besant and himself at Adyar, “the Society is not responsible.” This attitude was later not adhered to by his successor, Mrs. Besant, a fact which led to disagreement between her and Rudolf Steiner. On the day following the opening, Whitmonday, Dr. Steiner gave his first lecture in Paris, on Theosophy in Germany One Hundred Years Ago. Just as at the London Congress in the previous year, here too he pointed to the great personalities who had fostered the spiritual tradition into the nineteenth century. In this lecture he called to mind the influence of the mystics since the fourteenth century, the works of Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme, the spiritual content in Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Kleist, and above all Novalis. He referred to the treatise of the youthful Schiller, The Theosophy of Julius, and showed that a true Theosophy had developed in Europe independently of Oriental influences. Finally he explained the central position of the concept of the ego in Fichte, in Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation, and in the works of Ennemoser, G. H. von Schubert, Troxler, Justinus Kerner, and other seekers after the Spirit. The activity of those personalities represented, he said, a prelude to the work which still remained to be done. One can well imagine how strange the course of development thus traced by Rudolf Steiner seemed to those circles which usually had most to say at these Congresses, and what steadfastness it required in the midst of such contradictory trends to pursue unflinchingly so individual a path.

In the final chapter of Rudolf Steiner’s autobiography, The Course of My Life, he remarks in regard to the inner development which led to these occurrences:

“The period up to my Paris cycle of lectures constitutes for me something in the form of completed evolutionary processes in the soul. These lectures were given during the Theosophical Congress in 1906. Individual participants in the Congress had expressed the wish to hear these lectures besides the program of the Congress. I had at that time in Paris made the acquaintance of Edouard Schuré, together with Marie von Sivers, who had already corresponded with him for a long time, and who had been engaged in translating his works. He was among my listeners. I had also the pleasure of having frequently in the audience Mereschkowski and Minski and other Russian poets.

“In this cycle I gave what I felt to be ‘mature* within me of the leading elements of spiritual knowledge pertaining to the nature of the human being.

“This ‘feeling of maturity’ of elements of knowledge is essential in research in the spiritual world. In order to have this feeling, it is necessary to have experienced a perception as it rises at first in the soul. At first, it is felt as something non-luminous, as lacking sharpness in contour. It must be permitted to sink again into the depths of the soul to ‘mature.’ Consciousness has not yet gone far enough to grasp the spiritual content of the perception. The soul, in its spiritual depths, must remain together with this content in the spiritual world, undisturbed by consciousness.

“In external natural science, an item of knowledge is not affirmed until all necessary experiments and observations have been completed, not until the requisite calculations are incontestable. In spiritual science are needed no less methodical conscientiousness and discipline in cognition...

“In the Paris cycle of lectures, I brought forward a perception which had required a long process of ‘maturing’ in my mind.”

This situation came to a marked expression in the further activity of Rudolf Steiner during the Congress, and in lectures of his which followed it. These were the continuation of a cycle which he had begun in Paris on May 25, upon invitation of a group of members later enlarged through invitation of guests. This had become known during the Congress, and the wish expressed by many of those in attendance to be permitted to hear these lectures led the General Secretary of the French Section to place at the disposal of Dr. Steiner a large hall of that section. We shall report later in detail about these lectures.

In the reports of participants, valuable details regarding these events are preserved. We thus find recorded among the memoirs of Edouard Schuré the following:

“In 1902 Marie von Sivers had written to me for the first time about Rudolf Steiner, a personality whose accumulative store of knowledge exceeded everything that had hitherto been garnered from the treasury of esotericism. In 1906 Rudolf Steiner himself came to Paris with Marie von Sivers to lecture...

“I had certainly expected, after all I had learned from Marie von Sivers and through my reading elsewhere, to see a man who might prove to be a companion on the path to my own goal, but I was to some extent indifferent, due to circumstances, when Rudolf Steiner actually came to see me. When he stood, therefore, in the doorway and regarded me with eyes which disclosed a knowledge of boundless heights and depths, with his almost ascetic face, which expressed both kindliness and limitless trust, he made upon me a deeply moving impression such as I had experienced only twice before—and in part less strongly—namely in the case of Richard Wagner and in that of Margherita Albana Mignaty.

“For the very first time, I was certain of having before me an initiate. I had long lived in spirit with the initiates of the past, whose history and development I had been privileged to depict. Now at last one stood before me on the physical plane.

“And another thing was clear to me in this short moment as we forgot everything around us and looked only within: I was certain that the man standing before me would play a great role in my life.”

Regarding the impression made on Schure by Rudolf Steiner’s lectures, the former reports:

“The first impression was one of plastic power. When he spoke of the events and phenomena of the supersensible world, he spoke as one who was at home there. In familiar language he related what takes place in those unfamiliar regions, not only events that were astonishing, but also occurrences seemingly quite ordinary. He did not describe; he beheld objects and scenes and made them visible, so that those cosmic phenomena seemed to one like actual objects of the physical plane. When one listened to him, it was impossible to doubt his spiritual vision, which was as keen as physical sight, only far more comprehensive.

“Another striking characteristic was that, with this philosopher-mystic, this thinker and seer, all soul-processes were brought into relation with the unchanging laws of physical nature. These laws seemed to explain the spiritual phenomena...

“As for the effect of the lectures, what was clearest of all to me was the great difference between the Indian teaching, which at that time held far too great a place in Theosophy, and that which Rudolf Steiner here presented. The accusation has been made against him again and again that he simply wished to Europeanize the Indian religion. For the first time I recognized now, and I was confirmed in my own seeking and knowledge, that what Rudolf Steiner had given in Anthroposophy had as its center Christ alone, that what he gave was that which at that time (1906) could be called and was called Christian Theosophy, whereas the rest of Theosophy was only Oriental. The members of the French Theosophical Society, who comprised a great part of the audience in the Salle Reynouard, were for the most part astonished at this turn in the course of events. For them, Theosophy suddenly seemed to be something different, appearing to be something more difficult, but to have won a far clearer aspect. In what was offered to them they saw themselves better placed within the present time, although they scarcely realized that the true Christian esotericism was here being resurrected.”

Many visitors to this Congress were dissatisfied with the official proceedings; they looked for a different spiritual nourishment, and they asked permission, therefore, to attend the lecture cycle begun a few weeks earlier within a smaller circle. A group of people had been formed independently of the general arrangements and met at a private address in Passy. The arrangement within a smaller circle, apart from the Congress, distinguished this early work of building up and was helped along by the enthusiasm of all those who took part.

In the preceding years, in addition to the regular participants at the lectures of Rudolf Steiner, in Berlin, and visitors from other countries in Europe, a number of Russians also who were interested in spiritual science attended, and they invited Dr. Steiner to bring to Russia also the message of his spiritual research. Since the war of 1904-05 between Russia and Japan and the revolution which followed prevented this, these interested Russians then requested that this course should be arranged in Paris, which proved to be possible in connection with the visit to the Congress. Regarding these early events, Frau Marie Steiner has reported as follows:

“A stream of friends began to flow to Berlin, hoping there to hear more. This provided the occasion for the first course. In 1904 one course had already taken place in Berlin dealing with World Evolution, and in 1905 a group of people came especially to hear thirty-one lectures in my rooms. The admiration and wonder and reverence which they experienced was a lasting possession. The world had become brighter, life had acquired a new meaning, the good news must be spread. Among the Russian participants arose a longing to see light of this kind spread to their own country, so greatly in need of light. We arranged for a lecture cycle in June 1906 on an estate at Kaluga.

“This was the year of the revolution following the Russo-Japanese War, and conditions were too unsettled to allow the program to be carried out. The Russian friends begged permission for it to be carried out in Paris, where there had always dwelt a numerous Russian colony. Rudolf Steiner consented; it was also the year when the Theosophists chose Paris for their yearly Congress. Our lecture cycle had originally nothing to do with this Congress. It grew in length, however, for more and more people came to the lectures until it overlapped the Congress date; and ultimately we had to remove from our idyllic villa at Passy to the official rooms of the French Theosophical Society, where many a disapproving look came our way from the French guardians of Theosophical dogmas...

“A few words must be devoted to the villa at Passy, for Rudolf Steiner had worked there so devotedly and it was a kind of destiny which placed it at our disposal, so that every day for a whole month we were able undisturbed to accommodate the visitors. In the living room, chairs were crowded together, boards found in the garden were placed on boxes, and the anteroom was also occupied. Through the intimacy brought about by self-help and mutual assistance in the absence of paid help, the essentials were all the more brought into relief. Planned originally only for the Russians, the lectures were soon attended by people from England, Holland, and France, too. Besides bearers of names known in literature like Belmonte, Minski, Mereschkowski, S. Hippius, Schure, there came also as elsewhere such as had been hard hit by destiny and sought help from Rudolf Steiner in their need.”

When the official Congress was over, the steadily mounting number of interested visitors were invited to a series of lectures, which now were given in a larger hall, and in the course of which Rudolf Steiner was now able to impart to a larger circle the results of his persevering spiritual research. In this manner the work of the large Congress and the more intimate and intensive training in spiritual science went on simultaneously.

In a letter of July 1906 from the leader of the Munich Group, who was present, addressed to the student Kleeberg, we find the following report: “No doubt, you could have heard little from Dr. Steiner about the details of the Paris Congress, seeing that the only considerable event there, in a positive sense, was the tremendous success achieved by Dr. Steiner himself. He gave a series of sixteen lectures, each one better than the last. The circle of listeners increased all the time. We began at our residence with only fourteen—Russians and Germans—and soon we were over sixty. Then we were able to have the Branch hall after the Congress, and the number of listeners from all countries continued to grow. . . . There were present many eminent, intelligent, and to some extent, famous persons—like Edouard Schuré and the Russian poet and philosopher Minski, and others, who sat at the feet of their long-sought master. All of this he could, of course, not tell you himself; he just does his work and never speaks of the results.”

The lecture cycle given in Paris outside the Congress between May 25 and June 14, 1906, presented a survey of the evolution of cosmos, earth, and man, to the extent attained by Dr. Steiner in the maturing process of his research. In The Course of My Life, when looking back to the earlier years, he says of the stage his knowledge had then attained: “The whole world outside of man is a riddle, the real world riddle; and man himself is the answer.” At the beginning of the year 1906 he had written at the wish of a member, Mathilde Scholl, an aphorism in her New Testament as follows:

“Is a riddle hidden in the cosmos?
Yet man himself is the answer!”

At this solution of the riddle he worked continuously through the years. These lectures of the year 1906 were also devoted to this theme, and three years later he was able to present the knowledge gained in a comprehensive form in his book Occult Science—an Outline.

Upon leaving Paris, Dr. Steiner went in June to Cassel and gave a lecture on the Greek Mysteries and one on The Development of the Child, a subject, as we shall see, to which he planned to give increased attention in the autumn. At the end of July, after a visit in the company of friends to Frau von Bredow at her castle at Landin, and a period of great enjoyment of the beautiful countryside there, he traveled to Bayreuth with his friends in order to attend the music festival.

Immediately following this experience, which was deeply enjoyed by the group of friends, he gave in Stuttgart the first lecture of a cycle which became a yearly event, as a means for imparting to his students the knowledge he had worked out. These cycles were later manifolded and finally were printed for the public. This Cycle I, delivered between August 22 and September 5, bore the title Before the Portal of Theosophy. In the first sentences of the introduction, we already find confirmed that the subject to be given “was not always taught as it is today in lectures and writings available to all. In former times the content of Theosophy was regarded as something which could be taught only in small intimate circles. Knowledge was confined to the circles of initiates, to occult brotherhoods. The people were to have only the results of their knowledge. Nothing much was known either of their knowledge and works or of the seat of their activity.” All those who wished to share in the teaching

“were subjected to stern tests to discover whether they were worthy; they were then initiated slowly, step by step, from below upwards. In very recent times a new departure has been made; the elementary stages are taught openly. Openness became necessary, because the former means would fail. One of the means was the religions, and in all religions this spiritual wisdom is contained, but today knowledge and faith are actually said to be in conflict. Today it is necessary to come to the higher knowledge by the path of cognition.

“The actual cause, however, is the discovery of printing; formerly the teaching was passed on by word of mouth; no word reached the immature or the unworthy. But through books the knowledge of things supersensible has been circulated and become popularized; through this has also arisen the division between faith and knowledge.

“Such factors make it necessary, therefore, that the great treasures of occult knowledge should be published. Such questions as: What is the origin of man? What is his goal? What is behind his visible form? What happens after death?—all of this had to be answered, not with hypotheses or theories or surmizes, but with the facts. To unveil the mystery of man is the purpose of all occult science.”

“The elementary stages are taught openly,”—with these words the new direction is given which Rudolf Steiner inaugurated, and which earned him many attacks, both secret and open, from those who regarded themselves as the traditionally bound earthly guardians of those insights into the spiritual background of world events. In his autobiography, The Course of My Life, he says:

“For the modem man there is an infallible possibility of deciding what portion of the content of spiritual perception can be imparted to wider circles. This can be done with everything which the investigator can clothe in such ideas as are adapted to the consciousness-soul itself and also in their character to recognized science.”

He gave the results, therefore, of his research only when he had clarified it to such an extent that it had become accessible to present-day thinking, when considered without prejudice. When this stage had been reached, the supersensible facts were set forth without any regard for earlier tradition. The basis of judgment in such matters is no longer ancient rules and traditions, but exclusively the maturity of the research and the character of our age. In another passage in the autobiography, he says:

“I had, moreover, no relation to any other person obligating me to maintain secrecy. For I did not take anything from the ‘ancient tradition.’ What I possess in the form of spirit knowledge is entirely the result of my own research. Only, when I have acquired some element of knowledge, I take into account whatever has been made public out of ‘ancient knowledge,’ in order to show the harmony, and also to point out the progress which is possible for contemporary research.

“Thus it became entirely clear to me after a certain time that I should be doing the right thing in coming forward publicly with the knowledge of the spirit.”

After a brief lecture tour in South Germany, he went to Switzerland, and there, on September 19 in Basel, a new Group was inaugurated. In remembrance of the visit paid by the great discoverer and physician in the sixteenth century, the name “Paracelsus Group” was adopted. Owing to the activity of Rudolf Geering-Christ, who was especially interested in the Christian Mysteries, the work here later received a particular stamp. As a kind of preparation for the cycle to be given in the following year, Rudolf Steiner gave, in the evening of the day of dedication of the group, a public lecture on The Gospel of St. John, followed by two lectures, between September 21 and 25, at Bern and St. Gallen.

After a lecture on September 26 at Regensburg on The Nature of Death as a Key to the Riddle of Life, he returned to Berlin, where he lectured for the winter season at the Architektenhaus. The first lecture of the season, on October 11, dealt with Knowledge of the Supersensible in Our Time, and the second was related to Goethe’s words in Faust, Blood is a Very Special Fluid, the latter lecture appearing later in print.

Two lectures for members, on October 13 and 19, discussed The Relation of Precious Stones to the Human Senses and The Relation of the Human Senses to the Surrounding World—both probably at the request of artist members. Under the influence of the information given by Rudolf Steiner in these two directions, a School for the Art of Jewelry was later established at Dornach, Switzerland.

In these lectures of October 1906, reference was made to the fact that in earlier times there still existed a special knowledge that not only the forces revealed in the mineral kingdom could be made serviceable to man, but likewise that finer plane of force which is at work in living phenomena. A late though much disguised echo of that knowledge of the mastery of life-forces by man—who now has to rediscover this—is to be found in Bulwer=Lytton’s strange, romantically clothed work Vril. Rudolf Steiner later requested me to translate and republish this book as a characteristic historical symptom.

Further details regarding these subtle forces of nature and their use by an earlier race of men are to be found in Dr. Steiner’s book Our Atlantean Ancestors. Research in this realm according to modem scientific methods was the subject of many later lectures and indications, and we shall revert to them in due course as well as to his contributions to the subject of music. In this latter connection, his lecture series in November and December, 1906, Concerning Music, was of importance. In these lectures the spiritual effect of music upon man was discussed, and it was explained also how the individuality of the musician unites karmically with the physical endowments of his hereditary stream. Beginning with the second seven-year period of the Movement, the contribution of music to the transmitting of spiritual power then entered into the foreground, associated with dramatic art and Eurythmy. Among the students of Rudolf Steiner, noted musicians and composers have cooperated in the developments of the new art.

As preliminary and supplementary to the General Meeting, he spoke on October 20 and 21 on How Is Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Attained? The Path to Knowledge in the Sense of the Rosicrucians.

On October 21, the General Meeting of the German Section, which was under his leadership, took place. In giving the opening report, he pointed to the resistance and obstructions which such work, as a matter of course, brought in its train. In the world outside, these could be attributed to “lack of understanding on the one side and ... self-satisfaction on the other.” People simply did not want to be told that spiritual facts should be made clear to the understanding by the methods of logic, like things of natural science, or they resigned themselves contentedly to the hypothesis of arbitrary limits set to knowledge by science. He referred also to the longing felt by many to escape from the necessity of thinking for themselves by leaning on authority, and stressed that the Movement, as he visualized it, “is built entirely upon freedom. This does not mean that authority is entirely absent; but authority is here understood in no other sense than that, in the laboratory, one who understands chemistry is an authority.” The Society should be an organization, he said, with the task

“of helping people to find what they seek in themselves.

“Let us do positive work without polemics—even polemics against our attackers. If we may be told we ought to refute attacks made upon us, it is, indeed, necessary occasionally to put people right. Generally speaking, however, everything can be judged by its fruits. We shall do positive work leading to the higher realms; fighting does not solve problems. It can, at most, correct things on the physical plane. On higher planes, only positive work is able to help.”

Later on, however, Rudolf Steiner found it necessary, because of fundamental actions of Mrs. Besant and others in the leadership of the Society, to make known his altogether different decisions. This decisive parting of the ways came about several years later. At the October meeting of the German Section preparations were discussed for the Congress, which was to take place in Munich, and he and his collaborators were entrusted with its organization. Regarding his plans Dr. Steiner said that “all Congresses must be regarded as experimental. The task of the German Section will be to bring things into agreement with each other, so that the visual arts, music, and lectures shall most effectually harmonize with the other arrangements, for the purpose of calling to mind the ancient Mysteries. To this end the performance of a Mystery Play is planned, but how far this will be possible will depend, of course, on circumstances.”

According to a report given later by Frl. von Sivers, there were in 1906 twenty-four Groups and three Centers with a membership of 591. The taking over of the Brockdorff’s collection of books as part of the Society’s library was announced, and tribute was paid to the memory of the Countess, who had recently died.

Characteristically, Rudolf Steiner declared the “business part” of the meeting now closed and proceeded to open the “essential part,” which consisted in a lecture on The Path of Knowledge and Its Stages.

On October 27, there now began in Munich a lecture series on Theosophy in the Light of the Gospel of St. John. Kleeberg reports on this as follows: “The first lecture was on October 27 in the new hall of the Munich Group. ... Dr. Steiner gave the introduction, and after creating the requisite mood, dealt with the first chapter of this most evangelistic of the Evangels. No exposition on the basis of the Gospel was given, but Steiner spoke of man, his nature, his conditions of evolution, the earth and the cosmos and their coming into being, in order then to show how the same knowledge is revealed in the Gospel of St. John. At the beginning he gave a new translation which rendered the usual phrase ‘He came unto His own’ as ‘it (the Light) came to the individual being of man (even to the ego-being of man).’ This was something quite new.” The report adds: “Whoever heard him speak twice on the same subject knows that he never worked out his lectures according to pattern, but always handled the subject in a new and living manner.”

It is true that Rudolf Steiner always spoke freely, out of the situation itself and in accord with the receptive capacity of his listeners and the intuition of the moment. He refused on principle to consider reading from manuscript as has become widely customary nowadays, and maintained, therefore, always a living contact with his audiences. I once asked him much later whether he had ever experienced stage fright, an experience which every speaker knows only too well. Rudolf Steiner answered, to my astonishment—since I had never noticed this in him—that it is good as well as necessary for a lecturer to have a certain amount of stage fright; for it derives from the fact that the speaker does not approach his hearers with a rigid content, but even while speaking has to struggle for the most suitable form of expression. He, too, always experienced this condition and strongly advised against losing it. He also gave me further advice in this direction, to which I will refer later.

In the winter of 1906, he applied himself again to questions of medicine, pedagogy, and art in particular. A pioneer in the application of spiritual science to medicine was the Cassel physician Dr. Ludwig Noll, whom Rudolf Steiner had helped with advice in difficult medical problems and to deepen his insight into the nature and the causes of illness. In Dr. Steiner’s view, a physician, in his relation to nature, is not merely a student but a helper, not merely an imitator but an artist who continues the creative process of nature. He must not only concern himself with anatomy, physiology, and microscopy, but must acquire a deeper knowledge of the spiritual members and forces of man, animal, and plant; and through this a picture of health and illness, thus bringing to his service by means of a true phenomenology and creative intuition new healing methods and substances. He sternly condemned every kind of lay dilettantism in this sphere, but developed with great success his further experiments—never, however, without close collaboration with medical practitioners.

During the months from October to December, he spoke frequently on Education of the Child, to which reference has already been made in our report of the year 1903. He now stressed the fact that the first task must be to reform education itself, before one could proceed to educate the child: “One should rather speak of an education of the educator.” On November 24, therefore, he delivered a lecture before a circle of teachers in which he referred especially to Fichte, the great herald of the development of the human ego. In Cologne on December 1, there followed a public lecture entitled The Education of the Child from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science, which appeared in print after having been repeated in several other places. In the introduction appears the following:

“Life at the present time calls into question much that man has inherited from his forebears. For this reason so many ‘questions and needs of the times’ are brought to a head. What a multitude of questions are whirling through the world today—the social question, the women’s question, the education question, the political question, the health question, etc. People seek to solve these questions in the most varied ways. The number of those who come forward with some recipe for the solution of one question or another, or to aid in the solutions, is enormous. And all possible shades of mood come into play—radicalism, putting up a revolutionary front; the moderate attitude, which aims, while giving due regard to what exists, to develop something new out of it; conservatism, which grows agitated as soon as any of the older institutions and traditions are tampered with. And, along with these main tendencies, all possible other shades appear in between.

“One who wishes to prepare something for the future must not be satisfied with the superficial view of life, but must learn to know it in its depth.

“Just for this reason, entering through spiritual science deeply into the nature of man will provide the most fruitful and most practical medium for the solution of the important questions of life at the present. This shall be done here with regard to one such question: that is, education. What is wanted here is no mere setting up of demands and programs, but a straightforward description of child nature. Out of the nature of man in the process of development, the right point of view for education will emerge of itself.”

The year’s work was brought to an end in two Christmas reflections, on December 15 and 17, on The Meaning of the Christmas Festival from a Spiritual-Scientific Standpoint and The Meaning of the Christ Festival. At the celebrations, he recited the sublime saying which “has resounded before the pupils of the Mysteries of all ages, before they entered the Mysteries themselves”:

Die Sonne schaue um mittemächtige Stunde. Mit Steinen baue im leblosen Grunde. So finde im Niedergang und in des Todes Nacht der Schpfung neuen Anfang, des Morgens junge Macht. Die Höhen lass’ offenbaren der Götter ewiges Wort; die Tiefen sollen bewahren den friedenvollen Hort. Im Dunkel lebend erschaffe eine Sonne. Im Stoffe webend erkenne Geistes Wonne.

The sun behold At the midnight hour. Build with stones In lifeless ground. So find in descent And in the night of death Creation’s new beginning, The morning’s youthful power. Let the Heights reveal The Gods’ eternal word; The Deeps shall preserve The refuge filled with peace. In darkness dwelling Create a Sun. In matter weaving Know the Spirit’s joy.

Rudolf Steiner then gave an explanation also of the golden symbols, prescribed by himself, which adorned the Christmas tree. These symbols, appearing upon thousands of Christmas trees every year, have since served to remind in many places on Christmas Eve of the earthly symbols of the Spirit.

Evening lectures in different places were only a part of all the work performed by Rudolf Steiner at that time until, as Frau Marie Steiner informed the writer, it became necessary to call a halt and to step out of harness for a short while during the Christmas and New Year holiday time. A journey to Venice was arranged, and here Dr. Steiner found quiet, and at the same time intensive intercourse with the spirit of ancient civilizations in the unique atmosphere of this city. Such impressions were later given out in his lectures on history and art—lectures deepened by spiritual vision revealed from a new standpoint, which gave a most valuable stimulus to historical research.