The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1915
The year 1915 was the last year in the second seven-year period of the Movement. Since this epoch was marked by emphasis upon the artistic, Rudolf Steiner began the year with a series of lectures in Dornach on The Renewal of the Artistic World View. Before he began to clarify the spiritual experience in the realm of colors and tones even in the most vivid details, he set forth the demand on New Year's Day to practice Reading the Writing of the Stars. How completely everything that he did was integrated into the laws of the writing of the stars came to vivid manifestation in this New Year5s lecture. Very seldom did he permit to become suddenly and brilliantly manifest the spiritual backgrounds of his working, integrated into the rhythm of the cosmos, in order that those who were wakeful among his listeners might follow during the rest of the year the writing of the stars in cosmic occurrence, even though this might again for some time be concealed behind the thick web of external events. Such a moment was this lecture on New Year's Day of 1915.
In the New Year's Eve lecture, Rudolf Steiner had called attention to the polarity among the soul forces of the human being: reverence and devotion directed outwardly to the cosmic spiritual evolution; the concentrated force of one5s own discipline of soul directed inwardly, the inner evolution. Now, on January 1, he suddenly permitted his hearers to have a glimpse into the spiritual workshop of the course of the year, into the creative work of the spiritual leader, who out of inner freedom observes spiritual laws. Just as the structure of forces of the course of one year is determined according to whether the hand of the cosmic clock points at the beginning of the year to this or that aspect of the signs of the zodiac and the phases of the planets, so is it also not a matter of indifference whether the inner structure of forces in the human being himself receives its first impulse in the course of the year in a turning toward the macrocosm or a turning toward one5s own inner being. Rudolf Steiner indicated this mystery of the spiritual schooling, as it becomes manifest for a spiritual leader, in the following example:
“My dear friends, I should like to say this to you at the beginning of the year as a New Year greeting. I should like to have the calling to memory of reverence [in the New Year Eve lecture] followed on New Year's Day by the calling to memory of our energetic work on our own inner being. It is a symbol for the succession of memory in this way that in this New Year's Eve the full moon was shining toward us out of the universe. Had it been the opposite, if we had begun the year with the new moon, it would have been right for me to bring to bear upon your hearts in the opposite direction the succession of the reminiscences. In that case, I should have ended the year yesterday by calling to your memory the force of the inner evolution, and should have had to cause to follow today the memory of reverence.
"That such a symbol, as it gleams towards us out of the macrocosm, shall really be considered, this is something which must be taken into account increasingly as having importance. When we have moments of quiet during this year, let this hint work upon us; let it so work that during this year it shall be a matter of special importance to reflect first of all about what the force of reverence can make out of us, and then to reflect what the force of inner steadfastness, resoluteness, inner energy of soul should make out of us.
“This succession is offered to us for the present year out of the writing of the stars, and the world will come to see gradually that reading the writing of the stars has a significance for the human being. Let us, then, in these details endeavor to observe the great law of human existence: to strive for harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm. During these days the macrocosm has become manifest in the most elementary manner for us in the phase of the moon, and we find a harmony in our microcosm with this macrocosm if we conduct ourselves accordingly in the course of this year which comes to birth for us in the midst of such painful facts.”
This way of observing the cosmic laws is serviceable only to the free human being. The way of working horoscopes as this is often practiced at the present time, which undertakes to imprint ancient cosmic laws upon human life, makes man a slave. But the spiritual student who has first obtained concrete knowledge of the spiritual nature of the cosmic organism gives attention as a free person to the signs which the cosmic rhythm presents to him. For him the structure of forces in the cosmos does not constitute compulsion, but aids in the inner formation of the course of his own life, which he causes to come into harmony with this cosmic rhythm through his own free determination and wakeful insight.
We call attention to this example in order once more to render it perfectly clear that Rudolf Steiner's action was not a matter of chance. Any one who reads his account of the course of his life is reading at the same time the sublime but simple and clear writing of the stars, which has always been imprinted in the life of the spiritual leader. In view of the way in which he began the year, it was very natural that he closed this same year with a lecture on The Course of the Year as a Symbol of the Great Cosmic Year.
After that initial lecture, Dr. Steiner devoted the following lectures to the artistic experience of color and tone. This was not to remain theory but was to flow into the heads, the hearts, and hands of painters and sculptors working on the building. The lectures on The Nature of the Colors, published in book form, have given spiritual direction and conscious inspiration to a school of painters.
The lectures on The Moral Experience of the Realms of Color and Tone and on Plastic Architectural Modeling, of the early part of 1915, developed the general spiritual laws of the artistic and also their concrete application in the work on the building in process of erection. We can mention only typical themes within the lectures: Downward-pressing, supporting, balance, and musical mood in architecture. The "plastic music" of the future. Columns, windows, domes in the building. The metamorphoses in the bony system as an expression of the architectonic in nature. The two domes of the building and their reciprocal penetration. The use of concrete for technical cultural buildings, etc. This first Goetheanum had, indeed, a plastically formed sub-structure of concrete upon which was erected the tremendous building architecturally elaborated out of woods and encompassed above by two interpenetrating dome spaces, of which the larger exceeded in circumference the dome of St. Peter's, in Rome. In this building, as in the course of Rudolf Steiner's life and work, nothing was subject to chance or arbitrary fantasy, but everything was coordinated under the spiritual laws of the inner dynamics of the living and organic. Just as Goethe recognized the conception of metamorphosis as actually effective in the bony system of the human organism, so did Rudolf Steiner discover this law in all spheres of human activity, in the spiritual and soul life, in the metamorphoses of consciousness in historical evolution, in the development of the human sense organs, in the dynamics of the bodily structure. And, just as the constantly active working of these modeling Powers and forces formed the human organism into a work of art, so can the same principle of metamorphosis lay hold in the sphere of architecture with the principles of the living and mold the form of the dead accordingly. One of the fundamental laws of the organic is that of polarity. But Goethe brought to manifestation the fact that art is a revelation of secret laws of nature. Therefore, for this building, constructed out of the living material of wood and dedicated to the schooling of human consciousness, there resulted as an artistic law the application of two different domes, articulated in their inner polarities. Rudolf Steiner said in regard to this in the lecture of January 4, 1915:
“Now, take the basic form of our building, which will become clear to you if you view the entire structure. What I wish to say to you can be presented only sketchily and in a summary form, and I can indicate only one of the points of view which must be considered. When you reflect upon our building, y°u note that it is a building with two domes, planned in such a way that the domes rest upon a cyclindrical under-structure. It is a two-dome building. This is the essential thing, for the fact that there is a twofold dome is an expression of the living element in this thing. If there were only a single dome, our building would be in its essence dead. The living element of the building comes to expression through the fact that one dome has its reflected image, in a certain sense, in the other dome; that the two domes mutually reflect each other just as that which is outside of the human being in the external world is reflected in the organs of the human being. The basic conception of the two-dome structure must be firmly grasped in connection with everything which is related to the inner, organic organization of our building; for anything not bearing the form of the double dome, however that form might be concealed, would not bring to expression what is essential in the conception of our building ...
“In this way I could justify to you—I have been able to indicate only the crudest fundamental principles—the principles involved even in the most minute details, in every single surface, within this architectural form."
After having provided this essential additional inspiration and assistance to the artists at Dornach, Rudolf Steiner went again for some time on lecture trips.
Persons seeking advice and guidance in the external and internal tensions of the war were calling him. He aided them in understanding their destiny and their tasks in two lectures in the Architekenhaus in Berlin on January 14 and 15: The Germanic Soul and the German Spirit and Spiritual Knowledge in Happy and Serious Hours of Life. Once more, he began with the comprehensive aspect of historical evolution, characterized the youth and the maturity of the peoples, pointed out the transformation from the ancient clairvoyance to the mythical world conception, the inner tension in which the Germanic peoples developed between the Homeric epoch of the south and the Nibelungen myth of the north. Emphasized the decisive turning point in the rise of Christianity, describing the attitude of the North and South, the West and the East toward this compelling event, pointing out the answer of the Roman world in the great works of the fourteenth century and the Renaissance, and of the Germanic world in such magnificent creations as the poem the Heliand^ in the German mysticism of Tauler and Meister Eckhart, Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme and Angelas Selesius; the summoning of the ego-forces to a free spiritual life in Herder, Hegel and Fichte, Schiller and Goethe. He emphasized most of all the compelling character residing in such achievements of the folk-soul, the admonition not to descend again from such high levels but to continue to ascend: to see in such achievements not the thing achieved but also the beginning:
“Individual persons may die before they have completely lived out their lives. Persons may die in the youthful years of their existence, because they will return in other lives on earth; and, moreover, because others take their places in the cultural life of the earth. An incompleted human life may cease to play its role in the external physical existence. Not an incompleted life of a people! For, if a people could be slaughtered or interfered with in its existence before it had completed its mission, no other individual people would take its place. Peoples must live themselves out! Peoples must reach the complete circumference of their existence—not only the existence of the child and the man, but their existence into the loftiest fulfillment. The German spirit, the German spiritual life, is not facing an end, not face to face with a completion; on the contrary, it stands at a beginning. Very much is yet assigned to it....”
This lecture came to a climax in the words already quoted: "The German spirit has not finished what it is to achieve in world-becoming. ...” Such ideas he had in the present year presented still more in detail in his writing Thoughts During the Time of the War.
Some were resting satisfied upon the achievements of the past, or taking pride in the attainments of earlier generations, without striving themselves to rise to higher spiritual peaks. Others denied the existence of the germ of a process of development required by the nature of the world, or threatened to stifle it. Rudolf Steiner challenged the sense of duty of the present generation, calling by their true names self-satisfaction on the one hand and the inclination to destruction on the other, and sought out the human beings who had the will to tread as pioneers of the spirit, inwardly schooled, the path into hitherto unknown spheres of the spiritually guided world organism.
Returning to Dornach at the end of January, he dealt in his first lecture with the theme Genuine Art Goes Back to the Mysteries of Initiation. He illustrated this with the historical example of Dante and his friend and initiate teacher, Brunetto Latini. These two great figures in spiritual history appear again and again in the coming ten years in the lectures of Rudolf Steiner. In this way, he lifted out of oblivion an important occurrence in spiritual history and erected in human consciousness a reminder of this as a directive for the future.
On January 31 Dr. Steiner spoke in Zurich on the four virtues of Plato, and showed that two of these virtues, wisdom and righteousness. point back to what we were in past times, in earlier incarnations; that two other virtues, courage and clarity of mind, point toward future incarnations. The Dornach lecture of February 2 contrasted the experiences and impulses of will of the human soul when it enters the earthly life through the portal of birth with the experiences beyond the portal of death.
These reflections were in some degree suggested by addresses at funerals. On February 5, he spoke in Basel at the funeral of Fritz Mitscher. In that hall of the crematory in Basel, where in coming years he spoke at the funerals of so many friends, he gave each time out of his most intimate friendship and profound spiritual vision a painting of the dead friend. These funeral addresses are important milestones on the road traveled by Rudolf Steiner in the midst of his friends.
In the lectures of February 5-7 in Dornach he presented a great spiritual painting out of the world of light of the "spectrum of death,” speaking on The Problem of Death in Connection with the Artistic Conception of Life. He described the periods of a human life as mirrors of cosmic processes; the experiences after crossing the threshold of death, as they had been represented in many artistic works of the past—for instance, in Unüberwindliche Mächte (Invincible Powers), by Herman Grimm—and how these occurrences can be illuminated and clarified through spiritual vision; differentiations in the destinies of persons according as they die in youth or in old age; the similarity between artistic creative work and the experience in the spiritual world; the question which strives for an answer in every period dedicated to hosts of dead: “How the dead may speak to us.” In that circle of persons out of various lands and peoples gathered in the simple lecture room of the Schreinerei thoughts went out, naturally, to the dead who had fallen on both sides, and who had united themselves with that realm where war and hate belong to the past, where the army of the dead out of all peoples, reunited, are engaged in a common and united building of the totality of humanity.
After this period at Dornach, Dr. Steiner devoted himself again to the task of strengthening through the word of the Spirit, so far as possible, persons living in the area of the tremendous earthly struggle.
He was active in Stuttgart during February 13-16 in casting light by means of lectures for members and the public upon the historical backgrounds of the tremendous events of the day, admonishing of the need of wakefulness in order to penetrate the veil of external events and bring to light the impelling forces behind them, in order to see the signs of the times in the struggle of world conceptions and spiritual polarities. Wherever Rudolf Steiner appeared, the narrow-minded thinking of the day retreated, limited local interests, the petty oppositions and dishonest bywords. The experience for the hearers was like that of a person on a ship caught in night and storm who suddenly sees the light of a lighthouse. He gave to every individual person an inner compass for himself. Whoever passed with him through the turbulence of the world knew that nothing is without its meaning in the course of evolution; that the stars are still shining behind the clouds; that the gaze needs to go only far enough out in order to discover the answers to questions far more comprehensive than the restricted area hemming in the thinking of so many persons at that time. Space and time once more became profound and expansive when Rudolf Steiner spoke. He illuminated "the spiritual backgrounds of the World War,55 the ascent and the descent of the various cultures, the mission of the epochs following Atlantis, the antithesis between East and West, the questions addressed by the spiritual world to the forces of the soul and ego in man. He described how man lives together with the Folk Spirits while awake and asleep. He proclaimed the spirit of Michael and the duties resting upon those who definitely desire to battle for Him. He described the events of the day in such a way that they cast aside their impenetrable masks and disclosed themselves as earthly reflections of a great cosmic conformity to law.
He put questions which are addressed to every human being, and others which were addressed especially to those carrying on the war. Thus, in the public lectures of February 15 and 16, the human question “What is immortal in the human being?” and the special question "Why do 'they5 call the people of Fichte and Schiller a barbarian people?” He rejected invincibly anything that was clearly untruthful and an evil byword, the fog of propaganda, the fog which had come to rest like a poisoned breath upon the souls of human beings. After such lectures those who were inwardly awake could once more hear the flowing of the spiritual fountain and could draw from it strength, calm, clear vision, and a stout heart.
In Hannover and Bremen, he spoke on The Rejuvenating Forces of the German Folk Soul, dealing with the spirits of the peoples and the essential members of the human being; the three human types in the East, the Middle, and the West. Once more he cast light upon the spiritual evolution of humanity through great examples in the history of the world, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Tauler, Angelus Silesius and Jacob Boehme, John Stuart Mill, Emerson. He included both those strong in thinking and in will and the apparently delicate, spiritually powerful persons, who, like Novalis, brought into expression in words the light of the spirit. Here again he repeated the emphatic admonition to live consciously with the dead and to learn to see into the events of the times in their spiritual aspect and to surmount them.
During the period between February 22 and March 23 he continued this activity in Berlin, Leipzig, Nuremberg, and Munich, seeking to bring the background of contemporary events into a clear light of spiritual reflection, and to encourage every individual person, no matter how small the role he might be playing in this tremendous world drama, to bear in full consciousness his grave responsibility. In Berlin he continued further for the members the Reflections on the Times, and spoke to them on March 16 regarding the difficulties of the spiritual way. The public lectures were also continued. In Nuremberg he described the intimate relation between clairvoyant experiences and moral impulses, the influences from the spiritual Hierarchies and the dead through the etheric forces, and the metamorphoses brought about in this way in the course of history. He emphasized the duties which arise in this way of schooling oneself in spirit, soul, and body. In the latter connection he pointed out that Eurythmy is at the opposite pole from the nature of sport: that is, the difference is the development of the body according as it is based upon a physiological and mechanical way of thinking or a spiritual way. In Munich there followed explanations of immortality in the human being and life between death and rebirth.
Dr. Steiner returned to Dornach on March 26. The work on the building had been diligently continued in his absence, but all were awaiting further directives. A provisional lecture room had been annexed to the Schreinerei. By Easter of this year a stage had been erected in this annex for the first production of parts of Goethe5s Faust. Chairs had taken the place of planks arranged among the machines. At length the huge workshop and the lecture hall were completely separated, and the annexed lecture room served for all programs.
In the first lecture, on March 27, he spoke of methods and variations in supersensible observation, dealing with "the three kinds of clairvoyance." He emphasized the necessity for all who undertake this way of knowledge to learn to distinguish clearly between truth and error, the objective and the subjective, and to realize that in the supersensible one must observe as carefully and exactly as in a laboratory, learning to determine exactly what part of the supersensible experience comes out of the person himself and what part out of the surrounding world. Especially precise in such observation must be the differentiation between those parts of the content of perception which arise out of one's own sensible-supersensible bodily structure and what parts appear to the person out of the surrounding world. Many errors occur at the present time in the case of persons who play the role of "clairvoyants" on the basis of atavistic capacities and not self-achieved spiritual discipline. Such "clairvoyants” lack insight and precision in differentiating the subjective from the objective. A passage from Dr. Steiner dealing with this important admonition will clarify this matter.
“It can actually be designated as a law that, if the clairvoyant experience begins with glorious pictures, especially with pictures in color, this is a kind of clairvoyance which is due to processes occurring within the person himself. I emphasize this because it may be valuable in research in the spiritual world. Just as anatomy and physiology carry on research in the processes of digestion and other processes, so likewise is there great value in carrying on research by this other method in the spiritual background of human processes. But it would be very harmful if one should fall into some kind of illusion—if one should fall into any sort of illusion and not interpret these in the right way.
“If one should believe that such a faculty of clairvoyance^ coining to manifestation without the appropriate preparation, can bring to manifestation anything more than what is occurring in the human being and is being projected into the objective world,—if one should believe that through such a type of clairvoyance one could draw near, in a certain sense, to the Cosmic Powers ruling the world, to the dominant spiritual forces, one would be grievously deceived ... Not everything which is discovered by the way of clairvoyance is—I wish to use this radical expression—deserving of reverence; but everything deserves to be learned."
He thus impressed upon his students the importance of learning to differentiate between the subjective and the objective in clairvoyance and also between clairvoyance directed inward and that directed outward. We emphasize this for the reason that opponents who thought themselves capable of passing judgment in this area without any orientation expressed their doubt here and there about the objectivity of the clairvoyant research of Rudolf Steiner. But, in truth, he alone in the present age had mastered, through exact experience, the precise indications of difference between the subjective and objective, between illusion and concrete perception. He had described and formulated the indications of each type of supersensible perception and its individual content as exactly as the physicist or the chemist determines the nature and the content of his observation in the laboratory. In these lectures and many others later, Rudolf Steiner emphasized expressly that, in entering upon this new realm of knowledge, one must accept stricter requirements than in research in the sensible-physical world:
“In the physical world of the senses we first have correct perceptions and we then proceed to reflection and only thus arrive at scientific judgments. Upon entering into the spiritual world, the process must be reversed. There we must first develop the concepts—strive intensely to enter objectively into spiritual science. Otherwise we can never be certain that any kind of observation in the spiritual world is interpreted by us in the right sense. There science must actually precede vision. And it is precisely this which is so unsatisfactory to many: the fact that they must apply themselves to the study of spiritual science.”
In other words, supersensible research requires more than research in the sense world an intense determination for tireless learning, fundamental preparation, unsparing self-observation, the exclusion of all the subjective, and the most exact testing of every experience with respect to its objective validity. But, however difficult this way may be, it is absolutely necessary for man's further development:
“The more we advance toward the future of our evolution on earth, so much the less will human beings be able to exist without the drying up of the life of the soul unless they are able to take into their knowledge the results of this clairvoyance...
“Persons who strive to arrive at a vision of the higher worlds in an impersonal way, in the way described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment^ persons who do not permit themselves to shrink back from entering upon this difficult but sure path, will develop within themselves in connection with their clairvoyance something impersonal, most of all a higher interest in the objective knowledge of the world, in that which occurs in the realm of the cosmic and in the realm of historical development."
It was this for which Rudolf Steiner desired to educate persons in those grievous and decisive historic hours in the midst of the fury of war: to develop within oneself, out of an objective knowledge of supersensible cosmic backgrounds, a clear and true view of historical events.
Day after day the practical work continued, while in the evenings the cognitional labor upon the building of humanity went forward. In the pregnant language of a poet, Albert Steffen once described the task to which this Dornach building was dedicated:
“which was intended to be a place for the meeting of the spirits of all the peoples, where every nation may be permitted to stand as a representative of humanity, even if always in a different manner of transformation, but all equally to the extent that they practice self-knowledge.”
At Easter time, Rudolf Steiner gave two important spiritual gifts to the friends working at Dornach: on April 2 and 3, lectures on The Baldur Myth and the Good Friday Mystery and an Easter lecture dealing with The Three Faust Figures. In the first lectures he answered the question arising out of Celtic and Germanic folklore: Who is Baldur? Baldur, who descended into the realm of darkness, was a representative of the humanity which had lost the earlier faculty of clairvoyance. The forces thus rendered inactive in clairvoyance were used by humanity in the following epochs for development of the intellect. Earthly intelligence and purely materialistic knowledge extinguished the ancient power of vision. But Christ descended into the realm of darkness and redeemed these forces. The path from Good Friday to Easter Sunday can become for man a resurrection of the spiritual power of vision in the new form.
Rudolf Steiner presented his Easter message in the form of a conversation of a teacher with his pupil in an ancient Nordic Mystery center:
“Baldur is not within the visible. Since you as a human being needed those formative forces, those vitalizing formative forces which you were permitted to take in at an earlier time half consciously, they work now without your knowledge in your inner being in order that you may take nothing away from them through your intellect. Because you needed these forces within the invisible, Baldur has disappeared out of the realm of the visible, has withdrawn to that place where there is the realm of your own subconscious inner being ...
“The God Baldur is in the underworld; he is together with Hel; he works upon you in the subconscious. Sunken away and flowed away is Baldur's realm of sunlight...
“Baldur is in the realm of Hel, but Christ has descended into the realm of Hel, into the realm of your own subconscious human nature. There he gives life to Baldur. And if the human being immerses himself deeply enough in that which he has become in the course of the earthly evolution, he finds there again the rejuvenating formative force.”
Easter witnessed the birth of an important impulse, creative for the future, for it brought on April 4, 1915 the first presentation in Eurythmy of the Easter scene in Faust. No work of art could be better suited for bringing the reality of the spiritual world to manifestation than just this Easter scene, where Faust decides of his own free will to pass through the portal of death, but experiences in supersensible vision in this decisive moment the choruses of the Hierarchies, of the dead, of the spiritual. And no contemporary art could be better suited than Eurythmy for bringing to manifestation in word, movement, color, and form this supersensible element. Previously existing artistic forms of expression had always been inadequate, because all their elements were drawn exclusively from the sensible-physical methods of thinking of the past century. Here, however, a form of art was provided whose own system of laws originate out of a real vision of the spiritual world, thus rendering possible for the first time an interpretation of spiritual occurrences in accordance with reality.
Of course, at Easter in 1915 such productions were only in their beginnings. Eurythmy had not quite three years of development behind it. Only very gradually could the numerous directives of Rudolf Steiner for the art of the stage be developed. But, just as the first steps of an infant are interesting and anticipate the later ease of movement, so out of these first attempts in Eurythmy there developed the great productions of Faust with their plenitude of forms of expression. In this initial presentation, for example, a first attempt was made to accompany the changing series of pictures of the spiritual content through intense changes in color on the stage—this resulting from previous directives of Dr. Steiner regarding the nature of the colors. For example, in this first presentation of the scene marked by the words "Christ is risen,55 the previously dark color tones of the scenery were changed into brilliantly shining red. We have already described the character of red. This directive was continued in later presentations, in that Eurythmy productions for the most part occur before a blue background, whereas only at the Easter festival a brilliant red in the front curtain was substituted. When the Faust presentations later passed over from Eurythmy to the dramatic form, the element of color and its changing tones continued to play an essential role in the formation of the stage picture. There was still a long way to travel between this Easter festival of 1915 and the dramatic climax of the Faust festival season of decades later. But it is worth while from time to time to turn back in thought to the source when one has been enjoying the broad stream of the present.
This first Eurythmy presentation of parts of Faust was followed by the lectures already mentioned on The Three Faust Figures. Rudolf Steiner clarified the essential significance of this human figure by reference to the historical antithesis between St. Augustine and Faustus, the Manichean bishop, and by reference to the legends of the meeting between Erasmus of Rotterdam with Faustus Andrelinus in Basel, and to the figure of the medieval Faust and Goethe's lofty work.
On April 10 Dr. Steiner spoke for the first time publicly in Basel on what was approaching its completion in Dornach: A Dornach Building in Its Form as a House for Spiritual Science.
After this birth of a new artistic impulse in Dornach, he left for a period of lecturing between April 15 and 23 in Berlin, continuing the series of lectures begun in March. He spoke publicly on The Stage of Thoughts Resulting from German Idealism; Sleep and Death from the Point of View of Spiritual Science; Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of the World. The lecture to the group of members illuminated from a new point of view the nature of man as a member in the great cosmic organism, the beings of Hierarchies working in human thinking, feeling, willing and in karma. The fundamental motive in all cases was to integrate into the great sphere of world evolution the human being, only apparently restricted to the earthly limits.
Dr. Steiner was in Dornach from April 30 till May 5 for lecturing and for work on the building. He went into Austria for the period of May 6-18. While in Dornach, he continued his explanation of the first steps on the path to initiation and the stages of clairvoyance. During the journey he spoke in Vienna, Prague, and Linz. The public lectures in Vienna called for a courageous recognition of signs of destiny clearly manifest in the midst of the war. He lectured on Supersensible Knowledge and Its Strengthening Power of Soul in Our Fateful Time, and on Man's Destiny in the Light of the Knowledge of Spiritual Worlds. The lectures to members of the Society gave fortification of inner life through a description of the spiritual relation with the dead, with those who had fallen in the war, and who might become helpers toward the future. He gave directives also for self-discipline and in reference to illness and healing.
In Prague the substance of the Vienna lectures was given to larger circles. Besides lecturing publicly, he participated in the dedication on May 15 of a new center for intensified work. Fruitful work was being greatly aided in Prague by Professor Adolf Hauffen and Frau Hauffen, who led one of the Groups and whose house was a center of scientific and spiritual culture, often a gratifying home for Rudolf Steiner during his visit to the city. On the occasion of the dedication of the new meeting place for the Group, he spoke to the members concerning the statue upon which he was working in Dornach, the central figure of which is the Representative of Humanity, the Christ. During the visit to Linz, the same subjects were prominent in the lecturing, but also a description of the work at Dornach.
During this period he was tirelessly traveling. Even in the midst of the war with all its difficulties in travel, it is remarkable that so much freedom for spiritual work was still preserved. The time of closed boundaries and almost insurmountable hindrances in obtaining permits for travel had not yet begun. The good old traditions with reference to fruitful exchange of thought among the human communities still held sway, in spite of political and economic restrictions. The idea still prevailed that, although human beings separate themselves in the midst of a struggle, yet all must keep themselves open to the inflow of spiritual forces, especially if a spiritual victory is considered more important than the physical. The good tradition was still preserved that only the free spiritual power of man can arrive at the loftiest achievement.
At Whitsuntide Rudolf Steiner created and bestowed new forces through the work on the Dornach building. The Whitsun lecture of May 22, 1915, supplemented the Easter lecture regarding the three figures of Faust, and it ended with the Whitsun esoteric poem which could serve as a measure of value in this perplexing time for those who through meditation made it a source of strength:
Where sense-cognition ends,
There first the portal stands
Which opens to the inner being
Realities of life.
The soul creates the key
When strong it grows within
Through battle which the Cosmic Powers
Do wage on its own ground
Against the human powers,
When of itself it banishes,
The sleep which veils in night
Of spirit powers of knowledge
At boundary of the senses.
As a second step toward the future presentation of the Faust, the Ariel scene, the beginning of the Second Part, was presented in Eurythmy on the Dornach stage. This likewise was a first beginning, which later came to adequate expression in the building itself with its expansive dimensions, suitable for the presentation of both the cosmic and the earthly spheres. The Dornach lectures between May 22 and June 3 constituted a supplementation of the experience of the Ariel scene in Faust. Here Faust experiences the nature of the Spirit of the Earth as he awakens to the Music of the Spheres in the sunrise. Rudolf Steiner added to this artistic vision of Goethe, by means of his spiritual research, its real backgrounds. He described the earth as a real spiritual organism, which sleeps during the vegetative process of the summer and awakens in the concentration of winter. Within these great pendulum swings of life and consciousness of higher organisms during the course of the year, we human beings stand with our smaller arcs and rhythms. We ourselves also experience in spirit and soul the difference between summer and winter, not only in the course of the year but also in the course of a life. The mood of Whitsuntide leads to the decision to bring our strengthened wakeful soul life into the sleep of the Earth Spirit in summer. The ancient proverb of the Rosicrucians is significant also in relation to the course of the year: that, in summer, which comes to its climax at Whitsuntide, we experience more intensively the Principle of God the Father in the cosmos—“ex Deo nascimur”; in the second half of the year, which reaches its climax at Christmas time, we experience the Principle of God the Son—“in Christo morimur”; spiritual knowledge leads to resurrection as the gift of Whitsuntide—“per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.”
These lectures contained at the same time significant information regarding the situation of the times, the karma of materialism, the excessive development of the principle of nationality, the spiritual missions of small peoples—for example, the Swiss—who fulfill their own nature and work in separation from the great complexes of peoples as guardians and nurturers of spiritual substance. To them Rudolf Steiner attributed important tasks in the life of the peoples in general. These reflections came to their climax in the "Faust Mood”： “Only he is worthy of freedom and of life who must achieve them every day."
Between June 10 and July 6 Rudolf Steiner lectured in a number of German cities. He continued the lectures begun in Berlin in the winter of 1914-45, beginning on June 10 with a lecture on The Statue of the Representative of Mankind. He emphasized the fact that this work of art was not born only out of the principles of sculpture, but out of clairvoyant, spiritual vision of the Being of the Christ, between Lucifer and Ahriman as Opposing Powers, as these are there presented. "This has nothing to do with mere symbolism. On the contrary, every single characteristic in the three beings has been created in the most minute details out of spiritual-scientific vision." He described how in this statue there was to come to expression the truth that the Christ does not, in the human sense, oppose these Antagonistic Forces; that He does not meet them in hostility or with the forces of destruction, which would not correspond with His being; that through His very existence He influences those Opposing Powers to overcome themselves:
“The Christ is neither one who hates nor one who loves without justification. He is not stretching out his hand in order to break the wings of Lucifer. On the contrary, Christ is the one who stretches his hand out because he must do this by reason of his inner being. He does not break the wings of Lucifer; but Lucifer, there above, cannot endure what streams out from this hand, and he himself breaks his wings. For this reason there must be expressed in the figure of Lucifer the fact that his wings are not broken by Christ, but that he himself breaks the wings ・・・ This is self-knowledge in Lucifer, the experience of himself. The same is true of Ahriman. Christ does nothing to either of them, so that neither the left hand nor the right hand is stretched out in such a way as if He were doing something to Lucifer or Ahriman. He does nothing to them, but they bring upon themselves what happens to them. With this statement, we stand upon the basis on which spiritual science lays hold upon our age in order to provide a conception of the Christ which is right in its nature...
“The ideal will arise in the future of conceiving of the nature of the Christ Being according to what He is, not according to what He does or will do when the earth shall have reached the end of its evolution: a Being who, through His essential nature causes that which must occur within the souls themselves.”
This is at the same time a symbol and also an example of our own existence. We cannot think the Opposing Forces out of the world; we can only maintain our upright position in balance between them and move forward between them in freedom:
“Such is the nature of human life. It is not of such a character that one can say: *1 flee from Lucifer; I flee from Ahriman? If one wishes to say, *1 flee from Lucifer; I flee from Ahriman/ this would not be life. This would be like a pendulum which does not swing in either direction. Human experience does actually swing, in one direction toward Lucifer, in the other direction toward Ahriman. And the important thing is that one should have no fear in regard to this. If one should endeavor to flee from Lucifer, there would be no art; if one should flee from Ahriman, there would be no external science. For all art which is not permeated by spiritual science is Luciferic, and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic. Thus does the human being swing like a pendulum in the two directions. This is the important thing and also that he shall realize it: that he should desire to be in balance and not in stillness.”
Thus did Rudolf Steiner present to human beings the middle path between the polarities and forces of the present difficult time, a vision of the spiritual backgrounds in a struggle of East, Middle, and West. He lifted this into the sphere of knowledge, where contrasts are not created in order to be eliminated, but mutually to reinforce one another, to bring about a wholesome synthesis and the awakening of intensified strength out of the balance achieved by oneself:
“It is not a question of simply rejecting the one thing or the other. On the contrary, we must be fully aware that a culture which reaches into the future consists in knowing how to bring both in the right measure into culture, what one must have in opposition to the other. And thus you see expressed in our statue, I wish to say, the whole destiny of the earth. It is simply the mission of Europe to bring about a balance between the East and the West. In the East, the pendulum swings toward one side; in the West toward the other side. For us in Europe the task is not simply to be imitators of the East or imitators of the West; on the contrary, our task is to stand in self-sufficiency upon our own basis while recognizing fully the justification of the others...
“When once our age shall have seen into these things, shall have penetrated into them in thought, in feeling, in inner experience—there need be no vain pride in this connection—then will it become clear to our age that even the most painful events of the present time are occurring for the purpose of bringing to bear upon humanity the feeling of the mission which this humanity must fulfill for the immediate future. One would like only to cherish the hope that the great events, the painful events, that humanity now experiences may bring forth a true and genuine deepening of the inner nature. It is, unfortunately, true that one by no means discovers in what is brought to expression, especially in what is given oral or literary expression, the great seriousness which our times demand of us; that much, very much still must enter into human spirits in order that this great seriousness—I should like to say this consoling seriousness—shall really so fill the inner natures of human beings that they shall then be sustained in the midst of the tasks which are assigned to them. Serious, indeed, is that which is assigned to us as our tasks; but this is a consoling, hope-filled, confidence-inspiring seriousness. One needs only to see into the fact that we are living in an age in which something great is demanded of us; but also that this great thing can be achieved by us. Then will it be impossible even in this age to arrive at a pessimistic world conception.”
Thus the Dornach statue was a lofty symbol of the tasks and responsibilities entrusted to the peoples of the earth. They will fulfill these tasks only if the struggle and the balance shall not come about in hatred and pride, in physical grasp for power and mastery, but on the loftier level of the spiritual struggle and balance. The struggle must come to a balance in the organism of the total humanity on earth, polarically evolved and for this very reason living and capable of development. What a contrast between what was here given and the falsehood, routine, and phrase holding sway in the world!
In other lectures in Berlin, Elberfeld, Cologne, Dusseldorf—here under the theme Fellowship above Us, Christ within Us—Rudolf Steiner gave to human beings the inner strength to hold their heads above the dark waters. His final lecture was on the theme The Cosmic Significance of Our Sense Perception, Our Thinking, Feeling, and Willing.
Dr. Steiner then returned to Dornach to work intensely between July 17 and November 7 on the building, and at the spiritual schooling of those working with him. The reference to higher Helping Powers in preceding lectures was clarified in concrete detail at this time. Thus in his first Dornach lecture, of July 17, he spoke of the activity of higher Angelic Beings in human language: Language as the Reflection of the Life of Higher Beings. The next lecture, on The Lost Harmony between Speaking and Thinking, dealt with the separation between the development of language and the development of thinking in the present age—the increasing misuse of the sublimest words in language, such as freedom, love, righteousness, truth. He brought into contrast with this tendency in evolution the Goetheanum building as a “House of the Word,” where the noblest capacity of the human being, speech, must recover the primeval sacredness, truth, and spiritual power belonging to it.
He spoke there between July 24 and August 8 on The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A survey was here given leading deeply into the historical evolution of the Mysteries, the peoples, the epochs in culture, the metamorphoses in thinking and willing of the human being during the centuries, reaching its climax in a sublime and illuminating Christology.
In connection with the first representation through Eurythmy of Faust's Ascension, Dr. Steiner cast light in two addresses on August 14 and 15 upon the occult truths and spiritual substance in the last scenes of Faust.
An additional series of lectures between August 23 and 30 dealt with the general theme of "Necessity, Chance, Providence." Here also confused conceptions were to be freed from constant misuse. Each of these concepts has become at the present time a mere password, accepted without due reflection. But any one who wishes to become a Servant of the Word must abandon such arbitrary motivations, must give heed to the Spirit which wills to speak from a higher plane through the word. What has become subjective is thus again made objective, and what has become objective can be again recognized as the result of experiences and deeds of Spiritual Beings.
Moreover, specific problems in natural science were clarified in these lectures; for instance, on August 20 "The Mathematical-Mechanical. The Ether of Physics. Flammarion, Henri Poincare." The position taken by Rudolf Steiner at that time in contrast to the prevailing theories regarding the existence of a hypothetical ether, and regarding the real nature of the etheric, was set forth with increased intensity by him in the following years. The abstract concepts and hypotheses so constantly undergoing change and often so contradictory, ought everywhere to be subjected to spiritual research.
But there occurred also during these weeks of August and September, 1915, a clarification of concepts in social relations, not only as regards the external world, but also within the community of the Anthroposophical Society. For, in relation to Rudolf Steiner's own students, he was stricter as regards these questions, since he had bestowed upon them the means for correct formation of judgment. Whatever was still being brought into the Society in the form of confusing vagueness, subjectivism, mysticism, superficial playing with spiritual things, was inexorably rejected. For the development of spirit and soul brings to stronger manifestation what is otherwise not observed but nevertheless present in man. Once brought to the surface, these dregs drawn from the soul must be completely removed. Any one who applies himself to this task is astonished at what there becomes manifest. Transition periods may come in which all sorts of defects suddenly come to manifestation which were hitherto invisible. If the individual himself does not take care of this process of cleansing, the task must be undertaken by the community, or by its leader, of arousing him and also helping. To this end, Rudolf Steiner often resorted to an effective means: humor. But, as he said, such humor must also be serious. Through this means, a balance may be quickly restored.
During these weeks, he characterized in this way many aberrations from the right path, speaking at first impressively in serious explanations, but resorting also to art and to humor as a means of understanding. He brought clearly into consciousness the evil of a trivial play with serious things by composing the ironical "Song of Initiation" and having this produced through Eurythmy on the stage. Such cleansing storms are necessary from time to time in every community, to be followed by clear air and fresh development.
To the fostering of knowledge by means of art, one of his most beautiful creations was presented in a Eurythmy program on August 29. This composition bore the title Twelve Moods. In twelve strophes of seven lines each, are presented in succession the cosmic signs of the zodiac, each sounding forth in words its nature, its web of forces, its spiritual-dynamic contribution to the circling dance of the planetary spheres. Any one who has experienced these moving primordial pictures, the being and the motion of the fixed stars and the planets, rendered visible through Eurythmy, and the symphony of colors and tones, is inwardly impressed with the certitude of having been permitted to participate in an elemental act of creation, rendering visible on the stage the eternal harmony of macrocosm and microcosm on the earth. The human being then knows through direct vision that, in the midst of all weakness and error, he is summoned by the Godhead to become the conscious organ of a more sublime world order.
In lectures following this program, Dr. Steiner continued his process of clarification, characterizing false methods then customarily practiced of probing into the lower levels of the human soul in curiosity and with・ out reverence for the higher destiny of man. He spoke against psychoanalysis. He characterized it as "an insult to human nature." He removed the mask from this unspiritual vivisection of the soul, which at present has taken hold upon so many circles of human beings, pointing °ut its perils, its seeming knowledge and its method of thinking which only conceals the true spiritual nature of man. In contrast with such one-sided false methods, the right process is to restore the balance between the bodily and the spiritual nature of the human being. To this end Rudolf Steiner chose the most effective helper: art.
Between September 12 and 17, Dr. Steiner gave in Dornach the first course for Speech Eurythmy. Regarding the nature of this art, developed out of the laws of man's loftiest capacities in tone and speech, reference must be made to special literature.
The number of students of Eurythmy had steadily increased since its birth in the year 1912, and it had become an independent art since Easter, 1915, contributing essentially to dramatic presentation. While the war almost completely hindered further development of this art elsewhere than at Dornach, it was carried forward there systematically in further stages of development. This was aided also by courses given by Frau Kisseleff for those working on the building. Moreover, she devoted herself with great affection to courses given for children in a room released for this purpose in the home of Rudolf Steiner, who expressed himself as not being disturbed by this but on the contrary greatly pleased. Frau Kisseleff worked at that time with Frl. Mieta Waller and Frau Marie Steiner through all the material available, and received many suggestions whenever Dr. Steiner came in during studies and rehearsals. Memoirs of these days of beginning in the art of Eurythmy have been written by Frau Kisseleff and Frau Dubach-Donath.
The work in Eurythmy could be carried further also in Germany through the fact that a number of young women, already well trained in the beginnings, spent periods now and then in Berlin for this purpose. Frau Marie Steiner reported regarding the work at that time in a retrospect she wrote in the year 1925:
“After we had worked through the first material given us by Rudolf Steiner for our art, it was in great measure the poems of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in connection with which we developed our capacities of expression in Eurythmic movements. In connection with this poet we learned objectivity, line, rounded completion, dramatic gestures, mood. I tested the gestures in connection with his poems resulting naturally from dramatic feeling, and found that they corresponded with the principles of Eurythmy. I was delighted with these gestures reflected back to me in the mirror of Eurythmy and recognized in it a source for the rejuvenation of the dramatic art of expression.
“Ten years ago (1915) we worked in this way in the Motzstrasse, in the room of the friend Eugenie von Bredow, who had died. At that time the World War threatened to smother the young art in its germinal beginnings. Not a single leader of a Group was prepared to help the young women in their seemingly inopportune work. I myself then took them on. We learned a great deal in connection with Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and later with Fercher von Steinwand. Anne Marie Donath, Alice Fels, Ema Wolfram, Anne Marie Groh, Lory Smits, Edith Rohrle, Minnie Husemann worked together with me in the development of Eurythmy. And, when I returned to Dornach, I was confronted by the results of the work of Tatjana Kisseleff, who had worked diligently in the modest room of the Villa Hansi, until we could eventually move over into that white hall of the Goetheanum. As a small group we have received in that hall what we designate as the grammatical forms, the drawing of lines which correspond with the noun, the verb, the pronoun, connective words, etc. In that room, on the basis of what we had received, we planned the first scenes of supersensible occurrences from Faust, and were able to present our attempts in the Schreinerei, and, on the basis of our modest achievement, received the unlimited abundance of forms drawn by Rudolf Steiner himself for poems and musical compositions. Thus did the one thing develop out of the other.”
The first Course for Speech Eurythmy, given by Rudolf Steiner in September, 1915, made it possible for the new art to ascend one further stage in its evolution, which culminated years later in the lofty goal of the "orchestral working together of word and gesture,” inherent in the nature of Eurythmy.
In the evening lectures given for all those working in Dornach between September 16 and 27, 1915, the path was designated upon which, through methodical vitalizing and strengthening of the organization of formative forces, man can be rescued from the threatening descent of thinking into the subconscious, of vaporizing in the visionary or hardening into mere intellect. Initiation into the world above the level of humanity in the ancient Mysteries, which had become one-sided, and the likewise one-sided direction of attention to the lower nature in the present science must be supplemented by a knowledge of the supersensible in the human being, as a bridge between the two worlds, if evolution toward the future is to signify an ascent.
For one who recognizes that the contemporary modes of thinking in the individual centuries—and the corresponding spiritual and social structure of those periods—are not the results of accident, but are brought about by definite circles of human beings working systematically in a good or an evil sense, it was clear that such an effort to expand the vision of human beings into hitherto unknown so-called occult realms of knowledge would meet with the intense opposition of those persons having a special interest in preventing the mass of humanity from receiving such insights. For there is a struggle for power among certain circles all over the earth, who work, not only through external political means, but also with spiritual means. Spiritual knowledge is a lofty human task, but it can be misused for purposes of power if it falls into the wrong hands. It had fallen into such hands in great degree in the nineteenth century. In lectures between October 10 and 25 on The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century, Rudolf Steiner had the courage to turn the light of day upon these things in the background.
In the circles of such persons working with spiritual means for spiritual goals all over the earth—that is, not the charlatans who are called “occultists,” but those who have a true insight into the spiritual backgrounds and Powers behind the world, preserved through centuries of time—there have been two directions in the past century. Just as in the political struggle in social life there are the two extremes which may be called the conservative and revolutionary, those who wish to preserve and those who wish to overthrow—often with personal objectives in view—so were there at this higher level among those having an understanding of the reality of spiritual worlds some who represented the one-sided conservative element, desiring to keep all such knowledge within very limited circles, and those who realized that such a point of view was false, egotistic, and irresponsible. For, just because humanity in the nineteenth century had fallen into an abyss of ignorance of spiritual things, into the crassest materialism, it was imperative that an effort be made to render available for humanity in general the knowledge of spiritual realities to the degree that this could be justified. Only in this way could the swing of the pendulum of thinking and willing in the sole direction of materialism be balanced for the future. Rudolf Steiner said in regard to this:
“This was the situation, then, in the middle of the nineteenth century: that humanity in general—precisely civilized humanity—possessed all vision of the spiritual deep in the subconsciousness, and yet manifested only materialistic inclinations. But there were many persons who knew that there is a spiritual world; who knew that, just as we are surrounded by the air, so are we surrounded by a spiritual world. But these persons were at the same time burdened with a certain sense of responsibility, for they could not point out any direct capacity then existing in order to show that a spiritual world really exists, and yet they were unwilling to permit the outside world to sink further into its materialistic trend. Thus those persons who were initiates in the middle of the nineteenth century confronted a very special situation: the situation in which they had to say to themselves: Shall we still continue to keep in narrow circles, in the circles of the associations, what has come down to us from ancient times, and shall we simply look on while the whole of humanity and its culture and philosophy sink into materialism? Shall we just look on?
“They dared not simply look on, especially those who viewed the matter very seriously. And thus it came about that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, among those persons who were initiated, the words esotericist and exotericist took on a significance when these people were with one another varying from what this had been. They divided themselves into two parties, exotericists and esotericists. The exotericists were compared with those persons sitting in the left-wing parties in parliaments, and the esotericists with those sitting in the right-wing parties. In other words, the esotericists were those who wished still to maintain the rigid standpoint of permitting nothing to be made public of the sacred traditional knowledge and to permit nothing to be made public which might permit thinking persons to find their way into the symbolic language. The esotericists were thus in a certain sense the conservatives among the occultists.
“The exotericists—yes, the question may be asked: What, then, were the exotericists? These were really those persons who wished to make a part of the esoteric exoteric. Fundamentally considered, the exotericists were not at all different from the esotericists except that they were inclined to give heed to their responsibility and to make public a part of the esoteric knowledge. At that time this brought about really a widely expansive discussion, of which the external world naturally knew nothing, but which was especially excited in the middle of the nineteenth century.”
Whereas in earlier centuries, however, these persons themselves possessed in marked degree the capacity for supersensible, clairvoyant vision, such capacities had almost completely disappeared even in such circles during the last century, because of the hardening of the human corporeal being. For this reason the endeavors to reestablish the lost contact with the spiritual world seemed often like the purposeless efforts of a drowning person striving with unsuitable means to keep his head above water. Such unsuitable means—indeed, endeavors producing the opposite from what was intended—were, for example, spiritism and mediumism, which appeared so suddenly in the midst of the nineteenth century. But, as we have said, these efforts, based in part upon good intentions and in part upon the opposite, resulted in a manner quite contrary to what was necessary. They produced caricatures of the spiritual in "phenomena of materialization33 within the sensible sphere, or they subdued the consciousness, as in the case of mediumism, instead of pointing out the spiritual within the physical and liberating it, instead of strengthening consciousness and freeing it from the bonds of the corporeal. Rudolf Steiner described all these unsuitable endeavors of the nineteenth century and a later period and emphatically rejected them.
He described also the false special purposes followed by certain circles in dealing with personalities such as H. P. Blavatsky and others possessed of atavistic capacities. He described the false paths followed by the Western so-called secret orders and the Oriental so-called secret teachings, resting upon ancient Tibetan and Indian methods and unsuited to the modem age. For there is an "occultism" of the Orient and the Occident which is exerting a far greater power than the ordinary person imagines at the present time. It is not by relating thrilling fables either in approval or disapproval, as is very customary at the present time, but only through facing the facts and substituting something better, truer, in the place of these things that it will be possible to confront what actually does exist and overcome such influences through a clarity of mind based upon true knowledge of the spirit.
The battles behind those curtains are more real than the books of history or the daily newspapers are able to narrate. Rudolf Steiner removed the magic hood from this Oriental and Occidental, esoteric and exoteric, secret knowledge. For the real battle was going on in those hidden areas. But he was determined that the battle should be fought in full view. He confronted those dark extremes with the spirit of the Middle, caused the rays of the central sun to shine in those opaque corners— the sun of a wakeful knowledge of the Spirit. The fact was made known that the endeavors in the Orient and the Occident to cause the spiritual to flow again into the contemporary age were being carried on with false means, damaging to the higher truth, or with political and egoistic motives, or at the very least with unsuitable means.
It is an entirely natural and typical phenomenon that his exposure of the failure and the errors in these things resulted in the most embittered, passionate, hate-filled opposition from that side. Those who understood what was at stake endeavored at first to win him over; when this did not succeed, then to silence him; when that also failed, to ridicule him; when this was ineffective, to oppose him and his work with all possible means: to destroy it if at all possible. This took on such grotesque forms that, in order to make his work impossible, they accused him of precisely the thing that he himself was battling against. Nothing is more grotesque, for instance, than when one called him a "Jesuit— in order to convince people that he belonged to an exclusive clerical circle, in spite of the fact that he had rejected the false methods of thinking in that circle in a lecture cycle of 1911 and many later lectures, while others at the same time endeavored to attribute to him certain Oriental and Occidental tendencies in secret societies—a senseless contradiction of the entire content and goal of his work. For he was the very one who had rebuked in the strongest language precisely the practice of bringing external struggling for power into the sphere of purely spiritual problems of knowledge. Indeed, the members in this manifold group of opponents did not observe in their passionate enmity that these various accusations reciprocally contradicted one another. One who studies objectively the goal of Rudolf Steiners work and its content cannot fail to come to the realization that he could not be affected by such methods. Although many difficulties and much hindrance can be placed in the way of such a personality by these methods, they have nothing to do with the truth, and will in the course of time refute themselves. The fog which temporarily hinders the shining through of the sun does not remove the sun from the world. The world empire most powerful politically could not hinder the development of Christianity; the most powerful religious organization could not repress the knowledge brought to manifestation by Galileo and Copernicus. Still less can this be accomplished at the present time, because it moves in a swifter rhythm.
What was it toward which Rudolf Steiner steadfastly strove, in spite of all this clearly foreseen opposition, because he had recognized his objective as true and necessary? He saw that the ideas still held firmly out of ancient times were causing humanity to sink into chaos, only a few possessing knowledge, the generality following in ignorance and helpless faith. First, the generality of mankind had been permitted to sink into a sickly, spiritually smothering materialism; then was the attempt made in horror to cause the spiritual once more to "How" in various ways into these spheres unfit for life. But all of these experiments of the nineteenth century, only seeming to call the spiritual back into life, represented by such things as spiritism, mediumism, the occultism of the present day, bore likewise the stamp of this century, the deadly breath of materialistic thinking. These people could no longer free themselves from the inferior spirits they had evoked. Those few who understood could no longer continue to be merely "esotericists" while humanity continued to sink into complete ignorance; and the “exotericists”—to the extent that they were persons of good will—-lost the capacity to estimate what the intellect of the nineteenth century was still capable of taking in and elaborating. Both this complete inactivity and hasty activity were lacking in balance, the sensitivity for the human situation, the love for man which could extend help to humanity on the basis of actual inner and outer situations. To one group there was lacking a knowledge of the supersensible; having lost the capacity of clairvoyance they depended only on ancient content and symbols. The other group lacked an exact knowledge of the realm of the senses, the scientific achievements of the age.
Only through the union in a single person of exact clairvoyance achieved through spiritual self-discipline and a complete mastery of the achievements of science could a way of escape be found out of these extremes. The essential fact in the personality of Rudolf Steiner was that he united both of these realms in himself in full consciousness. He was familiar with all that the "esotericists" guarded—indeed, he expanded this vastly through his own capacities. But he knew also the world which the “exotericists” wished to rescue or to control. But for this very reason he rejected the egoistic guarding or mastering; he desired only to bring into the spiritually necessary synthesis both of these realms which come into contact in every human being, and thus to aid in creating a new point of departure for the molding of the future. For that reason he summoned human beings to recognize the harmfulness of the action of those strongholds of the ancient, battling against the new. For this reason he provided for those who had the will to take the path into the future the measured advance in spiritual schooling, in order that every step might be taken after full reflection, with awareness of the harmony of macrocosm and microcosm, world and man, spiritual plan and earthly fulfillment. For this reason those lectures in October, 1915, in Dornach once more came to their climax—after a clear and expansive survey of wrong paths and perils in the course of history—in a systematic description of the contact within the single human being of inner freedom and spiritual cosmic necessity.
Of the spiritual knowledge of the esotericists he gave as much as could be grasped by intellect, insight, and awakened inner strength of the present-day human being. He showed how such an insight into the spiritual essential nature of the world must render fruitful also the formative activity on earth. He gave Anthroposophy, as esoteric knowledge of the spirit and exoteric social duty.
Such clear and precise presentation of actual facts in this sphere must lead unavoidably to hostility and battle. The circles which were holding the strongholds mentioned made war against the one who would not subject himself to their sphere of control. And those who knew nothing whatever of those secret fortresses and their influences erroneously associated the very one who was guarding against these strongholds with what he was opposing—for the simple reason that he spoke about them. The inference was that one who mentioned such things must be connected with them. Such primitive logic is frequently taken nowadays for the truth. The truth that the spiritual pioneer must look into hidden caves in order to warn others against them, and then ascend on distant mountain peaks in order to gain an expansive survey—this is alien to the thinking of the ordinary human being. It was characteristic of the upright loneliness and unlimited love for humanity of a great personality to confront this manifold tempest of hatred and error and to remain steadfast. It was Rudolf Steiner who uttered these things before the world for the first time; for that reason his struggle had to be an extraordinary one. But he was one of those unusual persons who could endure only a sphere of clarity and truthfulness around himself, both in immediate proximity and also in a wider expanse—like a sun which permits no darkening around it. It was a battle for which that of Michael against the Dragon could be an example. It was fought with open visor and bare weapon. When there must be battle and settlement in the spiritual and the worldly, then must there be a clear explanation: Why, how, to what end?
One of the great tragic examples in the course of history is the fact that so many persons at the present time have not the least understanding of why Rudolf Steiner was so wickedly opposed; that all the small, evil, superficial arguments so often heard have no relation to what is essential; that, if viewed at a higher level, he was often battling for those who slandered him because they believed the misleading arguments of his real opponents and repeated them; that he was opposing the very things attributed to him; that he was the pathfinder and vanguard for all those human beings who wished to preserve in freedom all that was good in the spiritual tradition of the Mysteries in human history; but that he wished to render all this accessible to every one and knew that only the metamorphosis of the ancient to the new knowledge of the Spirit could rescue our time, and was worthy of it.
It was, indeed, a Michael battle which every one who has achieved a clear insight can and must carry on unitedly with him if there is love for the future.
What Rudolf Steiner undertook decisively in those years was really the removal of tremendous ruins which prevented the erection of a new building.
In the lectures which followed immediately from October 31 to November 7 on the theme Significant Aspects of the Spiritual Life in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, he contrasted with that negative and perilous experiment in the use of occult forces in the past century the characteristic endeavor of that epoch to bring to bear upon that materialistic time, at least through the means of imaginative literature, certain spiritual ideas and phenomena. He referred in this connection, for example, to the strange writings of Gutzkow and Krasinski. Regarding some of these strange writings of the middle of the nineteenth century, he said: “These examples ought to show us that there was a feeling in the hearts, in the inner being, of people that important things occur in the invisible worlds.” Because of this feeling, not accompanied by actual knowledge, such works bear the stamp of the thrilling or frightening. People were feeling their way in the darkness at the Threshold of the spiritual world without being able to find a doorway. The persons in the work just mentioned still bore within them an atavistic spirit substance out of the past, and with this were struggling against the crude present, void of the Spirit. Such knowledge of the Spirit as is necessary for our age was lacking. Possessing nothing better like so many persons of that time, Gutzkow conjures up the occult realm of Tibet, viewed with the unknowing, curious eyes of the Occident. Krasinski confronts a cultivated man possessing atavistic capacities with one belonging to the rising type of the power-personality of "completely Tartar-Mongolian inner character,” representing a world which has taken over the Ahrimanic residues of the ruined epoch of Atlantis. All of this was observed by those persons of the nineteenth century as being at work in the world, but they lacked the spiritual weapons for combatting it. They were those who had an inkling of the Spirit but not actual knowledge. They sought the Spirit in the past and in remote regions, not in the present and in their very midst. This is a tremendous tableau of an epoch bearing the stamp of a transition from the ancient to the modem.
Once more in these lectures Rudolf Steiner brought to realization the tremendous spiritual earthquake the rumblings of which could be heard in the last third of the nineteenth century by persons of delicate sensibilities, but which became manifest to the mass of humanity only through the catastrophes of war and social upheavals. He closed these lectures with the words:
“The spiritual world exists; but it is possible for human beings to turn away from it. The materialistic view of the world might be called the great conspiracy against the Spirit. The materialistic world view is not only an error; it is a conspiracy, the conspiracy against the Spirit.
“In spite of the fact that I could sketch this with only a few strokes, I hope it will lay hold upon your souls so that they may work in these ideas. It is precisely one who recognizes the spiritual-scientific world view who ought to know something of the impelling forces in the evolution of the world in the midst of which humanity lives."
For the spiritually wakeful human being it is not sufficient that he longs for the spiritual worlds or is convinced of their existence; he must learn to look into the faces of evil spiritual forces in the background. For the very first indispensable step toward the overcoming of such Powers is to know of their existence. Orle who is walking on the path to the Christ must also come consciously into contact with Lucifer and Ahriman; otherwise he will deceive himself and his fellow men. Our age needs persons who, fortified by such a view, strengthened by such a battle, do not permit themselves to be deceived by any of the many deceptive appearances. The twentieth century needs as no other time has needed love to one's fellow men, wakeful and always active without compromising. It is this which Rudolf Steiner wished to cultivate in human beings during those decades of his work following the turn of the century.
The epoch of the social struggles and crises was approaching. It is entrusted to such persons. They will find a solution if what is flowing out of the spiritual fountainheads is no longer dammed up but given free course.
At the end of the seven-year period just described, from 1909 to 1916, the seed for a new formation of the social life began to send out its first roots in the mother soil of spiritual-artistic creative work. A world of cognitional forces began to direct their influence upon it. The moment was approaching when it must come into the light of day.
After this lengthy period in Dornach, Rudolf Steiner set out; again in the middle of November for lecture trips to Berlin, Stuttgart, and Munich. He began in Berlin on November 16 with a cycle of six lectures entitled Concerning the Formation of Destiny and Life after Death. In the introductory words he said:
“Since I am permitted with great satisfaction to be once more in your midst after a long period of absence, I should like to devote the three lectures of this week primarily to directing our thought to such knowledge of the spiritual world as is either closely or remotely connected with that which must necessarily occupy us and deeply move us in the profoundly significant, decisive events of the times. It is not upon these events themselves that our look shall be directed, but upon the deeply puzzling questions which must arise in all souk, in all feelings, in connection with these events, distressing questions regarding the destiny of man and the world. It is to this that we shall apply our attention.”
He began by clearing away the materialistic conceptions which undertake to explain the single human being exclusively through the materialistic theories of heredity, and he then set forth the spiritual-scientific knowledge that, at the birth of every human being, an individuality which already has passed through many lives on earth enters into the physical structure of the earthly body, with its qualities derived from heredity, and to which the incarnating individuality must adapt himself:
“If it were possible to see—if such a hypothesis deserved to be considered even only for a moment,—if it were possible to see what it is possible for this external human being to become solely through the forces of heredity, the forces belonging to the substance which is passed over from the parents, we should see that, through such forces, the human being could not become what he is. Into these forces which represent our external physical existence, and into these substances and systems of organs, we must cause to stream that which we as soul bring with us; must fill out with this the form that we receive from the parents and adapt it to the individual personality that we ourselves are.
“As I have said, it is a stupid hypothesis, but we can set it up in order to make this dear:—Let us ask ourselves once what could have come about if all of you could have been born exclusively from your parents? We disregard karma in this connection, turn our thoughts away from the fact that, naturally, we are born in certain specific families, and we consider only the physical heredity. All of you would then be alike as human beings. You would all have exclusively the universal physical human character. The fact that you are an entirely specific individual human being, that so many individual human beings are sitting here before us5—this is due to the fact that the universal human pattern is chiseled out in its finest organization by the spiritual individuality who comes out of the spiritual world and enters into that which is given by the father and the mother.”
Thus earthly destiny results from two force-components: the hereditary stream and the individuality formed as a unique being out of earlier lives on earth. It is impossible to present the tremendous richness of varied knowledge given by Rudolf Steiner in such lectures to render possible insight into the processes of birth and death, earthly life and spiritual existence after death. This can be studied in his works. He himself referred in that lecture to the stages which must be covered, step by step, by the spiritual researcher:
“It is a false preconception if one supposes that a person who sees into the spiritual world can at once provide information about everything. Just as things must be investigated gradually here in the physical world, from epoch to epoch, so likewise with regard to the spiritual life things must be investigated gradually. But precisely the absolute reciprocal harmony among individual spiritual facts, when these are discovered gradually through research, the way in which they come to manifestation again and again,—even for a person who has as yet no vision into the spiritual world, this fact can serve as evidence of the correctness of what is achieved by honest research in the spiritual world.”
In these lectures he touched upon special questions which had become very actual because of the sudden death of so many young persons in the war—for example, the difference in the spiritual structure and the life after death in the case of persons who passed through the portal of death before or after the middle of life, approximately the thirty-fifth year, the destiny of "younger” and of "older" souls, the help which is given in the spiritual evolution of the whole of humanity through souls which enter into the spiritual world with unused forces. He threw light upon the effect of real or seeming accidents upon the development of destiny; upon the prophetic knowledge possessed by the higher nature in the human being, generally unconscious in the course of our life; upon changes occurring in the process of evolution through a natural death or a violent death; the life of memory and intercourse with the dead; the help which each of the two worlds can give to the other. He also once more described, with numerous examples, “the darkness of the present spiritual life and the carelessness of thinking in our time," and the upbuilding forces in every human being in the midst of these destructive influences. Through these upbuilding forces, their discipline, schooling, strengthening, a future spiritual culture must be introduced at just this time.
On November 22 he spoke in Ulm at the cremation and funeral of one of the oldest and most active members in the Movement, Frl. Sophie Stinde, who had aided, together with her friend Countess Kalkreuth, in the very earliest beginnings of the work in Munich, and who had died on November 17. Out of the substance of this life he created an unforgettable picture which lifted the significance of such human individualities above the merely subjective existence into the objective sphere, where work continues for the living and the dead.
The public lectures in Stuttgart and Munich pointed to The Stage of Thoughts Resulting from German Idealism with Reference to Our Fateful Time and also The Eternal Forces of the Human Soul. Thereafter he continued in Berlin the cycle begun in November on the formation of destiny, and he ended the public lectures on December 16 with the theme Fichte's Spirit in Our Midst. On the basis of a description of the course of Fichte's life, he inspired his hearers to bring to life again in our midst this great human being and his writings, to concentrate upon those goals which he himself pointed out as the loftiest:
“A special sense, a new sense, said Fichte, must become conscious within one if that existence in the Spirit is to be experienced which renders intelligible all other existence. CI am, and I am with all my goals only in a supersensible world!' This is one of the sayings which Fichte himself coined and which is like a primary motif throughout everything that Fichte uttered in the whole course of his life ...
“And at that time Fichte impressed upon his bearers this existence in the supersensible, this living in the spiritual, this mastery of a supersensible-sensible, by saying: The new sense is, therefore, the sense for the Spirit; the sense for which only Spirit is and nothing else, and for which the other, the given existence, takes on the form of the Spirit and is transformed into it. “The result is that we can feel Fichte to be a legendary hero, a hero of the Spirit, who can always be seen in the Spirit as a leader of his people if this people only understands itself truly!”
The friends gathered for a pre-Christmas festival on December 19 to hear an address by Rudolf Steiner on The Christmas Thought and the Mystery of the Ego. The Tree of the Cross and the Golden Legend.
At Christmas he arrived again in Dornach. There the ancient popular Christinas plays, simple, but filled with profound inner Christmas con284 tent, were studied and for the first time presented on the stage of the Schreinerei. These plays had been collected by Karl Julius Schröer, the teacher of Rudolf Steiner, out of a Transylvanian tradition, and Rudolf Steiner had revived them for the present age and prepared them for the stage: the Nativity Play and the Play of the Three Kings. In an introduction to a new edition, Frau Marie Steiner says in regard to the previous history of those Christmas plays, now recovered from oblivion by Rudolf Steiner and made a treasure for the present time:
“The profound love which united Rudolf Steiner with his old teacher Karl Julius Schröer, whose lifework he felt had not been sufficiently honored, blended with memories of those ancient Christinas plays, which Schröer discovered among the German colonists in Hungary, and regarding which he often spoke to his student, repeating with great vividness the manner of presentation of these plays by the peasants. Although Schröer published them at that time, accompanied by a literary and historical essay, they received no attention from the public. They remained a lost, forgotten treasure until Rudolf Steiner brought them into the light of day—and of the Christmas tree —by stimulating the members of the Anthroposophical Society to present these plays during the Christmas period, and gave the directives for the appropriate style for this, which he alone was capable of doing on the basis of his knowledge of the tradition and of the plays themselves. This began in the year 1910; the plays quickly found their way into the schools, the hospitals, and could give warmth and light to hearts everywhere. The stimulation received a response also in other countries. The center for the fostering of the plays became Dornach, where they have been presented every year since 1915 in the Schreinerei of the Goetheanum. Dr. Steiner could there once more give his precise directions for staging, fill in many gaps in the text, correct many additions inserted clumsily into the text, and restore the plays as nearly as possible to their original character.”
Any one who took part in this or later preparatory rehearsal on the primitive stage in the Schreinerei at Dornach—I myself had the experience for some years of playing there the role of King Balthasar—could observe Rudolf Steiner completely immersed in his element as creative molder. It must be added that, during the first decade of these productions, no one of those taking part was a professional stage person. On the contrary, these popular "laymen's plays” were studied and presented by people for the most part never before on a stage. A primitive wooden stage, surrounded by a simple pale-blue curtain, enlivened with pine branches, in the middle a genuine Christmas tree, decorated with golden symbols and—for the Paradise play—also with apples; for the play of the Three Kings, white curtains, those playing the roles in the simplest colored raiment—Kling Melchior red; Balthasar blue; Caspar green—with paper stoles and crowns, a carved wooden stake as a sceptre; the shepherds in coarse hides, Mary in a red garment with a blue scarf, Joseph in a dark-brown garment; the Devil in the form of a black bat; God the Father with a wavy white beard; the angel with white wings and golden star on the brow; etc. Before the beginning of the rehearsals, Rudolf Steiner himself went into the dressing room and inspected the costume, the make-up, all the requisites of every actor. Thus he put a black spot on my own forehead between the eyebrows; King Balthasar must wear precisely this symbol. In the case of others he removed the wrinkles in the face with a few characteristic strokes; showed how the sceptre or the staff was to be carried. At the beginning of the rehearsals one stood helpless and clumsy on the stage; the movements were often terribly awkward, the speech too affected or intellectual for popular types of persons—in short there was every sort of blunder of the beginner. Dr. Steiner sat in the hall observing; now he sprang up, came on the stage and played every single role himself: King and shepherd, God the Father and Herod, angel and devil, Joseph, Mary and the people in the inn. All those taking part—for the most part, from various regions of the world—had to be trained to speak the Austrian dialect as well as possible. Since Rudolf Steiner himself came from that region, he could speak it perfectly, like one of the people. Thus it came about gradually that not only Austrians but Schwabians, Saxons, Rhinelanders, Swiss, Dutch—once even an American—managed the dialect very well. Then the grouping in the stage picture was arranged rightly, the movements corrected, sentence by sentence the parts spoken, the organic interplay practiced, all inappropriate foolery, stage pathos or stage vanity completely eliminated. At last, after many rehearsals, the original folk atmosphere permeated the entire thing, the play was vitalized with a natural and living rhythm, the simple pictures—and yet in their inner substance so moving—awoke in the audience the mood of Christmas.
The seriousness of the profound spiritual content and at the same time the humor of the shepherds became through the example of Rudolf Steiner and his direction something completely true to life, and, with the color belonging to its native region, brought to expression something valid always and everywhere. Melodies out of ancient folk songs had been worked out and supplemented in just the right style by Leopold van der Pals; angel, kings, and shepherds marched singing in chorus between the rows of seats through the hall, and the entire space, stage and auditorium, grew into a unity in which the most sublime truths in the history of humanity lived and wove in the simplest garments, in the Christmas atmosphere of the space. It was a prototype of the eternally living tradition which was brought into the consciousness of contemporary humanity; a work of art produced with the simplest means but achieved through intensive schooling and the intuitive finding of one5s way into a primal motif of humanity. Numerous friends of these plays came in future years to Dornach to see this example which had been set up there by Rudolf Steiner since Christmas 1915, to learn, to study the ancient plays, and to spread them in the same manner all over the world. Wherever these old folk plays are given, truth and chivalry demand that reference should be made to this source. In English-speaking lands similar ancient English plays have been revived as a result of this Dornach example.
It was certainly no accident that this occurred in Dornach at the end of the second seven-year period of the Movement which had brought into the dominant position the artistic way of experiencing the world, at the moment of transition to the third seven-year period, which placed the solution of social tasks in the foreground.
In close connection with the premiere presentation of these Christmas plays in Dornach, Rudolf Steiner gave during December 26—28 three lectures entitled Regarding Ancient Christmas Plays. These rendered it clear on historical grounds that such spiritual currents, now long dried up, had their source in the Mysteries of the past, in the supersensible vision of initiated persons; how this spiritual content then continued to be preserved to some extent, although in reduced power, in mythology, in religion, in philosophy, and at last remained for later epochs only in the form of myths, legends, or such plays of the people as these. The wholesome innermost essence of such a tradition cannot be completely uprooted by the intellect and materialism. It only waits until the time is ripe again for it to speak and to activate its wonderful forces of healing.
The last lecture of this year, on Christmas Eve, was devoted to the theme The Course of the Year as a Symbol of the Great Cosmic Year. We called attention earlier to the fact that the first lecture of this year, on January 1, dealt with the harmony between the soul forces of humanity and the cosmic processes. Thus the spiritual circle of the year ended in a planned harmony of the inner substance and movement. This New Year's Eve lecture began with the stages of consciousness which, in the last analysis, underlie all processes in the cosmos, earth, and man. For, back of the processes of development of the earth organism also, there is consciousness—although not such a consciousness as can be reached within the horizon of the contemporary intellectual forces of the human being. Just as man has three phases of consciousness—in sleep, dream, and wakefulness—and can unite with these higher and more expansive stages of development through spiritual schooling, so likewise is the dynamic of the being and the processes of action of the surrounding creative cosmic world guided and accompanied by innumerable stages of lower or higher consciousness. Rudolf Steiner now described this supersensible aspect of the course of the year and of the epochs of time, the phases of sleeping and waking of a loftier kind in summer and winter for the earth, the true content of many ancient traditions which tell of the holy and the demonic in the nature of the thirteen holy days and nights between Christmas and Epiphany. He brought to memory the lost knowledge of the spiritual nature of the "aeons," the great rhythms of evolution in which there are not only the New Year's Eve and a New Year of a single year, but a cosmic New Year's Eve and Cosmic New Year. He explained how the human being is called to take part in the course of his incarnations in this planned process of becoming. He aroused the conscience with regard to this: that such times as the present, signifying a real cosmic New Year's Eve, expect the strongest possible forces of a wakeful consciousness in man and a beholding participation in the backgrounds of events.
Thus the year 1915 also—in its external aspects so burdened with grievous decisions, so dimly filled with hope and faith, apparently so senseless—was made known as really an organ of a loftier Living Being, a momentous cosmic hour in the birth pangs of a new age.