The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1916
Rudolf Steiner dealt with the problem of the social community in three aspects, characterized by three cycles of lectures in the year 1916, which set forth the tensions within which man is placed through his being interwoven with nature and the human community: the Berlin cycle on Necessity and Freedom in World Occurrence and Human Conduct; the Dornach cycle Regarding the Karma of Occupation; and his work published in 1917 under the title Riddles of the Soul. It was in this work that, for the first time, he set forth publicly the integration of the human being as a three-membered organism, which then became the point of departure for reflections regarding the solution of the social situation. For only the right diagnosis can lead to a healing process.
But, before we undertake to describe how he dealt with this problem, it is necessary to consider the situation of the times in which this impelling movement took place. For Rudolf Steiner never undertook to create anything on the basis of mere theory, but worked always out of the observation of the concrete existence of humanity and the contemporary situation. But what was the point in evolution and what the necessary decisions facing the world in the year 1916?
In Europe, but also in the East and the West, there occurred events which greatly altered the perspective of the following period, plowing deep furrows in the tragic countenance of Europe. The war of movement had in great measure yielded to the war of position. The armies had dug themselves into the earth. No strategic break-through or decisive battles were any longer possible. A second historically decisive event was the death of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria on November 21, 1916. An empire which through hundreds of years had impressed essential features upon the countenance of Europe moved with this death towards its end.
During these changes in the situation in the Middle, developments also in the West and the East were destined to affect the coining decades. Woodrow Wilson became President of the United States in November, bringing to dominance that element in the American political life which might be called "Wilsonism.” The results were soon discernible. In December President Wilson addressed his sudden demand to the warring Powers to make known their conditions for peace; a month later, on January 22, 1917, he outlined in an address to the Senate his ideas for the future organization of the world. The confusion of the personalities responsible at that time in the West, Middle, and East led deeper into the chaos. The events of the following months—the unlimited submarine attacks by Germany in February, the entrance of America into the War on April 2, 1917—led inexorably to the very climax of the tragic events.
In the East also cataclismic upheavals began. The indications of weakness in the structure of Russia at that time opened the way for the manifest spread of the revolution, long preparing underground. There followed the so-called March Revolution in March 1917, followed quickly by the dissolution of the whole structure of the Russian Empire through the Bolshevik Revolution.
What had been seen at first by only a few possessed of deeper insight, and then became manifest to many, was at last visible to all: the collapse of an ancient world, already permeated through and through by the deadly bacillus of materialistic and abstract intellectualism, alien to reality and to the Spirit. False thinking had led to false action in every sphere. Not a single one of the so greatly praised achievements of that epoch had proven capable of rendering the very least contribution toward the solution of the really great questions. It might have been expected that human beings would be awakened by these overwhelming occurrences, so clear in their significance. But sleeping and dreaming continued. Hate and fear, offspring of materialistic thinking, increased steadily in power. After the close of the war, when blinded humanity fell a victim to the delusion that the nightmare was now over, the still characteristic indolence gathered together all the make-believe means for pacification of emotions, creating the impression that all this tragedy had been the result only of accidental human weakness and not the inevitable consequence of thinking and action false to its very roots. The tree of life was merely sprinkled with a few chemicals and no effort was made to deal with the diseased roots, or with the poisoned soil in which they were growing.
In the midst of this atmosphere, Rudolf Steiner, in utter loneliness, called attention to the diseased roots. He found no hearing. Of course, this did not divert him from his path. All new discoveries in the art of healing have always met with opposition from controlling groups until the power of facts themselves finally forced their adoption. But this development had by no means arrived at that time.
Rudolf Steiner always preceded any effort at a healing process by a fundamental diagnosis, both external and internal, and based his suggestions and measures always upon the immediate concrete situation of the time. Hence it was necessary in the year 1916 to point out the seeds of development, both sound and unsound, in order to clarify the new point of departure in his work during that period, which was concentrated now upon the very roots of the social problem.
In the first lecture of this year, on January 1, 1916, in Dornach, he said in an introductory way:
“Now, we are confronted by the fact that, in the course of the recent centuries, mere external observation through the senses has become determinative in science, that people have attributed the primary value exclusively— this I must emphasize expressly, but I have often stated emphatically what value is really to be attributed tn this,—people have attributed value exclusively to what they observe in the laboratory or in the clinic or in the zoological garden and the like; that their intention is to remain unchanged in this matter. Obviously, this method in natural science has been responsible for tremendous progress, truly tremendous progress. But, precisely in the midst of this tremendous progress, thinking has been completely neglected. Out of this fact there rises the duty of not permitting those to achieve power in the world who strive for this power on the basis of a merely materialistic experimental knowledge. And what these people are interested in is power. We have at present already reached such a pass that everything is to be eliminated from the world by the brutal authoritative decisions of the materialistically learned except what belongs to materialistic learning.”
The sources of the false action leading to catastrophe were to be found in that thinking so completely dominant at this period. A mode of thinking, in the sense of Lamarck, Darwin, and their followers, sought the sources for an understanding of the human being in the animal kingdom, and for conceptions of the right social life in the instincts of that kingdom. It was a thinking which placed utterly false emphasis upon the satisfaction of physical needs, strengthening and hardening of the physical body, the entertainment of the senses through the sensational, thus smothering every more spiritual manner of reflection, all adequate attention to the spiritual nature of man and his integration into the sublime plan of the world. Even the most recent theories in physics, aclaimed by some persons as a "surmounting of materialism,” have altered nothing in the fundamental tendency of this thinking. All this false glorification of contemporary dominant methods of thinking reminds one of the contrast between the superficiality of Faust's pupil, Wagner, in Goethe's drama, and the profound insight of Faust himself.
Any one who at this time spoke of spiritual worlds was isolated; he was violating the clearly drawn boundaries of knowledge prescribed by the scientific specialists and he disturbed also the inertia of certain clerical groups. He disturbed likewise the existing dogmas in the sphere of the social life.
In a lecture which followed on January 2, 1916, Rudolf Steiner referred with prophetic vision to the danger that all of those who felt disturbed by any effort to bring about a spiritual renewal might endeavor by means of force in the future to put an end to all such endeavors:
“Things are so arranged that people scarcely observe that the term freedom is applied to something which is the opposite of freedom. And those who have some inkling of the real situation desire at most to oppose this practice, which is the opposite of freedom, by resort to the same methods only applied from the opposite direction. The one group says that one thing or another must be forbidden or the others cast loving glances at the same forces which lay their hands upon everything that ought to develop freely ...
“Perhaps, we cannot accomplish anything in our age against the course of this materialistically unfree mood of the age. But we must at least learn to feel it as compulsion. We must begin with this. We must not fall a victim to delusions. For, if the world continues in the course of its evolution as it tends to develop in the sense of this materialistic influence, we shall then gradually enter into a course of development in which every one who is not duly authorized will be forbidden to do anything whatever for the welfare of humanity, but also any utterance in regard to anything whatever pertaining to science will be prohibited except for those who have in a way taken upon themselves a vow to utter nothing whatever except what is approved by the materialistic world order. At present there is a prohibition only of such things as do not cause in persons the feeling of compulsory prohibition. But we are moving toward a period in which, just as every unauthorized effort for the healing of persons will be forbidden, so likewise will be every word uttered elsewhere than in an institution which is guaranteed and authorized by the powers possessed of this materialistic attitude.
“If we do not sense the total course of this development of events, we shall glide with all sails spread into the future freedom^ which will consist in the fact that laws will be enacted according to which no one will be permitted to teach anything outside of an authorized hall for teaching; that everything will be prohibited which might be the remotest reminder of what is occurring-—for instance, here. Since people do not see the trend in the developing course of events, no attention is given at present to this fact." For this very reason Rudolf Steiner chose the point of departure for his work outside those carefully limited areas. This gave him the necessary distance from the ancient, the power for its renewal. He chose, as the fulcrum for his lever, thinking, cognition, and the expansion of their spheres of action. He called attention to the fact that the sensible is rooted in the supersensible even in the area of social problems, their causes and effects.
Hence the first lecture of this year, after diagnosing the ills of the times, pointed out “the obligation of clear, adequate thinking.” The second lecture took a further step into the realm of the human soul, illuminating, for example, the supersensible process which lies at the basis of the capacity of memory, the transition from physical to spiritual vision, but also the forces indwelling in man, active or latent, for these processes, the formative forces of the sensible-supersensible bodily nature as well as the higher members of man's being which bring him into contact with those spheres where necessity and freedom have their origin.
Before extensive lecture tours for the strengthening and dissemination of such new thinking, Rudolf Steiner delivered public lectures in the immediate vicinity of Dornach in which he set forth once more the direction of his efforts, undertook to remove misunderstandings, and stated dearly his objective. On January 11 he spoke in Liestal on The Mission of Spiritual Science and Its Building in Dornach. We have already referred to this fundamental lecture. On January 12 he spoke in Basel on How Can Research Be Carried Out in the Supersensible Nature of the Human Being? and on January 14 on The Harmony between Spiritual Research and Natural-Scientific Research. Misunderstandings in Regard to the Former and the Building in Dornach Devoted to It.
At the end of January, he set out for lecture trips to the cities of Germany occupying several months. He had so organized the work at Dornach that it was not so necessary for him to come and go during this year. He continued the lecture tour from January 25 until July 18, spending the rest of the year in Dornach—January 1-24 and July 20-December 31.
He began his work in Berlin on January 25 with the lecture cycle already mentioned on Necessity and Freedom in Cosmic Events and in Human Conduct. Only a person who penetrates to the sphere where necessity and freedom can be known in their spiritual sources can rightly determine his own position in the social community: can be truly social. Necessity applies to man to the extent that he belongs to the kingdoms of nature; freedom because of the fact that he is a spiritual being. He must create an inner balance through an insight into these two spheres in his inner being and through conscious handling of them. Rudolf Steiner pointed out in an introductory way the innumerable efforts in the course of history at an interpretation of this unique situation of the human being—in an earlier age, through a spiritual vision of man's being; later, philosophically and abstractly. The determinists, assuming everything to be predestined, and the indeterminists, holding the opposite view, combatted one another with concepts and arguments taken only from the physical world. Such concepts cannot deal with the problem, for "at the basis of every external physical occurrence there exists something which is a higher, more subtle occurrence,55 which takes its course in the supersensible. Everywhere there is at work a trinity of substance, force, and being:
“Just as true as it is that, when I move a hand, the physical movement is only a part of the whole process and that a more subtle process lies beneath this, a process in my body of formative forces, so is it true likewise that every physical occurrence in the external world is permeated by a more subtle elemental occurrence, by something which runs a course parallel to this in the supersensible. Not only are beings permeated by something supersensible, but all existence is permeated by something supersensible.”
To recognize this fact is the first step. But to this end the two concepts of cause and effect in the physical realm are not adequate:
“It is essential to the nature of a concept that one thing follows from another. This must be so. But that which can be brought together on the physical plane inevitably through a conceptual survey,—this becomes different the moment we ascend into the next, supersensible realm. What one has to deal with there is not causes and effects but beings. There beings intervene. At every moment a different spiritual being intervenes. One has to deal there by no means with what can be traced in the ordinary sense through concepts ,..
“Thus we see that two worlds mutually interpenetrate: one world which can be embraced in a network of concepts; the other world which cannot be embraced in a network of concepts but can only be viewed.”
For this reason that world of a higher order can also not be "proved" by means which are valid in the physical world. In the course of these explanations, Rudolf Steiner said in regard to this:
“The same statement is true, in the last analysis, when people undertake to prove that God once upon a time created the world or that He did not create it. There also do they spin their web of concepts. But treating the world' would be at least a free action of the Divine Being! From this fact it follows that this cannot be proved through the logical necessity of a series of concepts; that it must be seen if we are to arrive at it.
“One is making, therefore, a very significant assertion when it is declared that in the very next world, which interpenetrates our own as a supersensible world, that order of things does not by any means hold sway which we can penetrate with our concepts and with their evidential powers, but that on the contrary, a beholding takes possession there through the fact that an entirely different order of things holds sway in the occurrences.”
A Being—both the most sublime, God, and also beings on a lower level—can never be comprehended by means of concepts. The gradation of the Hierarchical Beings, the action of Spiritual Beings and their Opposing Powers in the course of world events, must be experienced, beheld. What is communicated of that which is beheld can be understood by one who is not himself a beholder; he can in this way learn to understand the world as a whole and can be schooled to the development of the power of beholding. All that has come into existence is the result of earlier deeds of Spiritual Beings. As action, it was once free; as that which has come into existence, it becomes a matter of necessity for that which is to follow. "Thus that which at present constitutes the earthly existence was freedom in earlier stages of existence." This is valid also for every single action of man:
“Every person bears within himself his past; every person, therefore, bears within himself a necessity. What belongs to the present does not yet work as a necessity; otherwise free action would not exist in the present. But the past works into the present and blends with the freedom. The fact that the past continues to exert an influence means that in one and the same action necessity and freedom are intimately merged with one another."
The past extends out of the surrounding world and also out of our earlier lives on earth into us. We cannot possibly deal here in detail with the precise and thorough explanation which Rudolf Steiner gave in regard to these matters. He had given in his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity the philosophic basis for the conviction of the inner freedom of the human being. He now explained the origin and development of inner freedom out of the cosmic process of becoming. Here Higher Beings appear by the side of the human being. For them also necessity and freedom work into one another.
It was into this world of Beings, primordial forces, and archetypes, that Faust sought to penetrate, whereas Wagner sought only for concepts. Rudolf Steiner dealt with this theme in a different aspect in a public lecture of February 3 entitled Faust's Roaming through the World and His Rebirth Out of the German Spiritual Life. Goethe, Fichte, and the other great figures of German idealism placed the ego-being of man, that which is spiritual and essential in the human being, at the center of their research.
“Faust wished to be a person who did not desire to confront the world of the Spirit either through an external magic or through an inner clouding of consciousness; and who would be able to introduce the world of the Spirit from a more highly developed consciousness into the social life of humanity, into the life of action.”
In the next-following lectures in the Architektenhaus, Dr. Steiner dealt with Sound Life of the Soul and Spiritual Research and the question How Are the Eternal Powers of the Human Soul Investigated? On February 13 he began a cycle of twelve lectures on The Present and the Past in the Human Spirit, from which we emphasize especially five lectures entitled Sidelights on the Deeper Impelling Forces in History. Between these lectures in Berlin he spoke also on similar themes in Hamburg, Kassel, Leipzig, Hannover, Bremen, Stuttgart, and Munich.
General Helmuth von Moltke died on June 18, 1916. The friends were shattered who stood beside the bier of this noble personality. Although he did not succeed in achieving all that he had hoped for, yet he had himself in a letter of January 1, 1916, used the comparison of a forester, who often fails, he said, in his first attempt to plant a forest “but in the second attempt succeeds. One must simply not give up. If the attempt does not succeed this time, a later generation will again take up the idea." General von Moltke had at least planted many seeds. The cleanness and inner firmness of his character, the comprehensiveness of his interests, are evidenced in the memoirs he left—Memoirs, Letters, and Documents. To the truth of this personality, a seeker for knowledge, Rudolf Steiner devoted a deeply moving address on June 20.
From June 6 till July 18 Dr. Steiner took the next step in the approach to the sources out of which a reformation of the social life must be achieved in a cycle of seven lectures on Cosmic Being and Egohood. The previous lectures having led far into the expanses of the cosmic spiritual plan, the pendulum now swung over to the microcosmic, the human being, to the delicate structure of the corporeal instruments with which hie perceives the surrounding world. The precision of the rhythms with which Rudolf Steiner achieved such knowledge, permitted it to mature, and then communicated it to others is evident in a passing remark in the lecture of June 20. He referred to lectures on Anthroposophy given seven years before, in October 1909, in which for the first time he had spoken in such a way about the structure and the integration of the human sense organs that the foundation for a spiritual-scientific theory of the senses could be developed out of this. After seven years of silent maturing, the theory of the manifold, twelve-membered structure of the human sense organization could be set forth in a more comprehensive manner. Not only such sense organs as the eye, ear, etc. were dealt with— which are almost like physical apparatus for the perception of form, color, etc.—but also those senses by means of which man perceives the more subtle processes of life, the nature of movement, of balance, even of typical human manifestations—such, for instance, as the "speech sense,” "ego sense,55 etc. For it was a necessary part of the approach toward a true social understanding that we should become fully aware of these more delicate reciprocal influences, not only between man and nature but also between man and man. Thus the new theory of the senses, so essential with regard to the relation of the human being to his environment, is placed for this reason at the very gateway to the areas of activity of the third seven-year epoch in the Movement.
One is truly astonished at the living and precise systematics as to time and content, as to proportions in the presentation of knowledge, with which Rudolf Steiner approached a definite goal—at first only touching upon the problems involved, and then speaking with greater definiteness and intensity—one tone followed by the next until there is a symphony of knowledge as a whole. Limitation of space permits here nothing more than the barest mention of the wealth of detail in this highly developed theory of the senses. One must refer those seriously interested to the published lectures, other pertinent literature, and their own research. After this manifold preliminary work, introductory for the new tasks of the year 1916, Dr. Steiner returned on July 20 for the rest of the year to Dornach. He greeted his collaborators at the Goetheanum after his long absence in the following words:
“My dear friends, I welcome with great satisfaction the fact that we can be together here again, and with no less satisfaction do I welcome the fact that, during the time when we could not be together here, our building has progressed in such a splendid way. All those friends who work at the task of this building with that so necessary devotion must receive the most heartfelt thanks for the striving which purposes in our sense to do service to the time. As my greeting to you, permit me to say that every bit of progress in our work which has been accomplished once more in the course of months is something very important within our spiritual Movement. In this difficult time when the destiny of spiritual movements, one can say, is confronted by the uncertainty of the future, we must keep vividly alive within us, most of all, the consciousness of the eternal significance associated with just such a work as is here coming about. Whatever there may be in the bosom of the future, the important thing is that people once labored at such a work; that everything which is spiritually connected with this work has passed through the hearts and souls of a number of persons; that it has been seen by the eyes of a number of human beings and thus has become effective in the course of evolution of human endeavor ...
“If one endeavors to become familiar with the cravings, the artistic cravings of our time, it will be discovered everywhere that there is an obscure striving but that people do not know within this obscure striving whither they wish to go. It will be seen that, even in this obscure way, the search is really for what we are striving toward here. It will be seen that it is necessary to find one's way into the artistic forms which are here developing out of the bosom of spiritual science. However surprising very much in our architectural forms may be, no long time will pass before this will be felt to be the self-evident result of the sensitivity and the feeling of the present age and the immediate future. At the present time, when there is so very much that causes us pain we have at least this elevating consciousness that we are permitted to introduce into the undetermined destiny of the present that which the future of humanity requires.”
The tremendous series of lectures, interrelated and embracing many new areas of knowledge, which Dr. Steiner gave during the half-year at Dornach have been published in five volumes under the general title Cosmic and Human History. We can give here only a few hints as to their content. At the beginning of the first series of lectures, between July 29 and August 15, on The Riddle of the Human Being, he dealt with the double nature of man as belonging to both the cosmic-spiritual and the earthly world, illuminating this truth with many illustrations, and also cast light upon the influence of the bodily structure in previous lives on earth upon the present incarnation. He then presented a comprehensive survey of the structure of the human sense organization with its differentiated twelve sense areas and seven sense functions in the processes of life. This constitutes the beginning of a theory of the senses which supplements the results of previous research in this field on the physical basis, but also gives the possibility of recognizing how the spiritual capacity of man inheres in his supersensible organization, and comes to manifestation in this. This was characteristic of the work of Rudolf Steiner, that he carried on research at one and the same time in the bodily nature of man and in his spiritual organization, and thus presented a synthesis of the two functions. In this way he rendered possible for the first time an exact survey of both spirit and body in man.
The second series of lectures, between August 21 and September 3, under the title The Spiritual Backgrounds of Human History, illuminated still further the evolution of the spiritual and bodily structure of the individual human being within the framework of an evolution coming about through successive incarnations. The metamorphoses thus arising in such capacities as those of memory, habit, thinking, conscience, and also their relations to the world as a whole and to the influences of Spiritual Beings, were dealt with in detail. The development of the organization of the head and the nerves, of the senses, of the rhythms and life processes was set forth in an entirely new light. In these series of lectures the presentation already given of the three-membered fundamental structure of the human organism was brought to an ever increasing clarity, and this he presented the following year in his work Riddles of the Soul. This, in turn, provided an introduction to the presentation of the Threefold Nature of the Social Organism.
Just as every new incentive coming from Rudolf Steiner first passed through an organic process of maturing before he communicated it to the public, so also had this new theory of the organism been conceived in its potentiality approximately three decades earlier, when, during the 5eighties of the last century, he was editing the scientific writings of Goethe. The first volume of these writings was published in 1883, thirty-three years before the present time. He had already conceived in its potentiality this organic manner of viewing the human being, which could now be presented in full maturity and also as a guide to the threefold nature of the social structure. He often referred in later years to this long process of maturing.
The series of Dornach lectures, from September 16 to October 1, under the title Inner Impelling Forces in the Evolution of Humanity, sets forth the influence of both Spiritual Powers and also that of certain peoples and groups of human beings upon the historical evolution of human thinking. He described at first the Mystery world of ancient Atlantis with its good and its evil forces and the reappearance of the latter at a later time—in the Orient, for example, at the time of the Mongolian invasion and that of Genghis Khan; in the West, in the history of the American continent, the various corruptions of ancient magic in the Mysteries of Mexico. He then set forth the influence of Greek and Roman culture in Europe, the migrations of multitudes of people, the bright and the dark endeavors of the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, the aberration of that century with its materialism into falsely directed occult experiments. He emphasized the development of a lassitude in thinking characteristic of the present time, and the urgent necessity for the development for the future of a new capacity of thinking which leads into the spiritual. A wealth of perspectives over the history of the world and of special historical material is to be found in such lectures.
One who studies the historical lectures of Rudolf Steiner during the decades of his activity, or who discussed historical details with him, was astonished again and again at the profound factual knowledge in the most minute details which he had at his command. Historians whose lifework was that of research in the superfluity of historical facts were confronted here by an extraordinary phenomenon when they argued with Rudolf Steiner about special fields of knowledge, any special historical epoch with its innumerable dates, figures, and events. They found that, in such conversations, he took up immediately their special problems, and that he was a master of the material in its totality. It was possible to observe in this connection many a specialist in history, who, in his astonishment, took out his pencil and made notes and who later referred to this as one of the most interesting conversations he had ever experienced in his special field. Such suggestions and stimulations from Rudolf Steiner found their way afterwards into numerous historical treatises. For many an ordinary person it was uncomfortable and annoying, but none the less factually confirmed, that the knowledge of Rudolf Steiner in all these areas was quite extraordinary. Even such personalities as did not at all agree with his ideas otherwise had to admit his possession of remarkable factual knowledge of the material in question. The tremendous aspects of his lectures and of his creative work can be understood only on the basis of this manifold mastery of individual fields of knowledge and the wide horizons of his ideas and his research.
The fourth series of lectures between October 2 and 30, under the comprehensive title Goethe and the Crisis of the Nineteenth Century, touched in its introduction upon examples of efforts, often successful, to destroy completely by means of external force currents of spiritual influence— for instance, the complete destruction of the order of the Knights Templars by King Philipp the Fair of France; the dying out of the Grail current in the Middle Ages. He explained then how such forces of inspiration draw back for a time into the spiritual sphere only to enter once more centuries later into earthly consciousness—as in Goethe's poem Die Geheimnisse (The Mysteries), in Faust, or in Wagner's Parsifal. He pointed out the contrast between such developments in the Orient and in the Occident, two opposite poles of culture, but pointed out also earthly influences working side by side with impulses from the spiritual: electric and magnetic forces and their influence upon developing or dying cultures. In connection with these explanations the three-membered structure of the individual human being became more and more clear, but also the polaric relations between East and West and their balancing in the Middle,—in other words, the three-membered structure of humanity as a whole.
Such antitheses have always been observed by individual persons and groups of persons, and have been influenced in their effect either rightly or wrongly. In the Occident, such influence has been manifest even into the nineteenth century—approximately up to Lawrence Oliphant and Stead; in the Orient in certain "occult" trends in China, Tibet, and India. It was a great interplay between the Orient and Occident which was brought into the light in these and other lectures. Between these two polarities, each one-sided, the Middle has been feeling its way during recent centuries— with a certain degree of knowledge but largely unconsciously—toward a balancing of the polarities. Such a harmonious balance was actually provided at the turning point between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the nature and the work of Goethe, but the nineteenth century, while enjoying Goethe5s imaginative writings, paid no attention to him as a research scientist, and remained ignorant of the great general direction of evolution inaugurated by him. These temporarily suppressed sources of power must again be brought into the foreground if chaos is to be avoided. This explains the unchanging rhythms and general course of Rudolf Steiner's work, bringing again and again into focus the point of departure in the work of Goethe.
For this reason the fifth series of lectures, between November 4 and 27 in Dornach, was based upon The Karma of Vocation, in connection with the life of Goethe. Rudolf Steiner presented here the fact that Goethe's life was dominated by a certain rhythm, an inner cyclical conformity to law, which could not be explained clearly on the basis of his hereditary descent but only on that of the influence of spiritual Powers and Goethe's own individuality, the result of earlier lives. The spiritual mission of Goethe is derived from such sources. Dr. Steiner then dealt with the rhythms of waking and sleeping, the cyclical occurrences in the life of every individual person, to which attention must be given. The occupation that a human being takes up at the present time need not be a matter of chance but can be one of mission, even of the effect of the occupation of earlier lives on earth. The links in the chain of destiny should be brought into consciousness, and the choice of occupation made a free action growing out of such a perspective. The environing community and the spirit of the age may here be either helpful or hindering. He described the present decadence as a result of aberrations in relation to the spirit of the times, the "demon magic" of the modem technology, the hindrances growing partly out of the time and partly out of the purposeful influence of certain circles of people, preventing a breaking through of the new. He called attention to the counter force which the individual may be able to call up in himself if he finds his way to the Christ, who overcame these hindering forces. The inner and the outer calling chosen by the human being through such forces of consciousness is not merely something determined by the age but constitutes a substance and force for a future earth. The "karma of vocation" must result from a contact with the supersensible Being of the spirit of the times and aid in bringing His plan to realization in the realm of the sensible and earthly.
While these problems, belonging especially to the third epoch of seven years, were being taken up, the artistic work of the second epoch was carried forward and expanded with great intensity. Thus additional scenes and acts of Faust, both the First and the Second Part, were studied and staged. In continuation of the staging of parts of Faust in 1915 in the form of Eurythmy, on August 19 and 20, 1916, there was a dramatic presentation of the "Dedication," "Prelude on the Stage," and "Prologue in Heaven”； and in September "Midnight" and "Burial." On September 30 and December 9, 1916, were staged for the first time, according to stage directions given by Rudolf Steiner, “Faust's Study” and “Walpurgis Night,” followed by "Laboratory Scene55 on January 27, 1917. Dr. Steiner laid a foundation for this revival of Goethe's Faust on the stage from time to time by lectures which entered profoundly into the spiritual substance of this work. These may be studied in two volumes entitled Spiritual-Scientific Comments on Goethe's Faust—Faust, the Striving Human Being and The Faust Problem. Once more, knowledge and art worked together in a unique synthesis. In the midst of the lecturing activity and work on the building, rehearsals were occurring during those months on the provisional stage of the Schreinerei under Dr. Steiner5s direction, at which—as in the case of the Mystery Dramas and the Christmas Plays—he trained the actors, directed the production, provided sketches for costumes and for the scenes, and gave examples himself of speaking and action for every single figure and group. Those sharing in the production and the work itself were thus brought together into a living organism. What ultimately appeared on the stage was a creation which represented a new incarnation of this work in contrast with all presentations of the previous century.
Indeed, the past century had succeeded in thrusting into the background in the staging of Faust everything spiritual, or presenting this at best as a matter of fantasy or romantic side play. The human figures in the drama were made either pathetic or banal, means for the display of originality in the stage people. For a theater which had no conception of the spiritual world as a reality, nothing of that nature could appear as anything more than frivolity, or a concession of the intellect to the romanticism and faith of pathetic or amusing ancestors. It is no wonder that Faust almost disappeared from the stage; that the Second Part, which penetrates most profoundly into the spiritual realm, came to be considered as unsuited to the times or incapable of presentation.
The unabridged work, both First and Second Parts, was finally presented on the stage in Dornach for the first time since Goethe completed the composition. The presentation of portions during 1915 and 1916 provided the models for the ultimate production of the entire composition. This achievement would have been impossible but for the lectures of Rudolf Steiner, which cast such a wealth of light upon Goethe's entire stupendous composition, and the painstaking development, in connection with parts of the composition, of new means of expression, which rendered possible once more the incarnation of the spiritual even into the art of the theater.
During these months, Dr. Steiner guided those working with him by another path also to the sources of inspiration in art. He selected from the great works of painting and the plastic arts the loftiest, and at times those introducing a new era, and illustrated in connection with them the metamorphosis of human consciousness in the course of history, which he had already rendered clear in a different aspect through lectures dealing with the metamorphoses in cognition during the successive epochs in culture. The tragic process of transformation, at times necessary according to the laws of evolution—closing the spiritual sense of humanity in the course of centuries and opening the senses for the physical alone—could now be deciphered also in connection with great works of painting and sculpture. Art, being closer to the sources of inspiration, registered heroic achievements in the course of history again and again, temporarily halting this process of loss of vision in the direction of the spiritual. Again and again, even until the nineteenth century, art had escaped imprisonment in the intellect, leading the human spirit outside its walls, until these became so dense in the last century that even art could not escape from them. During Rudolf Steiner's lecture tours, he had collected in connection with intense study of art an abundance of material for inspection. This he used through lantern slides and reproductions to provide an expansive survey of the history of art, thus integrating these metamorphoses through penetrating explanation into the complete picture presented by the lectures on history.
These lectures on art, with lantern slides, were introduced on October 8, 1916, with an explanation of the turning point in world history between Cimabue and Giotto. This new current then flowed into the world of light represented by Raphael. In additional lectures of November 1, 8, 15, 28 and December 13—dealing with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael; Dürer, Holbein, Rembrandt; the art of Central, North, and South Europe—the great lines of evolution were clarified, leading from the environing spiritual to a reflection of the extra-terrestrial and finally to the individually human in art, and then the later tributary streams out of the world of composition, allegory, naturalism. It was a light shining through the fog of history that was here cast upon all these evolutionary changes in the human being on earth seeking for the Spirit. The whole tragedy and also the heroism of great artists in the past centuries were brought in a masterful way to manifestation. These and later lectures on art by Rudolf Steiner, in which more than seven hundred works of art were shown through lantern slides, have since been published in an edition by C. S. Picht under the title The History of Art as an Image of Inner Spiritual Impulses.
In the lectures of those months, Dr. Steiner cast light also upon the problem of the revival of literature, which can come about only if the writer permits the world of the Spirit again to become embodied in him. In particular, he spoke on November 25 on Albert Steffen's just published novel The True Lover of Destiny (Der rechte Liebhaber des Schicksals).
The lectures during the period from October to December in Basel, Zurich, Liestal, St. Gallen, Bern set forth in detail before a widespread public the way of cognition and the results of research in Anthroposophy. The titles were The Supersensible Life of the Eternal in the Human Soul, from the Point of View of Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy); The Riddles of Man in Philosophy and in Spiritual Research; The Human Soul and the Human Body from the Point of View of Spiritual Research; Anthroposophy and the Riddle of Human Life. Special attention must be called to a lecture of October 16, 1916, in Liestal on Human Life from the Point of View of Spiritual Science, which was connected with the lecture of January 11, 1916, at the same place, that we have already mentioned, for the printing of which Rudolf Steiner himself arranged and which he preceded with a preface, because of the matters of principle contained in that lecture. Between December 4 and January 30 he gave to members of the Society in Dornach, who were already familiar with his world view, a series of 24 lectures under the title Reflections Appropriate to the Time. He discussed in these lectures the contemporary situation, so threatening in its external occurrences and its backgrounds in spiritual history.
After having dealt thus with the new social problems and with artistic impulses of the previous seven-year epoch, he resumed in the second half of the year in Dornach the presentation of scientific knowledge and directives introduced during the first epoch of the Movement. On October 28, he gave indications for an understanding of symptoms of illness in connection with metals, of TyndalFs discovery of the effect of sound upon columns of smoke and flame, etc. In connection with these lectures he always pointed out how intellectual thinking falls into aberrations either through ignoring psychic phenomena when they are really present or applying concepts drawn out of psychic processes where they are not applicable, in purely material processes. Such first indications were later developed in conversations with persons especially interested. In the matter of the sensitivity of flame to tones, for instance, these indications led to exact scientific experiments in the physics laboratory later established at the Goetheanum These experiments, in turn, resulted in discoveries by students of Rudolf Steiner which are now well known in the scientific world, to which we shall refer later.
Looking back from the present point of time at the first preparatory work in cognition, art, and the social formation, one is reminded of the experience of the farmer who looks back upon the first preparatory work upon the soil he has been cultivating. During those years, Rudolf Steiner did not only speak in this impressive way about "cosmic and human history”; he also planted the seeds for later history and guided it to development and realization.
During those catastrophic years of the war, there were three points of view which he especially emphasized: first, the fact that it is no longer appropriate to keep within limited circles knowledge taken out of the ancient Mysteries regarding the reality of spiritual worlds; to secrete it, or especially to misuse it or allow it to die out. Such knowledge had to be renewed, purified, lifted to the stage of consciousness of the present time, and made available to humanity as a whole. He raised the question:
“Why is it, then, that so many people shrink from communicating spiritual knowledge? Within our circle it is communicated, because our insight into the necessity of this communicating outweighs everything else."
He explained also the reason why, up to the present time, the wellmeaning “esotericists” of the old tradition had guarded the knowledge of the supersensible apart from the world. There was a justified concern as to the possible misuse of such spiritual treasure in our age, because at present science has been separated from the criteria of the good and the bad, and is applied equally to upbuilding or destruction:
“Materialistic science is indifferent with respect to good or evil. It uses that which it develops in matter either for what is good or what is evil; it renders service to the evil just as to the good.
“Just here we have a point at which, if we cast a glance over the world in its process of development, we shall see into the necessity for spiritual science. It is not enough for persons to confine themselves within a limited circle and develop a world view out of this most limited circle. For even the most limited circles are included within the great net of human development. Quite apart from everything else, just consider the logical course of development in European culture during the last three years. Let us consider it as we should consider it if we were not engaged in the politics of the ostrich from a moral point of view, but as if, with a truly living and pulsating heart, we should comprehend what this brings upon us.”
In those circles bound to the ancient traditions, the conception of the old Mysteries had been taken over: that only one schooled in secret should be permitted to come into contact with a knowledge of the spiritual, because otherwise misuse and harmful effects result. In contrast to this view, Rudolf Steiner established and fostered a spiritual science which, in its very nature, harbors the seeds of the good and can be entrusted therefore, to every human being:
“What is right for the present time is openness. What, then, must take the place of this ancient fundamental principle that people must be permitted to come into contact with knowledge only in connection with moral discipline? In place of this ancient fundamental principle, there must be set up the principle that the knowledge itself which is communicated possesses a certain power in itself—that is, the power to bring forth out of itself that which is good: really out of itself to bring forth the good. It is toward this ideal that the whole spiritual science Movement must be directed. In a certain sense all knowledge which comes to the world through spiritual science must be so ordered that it begets the good out of itself, through its own power.”
It was for this reason that he had freed the knowledge of the spiritual, of the supersensible, from those secret enclaves; had so developed and molded it that it bore within itself the seed of the good, and had then communicated this to humanity in general.
A third danger growing out of this isolation of the knowledge of the spiritual was the separation of human beings and groups of persons from one another, with the necessary consequence of hatreds and war between peoples:
“There is very much among human beings which separates them. From this separation among souls there results all that we now experience as something so dreadful. This separation will be overcome only through a knowledge which lays hold upon the human being in an area beyond all separations: through a knowledge which belongs to every human being, because those separations on the basis of which people at the present time develop their feelings are valid only here in the physical world—really here only in the physical world do they possess validity. If one sees what is streaming out today in sympathy and antipathy, and if one sees that all that is streaming out in sympathy and antipathy comes only from the unspiritual, one then realizes that all of this streaming forth of sympathy and antipathy is at the same time a denial of the spiritual.
“All hatred among people, for example, is at the same time a battle against the Spirit. And, since our age is so inclined to battle against the Spirit,—this is the reason why our age possesses such talent for hatred among people. This is one of the profoundest mysteries of our contemporary culture. But for this reason there can be no way out except through a living grasp upon the Spirit.”
By means of a knowledge of the Spirit appropriate to the times, through the inspirational sources of art, and through laying the path for a new social order, Rudolf Steiner made his contribution toward the solution of the problems of this fateful age.