The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1917
The first three days of the year 1917 are actually symbolic of the rhythm in Rudolf Steiner's activity: the first day devoted to work in the field of knowledge, the second to art, the third to a social action. On January 1 Dr. Steiner resumed a series of twenty-four lectures under the title Timely Reflections, begun the preceding year, which set forth the historical backgrounds of contemporary events, the tendencies of good or evil forces at work in these, the fateful situations in which human beings are placed consciously or unconsciously, as well as plans and actions which are subject in such contemporary situations to the free decision of man himself. On January 2 he resumed the lectures on art with lantern slides, this time with relation to the Christmas plays. On January 3 the Christinas plays were presented to prisoners of war and grievously wounded persons interned in Switzerland, who had come to Dornach with the gracious permission of the authorities in Bern. This was a wonderful experience for these unfortunate human beings; it became a part of their memories of human kindness in Switzerland. Long after the end of the war one of these grievously wounded persons published in a magazine article a description of the beautiful memories carried back into the homeland by those who had been in that country.
In the experience at Dornach something out of the life of the Spirit was contributed in keeping with the noble ideal of the Red Cross.
Rudolf Steiner said in his welcoming address:
“In the name of the members of our Anthroposophical Movement and especially of those who are united here at this building, I am permitted with profound satisfaction to myself to offer you our most heartfelt welcome. You will surely believe that this greeting comes to you from the depths of our hearts. Indeed, the feelings with which we meet you are permeated by all the experiences that we share with you as a result of those most painful events of the present time which penetrate so deeply—not only into the general destiny of the world but also into the destiny of every individual human being, especially of those for whose visit we are reserving this day.”
After a description of the origin of the Christmas plays, the play of the Shepherds and that of the Three Kings were then presented.
The lectures on Timely Reflections were continued from January 6 to 30, with special bearing upon union and understanding with the dead and upon the language of the Spiritual Beings which give form to the life on earth. The lectures on art illuminated the evolution of plastic art in Greece and during the Renaissance. At that very time the creation of a new plastic art was going forward with hammer and chisel in the Goetheanum building.
After this many-sided activity in Switzerland, and the inauguration of so many new impulses, Rudolf Steiner resumed his lecture tours in early February. Prominent in the public lectures between February 6 and September 25 in Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Stuttgart, Munich was the series on Spiritual-scientific Reflections and Findings, covering under many titles the forces of destiny and other aspects of human life. Other vitally important lectures in that cycle were also given during this period. In the first cycle of seven lectures for members, between February 6 and March 20, entitled Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses, he added to very much which he had already given to the members regarding right and wrong ways of establishing a relation with those who have gone through the portal of death. In contrast to the false endeavors, born out of materialism, to draw the dead back into the physical sphere, he set forth the true spiritual union to be brought about by a strengthening of the forces of consciousness. But he showed also how help is provided for humanity out of the sphere of Christ's activity as a counterbalance to just such a historical epoch as this, which represents in its nature the culmination of humanity's fall into the material. It was in the first of these lectures that he uttered those significant words referring to the activity of the Christ in the supersensible since the year 1909. Just as the human being must now develop in a different way his receptivity for the loftiest Being, the Christ, by means of the new discipline of his spiritual consciousness, so must he establish in a new way his relation to the realm of the hierarchical Spiritual Powers and even to human souls who have passed into that realm. Even in the midst of the earthly life, it is necessary t。develop ideas which are akin to the nature and the activity of the spiritual. This enables man to create a science of the Spirit which speaks a language understood in the realm of the supersensible and spiritual, and which can lead, therefore, to a conscious understanding with that world in which, as the loftiest Being, the Christ dwells as our Helper:
“One who sees into the deeper meaning intended by our spiritual science recognizes in this not merely a theoretical knowledge about all sorts of problems of humanity, the members of the human being, reincarnation and karma, but he seeks in this for an entirely different language, a way in which to express oneself in regard to spiritual matters. That we shall learn through spiritual science to speak inwardly in our thoughts with the spiritual world is far more important than that we acquire theoretical ideas. For the Christ is with us even until the end of the world. It is His language that we must learn ...
“And, if we learn truly to speak inwardly in the language of this spiritual life, then, then will it come about that the Christ will stand beside us and give us answer ...
“Let us then seek to acquire spiritual science, not merely as a doctrine, but as a language and let us wait then until we find in this language the questions that we are permitted to put to the Christ. He will answer; indeed, He will answer! And abundant will be the forces of the soul, the strengthening of the soul, the impulses of the soul which he will bear away who receives out of the depths of the spirit the direction of the Christ, which He will give in the very near future to one who seeks for it.”
The “metamorphoses of the soul forces55 which lead to an understanding of this spiritual reality were set forth in their elementary beginning and their development through cognitional exercises. To the elementary beginnings belongs a reflection about the spiritual rhythms in the evolution of humanity and of the individual human being. In the course of every life there are specific points of time which place man close to the Threshold of the spiritual, when he may become accessible to the experience of the meeting with the dominion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the evolution of the world and of the human being, if only he strengthens sufficiently the forces of his consciousness and does not permit this climax in his Hfe to pass without recognition.
Rudolf Steiner here described also the danger existing in separating in our thinking the natural order and the moral order of the world as this has come about in the last century through the gulf which separates knowledge in the sense world from faith. By means of spiritual science and through inner exercises, the originally created interweaving of the moral and the natural order in the course of cosmic history must be again restored in human consciousness.
In this connection he taught the need for observing the nature of rhythm in the sphere of the living. For, just as the spiritual takes hold in cyclic rhythms in the forming of the cosmos, molding both cosmos and human being, so also is such a law reflected in the course of the single human life. From the simplest changing of consciousness between waking and sleeping even to the most subtle rhythms in the course of every human life, many laws of life were set forth here and in later lectures, laws now dimly sensed but which must be lifted through knowledge and will into the development of each human life. Through experience of the rhythm uniting all the spheres of spiritual reality, man can restore the effective union which has been lost. For the rhythm in that which is real and living in nature holds sway also in the individual, the social, and the cosmic course of events. Through entering consciously into these higher complexes of law man takes the first steps toward approaching again the Creative Powers carrying forward the planned cosmic activity.
In the cycle of March 27-April 24, 1917, Building Stones for a Knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha, Rudolf Steiner dealt more broadly with that content of spiritual science which holds the central place in its endeavor to bring about an understanding and inner experience of the most decisive events in the history of humanity. In these lectures historical facts are so presented that they are seen to come together by all their different roads in the Central Event of the deed of Christ. The pre-Christian Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire constituted in their esoteric essence path-breakers for this occurrence. The Caesars misused these Mysteries later, forcing their own initiation as a means of gaining power. Later the holders of power warred against the Mysteries. Such things could not change the course of spiritual history, finding its fulfillment according to a higher plan in accordance with that Central Event, unrecognized as yet, but destined to alter completely the history of the world. The relation of all events to the Christ Impulse determines in the final analysis what is sound and what is unsound in the course of evolution. All that is anti-religious in this sense was designated by Rudolf Steiner as not only error but illness—a denial of the Godhead as an illness of the soul, a denial of Christ as a tragedy of the soul, a denial of the Spirit as the self-deception of the human being. He pointed out through concrete examples how in the life of the simple human being, but especially and more tragically in the life of the holders of power, such a denial and every opposition against the Spirit brings about the symptoms of illness in the course of human history. This is most intensely manifest in the symptoms of the last centuries.
In the third cycle of 1917, nine lectures between May 8 and July 24 entitled Truths in the Evolution of Man and of Humanity, he spoke of the application of spiritual-scientific research to the practice of life by the contemporary human being. Here he frequently mentioned a characteristic symptom leading to an understanding of external events, and illustrated this out of contemporary phenomena,—that is, the ominous fact that humanity as a whole becomes gradually younger, in the sense that a briefer span of life is employed for spiritual development. For many persons the end of spiritual development moves backward more and more from an advanced age into the period of youth. He declared that a false analogy is used when, as often occurs, it is said that:
“just as the individual human being develops between such and such years of his life, so does the whole of humanity develop. Now, I have found that this is utterly untrue, and also that the change in this regard is connected with most significant mysteries in the contemporary epoch of humanity.”
The human being is by nature so endowed that a certain degree of spiritual maturity comes about only at an advanced age:
“Underlying this fact is the truth that, after a certain definite point in the individual development, the human being has completed his physical growth; that his spiritual-soul being then ceases to be dependent upon the growth and development of the bodily organs, which has ceased; that his spiritual-soul being then develops independently and freely.”
If a person's development does not cease before this period, he comes naturally into a relation with the world determined less by the body and more by the soul and spirit. Now, humanity is gradually ceasing to progress beyond a more youthful stage, still more bound to the body, and thus only what was developed in youth continues its unchanged course. This retrogressive trend in development has been proceeding for centuries:
“The strange fact is that, when one has investigated these things, it cannot be said that humanity grows older, but, strangely enough, it must be said that humanity grows younger, moves backward.”
Dr. Steiner pointed out that at earlier stages of the post-Atlantean development this period of maturity was reached at about the fifty-sixth year, which gave a definite imprint to the culture of that age. But this period of maturity has been retrogressing since then—to approximately the forty-ninth, then the thirty-fifth, and today it must regretfully be declared that, not only the average human being but also many leading personalities, cease to progress in their thinking and their general development at about the twenty-seventh year. The innumerable individual details of knowledge and experience which may later be added do not play a role in the level of thinking and development which has been completed up to the twenty-seventh year:
“The simple truth is that in our epoch humanity as a whole stands at its twenty-seventh year of life . . . In this fact you see the necessity for the appearance of spiritual science, which undertakes to bring to bear upon the soul that which cannot come about through corporeal development; which undertakes to sustain the soul in its free development out of its own forces. For otherwise we shall have the phenomenon that those persons whose development continues to be dependent upon what can come out of the external world of the senses and of ordinary vision,—that these persons, even if they in actuality grow to be one hundred years old, will not become older than twenty-seven years for our epoch. That is, what they would be able to express in their inner comprehension of ideas, their feelings, their ideals, would always bear the character corresponding with the human life-span of twenty-seven years.
“I have given attention to the most manifold individual personalities of our epoch, such personalities as intervene in the various branches of the culture of our time in public life. And precisely this part of my study I have really not found easy to pursue. I have endeavored to discover the actual nature of one or another phenomenon which appears so ominously in our contemporary life. And the finding of my study has been that very much which now confronts us rests upon the fact that persons are active in public life—active in the manner that I have described in preceding reflections—whose fundamental mood in all their ideas, in that which they are able to bring forth from themselves no matter how old they are, reaches up only to the twenty-seventh year.”
Dr. Steiner illustrated by referring to representative figures in the leading circles of the present determinative course of events. The purely materialistic thinking and the conduct based upon this is derived from the fact that such persons no longer grow out of their state of bondage to the corporeal, which corresponds with the period of youth. It is easy to see how this fact plays a serious role in the spiritually unfree conditions of the present time, in the lack of spiritual progress. Naturally, the period of youth gives its great contributions to humanity at the natural stage of the development of the individual, but this condition of the “twenty-seven-year-oldness,” as a general phenomenon of stagnation, imperils further development; unless new impulses intervene, it must eventually bring about a retrogression in human thinking to the twenty-fifth or the twentieth year. This is especially true since, in the social structure of the present time, it is often not the individual but the general type which is determinative. Because of this phenomenon of evolution it is essential that—as an antidote against this thinking and action bound to the body—that element of man's being shall be strengthened in which insights and conclusions are drawn from experiences which, through maturity or through spiritual training, have become more free of the body and conscious of the universal spiritual environment.
The symptoms of the times were illustrated in those lectures on the basis of the cultural, social, and scientific facts in course of development. Additional lectures dealt with the following contemporary questions: The need for new, more mobile concepts; the Spirit in the cosmos and in nature; the contemporary scientific spirit; contemporary scientific phenomena; aspiring human beings of the present time; difficulties in achieving self-knowledge; the successive lives on earth; relation of the human being to truth. Dr. Steiner illustrated how the childhood, adult, and old-age stages of different peoples and cultures may often work out during the same epoch as a continuing juxtaposition in the geographical sense. On the other hand, he showed how such concepts as those of Orient and Occident, East, Middle, and West may be conceived not only as geographical juxtapositions, but also as an after-one-another in the historical sense. In this way each age, so to speak, in the historical epochs and cultures makes its special contribution in the living organism of the present.
While dealing with these complicated fundamental problems of human evolution, Rudolf Steiner was at the same fateful time called upon daily for innumerable personal conversations with persons seeking counsel, either for themselves or for society in general.
In this connection, most important of all was the request for advice in July 1917 from two personalities: Count Otto Lerchenfeld, of the State Council in Bavaria, who was in contact with the leading personalities of the times and who took a vital interest in these problems; and Count Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, who was confronted with a similar situation. His brother had been since February 1917 the Prime Minister of Kaiser Karl of Austria. Both these personalities united a comprehensive orientation in concrete events with an intense determination to seek for right solutions, in keeping with spiritual requirements.
The external situation in Europe in June and July, 1917, is characterized by the following facts. In the west the battles of April and May on the Aisne River and in the Champagne had not altered the situation. Static war continued. But America had entered the war on April 2, 1917, with its certainty of later decisive influence. In the east, decisive events had already occurred: the so-called March revolution in Russia. The world of Czarism collapsed, and soon thereafter arose Lenin5s Bolshevism, in November, 1917. The specter of social crises coming out of the East was knocking at the door of Europe. In the Middle, Bethmann-Hollweg, Chancellor since 1909, had retired, and had been succeeded by Chancellor Michaelis, not a significant political figure though a personality of marked character. But Michaelis was soon succeeded by Count Herding, who as a tired old man surrendered his post at the close of the war to Prince Max of Bavaria. The many changes in this high office during the year influenced all of those concerned. We quote here from the later memoirs of Count Otto Lerchenfeld:
“One can scarcely endure any longer to be an onlooker. All order is in chaos ... in the offices of our delegation it is as if one were in a pigeon house. Ministers, parliamentarians, the few remaining diplomats, half of the Federal Council are holding to the doorknobs. Uncle Hugo [then the Bavarian Ambassador] receives callers only at breakfast. He looks as though he had been struck on the head, in complete exhaustion. Most of the others who come and go do not make a very different impression, but they all somehow put on a bold face, as if ... What else can they do? The day before yesterday H. opened his heart to me; there was not much in it ... One feels as if all of these people had their tongues hanging down to their necks; as if they were worn out from lack of sleep, exhausted, each seeking for everything in his little department or sub-department. For thoughts—no time! Of ideas—not a trace!...
“What can still rescue us from the mill of fate, slowly but surely grinding us to pieces? A great idea? But where is this? Certainly not with any of those who have up to the present taken part in these events, and certainly not with me. I can see only the negative.
“This evening I must go to Munich to a sitting of the Imperial Council, but I shall return immediately. In Munich there is still, on the one hand, more optimism than here, but on the other hand more separation. No wonder: more time and leisure, less knowledge there and for this reason a broader survey. Here in Berlin no one looks beyond the single day ・・・ There is only one who really knows.
“And the question arose imperatively out of the agony of such a mood: Who can show to the German people the way out of this blind alley? Who— what can give help? To me it was clear that only one could do this, that only one had the complete survey; and I turned to him in those days with the questions which lay as a heavy and burning load upon the soul.
“Rudolf Steiner was staying for several days at that time in Berlin, and there I visited him. I described the situation as I had reviewed it, but also what I had come to see in the course of my own political experience as the primary defects in our political life. He listened attentively—only now and then a brief question interjected, a correction—and a longer conference was arranged for the next afternoon. In this conference he then developed in brief outline as an answer to my questions the ideas which he called The Threefold Social Order. At that time, however, he considered that the idea had first to be worked out in detail before it could be taken up by life and by people. The possible immediate results were also touched upon on this afternoon; and what Rudolf Steiner had to say in this connection in convincing logic was of such a nature that the mood in which I had come to him was completely reversed. How complete this reversal was may be shown by a few sentences out of my memoirs:
"'..・ was with Dr. Steiner today in Motzstrasse for three hours. I see before me the solution of everything. Know that there can be no other. The Threefold Social Order he has called that which he placed before me like the egg of Columbus. In the next few days he will work the idea out with me. It. may well take weeks for this ・・・'
“That Rudolf Steiner did not share my optimism [as to the immediate realization of his idea] soon became very clear to me. More than three weeks of day-long, hour-long work followed this first conference: weeks of the loftiest experience, the highest tension, the most intense learning, learning...”
On the basis of this work a telegram was sent on July 10 to Count Ludwig Polzer, at Tannbach, who then came to Berlin to share in the further work. Count Lerchenfeld reports further:
“And then one beautiful day the complete structure was there, put together stone upon stone in the utmost detail. There was nothing of the abstract, no theory, no program, nothing merely thought out. These have nothing to do with the onward movement of life. In the building of this structure, on the other hand, every one of the weighty relations of life was asked, as it were: 'What do you need, and you and you, in order to prosper as freely, joyfully, and soundly as possible and to become what you might become and ought to become if you are to be able to fulfill your mission in the totality of the social order?1 And the answers of all, as if bound together in a garland, did not provide what was intended to become a definitive solution of the social question, and could naturally not be this by reason of the very nature of a living organism. Nevertheless, there did result out of this idea the way3 the only straightforward way upon which the social conditions, the social difficulties with their eternally varying problems, might be guided again and again toward a solution appropriate to the period, toward their curing.
“On one of the final days, when that which had thus been brought about was soon to be presented to those personalities holding positions in the public life, I begged of Rudolf Steiner a sort of brief memorandum regarding these ideas of his, in order that I might give this to those who might have an interest in these ideas and might express the wish to become better acquainted with them. A short time thereafter he handed me the manuscript..."
In this memorandum and others composed between July 14 and 17) the items of knowledge were presented which might be fruitfully discussed with the statesmen to whom the two persons who had presented their questions were now to go. These memoranda, after a brief introductory statement of the situation, contained the essential fundamental ideas of the threefold nature of the social organisms as later published by Rudolf Steiner, under the title The Threefold Commonwealth, and often discussed by him. We shall revert to the question of this content. Here again concrete situation and questions had led Rudolf Steiner to create an impulse which would soon result in a world-wide activity, whose future historical perspectives are at present altogether invisible. As always, seeds that fall upon unfruitful soil have the greatest difficulties to overcome. But these difficulties were courageously attacked. Regarding the first results, Count Lerchenfeld reports:
“Many of the leading personalities in Germany and Austria were now approached; to many a one who seemed to enter into these ideas, one or the other of the two written documents was presented. One met with various experiences. Aside from the courteous lack of understanding in the case of many, one met in the case of many earnest men a good understanding for one or another detail of the comprehensive material, but almost never such an understanding for the idea itself and its immediate capability of influencing the course of events. It was as if there were no suitable organ in the ordinary course of thinking for something never hitherto conceived.”
As the reason for this lack of a capacity for conclusions, for entering into the whole thing, Count Lerchenfeld emphasizes such a burden of overwork on the part of the persons in question in their own special spheres that neither time nor strength was left for surveying the entire situation and for thinking and willing great ideas. Even those who showed a readiness for such ideas, and agreed with them in conversation, were incapable in the routine of the next day of transforming thoughts into actions:
“The will could not follow the thinking, and fear arose, fear as if before the danger of drowning. One could frequently receive this impression. I will not speak here of those who had no authority to act. Yet one thing was common to almost all, the lack of a strong creative will.
Very soon I no longer counted upon any external results, nor was I deceived. These experiences only confirmed what Rudolf Steiner had frequently indicated to me. Nevertheless, I knew that everything must be done in order that the idea of the threefold social order should sink into the conceptual consciousness of the time.”
Among the statesmen to whom were presented these ideas capable of resolving the contemporary problems, were personalities such as von Kühlmann, who was entrusted with establishing the new relations between the East and the Middle. But, instead of laying hold upon the great conception here presented, only the old routine was employed, which produced the seeming solution of Brest-Litowsk, soon contradicted by reality. There was no serious effort to resolve the problem of the Middle and the East. Those also who were entrusted with the problem of relation between the Middle and the West were unable to bring a lofty conception from thinking into willing. Moreover, even the effort to discover an understanding in Middle Europe for solutions brought to birth there, and the will to make these effective, failed completely of any realization. Austria, for instance, faced just at that time the unique situation in world history requiring a wholesome interpenetration of the Middle and the East within her own structure, or else destruction for herself. In August, 1917, the ideas thought out by Dr. Steiner were presented by Count Ludwig PolzerHoditz to his brother, Count Arthur Polzer-Hoditz, First Counsellor of the Emperor, who reports thus in his memoirs:
“It was in the end of August 1917 that I became acquainted through my brother, who was visiting me in Reichenau, with the ideas of the founder of the Anthroposophical Society, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, regarding the threefold nature of the social organism. I took at first a reserved and skeptical attitude, but studied thoroughly the memorandum of Dr. Steiner's in regard to these matters which had been handed to me. I wished to test the ideas, independently of the source from which they were derived, very remote from me, and also not only as regards their objective value but also the possibility of applying them and carrying them out. I formed the impression that we were concerned with a proposal which—in contrast with so many others—took into full account the practical requirements of the period at hand....
UI believed that I recognized that the idea basic to this system was correct; and I concluded, therefore, that its realization—no matter how difficult this might be—must be objectively possible. To this end, however, there would be needed the convinced cooperation of the peoples. Moreover, it would have been necessary most of all to impart to the majority of humanity the conviction that this idea was right. It did not suffice to grasp an idea correct in itself; it would be necessary for its realization to win the great masses, and thus to establish the idea from the realm of the ideal upon the firm foundation of reality.
“But I had the feeling from the beginning that the idea of the threefold order, just because it had been taken from the world of Spirit and represented the final abandonment of ancient conditions, concepts, and habits of thinking, would be almost universally rejected, especially in a time such as the year 1917, in which it was thought that one must not depart too far from that which had been customary.”
He did not present these ideas to the Austrian Emperor until his resignation audience on November 22, and the man who followed him in office pursued the course toward the abyss.
What we have described in this connection shows that Rudolf Steiner drew all his knowledge out of practical reality, and applied it also to practical reality. Indeed, at just this time he endeavored to warn and to help where warning and help were most needed—among those who held the threads of destiny in their hands. But the idea had to be entrusted to the future, while the ancient, shackled to itself, was submerged.
The fundamental ideas of "the threefold nature of the social organism” could not again be introduced into the world until this era of the ancient routine had passed, at the end of the World War, in 1919—this time in a larger form. We shall return to this.
Under the circumstances, Rudolf Steiner could not at first do anything else than to seek to arouse those willing to hear to a knowledge of the spiritual backgrounds of this entire course of evolution. He did this at first through a cycle of lectures between July 31 and September 25 under the title The Karma of Materialism. He called attention to certain thinkers in the East, the Middle, and the West who did not follow out to the end their search for the Spirit, or whose warnings went unheard; and also to the open "battle against the Spirit" which had become dominant in the recent past. He answered such questions as: Why are there evil and pain in the world? He called attention to the fact in evolution that every higher stage has come about upon a basis of pain:
“Nothing has come into existence bringing good fortune, joy, blessedness without having arisen on a foundation of pain. To be unwilling to accept pain, opposition, means being unwilling to accept the beautiful, the great, the blessed, the good.”
He demanded spiritual courage in place of the fundamental evil of the times, lassitude of soul. In his characterization of the time we find such hints as this:
“How completely alone one stood—permit me to say this in conclusion— when I characterized in 1914 the confused thinking of Woodrow Wilson in my Helsingfors cycle of lectures. This was in the time when the rest of the literary world—just because at that time the book Mere Literature and other things had been translated—had laid itself at the feet of Woodrow Wilson. How the so-called 'great ... distinguished ... unprejudiced, manner of thinking of Wilson was celebrated at that time, celebrated often by those who now speak entirely differently. What was necessary, however, to bring about this reversal? Was insight necessary, or something entirely different from insight? What was necessary was this: that there must be a deeper insight into that which spiritual science is to bring in the form of a union with the total reality, of judgments about reality, in contrast with what is altogether dominant at the present time in all realms, in unreality and empty abstractions.”
These lectures initiated a consideration of the origin of thinking and willing in the human being and the spiritual method necessary for rendering sound this initial point of everything that occurs, and thus alone to overcome "the karma of materialism."
At Michaelmas in 1917, Rudolf Steiner returned to Dornach where he took up again his manifold, fruitful upbuilding activity. The Michaelmas lectures, September 29~October 13, on The Spiritual Background of the External Worlds were a sort of preface to the great historical lectures in which he then drew aside the veil before the spiritual backgrounds of our epoch and spoke of the Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. In this initial stage he pointed to positive and negative endeavors in the history of the last centuries: for example, to the endeavor which had been made by Spiritual Powers in the seventeenth century through the work of Johann Valentine Andrea, The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz, and which had been frustrated by Opposing Powers; called attention to those Opposing Powers themselves, whose obstinate will then condensed into the outbreak of the World War; to the stages in human thinking and action which led to these catastrophes.
As a point of light in this downward course of the world he dealt on October 5, in continuation of his lectures on art, with the work of Raphael, especially his Disputa and The School of Athens.
On October 14 he began his description of the long-prepared turning point in world history in the last third of the nineteenth century, which came about in spiritual battles reaching their culmination in the year 1879 in a first great decision. These were battles in the spiritual sphere from the 'forties of the nineteenth century until 1879, pictured as the battle of Michael against the Dragon, a struggle between good and evil Dominations for the soul of the human being. In these lectures entitled Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, were presented phases of world history covering thousands of years, of which one was announced even in the ancient Mysteries as the "Kali Yuga,” to end in the nineteenth century; the rhythms in the penetration of these spiritual forces into the course of earth events and their withdrawal in the space of centuries; the approaching and the withdrawal of Beings which are active from the other side of the Threshold in the course of earth events; the battle of Beings of Ahrimanic and of Luciferic nature against one another in the sphere of the human spirit and soul life; the endeavors of the human individuality, who is endowed with a capacity for freedom, to withdraw in the course of centuries from these influences; the victories of humanity in the case of many spiritually leading personalities but also their defeat in the ignorance, fear before the spiritual light, and blindness in the form of materialism, which makes human beings just so much more the instruments for achieving the goals of those Powers; the changes which have occurred in man, even in bodily structure, since he became enclosed within the stupor of the materialistic sphere. He spoke of the helpful intervention of those Powers which were victorious in the year 1879 beyond the Threshold in the spirit of Michael over the Dragon— a victory, however, which is as yet purely spiritual, whose realization on earth must now be taken in hand by man himself. But the victory of those good Powers in the spiritual sphere thrust the Opposing Powers there defeated, the Spirits of Darkness, even further down into the earthly sphere, into the domain where the human being is thinking and acting in the earthly existence, so that these Spirits have there, as it were, established their fortress, in order to prevent by still denser enclosing walls human penetration into the spiritual. These spiritual battles, which penetrate into the profoundest depths of the human unconscious life, man must learn to look upon in full consciousness. By means of his own powers, he must direct his look beyond the Threshold and learn to recognize himself as a member of that supersensible world-organism and a participant in its spiritual battles.
Unless narrowly conceived horizons of knowledge are expanded to the realms beyond the Threshold to the spiritual world, the inevitable result will be still further catastrophes. A true spiritual science must give attention to the laws of evolution, the battles and objectives on this side and on that of the Threshold. Rudolf Steiner concluded these reflections with the words:
“Together with the fact that I have endeavored to introduce you to the laws of the spiritual life, to the impulses of the spiritual life, I consider it also as my task to call attention to the significant phenomena of the present time, even though it comes about that what you hear mentioned in these lectures as the significant phenomena is designated outside in ordinary life as not significant phenomena, if they are mentioned at all. What is undertaken among us must be differentiated radically and fundamentally from what is undertaken in the outside world. Only if we grasp this fact in all its depths and in all earnestness can we really carry on spiritual science in the proper way.”
While he spoke thus profoundly, to those who had been prepared during many years, of these deeper causes lying at the basis of spiritual evolution, he seized also every opportunity to bring to the attention of larger circles the necessary first steps toward research in the supersensible-spiritual world in a manner in keeping with reality. Thus on October 18 he gave a public lecture in Basel on The Human Soul in the Realm of the Supersensible and Its Relation with the Body. Beginning with a reference to the endeavor of Goethe, both in Faust but also in the observation of nature, to awaken a sense for the influence of the supersensible in the human being, and after a comprehensive presentation of the ways which must now be trodden further by the pioneer of the twentieth century, he made it known for the first time in lectures of October 18, 19 that he would give to the building for humanity which was being erected in Dornach the name Goetheanum, on the principle of spiritual continuity and the renewing of such strivings and research.
As is shown in his autobiography, he had achieved the right to use this name by reason of what he had done for the work of Goethe. A direct path leads from the editing of Goethe5s natural-scientific writings to the presentation of Faust and to Faust lectures every year. A pyramid of knowledge had been erected with foundations laid upon the Goethean spiritual basis and whose apex reached into those regions where Faust experienced resurrection. Even in 1884, Rudolf Steiner had designated Goethe's work and Goetheanism as the very innermost substance of the culture which Middle Europe must provide for humanity. To this end he had begun in the year 1883-84 the editing of Goethe's natural-scientific writings. The use of the name Goetheanum thirty-three years later for his building for humanity did not merely confer honor upon a great person of the past, but it designated this building as a working center for his spirit in the twentieth century.
In a paper published in the year 1923 Dr. Steiner set forth again in detail how spiritual science, Anthroposophy, had developed—in the area of knowledge and in the artistic molding in the building of the Goetheanum— out of the spiritual world of Goethe. We quote a few sentences from that statement:
“Any one who has noticed the shapes out of which the total formation of the Goetheanum has been composed in a living integration could see how Goethe's ideas of metamorphosis have entered into the conception of the building ...
“It is possible to take a twofold attitude toward these Goethean ideas of metamorphosis. It is possible to consider them an interesting peculiarity of the mind of Goethe and to stop at that. But it is possible also to make the endeavor to bring one's own activity and ideas into the Goethean direction. It will then be found that mysteries of nature are thus revealed to which access can be found in no other way.
“When I thought that I had observed this fact more than forty years ago (in my introductions to the natural-scientific writings of Goethe in the Kürschner edition of German national literature) I called Goethe the Copernicus and the Kepler of the science of the organic ...
“Goethe had achieved the deed of Copernicus in that he introduced into the realm of cognition the spiritual activity through which he worked artistically. He sought a way from the artist to the knower and found it ...
“Now, it is permissible to give the name Goetheanum to the building which in its architecture and sculpture has been so developed that the endeavor has been undertaken to bring to realization in its forms a living penetration into the Goethean conception of metamorphosis.
“In the same manner, moreover, Anthroposophy itself has taken the course of a direct further development of the Goethean conception. Whoever has made himself receptive to the conception of the transformation not only of the sensibly visible forms—at which point Goethe remained by reason of his special character of soul—but also of that which can be grasped by the soul and the spirit,—such a person has arrived at Anthroposophy ...
“Through the conception of metamorphosis, we achieve the living. We thus impart a living quality to our own thinking. From a dead thinking it becomes living. But in this way it achieves the capacity to take into itself in actual vision the life of the Spirit ... That which feels itself to be resting firmly, therefore, upon the world conception of Goethe can justly be cultivated in a building which, as a memorial to Goethe, bears the name Goetheanum.”
We shall return later to Dr. Steiner's discussion of contemporary Goetheanism and the Goetheanum. In public lectures at this time he gave still further clarification in connection with this idea and name.
In coming lectures he now interpreted, in relation to world history, the primal phenomenon of our epoch: the concentrated attack of the evil against the germ of the future. In connection with the lectures at the beginning of the year 1914, we pointed out the fact that Dr. Steiner gave a definition of the nature of evil. There he had shown how the human being may become the cause of evil in his environment. Now, in lectures of November 15, 16, 18-25, 1917, he showed how man himself may become the object of the evil, the tool of the evil. Such forces stream into him from spiritual Beings and from nature. Rudolf Steiner has described in detail Beings in the spiritual world who desire what is anti-Christian in the supersensible realm, and strive for the mastery of the human being. These are not only Mephistopheles, but lofty Beings who have fallen away from the primal plan of the Godhead, Lucifer and Ahriman and their hosts. From their spiritual realm they seek to permeate and master both man and nature.
But from below also forces alien to the human being penetrate into his sensible-supersensible nature. These nature forces, differing in character and strength on the various continents, tend through their action either to loosen the human being too much from his bodily organization or to bind him too closely to this. In different ways they radiate into the fine structure of persons living in the various parts of the world, disturbing their balance and bringing about one-sidednesses. The geography of these forces, so to speak, must at present be consciously investigated. To safeguard oneself, to give freedom to one's ego-being, it is necessary to learn to give attention to these forces from above and from below. They tend to create in man an alien structure, a sort of "second self," which threatens to master the individual being. Rudolf Steiner undertook to show how to arrive at an exact diagnosis of these various forces in East, Middle, and West, which can then lead to healing methods, a sort of "geographical medicine.” This is all the more important for the reason that certain circles desire to keep man ignorant of these facts, in order to carry out through these forces destructive power experiments.
But there are differentiations and integrations in the course of time as well as in space. The metamorphosis of man's bodily structure in the course of centuries is accompanied by a modification of his relation to the surrounding world, the character of the questions he puts to nature and to the world of Spirit. While still clairvoyant in earlier epochs, man received guidance from the spiritual worlds; enclosed today in the darkness of the body he is deprived of guidance and dependent upon himself. The closed doors create fear as to what is beyond them. This imprisonment in the body came about during the Fourth Post-Atlantean Epoch, in the Grecian-Roman period. Dr. Steiner showed through concrete symptoms how the distressed and then abstract philosophical question regarding the nature of birth and death arose only after the loss of clairvoyant vision. In our own epoch, the central question is that regarding the nature of evil. If this question is not consciously answered, it must lead to the destruction of a humanity grown weak through isolation from the spiritual. The World War, which was raging at that time, was only one of the many symptoms. It is not a concentration upon one's own weapons of destruction, but an outlook upon the causes of evil coming from the other side of the Threshold, which is so imperatively needed.
The human being of this century must not be led from without; he must know, must make free decisions, must recognize and choose the right battle fields. Hence we find in those lectures of Dr. Steiner an explanation of the situation of the spiritual leader in this age: that he can only give expression to things, call them by their names; that as to the rest he must leave man free:
“At this time, therefore, certain things can only be uttered; but this uttering—I beg you, my dear friends, to give attention to this—is just as important today as anything else was important in other epochs of time.
“In our time, the imparting of truths, the setting forth of truths, is the supremely important thing. After that, human beings must give direction to themselves out of their own freedom. One must really not go any further than simply to the statement, to the imparting of truths. The rest must come from free decisions; must so follow as things follow which are grasped as decisions out of the impulses of the physical plane. This applies also to those things which, in a certain way, can be guided and directed only out of the spiritual world itself.”
This uttering of truths, even though disturbing to the self-indulgence of human beings, was continued by Rudolf Steiner in the following lectures as the greatest service which he could render to a blind time. But he also set forth at times what is given to us in creative forces of the good as the opposite pole in the process of being and becoming.
This purpose was served by both art and lecturing. In continuing presentations from Faust, those parts were studied in which Faust is brought to face the problems of science and of the social community—in January 1917, the Laboratory Scene was presented; on November 2, the scenes leading through the “Dark Gallery” to the “Emperor's Court.” On the same day a lecture cast light upon the meaning of these scenes through which Faust was led to the ultimate mastering of the earthly mission. It is characteristic that Rudolf Steiner, in accordance with the theme of this year, spoke in this lecture of November 3 regarding Faust and the Problem of Evil, and led the audience through this sphere to the redeeming resurrection in social action.
Rendering these problems visible through art was followed at times by indication of the way of cognition and results of research which can bring about a scientific clarification regarding such questions. Thus there followed a series of public lectures in Zurich, St. Gallen, Basel, and Bern in November, 1917. In Zurich Dr. Steiner not only presented a fruitful exposition in various fields of contemporary science, but called attention to a series of findings in research which could lead to the further development of knowledge already possessed. Whereas Faust, after the study of philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and medicine, had withdrawn disillusioned from such study, Rudolf Steiner, in spite of his research in those spheres toward which Faust was striving, still remained in constant contact with all the developments of the university sciences. He objected intensely to all dilettante criticism of these sciences; although they had become materialistic and one-sided, he did not oppose them where they limited their research to phenomena, but warned only when there was danger of the application of principles valid in the physical realm to that which is not of a physical-sensible nature. He wished to contribute toward guiding the sciences out of the narrowly limited area of the specialists toward a new synthesis and a comprehensive world picture, in which spiritual reality should also have its place.
For this reason he gave in the university city of Zurich four public lectures under the titles: 1. Anthroposophy and Psychology; 2. Anthroposophy and the Science of History; 3. Anthroposophy and Natural Science; 4. Anthroposophy and Social Science.
Here he followed a characteristic direction—beginning with man himself and passing by the way of his historical evolution, the conditioning influences from his basis in nature, to the social community and its tasks. In a lecture of November 14, 1917, he now spoke also in public of the results of research which lead to the idea of "the threefold nature of the social organism.”
Such results of the work of decades were presented also in lectures between November 15 and 30 in St. Gallen, Basel, and Bern. In the Basel lecture of November 23, Dr. Steiner presented before a public audience the threefold character of the bodily structure of the human organism (the human being of head, breast, and metabolic-limb system). In this connection he made a personal remark—which he very seldom did—to the effect that he had devoted three decades to research in the phenomena of the threefold nature of the human being:
“Those in the audience who often hear me lecture know that I very reluctantly introduce anything personal, but I permit myself to make such a mention here because it has a certain relation with what I wish to bring forward. What I have now decided to say in regard to the relation of the human spiritual-soul being to the corporeal-bodily nature is the result of a research lasting for more than thirty years.”
Thus the real hour of birth of the impulse which had led to the conception of the threefold system was in the 'eighties of the' previous century, the time when Rudolf Steiner was engaged in making known Goethe's natural-scientific writings; and then, while building upon this foundation in the succeeding years, he wrote his works, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Goethe's Conception of the World. The conception of the threefold system had grown to maturity during the intervening three decades.
During these months his work Riddles of the Soul appeared. In the first chapter, he describes the logically and historically necessary progress from anthropology to Anthroposophy. In the next chapter he characterizes and rejects the battle of contemporary scientists against a broadening of the limits of knowledge. The fourth chapter sets forth scientifically the threefold structure of the human organism, which he developed systematically in succeeding years, and which is necessary as a basis in knowledge for the solution of the social questions through the creation of a threefold social organism. In the following seven years, 1917—1924, he carried on a work of research in these now matured elements of knowledge even into the individual fields of anthropology and sociology.
In the lectures of December 2-22, 1917, the expositions of the preceding lectures were broadened under the general title Historical Necessity and Freedom. He had set forth the nature of man, the impulse toward freedom, and the opposing forces which resist this impulse. Out of man's complicated structure, in which the physical and spiritual worlds are brought together and these realms interpenetrate, and out of an exact description of the processes going on in the human being to the extent that these are perceptible to natural science or to spiritual science, the nature of man was made known as the result and objective of an evolution in which forces of nature and Spiritual Beings are at work. Thus was rendered clear the degree in which necessity and freedom are inherent in man; how he must direct his look to the wisdom-filled foundation in nature and also to the influences upon soul and spirit out of the sphere of purposefully active Beings, out of the realm of the living and of the dead, out of the world of supersensible social and anti-social impulses. The origin of good and evil in this world organism of Beings of Will is thus brought into consciousness. This was placed in contrast with the threatening appearance of a "world・machine," as this is being brought to birth by the present-day intellect and is intended to be forced upon the evolution of the earth. To human beings who really desire to see more deeply into reality, there was thus given the possibility to become immune against the phraseology of optimistic propaganda and the veiling of the perils, as this veil was being drawn over the faces of contemporary humanity. The courageous deed to which Rudolf Steiner had devoted his tireless forces in those years consisted in bringing from behind the veil and into the light the primal sources of evil by the side of the germinating forces of the good.
At Christmas time in 1917, after pointing out and naming in the midst of symptoms of catastrophe the Powers of Evil, he now set forth in a lecture of December 23, under the title Et incarnatus est, the Incarnation of Christ as the center in world history. In this lecture he set forth also for the first time how the life of Christ, which occupied thirty-three years on earth, has impressed its forces and rhythms into the organism of the earth and of time, giving form to world history, showing thus that, not only the forces of nature, but also spiritual facts and their influences are effective in the rhythm of evolution. He showed how very much which is essential in the phenomena of history receives its special imprint through the fact that it unfolds in a cycle of thirty-three years from its origin to maturity and fulfillment or to rebirth:
“What occurs in approximately this time indicates in such a way in a historical connection that it came to birth thirty-three years earlier; and that it, in turn, is the beginning for the birth of that which will develop in the course of the next thirty-three years.”
For it is not only in living nature but also in the sphere of soul and spirit that rhythm holds sway, accessible to the knowledge of the human being if he studies the finer metamorphoses of the historical process. The work in which Rudolf Steiner had intended to render visible the idea of metamorphosis in nature and in art in the Goethean sense—the Goetheanum—had now progressed so far and attracted such attention that on December 23 the Swiss Union of Engineers and Architects came to Dornach to inspect the building. After a Eurythmy performance for these technical visitors, Dr. Steiner explained the fundamental ideas underlying the building in an address of welcome and then led them through the building. He again made clear to the social community that spiritual science, as he intended to establish it, is capable of proving its truthfulness even in visible, monumental work, even in the area of practical achievement.
The final lectures of the year, delivered in the Schreinereie, united Mystery Truths and Christian Impulses. The planned course of history was set forth comprehensively, as this has proceeded through the flowing together of ancient Mystery traditions of India and Egypt, the teaching about the stars of Persia and Chaldea, the wisdom of Greece, all leading to the fundamentally rejuvenating deed of the Christ, hindered and opposed by Adverse Powers through the centuries until the present. The year 1917, bearing the mark of stagnation and chaotic revolution, had confronted humanity with questions. These questions were answered by a human being who spoke to the powerful circles of the statesmen and to the small circles of the learned, and who knew that the ripening of truths, in accordance with the principles of growth in the spiritual world, is marked by rhythms, to which the spiritual leader must pay heed.