The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1918
The year 1918 brought the end of the World War, and with this the eruption of overwhelming social crises in Europe. Viewed in its relation to this year, the work of Rudolf Steiner shows a definitely prophetic orientation toward events still resting in the bosom of the future, but inexorably drawing near. This work showed two polarities—at the beginning of the year, a retrospect into the metamorphoses of consciousness in the past, leading to the present stage in evolution; at the end of the year, an outlook upon the social duties of the future.
The first Dornach cycle of lectures, on January 4—13, Ancient Myths and Their Meanings with the sub-title The Rejuvenating Forces in Human Nature, began with a retrospect into the nature of mythical thinking, the consciousness of man as a microcosm belonging to the macrocosm. The introduction gave a picture of the myth of Osiris and Isis, representing the union between man and the cosmos. We refer here to the already mentioned rhythmic connection between our own age and that of Egypt. He then showed the transformation of the human relation to the world of the Gods in the three ^generations of Gods" of Greece. For in this realm also there are successions of generations. Parallel with these changes proceeds the transformation in the human state of soul, the nearness of man to the Gods or his remoteness. The death of Osiris characterizes a change in human consciousness; the world of creative imagination disappeared. Following this, the pictorial writing of the Egyptians yields to the abstract writing in alphabets; spiritual vision and mythical experience yield to the intellect. In a similar rhythm the social form of the earthly life changes. The social structure, determined earlier according to cosmic laws, indications of the Gods, and constellations of stars is now the work of man alone, the product of the Spirit-alienated intellect. No longer the generations of Gods guide the course of destiny, but generations of men. From the idea of a royal heredity for individual lineages, resting upon a vaguely conceived divine grace, human thinking proceeds to more and more materialistic conceptions of heredity, which contemptuously set aside the idea of the man's origin in the world of Spirit and seek to decipher the laws of development out of microscopic preparations of the smallest units of bodily substance. Such a change of consciousness has surely its meaning in the world plan.
The human being deserted by the Gods and made self-dependent is just as important a phase of evolution as any other which preceded it or will follow it. The failure in thinking lies only in the fact that this phase is looked upon as a climactic point, as something permanently valid, whereas it is only a transitional phase; an experiment in evolution. What once lived in the myth of Osiris and Isis is dead only as regards human consciousness. It is only in the thought of human beings that the generations of the Gods arc eliminated. There is need for a new vision of Spiritual Powers at present active. The forces of imagination, inspiration, and intuition slumber in man; they await their rebirth at a new stage in evolution. The cosmic clock has not stopped even though man does not see it. As soon as the inner mission of our age, that of educating "a spiritually free human being,55 reaches its decisive phase, the slumbering forces, united with the Spirit and the cosmos, awake anew, and the question "How is knowledge of a higher world achieved?55 demands to be answered.
Rudolf Steiner here made clear likewise the erroneous idea that humanity only “grows older.” The “rejuvenating forces in human nature” are at first delicate, mysterious, unconsciously active; but they are now again awaking, rebellious, until they shall become consciously integrated into the individual human life and into the social structure. For the time being, man is, as it were, only head-man; he considers only the forces of his intellect and the substances of his body as the primal elements of his existence. Just these things are the dying elements in him; yet this is all that he sees, this is what he clings to, and thus he grows older, he becomes sick. Out of these elements there comes to him knowledge only of that which is transitory. If he draws his social impulses from this alone, the social order must degenerate—a phenomenon of old age. “Head knowledge” has suppressed “heart knowledge," and man is living in a “sifted head wisdom" from which the rejuvenating forces have been filtered and cast out. The thickened spectacles, the microscope, reveal only units of substance, which fall into decay, and make one blind for the rejuvenating forces in the organization of man and of the world. These must be discovered by means of new powers of vision. During this period Rudolf Steiner elaborated more and more knowledge of the etheric formative forces in man; for, only when these become the object of exact scientific research can man realize that he need not grow old, but that he holds within himself, rejuvenating, upbuilding forces which, when drawn up into consciousness, strive for participation in activity. Here alone lies the possibility for a reversal from analysis to synthesis, from atomistic thinking to organic thinking, from isolation to the totality.
Goethe brought into discussion the idea of the "breathing of the earth." In these lectures Rudolf Steiner went many steps further on this path of knowledge. He spoke of the forces streaming into the earth and out of it, inhaled and exhaled; how the human organization of the formative forces in life, in birth and death, is integrated into this breathing world of the formative forces of the earth. What was here touched upon only in its basic elements, the knowledge of the breathing rhythms of the earth, he then systematically investigated and developed in later years; indeed, he placed this later at the very center of his biological, anthropological, and cosmological reflections and finally even in the practical sphere—as, for example, in agriculture. We shall speak later of this.
In a side remark during a lecture on January 13, one finds a hint of the way in which Dr. Steiner approached such insights through observation from various sides:
“I will tell you this time how at first years ago I came upon these facts. The forces which are there at play, the forces of the breathing of the earth, moving inward and outward,—these have to do not only with the human life but also with all possible earthly relations. Now, there was for me a special riddle in what goes on with the cockchafers—excuse me, with the cockchafers! The cockchafers are especially interesting because—as you probably know— when there are a good many cockchafers, then in a period from three to five years there are very many cockchafer larvae, and these larvae affect the crop of potatoes. There are bad potato harvests when there are many cockchafer larvae. The people who are engaged in raising potatoes know that there will be a bad harvest in four or five years when in any year there are many cockchafers. Now I considered this an interesting fact, and I then discovered that the life of the cockchafer is connected with the in-streaming substances and forces of the earth, and the life of the larvae with the out-streaming forces. I mention this only as a fact from which you can see how it is possible to come upon such things from entirely different directions. We come most surely upon such things when we do not consider them as the objects of direct research, but when we consider them as a relatively unimportant object toward which one might easily remain indifferent.”
This illustrates Dr. Steiner's interest in the very smallest detail in the processes of nature as well as in the great evolutions and rhythms. Because of this, he was able to apply the great laws of development in practical details if a concrete situation mentioned in questions by his students made this necessary.
Such statements discovered in lectures or in notes were always extraordinarily stimulating for his students. So I mention, in spite of a certain personal coloring, as an example the fact that just such infrequent first references to the breathing process of the earth induced me to look closer into these phenomena and to trace them out in meteorological and biological effects. Then years later, when I delivered a first faltering lecture regarding these observations, Rudolf Steiner encouraged this in his very kind way in one of his lectures. In connection with a description of the etheric formative forces, their action in the element of water and the living creatures in this, he said:
“And this is just what characterizes the fish. Just because he feels himself the vessel to hold the watery element, and the water remains united with all the rest of the water element, for this reason he feels the ether to be that in which he really lives. The fish is the most peculiar creature, really an ether creature ...
“Thus the fish feels its own life as the life of the earth, and for this reason it shares intimately in everything through which the earth passes in the course of the year; the passing out of the etheric forces in summer, this withdrawal of the etheric forces. Thus the fish feels something which breathes in the whole earth. The fish feels the ether as the breathing element of the earth.
“Dr. Wachsmuth spoke here once about the breathing of the earth. That was a very fine exposition. A fish could have presented that matter here out of its own experience, if it had learned the art of delivering lectures; for the fish feels all that was presented here on the basis of a tracing out of the phenomena pertaining to the matter. The fish is a creature which shares in the breathing life of the earth during the course of the year in a quite extraordinary manner, because what is important for the fish is just the ether life element which streams in and out of the earth and simply draws along with it the rest of the breathing element.”
Such indications, and the humorous friendly encouragement associated with them, became the stimulation to further scientific research in the basic phenomena, and discovering these also in the rest of the realm of nature; and gave me the courage to work out the book on The Etheric Formative Forces, in connection with which Rudolf Steiner was again helpful to me, step by step. Thus an occasional hint given by him might become an important impulse for one of those working with him.
The opening lectures of the year 1918, already mentioned, which lead from the mythical to the intellectual consciousness, from the ancient wisdom of the stars to the social unrest of our times, contained also numerous characterizations of acute contemporary events—such for instance, as the negotiations in progress at the beginning of 1918 in Brest-Litowsk. But because the failure of responsible personalities in the previous year to put into effect recommendations given to them to meet the acute conditions made it necessary to await the next moment of maturity for an activity directed outward, Rudolf Steiner now concentrated his efforts upon expounding those elements of knowledge which must precede any operation in keeping with the facts. The patient to be operated upon at that time was, as it were, the organism of world history. The physician and healer now made clear to the rising generation of his assistants and helpers the structure and the principles of this organism in order that the necessity for the operation might be understood and it might be carried out. The members and processes of this organism were in this case not bones and tissue and their functions but peoples and epochs, the metamorphosis in thinking and willing, the phenomena of loss of vision into the spiritual world-process. Instead of the polarity between head and limb system in the individual human being, such a reflection deals with the polarity between West and East in the earth organism, the symptoms of sickness in peoples and parts of the earth and the rejuvenating forces available to them, the rhythms and circulatory process in the total organism of earthly humanity, which is striving toward a wholesome balance. Whereas the individual members of this mighty organism imagine that they are independent, and undertake reciprocally to overwhelm and destroy one another, here there arose as preliminary to the healing process a picture of the totality in its wisdom-filled upbuilding, created by Divine-Spiritual Powers but forgotten by humanity, misused, distorted, and brought to the brink of destruction. From this brink of destruction, Rudolf Steiner directed it toward the opposite Threshold, which opens into the realm of its spiritual origin. The tragedy of the age lay in the very fact that the patient did not understand the nature of the illness, and hindered the physician in his work.
The task of the year 1918 was to demonstrate the senselessness of humanity's behavior. Rudolf Steiner devoted himself to renewing a consciousness of the eternal significance of the world-organism which was to be brought to realization in the human being. His historical discourses in those years were surely achievements in diagnosis such as have seldom been given by the knowing and the healing in the whole course of human history. When he described in an introductory way the clairvoyant and mythical consciousness of early humanity, he did this like a physician who must gain his orientation in regard to the germ cell if he wishes to understand and heal the mature organism. When he spoke, for instance, of the fact that Thomas Aquinas saw in every planet an angel-like intelligence in action, and for this reason still understood the unity of the universe, he did this, not at all with the purpose of transferring Thomism into our age, as is often undertaken, but only to describe a symptom of a certain age in the life of humanity which still preserves within itself rejuvenating forces of a previous time, whereas contemporary astronomy arises out of an aged thinking which has replaced the being and the forces of the once spiritual world-picture with a dead mechanism. If our age desires once more to understand the world-organism according to its substance, force, and real being, this knowledge cannot be achieved by bringing to life the mythical thinking or the scholasticism of the past, as is undertaken by weary seekers at the present time. This must be a growth characteristic of our own time, results of the research of spiritual science of the twentieth century. We must look upon the organism of the universe and of humanity as it is and as it works today; we must again draw into our consciousness the nature and the rejuvenating forces of the universe.
These lectures provided also many indications of the necessity, when once the thinking of the adult generation is changed and renewed, to bring forward a new generation which will be better able to solve the problem of the new thinking. For Dr. Steiner called attention to the fact that the errors in education in the nineteenth century have been fought out on the present battlefields. The analytical and mechanistic must be replaced, therefore, by a living, organic thinking about the world as a whole:
“You see, spiritual science already knows many things which external astronomy does not yet know. But it is very important that just those things which spiritual science knows and external astronomy does not know shall pass over into the common consciousness of humanity. And if these concepts appear at present difficult, they will become such that they can be presented to children. They will become something good, very important for children for the purpose of keeping the mind and soul alive. It is true that we must still express these things in difficult concepts. So long as spiritual science is looked upon as it is at the present time by the external world, it has no opportunity to mold these things in such concepts, in such forms of thinking, as are needed if they are to become the content of teaching for children.”
He had worked for decades at this new world-picture. In the coining year destiny gave him the possibility to test its soundness and its life-forces even in actual pedagogical practice and to bring to realization his demand for a new education.
As a conclusion of these Dornach series of lectures he gave also a continuation of the lectures on art of the preceding year with lantern slides. This was applied especially to the art of illustration. Continuing lectures of December regarding the development of the illustrative element in Medieval art and in the following period, he presented now the modem art of illustration. There followed expositions of the Greek artistic sense, as manifest in sculpture and architecture, and the task of our own time to bring about by recourse to new sources a closer relation between art and cognition. For testing and schooling in this, there was daily opportunity in creative work on the Goetheanum building. One who had come from the lecture in the workshop in the evening went the next morning in a new way to work as architect, sculptor, painter, or assistant, in the effort toward realization.
At the end of January, Dr. Steiner again went on a lecture tour to Germany and Austria to impart new impulses to the spiritual work continuing in those cities in spite of the war. In the following months he gave many public lectures in Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart, Heidenheim, Ulm, Leipzig, Hamburg, Vienna, and Prague; but he also gave three cycles of lectures for members under the characteristic titles: Earthly Death and Cosmic Life; Anthroposophical Gifts of Life; Wholesome View for Today and Courageous Hope for Tomorrow.
In the first cycle of seven lectures, he made an additional contribution toward a knowledge of the nature of man by presenting new results of research in the metamorphoses in the human corporeal being in the course of successive incarnations: how, for example, the head and the limb system are related to each other in this process of transformation and in what manner they are exposed to cosmic and earthly forces. He emphasized also the influences exerted upon social and historical processes by either observing or not observing such metamorphoses of spirit, soul, and body:
“A consideration of history will come about in the future which will take account of the forces of those who have passed through the portal of death and are living in their soul nature in the world between death and a new birth. An entirely new color range will be imparted to the culture of humanity through a consciousness of the total humanity, including the so-called dead humanity.”
He described the rhythmical interchange of human existence between the realms of the living and the dead, and also the possibilities of a close union with the dead to be brought about by such knowledge. He gave introductions to a discipEne of the soul which aids in establishing a relation with these spiritual realms, emphasizing the importance of such characteristics as a feeling of fellowship and of thankfulness, confidence in life, and a rejuvenation of the soul. We cannot present in detail the insights which he gave at this time and which were urgently needed in a period of soldiers in battle and an army of the dead. What Rudolf Steiner looked upon as necessary was, not only a reverence toward the dead springing either out of a sense of subjective union or of a general reverence for heroes, but a consciousness based upon concrete knowledge of the presence of the dead and their active participation in the history-forming processes of the present.
In the next cycle, Anthroposophical Gifts of Life, March 30-May 31, he dealt with the actual influence of higher Spiritual Beings in the processes of the earth; the activity of the Folk Souls as real Beings who play a role in the evolutionary processes: in the East more through cosmic forces; in the Middle more through the mediation of the rhythmic processes; in the West more through the earthly forces acting upon the human corporeal nature. But all of these differentiated processes are arched over, interpenetrated, and redeemed out of their one-sidedness through the forces of the Christ, weaving through the earth and brought to all humanity. Utterly unlike the language and the significance of ordinary statements about the Folk Souls or about the Christ Being were the things uttered in this sphere by Rudolf Steiner. He carried his research into the influence of the Spiritual Beings, including the Folk Souls, even into the processes of development of the organisms of peoples, and of the human being, into the concrete anthropological, biological, geological, and historical facts, and he gave a clear presentation of these.
In the second lecture of this cycle he said, in summarizing these reflections:
“My dear friends, as I endeavored to set forth yesterday the influences working upon the human being through the part of the earth where he develops as physical man, I had primarily in mind for once to call attention very clearly to the fact that the entire earth is an organism, an organism with soul, permeated by spirit. For, just as an organism possesses its individual differentiated members, of which each one has its particular task—the arms do not have the task of the legs, the heart does not have the task of the brain —o the earth as a whole, viewed as an organism with soul permeated by spirit, has in each of its parts a special task. The special tasks of the individual human organic members is visible in the forms of these individual members. The arms are formed differently from the legs; the heart differently from the brain. In the case of the earth this is not so clear as regards the physical. One who, as an external materialistic geographer, considers the individual continents or otherwise any parts of the earth, arranging them according to one or another point of view, will not perceive at once that these various members of the earth act in different ways. This occurs only to one who in a certain way can look upon the soul and spiritual element of the earth. But recognizing this means actually to lift oneself concretely to the view that the earth is an organism with soul permeated by spirit, and that the human being, as he lives as physical man on the earth, is a member within this organism.
“When one gives attention to this, all sorts of questions arise; and whoever thinks of the life of the human being as if it passed through only one course between birth and death will be able to accomplish very little in a rational manner with these questions. For the human being in his physical form can be incorporated only into one definite part of the earth. He would be destined, therefore, to submit to an entirely specialized, differentiated status by reason of this special part of the earth; never, in a certain sense, to become a whole, but to remain only a member of the earth organism. But, on the other hand, there results just from this insight into the ensouled, spirit-permeated character of the earth an important item of knowledge: the knowledge that the real, deeper being of man, that to which the human being says ‘I’ cannot have a direct but only an indirect relation to this differentiation of the human being: that the essential human being of soul and spirit only dwells in a certain sense in that which is specialized through the special character of the earth. In other words, out of such a thing as this it is possible gradually to achieve the knowledge that the soul and spirit center of the human being cannot consist in that which appears before us as the human being; but what does appear before us as the human being is only the dwelling/ the particular dwelling of the human being determined by the special relation of the earth.”
Man must give close attention to his "dwelling" in this earthly life, but he should also be aware of the fact that his higher being comes from other worlds and returns to them; that his "dwelling” is changed in the course of varied earth lives. He must be aware that the higher sphere which brings order into these differentiated realms—the earth, the cosmos— is an organism possessed of soul and permeated by spirit; that he must recognize as a human being the other members of this organism, must grasp the totality out of which changing tasks are given to him in the changing course of time. Only thus can he come to an understanding with the spiritual world and receive the right inspirations for working within the plan of the world as a whole.
Rudolf Steiner's lectures were a living conversation between two worlds: an exposition of the thoughts and actions of human beings who have brought about the present situation out of the forces of the past, but at the same time also of the world out of which the coming generations will descend to transform what they shall find in the earthly existence. He referred to the harmful influence of such circles of persons as are opposed to making these facts known to the whole of humanity, whereas the withholding of these truths brings stagnation and hardening into the course of evolution:
“When one speaks with people today, they say the same things that they could have said in July, 1914. But the truth is that one for whom every concept has not received a different color, a different value, is no really wakeful human being. For this reason the question must be asked, and this must be for every one a very earnest question to one's Christian conscience: Where are those persons to be found today who, previous to July 1914, fixed their attention really upon the fact that what has happened until the present time could happen? I might formulate the question differently—and you know that I do not say this in pedantry. In the cycle of lectures that I delivered in Vienna before the war, there occurs among other things the following expression: The social life of humanity now bears something within it which can be compared with the carcinoma. A cancerous disease is at present in the life of humanity. Attention should have been given to this at that time, but there are very many persons who even until the present time have not given attention to this. I ask in what profound sense was the fact understood that mention was made at that tune of the 'carcinoma' in human evolution?”
To dissolve this hardening, to cure the disease of cancer in thinking, to heal the spiritual organism—this was basic in all the methodical works of Rudolf Steiner at that period, and through innumerable hindrances he went forward unerringly on this path.
The next cycle of lectures, June 25-August 6, bears in the midst of the grave world situation the stimulating tide: Wholesome Views for Today and Courageous Hope for Tomorrow. This time Rudolf Steiner took his departure from the microcosm of man himself, from the changes in his states of consciousness which are a potentiality of his sensiblesupersensible bodily structure. But the rejuvenating forces are to be found in the organization of the formative forces. Without research in these, no progress beyond the atomistic concepts is possible, no conception of the unity and totality of man's being. In the introductory lecture, therefore, he said:
“If we do not limit our attention only to the external side of the human being, we have to do not only with the visible physical organism but we bear within us a subtle etheric supersensible organism, which I have called in more recent expositions in the magazine Das Reich, in order to avoid misunderstanding, 'the formative-forces body? This supersensible organism is less differentiated than the physical organism: it is really more of a unity, whereas we ascribe unity to the external form of the human being only because of crude observation. The real unity of the human being exists in his etheric body.”
This molding, sustaining, vitalizing organization of the formative forces is the source of life and the mediator between the processes of soul and spirit and those of the body. This organization was visible in the past to clairvoyant persons; in the period of the developing intellect it was experienced only by great synthetic researchers such as Paracelsus. In the period of atomism it has been forgotten. But it is recognizable also today through observation schooled by spiritual science, and must be included as an object of future research, without which no comprehension of the totality of the organism will be possible. In the coming years Rudolf Steiner continued ceaselessly to contribute to this methodical research, and urged it upon his students. Indeed, he said in regard to the future development of scientists and pedagogues:
“Through a thinking which continues in the ordinary views regarding the laws of nature, it is impossible to arrive, for instance, at the etheric body. Therefore, in the seminars and in the university education not only must those methods be employed which train the person to observe the physical body and to observe it with an intellect which is bound to the physical brain; but there would have to be an entirely different kind of training in seminars and universities if a certain capacity is to come about really to see the way in which the ether body manifests itself in the human being. This would be necessary both for teachers in all fields and also especially for physicians.”
Many of the concrete indications in the lecture characterize the hindrances and obstructions of the present time which stand in the way of a sound knowledge of these phenomena. Dr. Steiner set up against all these tendencies the birth of a contemporary "Goetheanism” which alone will render possible an exact knowledge of man in all his bodily and spiritual metamorphoses:
“In contrast to all these things there is Goetheanism. I do not mean by this something to be fixed dogmatically, but one has to use names for something which goes far beyond the name. Under Goetheanism I do not understand that which Goethe thought up to the year 1832, but rather something which may, perhaps, be thought in the sense of Goethe during the next thousand years: that which may develop out of the Goethean view, out of the Goethean concepts and impressions. It is for this reason that everything which is drying up views as its real enemy whatever is related in any way with Goetheanism.”
Having mentioned these three cycles of lectures together because of their mutual relation, we must now consider the further activity of Rudolf Steiner in those months. His daily life was filled with a tremendously many-sided multitude of duties. Besides the activity of lecturing, which would have exhausted all the forces of another person, he received from early till late an unbroken series of persons seeking advice, in personal or scientific problems. The questions presented to him often had to do with the destiny of a person, the continuation of some work in research, the inaugurating of far-reaching measures, yet he always found time for personal advice to a student in his further esoteric development.
In addition, there was the scientific and literary work on his publications, which appeared year after year. And yet, in an almost incomprehensible manner, he found time and strength to maintain his orientation constantly through the reading of a great number of books in all fields of science, art, history, literature, etc. It was truly astonishing that, when any book was mentioned in conversation, he almost inevitably manifested a concrete knowledge of its content. One who has not actually experienced this may be skeptical regarding such statements, but so many persons have actually experienced this unbelievable manifoldness of the knowledge of Rudolf Steiner, and have expressed the same astonishment but have confirmed the fact, that sufficient testimony exists regarding the matter. One source which I myself am able to hold in view was the simple fact that, during the free minutes on Rudolf Steiner's journeys, he would seize the opportunity to visit bookshops and bring with him old works, often unusual, and new publications. When I was permitted to accompany him after the war upon many of his journeys, it often happened that, when there was a little ebbing in the stream of visitors, he would invite me to take a walk, which then very soon led to one or another bookshop. And he did not need to spend much time; but, with sure aim, would quickly find the important things in the mass of the unessential. It could be observed immediately that the book dealers respected this unknown person and were glad to have him because they sensed that some one had visited their sphere who was a sure pilot in the ocean of books, not only recent publications but also the antique. I remember vividly such a walk in Prague. A dearly chosen course through streets and narrow alleys and we arrived at one of the second-hand book shops. In a short time Rudolf Steiner had piled up before him such a stack of interesting, valuable, and in many cases unique works that I had to call a taxi and cover the floor with these treasures. Thus we took them back to the hotel. When he read such books between his journeys, lectures, callers, and writing activity unless at night—when his light was often burning all the way through until the morning—this is impossible to understand, for he did not by any means take all the books back with him to his home, but gave them to others. On the basis of long-continued observation, I must say that the source which I myself am able to survey does not suffice to explain the phenomenon of his astonishing orientation in the world literature of all scientific fields. His enormous acquaintance with books comprised an incomparably broader sphere than his own library; and, when something supposed to be unusual or unknown was discovered and brought to him or mentioned, one always experienced something approaching disillusionment in discovering that he was familiar with this. Many persons had such an experience that they asked themselves from time to time from what source he could have known something, whether in the sphere of history, theology, biology, or some other field, either in modem literature or medieval. How often this question was heard even from specialists! On the basis of these many manifold observations, I must personally express the conviction, even though this will be rejected by the ordinary thinking of the present day, that there were possibilities open to Rudolf Steiner through his extraordinary clairvoyant capacities for orientation in such matters in a manner denied to the ordinary person. The facts remain; let each person discover an explanation for himself. For one who has actually observed these phenomena, it will be all the more difficult to explain for the reason that he knows the extraordinary, mysterious fullness of knowledge in the concrete was actually present.
But let us return to the daily tasks of Dr. Steiner, which led us to introduce this special reflection. We have already said that, although he pursued consistently his own directions of research, he was always open to any question introduced to him by others; indeed, that he was thankful for the opportunity by means of questions and answers to render assistance to any one on his way in matters spiritual. For this reason he was also happy to present the results of his research to other circles than those with which he was associated, provided invitations for such presentations indicated a genuine spiritual seeking. Such an inquiry came to him in February, 1918 from persons who formed a circle in Munich in association with the magazine Das Reich, who had a genuine interest in the sound forces existing in antique, medieval, and modem spirituality. For this reason, Rudolf Steiner gave in the period February 15-19 in Munich, several lectures under the title The Sensible-Supersensible in Its Realization through Art, and also in regard to his own artistic creation, Eurythmy, on May 6 under the title The Source of Artistic Fantasy and the Source of Supersensible Knowledge.
Thus, just thirty years after he had delivered his lecture to the Vienna Goethe Verein, later published under the title Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetics, he was able to unite the impulse for a spiritual rejuvenation of aesthetics inaugurated thirty years earlier with the spiritual science that had been developed before the world since that time. This is an illustration once more of the straightforward development of the youthful work of Rudolf Steiner to its full maturity in his spiritual-scientific world picture.
During the same period he wrote several articles for the magazine mentioned above. In issues of October 1917 and January and April 1918) he presented an interpretive introduction to a work of the seventeenth century, The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz, by Johann Valentine Andreae. He called attention to the fact that the content of this book rests upon genuine spiritual experiences, and that it was to be considered a communication out of a truly present spiritual current which had been received by the author in his youth as revelations, although in his later life he lost contact with those spiritual forces. He gave also a detailed interpretation of the spiritual content of this peculiar writing which describes certain experiences of initiation in that period.
Continuing his Munich lectures, he spoke in Berlin on Goethe as the father of spiritual research, and in Stuttgart publicly regarding man as a being of spirit and soul, while delivering to members a lecture on the decisive epoch 1841–1879, dominated by the battle of Michael against the Ahrimanic Spirits of Hindrance. Here once more he touched upon a strange law of rhythm in history: the mirroring of occurrences in corresponding periods of time before and after decisive events. Thus there is a definite relation between occurrences of 1841 and 1917, both being at the same distance in time from 1879. In Stuttgart lectures of April 23-26, this historical reflection was applied to contemporary phenomena, with an indication of what had come about because the help coming from the spiritual world in the preceding century had been ignored. But spiritual discipline leads one to a mood of thoughtfulness in life, which is a very important impulse in one's education and is receptive to the help offered by Spiritual Powers. On April 29, he spoke on the same subject in Heidenheim, where the fruitful initiative of Alfred Meebold had brought about an active circle.
The latter part of May was spent in Vienna, where he spoke in a public lecture on The Historical Life of Humanity in the Light of Supersensible Research in Reality. To members he spoke on the relation of Anthroposophy to the sciences and on the difficulties to be tested in laying foundations in mathematics, physics, physiology, and national economy. In Vienna, as in Stuttgart, a Eurythmy program was presented, since this artistic work was cultivated throughout the war because of its wholesome influence during those grievous times.
During June 7-10, Rudolf Steiner and Frau Marie Steiner were guests of Count Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz and his wife on their estate in Austria. Discussions of spiritual questions and existing conditions occurred, interspersed by trips into the surrounding country.
Proceeding from there to Prague, Dr. Steiner gave public lectures during June 12-14 on Goethe's personal relation to his Faust and on contemporary Goetheanism, and knowledge of the supersensible worlds. From Prague an interesting historical site was visited, the castle Karlstein. Somewhat later in the same month, in speaking of the historical turning point in the fifteenth century, which was mirrored in a certain sense in The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz, Dr. Steiner referred to the impression made upon him by this brief visit to the castle Karlstein:
“I recently visited a castle in middle Europe in which there is a chapel where one can find just the thoughts of the transformation of this new epoch in symbolic form. On the walls surrounding the stairway there are rather primitive paintings; but what is painted the whole way from the bottom to the top, even though the paintings are primitive? The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz. In ascending the stairs to a chapel of the Grail, one passes through this Chymical Marriage.”
After he had then completed a series of lectures in Hamburg and Berlin, already mentioned, he returned in the middle of August to Dornach, where he remained until the end of the year. After such journeys, there awaited him at Dornach a great amount of work and an impatient corps of collaborators, architects, artists, and scientists. In his first evening lecture in the workshop of the building on August 17, he said in an introductory way to those joyfully awaiting him:
“You will believe without my saying this that it gives me the greatest satisfaction to take up our work again here in your midst on this building of ours and around the building. It is actually true that, not only to serious reflection but even to superficial reflection, by one who has been in the presence of the aura of this building, the thought may arise that there is associated with this building something which has to do with the most important, the most weighty, tasks of humanity's future. After a prolonged unavoidable absence, it is to be taken for granted that one finds oneself again at this place with the utmost satisfaction^ at the place where this building stands as a symbol of our cause.
“To what I have just said I might well add that, for me myself, each time when I have been absent for a considerable period, profound satisfaction arises for me especially out of the fact that I can always see then how splendidly and how significantly the work on this building has progressed through the devoted activity of those who are aiding in its completion. Especially during these months of my latest absence, when the work has gone on under such extreme difficulties, a part of the artistic work has progressed in an incomparably beautiful way, has progressed in the spirit which is to permeate the whole thing.
“But it is with profound satisfaction that I see also in tracing the spirit of our work, in following what has here been taking place, the union in a loyal mood among our many friends, a loyal mood in reference to what is incorporated in this building. And what becomes manifest in this renewed impression which this fact makes upon one's mind is the truth that there exists here a place with which is united such a true mood of a number of the friends of our spiritual Movement, such a loyal mood as promises that in future the best impulses of our spiritual Movement will be contained in this building.”
He then referred to the obligation to maintain this same spirit constantly in the future.
Speaking of experiences on his journey, he emphasized the difference between the open-mindedness of many individual persons toward the truths of spiritual science and the artistic impulse of Eurythmy, on the one side, and the lack of any capacity of understanding on the part of so-called authorities and especially of the ordinary journalism. In the presence of such lack of comprehension, he demanded of his students absolute freedom from all compromise:
“For nothing could bring us into a worse state of chaos than if we are willing to enter into any compromises with what the external world consider! to be the right thing for us to do. Only in the principles of our own cause should we find that which gives the right direction to our action." In all aspects of spiritual science he demanded of his students the cultivation of a more strictly controlled thinking and activity than is demanded by the external world.
In this connection he had occasion to correct complete misunderstandings in interpretation of his lectures differentiating the development of various human groups and various areas of the earth. These misinterpretations led easily to bitter emotional reactions. Thus the misuse or misinterpretation of his words once led to the following statement:
“What I say is not everywhere taken with the necessary degree of reflection, with the necessary seriousness, and my words have been repeated here and there—as has come to light—in a form which represents precisely the opposite of what I have said here.
“When I think only of what has been made out of something which ought not to have been misunderstood, since it is already available in a printed cycle of lectures, what has been made out of the differentiation of European humanity with respect to the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, the consciousness soul, and the ego—which was truly never mentioned in order to indicate a superiority,—when I reflect about what sentences have been sent out into the world and what these sentences have done in calling up opposition and emotion, it is clearly to be seen that the very principle of dealing with things in an exact manner, even in such important instances, has not been carefully practiced. If I had ever said, for example, that what exists in the form of eg。influence with respect to the European population ought to work in an organizing manner within this European population, I should have been uttering nonsense. Nevertheless, this has been spread abroad in the world and it is met with the most serious misunderstandings, and brings about the most powerful emotions.・..
“For we are oftentimes not attentive to the fact that the utmost responsibility rests upon one in dealing with real, truly genuine spiritual research and the communication of its results: responsibility with reference to every sentence uttered if the matter is dealt with seriously. For the purpose of arousing emotions—spiritual science really does not exist for that purpose; nor for the purpose of combatting or diverting emotions. And, if some one has said that these things are communicated in order to oppose others, he ought to ask himself whether that was making the right use of these things; whether it was not rather a complete misuse of these things, the communication of which has been given in complete objectivity, purest reverence for truth.”
He described in a magnificent survey the insights which result from the exercise of true and objective spiritual-scientific reflection. In an unbroken series of lectures from August 17 until November 3, given under the three titles, The Science of Mar's Process of Development; The Historical Life of Humanity; and Historical Symptomatology, he traced the development, out of the primeval beginnings of history, of that which has come to be the lights and the shadows of our own age. In this fullness of presentations we find a picture of the evolution of two thousand years. From the threefold Sun Mystery of the Roman-Greek period up to the intellectual philosophers and statesmen of our own age, a curve of evolution leads through hope and terror, stimulation and opposition, to the human being of the present time, who at this turning point in world history sees his own existence in the good and the evil at the Threshold of spiritual worlds again becoming open to him, and who must for this reason, in a profounder manner than that of preceding times, take into account the cosmic-spiritual being of the Anthropos. In these lectures Rudolf Steiner presented also in a special way the relations of the three-membered structure of man (the systems of head, breast, and limbs) with the creative forces and Beings in the universe; the differentiated stages of these systems in the evolution of the body and their metamorphoses through life, death, and rebirth. He described the cosmic origin "the human sense organization and the arising of whole systems of world views—for instance, that of an unreal idealism or of an idea-less realism—out of such external influences and inner transformations of the human structure of soul and body. Here there should be mentioned, among the numerous historical explanations, especially the description of the influence of the former Academy of Gondischapur, in Persia, the originating center of Arabism, upon the conception of nature, which suppressed the Greek-Christian conception of the world, and reached its decadent goal in the intellectual thinking of the sciences of the nineteenth century.
The results of these processes were illustrated in numerous symptoms of the times. He traced the ruinous dualism in the conception of the world characterizing the present day to the conflicts of Spiritual Beings in the universe and their struggle for control of man. For there is not only a cosmic intelligence but also a cosmic hate in the evolution of the world, which descends out of higher spheres into the heads and hearts of human beings. The balance for which man must strive between these cosmic antitheses was illustrated in the figure of the Christ between Lucifer and Ahriman in the sculptural group upon which Rudolf Steiner was working in Dornach.
The impossibility of doing anything more than alluding to the fullness of content in these lectures is rendered clear when one knows that the barest mention of themes and of personalities in the lectures would occupy ten pages of this book. We can only dip a cup out of the spiritual stream flowing past the listeners in such lectures.
On September 27, there occurred at the Goetheanum the first presentation of the Classical Walpurgis Night of Faust. We have already referred to the creative work demonstrated by Rudolf Steiner in providing for every single detail necessary in the staging of this extremely difficult part of Goethe5s composition. For its presentation an especially large number of figures out of the supersensible sphere had to be represented in earthly images, and only the spiritual vision of Rudolf Steiner rendered it possible to present such reflections of the supersensible. He provided a sketch for every one of these figures which was then used by his helpers in work occupying months of time for the production of the forms, made out of wire and wood and covered with colored material to correspond with his drawings.
A strange impression was created when these forms were rescued from the burning Goetheanum building during the night of New Year's Eve, 1922-23, until they filled, in the shadows of night, the lawns around the burning building. Years later, in the new Goetheanum building they helped again in the production of parts or the whole of Faust. Thus in 1918 the presentation of the spiritual on an earthly stage had again become possible. Preparing for presentation of the unabbreviated Faust, according to new directions of Rudolf Steiner, went forward then in the next two decades under the direction of Frau Marie Steiner, with the artistic cooperation in stage scenery and in music of a number of artists permanently connected with the Goetheanum.
In addition to the right presentations of the Faust in the strictly artistic sense, it was necessary to create during the succeeding years a new technique in stage lighting. For programs of Eurythmy and of dramas it was necessary to bring about from time to time a change in the moods associated with colors, to correspond with supersensible occurrences; to achieve the most delicate nuances in intensity and mingling of colors. In accordance with numerous suggestions made by Rudolf Steiner, special technical apparatus was developed for this purpose. Thus, in connection with the new art of dramatic presentation, speech and music, scenery and costumes, painting and the art of illumination had to be transformed, the art and the technique of presentation had to be adapted to the spiritual.
In lectures of September 27-29, 1918, Dr. Steiner gave a spiritual-scientific introduction to the cosmology of Goethe and to the backgrounds of the elemental worlds already made visible on the stage, the forces of the Mephistophelian and of other entities in Goethe's Faust, the elemental and also the Hierarchical Beings, not only the good but also the evil, which are at work in the cosmos. In these lectures there occurred also important indications as to the reflection of these worlds in the existence of the present time, for it is out of just such harmful supersensible influences, working upon the feelings and actions of human beings, that catastrophes are brought about. He referred to certain circles of persons who are opposed to having humanity informed in a concrete way about good and evil Powers, in order that these circles may continue to hold men under their control. But man can never become free if such things are presented to him only in an emotional sermonizing or are concealed from him by a materialistic science, but only when he can reach decisions as a free person on the basis of real research and direct perception of these supersensible good and evil Powers.
“For there are manifest out of the surrounding world, out of what is newly occurring, the forces of evil. If these forces of evil did not manifest themselves, the human being could not arrive at freedom of will ・.・
“Man owes to the fact of his being exposed to evil the possibility of attaining to freedom of will: the fact that he can choose between the evil approaching him and the good which he can develop out of his own nature.”
That the human being, isolated at present from the spiritual cosmos, must look these realities in the face was more actual than usual during these reflections of the last day of Michaelmas during the first World War, seven weeks before its end.
In public lectures also, Dr. Steiner presented these questions before the consciousness of the times. In Zurich, for instance, between October 8 and 17 he spoke on such themes as these: Can a Method for Supersensible Cognition Be Scientifically Established? The Spiritual-scientific Development of Research in the Soul from Its Foundation up to Questions Weighty for Human Life; Regarding the Boundaries of Human Existence. In Basel between October 30 and November 8, he spoke on the themes: Confirming Supersensible Knowledge through Natural Science; and Moral, Social and Religious Life in the Light of a Supersensible Knowledge of the World.
A general meeting of the Trustees of the Association for the Goetheanum on November 1 and 3, 1918, gave Dr. Steiner an opportunity, only a few days before the Armistice ending the first World War, to present an important survey of the profounder motives which had induced him to give the name Goetheanum to this place dedicated to serve the future evolution of humanity. On the basis of his experience from his youth up to that time, he described the facts which had completely convinced him that a true Goetheanism might be the only impulse suited to the times for guiding humanity out of the dreadful chaos of that epoch. In that exceptional moment he gave an opportunity for his hearers to share through his description in many experiences of his youth, regarding which he so seldom spoke, showing how in the decades preceding the turn of the century he had been so distressingly conscious of the fact that Goetheanism under which he included besides Goethe himself also the great personalities of that age spiritually related to him—in spite of the fact that it had initiated such comprehensive possibilities of human development—had been overwhelmed in the generations following under a materialistic wave and left in complete isolation:
“This is one of the most marked characteristics of the present time. The extraordinary phenomenon could occur that a tremendously powerful spiritual wave cast up in connection with Goetheanism has not been in the least understood. This is the sad thing that may occur to one in the present time in the face of the catastrophic events confronting us. The distressing question may occur to one: What, then, is to become of this wave, one of the most important of the Fifth Post-Atlantean Age,—in the attitude of mind of the present world what is to become of this wave? ... For, if people had understood Goetheanism as something which concerned them to a certain extent, the present time would not have come about, these catastrophic events would not have occurred.”
In this lecture of November 1, 1918, he then gave a survey of the endeavors he had made to awaken human consciousness to the saving power of Goetheanism, at first in connection with Goethe specialists such as Herman Grimm and Karl Julius Schröer, then at the Goethe Archives in Weimar, by means of his book Goethe's Conception of the World} and the above described activity since the turn of the century. That which predestines Goethe5s view of the world to bring about a new point of departure is the spiritual way, Dr. Steiner said,
“in which Goethe places the human being within the entire universe, the way in which he looks upon man as the blossom, the fruit of all the rest of the universe, how he always takes pains to see that the human being is not to be considered in an isolated way, but to be so considered that, as he stands there, the entire spirituality which is at the basis of nature works through him and man provides in his soul the stage upon which the Spirit of nature views itself. But something immeasurably great is connected with these sentences so abstractly uttered, provided this is followed out in the concrete. And all of this is in reality the solid basis upon which that can be erected which leads to the very highest peaks of supersensible, spiritual reflection precisely in the present age. ... For this Goetheanism, if it is projected, simply leads into Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science; and： without Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, the world will not escape from the present catastrophic situation. ... If the present age were just a little permeated by Goetheanism, it would accept spiritual science longingly, for Goetheanism prepares the soil for the acceptance of spiritual science. But this Goetheanism would then become a method for the real healing of the humanity of the present time... Goetheanism could hold sway in all human thinking, in the religious life, in every scientific field; it could hold sway in social forms within the common life of humanity.”
Such was the significance of the application of the name Goetheanum to such a center of work. Rudolf Steiner said:
“A certain significance attaches to the fact that the decision is reached to apply the name Goetheanum to something which is to be related with the most important impulses of our age. ... It is in a certain way a recognition of the most important characteristics and also the most important requirements of the present age when we speak here of a Goetheanum.”
During these days, while Rudolf Steiner was confirmed in his conviction, out of the results of the past and an outlook into the future, of the necessity for a Goetheanism, the external development moved forward into one of its tragic epochs. On November 11, the thunder of the cannon ended. But at the very same time the wounds began to open in the social life of humanity. In viewing the activity of Rudolf Steiner which next followed during these days, one is overwhelmed by its unfailing contact with reality. In a lecture cycle of November 9-24, 1918, under the tide Foundations in the Evolution of History for the Formation of a Social Judgment, he introduced a period in which there stood in the foreground the demand for a solution of the social question. Once more the first step needed was a clear understanding of the factual phenomena, their nature and how they came into existence. It was out of this foundation in the evolution of history that knowledge and judgments must be gained and on this foundation that social action must be based. A strangely transformed atmosphere pervades this Dornach cycle of lectures. From a designation of those forces which had led to downfall, tumult, and chaos, the reflection passes over to the fundamental elements in the practice of the social life: to the nature of what is called “labor force,” which had been falsely made into a commercial ware, the function of capital, ware, price, enterpriser's profit, dividends and wages; the social tensions which arise out of the thinking and action of the bourgeois and the working classes; the right relations of land; the function of spiritual activity; the need for a renovation of the system of education; the relations among the state, economics, and the spiritual life. Here appeared many of the fundamental ideas of the work published the next year under the title The Threefold Commonwealth. A great number of individual questions in the fields of social science and of the national economy were dealt with: each one of these considered thoroughly as to the degree to which it has been brought into a distorted relation with the whole and how it can be brought again to a sound functioning within the social organism. Such a diagnosis of the conditions of the time was not to lead to further theories and institutions, then so abundant, but to a true view of things and a corresponding effort toward a transformation of the human being himself.
“The most important, the most important of all things that must happen for the future, will not occur through institutions, will not occur by means of all sorts of arrangements, no matter how much people believe today in institutions and arrangements as the means for universal happiness. The most important things that must happen for the future will be brought about through the courageous activity of the individual human being.”
Because of this imperative emphasis upon the task of the individual human being in aiding toward a new life-organism for the community, the development of a new education becomes obviously the next imperative step. This was actually brought about the next year. Many of the imperative needs would require years and even decades for their realization, but Rudolf Steiner desired at that moment to draw an outline, to present it to the world, leaving to its free decision the possibility of insight and application. He described this situation in the words:
“And here I come to the question which has been presented to me again and again during the present time from the most varied directions regarding the attitude which it is possible for a person to take at the present time, now that things have arrived at the condition of the present moment. I do not assume that what I now say will fall upon more fruitful soil than what I have said in the course of the years; and yet each one has his own task. My task is to say the things. And both before you and before the world I shall not neglect any opportunity when it is appropriate actually to say what I consider, not only the right thing, but also the suitable thing to be said." What a long period of partial realization and patient waiting, of support and opposition out of the surrounding world, of Rudolf Steiner's own unchanging continuous endeavors have arisen out of these first impulses!
The cycle of lectures just mentioned out of the period of the Armistice were followed by two supplementary series of lectures during November 26-December 8 and December 15-21, 1918, under the tides In the Changed Conditions of the Times and The Basic Social Demand of Our Age. From the preceding consideration of the elementary functions of labor and capital, land, commerce, rights, and the spirit, the explanation of the phenomena passes over to a differentiation of these concepts in their application in the East, Middle, and West. As one of the most essential phenomena, he described the development of mechanical, hygienic, and eugenic capacities and methods respectively in the West, the Middle, and the East; their fruitful potentialities but also the unwholesome, partly occult, partly even public misuse which will be made of these capacities. These were outlooks upon future phases of evolution which we can here only mention. At the present time, some decades later, any one who observes the use of the forces of the atom, the violation of the principles of hygiene through artificial methods of nutrition and medical treatment and even the deliberate intervention in the process of birth, and similar symptoms, will be able to observe with what rapidity and in what direction these forecasts have already been realized.
In those lectures Rudolf Steiner then characterized the effect, deadening to the Spirit, of an instinctive intellectuality, a one-sided "head culture” in science and “muscle culture1” in the modem sense for life, in sports, the increasing abstraction and hardening of concepts even into religious creeds and the social theories. Among other things he described the social and anti-social elements in the theories of the mercantilists and physiocrats. Indeed, in the year 1918, when Marxism was overflowing Europe in a great tide, he had the courage to assert and to make clear "that socialism, as it appears today in the form of Marxism, is an anti-social phenomenon.55 He also pointed out the "specters of the Old Testament in the nationalism of the present time." Against all of these views he presented a living conception of the organism of society. After pointing out these sources of the utmost unhappiness in the history of humanity, the lectures closed with the following encouraging knowledge:
“A misfortune is not always only a misfortune. A misfortune is often the starting point for the achievement of human greatness and human strength.”
The Christmas lecture of December 22, entitled The Birth of Christ in the Human Saul, directed the inner view once more toward the mystery of the earthly birth of Christ, to the reality contained in His words “Behold, I am with you always even unto the end of the world." The last lectures of the year in Dornach, from December 24 to 29, had to do with the problem How Can Humanity again Discover the Christ? The Threefold Shadow Being of Our Time and a New Light of Christ. He made clear the tragic character of an epoch which is unable to understand by means of the conceptions developed in the last centuries either external nature or social tasks or the Being of Christ; he intensified this shadow character of the times through the light of initiation which opens to the consciousness of man again the Spirit-permeated spheres around him and within him.
An artistic achievement of December 25 was the presentation of all the scenes of the Classical Walpurgis Night from the Second Part of Goethe5s Faust.
After a retrospect over the illusions, collapses, and turning points of destiny during the preceding year, the New Yearns Eve lecture of 1918 dealt with the question: How can the future of humanity be painted within human souls if these souls are not in a position to enter into spiritual science? After presenting the illusions of many persons that the end of the war and the coming of peace would mean a change for the better, would bring about better times, Rudolf Steiner reaffirmed the insight which must be awakened on this evening of the transition from this tragic New Year's Eve to a New Year.
“By reason of what has come about from the ancient past, the world has come to an end. Nothing new will result from this. Something new must come out of the spiritual world. But it will not come if man will not advance to meet it, if man does not accept it through free volition. Salvation can come only if there are human souls which advance toward the Spirit?”