The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner

1922

Twenty-one years had now passed since the turn of the century which marked the beginning of a decisive stage in the life and spiritual activity of Rudolf Steiner. He had passed his sixtieth year in 1921. In retrospect at present, the next year, with all the radiation from his inner being upon the surrounding world, shows that it was characterized by the utmost intensification of his outward activity and at the same time the most severe burdening and testing of his work through blows of destiny from without. Characterized on the one hand by his intensified challenge to arouse the outside world, it was marked by the lecture tour at the beginning of the year during which he presented his work before crowded auditoriums of the greatest cities of Middle Europe and then the West-East Congress in Vienna where he spoke every evening for twelve days before more than 2,000 persons.

But the night of New Year's Eve of 1922 put him to the severest test of all, for in that night fire destroyed his greatest visible achievement, the building on which he had been working for a decade. It seemed almost as if the Spiritual Powers intended to test the capacity of a human soul for endurance. He advanced toward the future through the mystery of this most severe test with enhanced inner forces. Thus this year marked the arrival at a turn in the road; it led to a peak, a starting point for still loftier spheres, in which the further advance required other forces, a new concentration and outward radiation. Very much was different in the life of Rudolf Steiner after this year. At its close he stood before the door of the last period of his life and of its completion. He then summoned those who were following him to still more intense concentration for a steeper ascent. The last years of his life were characterized by this ascent within the new sphere now arrived at, and thus show their own special character.

The year began once more with work in Dornach, the completion of the pedagogical course begun in 1921. It was certainly not an accident that he placed before the members in his New Year's lecture the two Adversary Powers under the title The Influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in the Bodily, Psychic, and Spiritual Being of Man. Each age has its special perils. In many periods it may have been to the advantage of humanity at that stage of evolution not to be aware of these dangers. But the present period, confronted with far-ranging decisions, requires the fullest wakefulness, demands of one who wishes to take the Christian middle path that he see clearly through the opposing forces which seek to mislead him: on the one side into the illusions alien to the earth, on the other side to an imprisonment in the all-too-earthly. The human being of the present turning point in time must move forward in the full knowledge that the two perils are there. Spiritual science has come at the right time to provide man with this wakeful knowledge. Rudolf Steiner said in this New Year's lecture:

“In the ordinary earthly life at present, man does not take into his customary consciousness the two perils which may lead him astray on the one side or the other, the Luciferic or the Ahrimanic side, from his state of balance. Just this is the special characteristic of initiation knowledge: that man feels he is standing upon a lofty cliff when he begins to see into the world in its real nature, upon a lofty cliff, an abyss to the right and to the left. The abyss is always there, but in ordinary life man does not see the abyss—that is, the two abysses. If he wishes to learn to know himself completely, he must become aware of the abysses, he must at least learn about the abysses.”

The second lecture for members, on January 7, sounded the note of the West-East problem, which became a center of consideration during this year. He described the differentiation undergone in the experience by the West and the East of the two loftiest spiritual Creative Powers, the Father principle and the Son principle, during the course of two millennia since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the third lecture, on January 8, he went further back into the history of the pre-Christian age and elucidated the layers of consciousness, like deposits of sediment, characterizing the thinking of earthly humanity in the successive cultural epochs; the change in the relation of the human being to the surrounding world: from a “religion” still close to the spirit at the beginning of the five Post-Atlantean epochs, past the consciousness layers of “philosophy,” “cosmosophy,” “geosophy,” to a one-sided “geology” in the present time. The downward-leading stages of narrowing human consciousness have led to its bottommost depth at the present time, which requires of man a renewed ascent.

In the middle of January, Dr. Steiner began the lecture tour which led him farthest into the exoteric sphere of the surrounding world. Hitherto his lectures had been arranged for the most part by collaborators in various cities or special circles of people. This time he accepted the urgent invitation of a great Berlin concert agency and entrusted to it all arrangements for a lecture tour in Germany. He spoke from January 16 to 31 before crowded halls in Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Cologne, Elberfeld, Hannover, Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Dresden, and Breslau. His theme in all of these cities was The Nature of Anthroposophy, or Anthroposophy and the Riddles of the Soul. This extraordinary lecture tour, due to the tremendous public interest at that time in Rudolf Steiner's personality and his work, was marked by such a tremendous attendance at the very first lecture, on January 16 in Munich, that hundreds of persons seeking admission to the hall could not be seated. The lecture, in which he began with the ordinary soul experiences of every human being, and then dealt with the more subtle organization of the conceptual and volitional life and the stages of a higher knowledge, created the most intense interest in an audience composed of persons from all ranks of the public. The same success characterized the lectures in all of the cities mentioned. In two weeks he spoke to more than 20,000 persons.

A characteristic symptom of the times was that the tremendous volume of publicity in the press, both favorable and unfavorable, seemed not to influence decisively the best part of the public. People simply demanded an objective clarification in regard to fundamental questions under discussion. For the most part the 20,000 persons filling the auditoriums came from circles accustomed to forming their own judgment, whether favorable or hostile; they were really endeavoring to acquaint themselves with these problems. Just because Rudolf Steiner spoke so simply about the riddles of the human being, about processes in the life of the soul to be experienced every day, and about the inner forces provided within the life of thinking and volition and capable of being developed through a systematic spiritual discipline, the inevitable result was the disillusionment of those who expected mysticism and sensationalism in his lectures. But those who desired a clarification of these problems, and a schooling of the inner faculties through exact methods, received an inspiring impulse. This was true of all the cities—an unfavorable and critical press for the most part and, nevertheless, a stream of enthusiastic human beings craving renewal and upbuilding. Naturally, the greatest success marked the lectures in Stuttgart and Berlin where Dr. Steiner had for many years carried on a preparatory work. The lecture of November 19 in Berlin, in the great hall of the Philharmonic, and that of January 26 marked the maximum attendance by the public. In these instances the crowd was so great that the traffic police had to control the stream of thousands of persons in the streets leading to the building, all seeking admission and hundreds finding no seats. What a distance this was from the quiet intimate lectures in the early years after the turn of the century. As accords with the laws of a spiritual movement, this expansion was followed later by a phase of concentration, but we have still to mention the great West-East Congress as the peak of the year of expansion.

This lecture tour of January 1922 was appropriately accompanied by artistic programs of Eurythmy in the great theaters of the cities visited. The Dornach Goetheanum troupe of Eurythmists, under the leadership of Frau Marie Steiner, presented this new art during these weeks to large audiences, where it was received with great applause. The tour ended on January 31 and February 1 in Breslau, with a lecture by Dr. Steiner in the great hall of the Concert House and a Eurythmy program to a full house in the Lobe Theater. The whole tour was a victory of the spiritual ability and will of a great personality. During a brief stay in Dornach in February, Dr. Steiner discussed ancient and modem methods of initiation, the figures of Parsifal and Lohengrin, Faust, and Hamlet, representing transitional points from the Fourth to the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. He dealt also with an elucidation of the missions given at times to leaders in the spiritual life. These reflections upon spiritual history led to the primary motive of activity in this year: an understanding in experience of the polarities of East, Middle, and West.

There followed a great public program, the Anthroposophical collegiate course in Berlin, between March 5 and 12, at which Rudolf Steiner dealt in eleven lectures with the spiritual renewal of the inorganic and the organic sciences, philosophy, pedagogy, social science, theology, the science of language, and a number of concrete questions of the times, speaking to a great circle of students and other interested persons. Each day of this collegiate course was devoted to a particular theme, and Dr. Steiner himself gave two lectures on each day dealing with that theme, and also attended lectures by other speakers and periods of discussion. In his report after his return to Dornach, he said:

“The program was so planned that each day was to begin with a short lecture by me. Then the whole day was to have a unitary character. Following my introductory words, two other lectures occurred in the forenoon. Then, after a brief intermission, only half an hour long, a discussion was to occupy the hour between one and two. The last lecture of the first half-day was to occur between two and three o'clock. It was a somewhat strenuous program. The evenings ended with lectures which were given partly in the Philharmonic by me and partly by others in the buildings of the University of Berlin, one lecture each evening. Moreover, in the case of the other lectures than my own, there occurred every evening a sort of discussion. In other words, the days were somewhat exceptionally occupied.”

Of the series of talks given by other speakers, Rudolf Steiner mentioned especially three, given by Dr. Rittelmeyer, the Reverend Emil Bock, and Dr. Geyer, all dealing with the transition from theology into psychology, irrationalism, and historism; and emphasized the fact that in these fields also the necessity had been stressed by certain persons of finding a way from the subjective to the objective, from the psychic to the spiritual, and how here also spiritual science could become a helper. On the last day a Eurythmy program was given in a great theater.

During such conferences, the effort was always made to bring to those participating the totality as this had been provided in advance as a new impulse in the collegiate courses at the Goetheanum. The students did not attend only what belonged to their own special field, but accompanied the whole course in other areas of science and life with their whole personality. The endeavor was made to provide something not given in the courses at other institutions of higher education. Nevertheless, on March 4, Dr. Steiner participated with enthusiasm at the University of Leipzig in discussions in which professors of the University also took part. Questions put by him always stirred the hearts of people who saw clearly the social abysses but not the causes leading to these in the wrong thinking of the age. It required the many-sided scientific foundation and at the same time the courage of a battler for a new world picture to stand one's ground in these debates. Even though it was not possible to clear away all the residues of the ancient, yet many persons were brought to a change in thinking and given the courage from this example to enter into the free spiritual battle.

The second half of the month was spent again at Dornach. After reporting on the lecture tour and the collegiate course in Berlin, he gave intimate lectures between January 25 and April 2 on The Change in the World View and Pneumatosophy, which began with a description of the entirely different relation of the human being with his corporeality and with the surrounding world in the ancient Indian epoch. These relations were then experienced primarily in the region of the breathing process. The pupil in Yoga became conscious in the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling of the change between consciousness of the Spirit and consciousness of the self. In controlled breathing he took into himself the divine impulse, the cosmic wisdom; in holding his breath he strengthened the consciousness of the ego. During the early Greek period, the time of Aeschylus, the experience of the spiritual in the human breath had been lost. It had now to be given in picture. In the place of the ancient Mystery schooling, there occurred the pictorial representation of the divine world and the mysteries of the human being in the sacred tragedy.

When even the picture faded out in the human being, the historical world drama occurred through Christ, the Divine Deed. But, in the following centuries, man withdrew from the experience of the totality into the region of the merely earthly senses, of the head: he became "head man," no longer grasping the cosmos of spirit in the breath or even in the picture, but only in abstract thought. There still existed "scholarship in divinity5 5 which limited itself more and more to talking about the divine-spiritual. In place of the cosmic wisdom directly experienced in earlier times, there appeared in the science of the sensible-material "the specter of wisdom," which has brought the cleft between knowledge and belief. Rudolf Steiner showed that even in the great works of art of the last centuries the true picture of man has been lost. The latest effort at a renewal through such personalities as Shakespeare and Goethe did not succeed in expelling the thought-specters of the time to follow them. Present-day spiritual science now has the task of bringing the human being to a new stage in the evolution of the experience of the "Sophia,” creative wisdom.

He spoke during those weeks also to the public in Bern on Anthroposophy and the Riddles of the Soul, and to the members in that city on the esoteric aspect of the same theme. He continued to hold at the Goetheanum the regular weekly lectures and conversations for the men working on the building, and gave to the artists new directives for the development of the plastic arts, for dramatic work, and for Eurythmy.

In April occurred two major trips abroad—to Holland and England. During the year, Dr. Steiner made twelve such trips abroad. During April 7-12 a public Anthroposophical-scientific course took place in The Hague, during which he gave an introduction into the methodics and the already achieved results of spiritual-scientific research, and numerous other lecturers presented knowledge from their fields and the results of their work. In a report of Dr. Steiner's published in "Das Goetheanum" he called attention to what is essential in the matter of methodics in the presentation of spiritual-scientific knowledge, which must be illuminated in ever new aspects, since the proof of these truths cannot be presented through sensible-visible experimentation, but primarily through the fact that the individual elements of the content mutually support one another in a general survey. He said:

“A special task was assigned to this course. To students in the colleges of Holland, it should be made manifest that the Anthroposophical method of research rests upon completely justified scientific foundations, that it can be fruitful in the most varied fields of science and life, and that the stimulations which can come from it really correspond with the requirements of those who think earnestly about the civilization of the present. ... The task fell to me to describe the significance of Anthroposophy in the spiritual life of the present, its scientific character, its special methods of research and results of research, its relation to art and to the scientific agnosticism of the present. My endeavor was to present Anthroposophical results from ever new sides, so that it might become clear that these mutually support one another.

“Any one who fails to recognize that, the moment the sciences enter the sphere of Anthroposophy, one must arrive at this fact of the reciprocal reinforcing and sustaining of the truths, one by another, will not find his way to genuine knowledge. It holds good of the heavy objects of the earth that they must rest on the ground in order not to fall; the heavenly bodies mutually support one another. The ordinary empirical sciences rest upon sense-perception; Anthroposophical knowledge must rest upon mutual support. Any one who demands for this the foundation of ordinary science is like a person who would demand a support for the earth in cosmic space. Without any support, it does not fall, and neither does Anthroposophy, although it is evidenced otherwise than ordinary science.”

The many-sidedness of aspects had to be striven for also by those arranging such courses and sharing in them. In the Dornach report, Dr. Steiner referred to the work of those arranging the conference and described in a living way the various speakers. Such reports by him after lecture tours gave to the friends in Dornach a vivid picture of what had been experienced.

After the public course, he gave on April 13 in The Hague an esoteric lecture for members on The Teachings of the Resurrected. The Mystery of Golgotha.

Going from Holland to England the following day, he spoke on the first evening in London on Knowledge and Initiation. In a report written about this London lecture he said:

“My endeavor was to show that knowledge of the supersensible realms of the world can be reached through the development of capacities which do not come into application in ordinary life and in the ordinary science. I called the supersensible perception which thus comes into existence ‘exact clairvoyance,’ because it is my conviction that the processes in the life of the soul through which the human being comes to this perception are experienced in just as great clarity of consciousness as is the solution of a problem of exact science. If this science is exact in dealing with the objective world, so is Anthroposophy exact in the development of supersensible capacities of knowledge which then result in a view of the spiritual world by means of which man comprehends the eternal element of his own being. Such an ‘exact clairvoyance,’ not a nebulous mysticism or an unscientific occultism, can serve our time which shows everywhere the need of thinking human beings to ascend from the sensible to the supersensible.”

The three following London lectures of April 15, 16, 24 carried this initiation knowledge further to a knowledge of the Christ Being.

At the center of the tour to England was attendance during April 18-23 at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford-on-Avon, to which Rudolf Steiner was invited as a lecturer. The festival began on April 18 with lectures by certain distinguished representatives of the intellectual life of England, dealing with Shakespeare's work. At the very middle of this festivity there was now set a conference on education, arranged by the committee working for "New Ideals in Education/5 with the well known educator, Professor M. Mackenzie, at its head. Professor and Mrs. Mackenzie had attended the Christmas course for teachers at the Goetheanum in 1921 and had been so much impressed that they had now invited Dr. Steiner to the lectures on education in connection with the Shakespeare Festival. Dr. Steiner later reported:

“In this connection I was permitted to state my Anthroposophical point of view regarding Shakespeare, regarding education, and regarding the requirements of the spiritual life of the present. The educational power of Shakespeare's art is involved in the history of human evolution also through the influence that Shakespeare's art exerted upon Goethe. The question must be asked: Upon what does this tremendous influence rest? When I ask myself this question, I am confronted by a fact in supersensible experience. Any one who is in a position to devote himself livingly to the Shakespeare dramas and then carry this experience into that world which is spread out before 'exact clairvoyance' can find that the figures of Shakespeare continue to appear before the soul in the supersensible realm as living, whereas the figures out of the new naturalistic dramas are either transformed completely through this process into puppets or, in a sense, become immobile. In imagination, the Shakespeare figures continue to live. They do not continue there to carry out the same actions as in the drama; but they act in different situations and with a changed course of factual events. I believe that this fact indicates that the Shakespeare figures are deeply rooted in the spiritual world and that Goethe unconsciously experienced this fact of their being deeply rooted in his devotion to the Shakespeare dramas. He felt as if he himself were seized upon by facts of the spirit world when he turned to Shakespeare.

“I had this experience in the background of my mind when I had the opportunity to speak in Stratford about Shakespeare, Goethe, and the nature of education in three lectures. Especially vivid was the conviction flowing from this when I had to speak on April 23, the real Shakespeare Day, about Shakespeare and the New Ideals.

“The programs arranged by the committee for 'New Ideals in Education/ were accompanied by presentations of Shakespearean dramas in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. We had the opportunity to see Othello, Julius Caesar, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well, Much Ado about Nothing. Satisfying for my feeling was the presentation of the comedies. I have a different conception of the right presentation of the tragedies.”

The marked impression made by the altogether new points of view of Rudolf Steiner on the public on that occasion is indicated by the newspaper reports of the Shakespeare Festival and the conference on education —for instance, in the report from the London Times of April 29:

“The famous person in this year's conference was Dr. Rudolf Steiner, who is distinguished at present, not only in the field of education but also in other fields. In the light of spiritual science, he gives new forces of life to a number of dogmas hitherto held in check, and he promises to teachers relief from unnecessary difficulty through learning to know the soul of the child with the help of supersensible knowledge.・・.Speaking in the German language, Dr. Steiner was able to hold his audience in an extraordinary manner, in spite of the interpretation interjected after each twenty minutes, as he presented statements regarding the spiritual-scientific school in Dornach and his own researches regarding the nature of man.”

At the close of the Shakespeare Festival and the conference on education, he gave a lecture also to the members in London on the secrets of the threefold sun in the ancient Mysteries: the sun aspect of Zarathustra, of Osiris, of Pythagoras and Anaxagoras, the retrospect into this past in the case of Julian the Apostate. He called attention to the change in views in the Middle Ages and in the case of such a marked personality as Cardinal Newman, and then to the extremely different aspects and tasks of our own time. Reporting later on the satisfactory experiences of this lecture tour, Dr. Steiner said:

“On April 25 I left England filled with the thought that there are personalities in England who look upon the fostering and representing of the Anthroposophical cause as a part of their life mission and who work energetically in this direction. I must think of them with the thanks which live in my heart when I find human beings who take hold helpfully in behalf of this cause.”

He mentioned in this connection especially those personalities who had rendered possible for him the inaugurating of the pedagogical work in England: Professor Mackenzie and Miss Gross, the school at Kings-Langley, and especially Mrs. Drury-Lavin and Mr. Harry Collison, already active for many years in Anthroposophy, as well as Mr. George Adams Kaufmann, the interpreter of all his lectures in England. The capacity of Mr. Kaufmann for a precise interpretation of Rudolf Steiner's lectures was truly remarkable. In spite of the tremendous difficulty of translating into other languages the books and lectures of Dr. Steiner, for which he himself had to invent new forms of expression, this work has made great progress in the English language.

On April 29 Dr. Steiner resumed his work in Dornach. After reporting on his tour in Holland and in England he delivered a cycle of five lectures on The Human Soul and the Evolution of the World, a cycle which, naturally, went far more deeply into such a subject than was possible in the case of lectures delivered to public audiences without training in spiritual science. He described the stages in evolution in ancient times which had contributed to the development of the outer and the inner organs of sense in man, especially to changes in the relation between man and the world at times when individual organs gradually changed from organs of life to organs of sense—for example, such sense organs of the present as the eye and the ear. In a distant future time, he explained, such inner organs as the lungs and heart will be transformed from life organs to inner sense organs. All that he presented in such cycles in so exact a manner led to a knowledge of the fact that the soul element in man is not a product but a creator and controller of the material element. The finding resulting from such a consideration he summarized in the words:

“All of this I say in order to show you that the spiritual science which we have in mind here does not center attention upon a vague psychic element, but upon that psychic element which is really the master, the molder of the corporeal, and works everywhere into the corporeal. . . . Spiritual science does not exclude from its consideration the material element but for the first time makes it intelligible in that the soul element is considered for the first time as that which controls the material element.”

Explaining in these lectures the essential difference between knowledge through the senses and supersensible knowledge, he said, for example, that what is supersensibly experienced cannot be carried in the ordinary memory; it must in every case be constantly regained. Thus the spiritual researcher is one who must constantly struggle with both the physical and the spiritual world. But his insight into the spiritual nature of the surrounding world makes the laboratory table for him into an altar, and Spiritual Powers become his helpers.

On May 8 Dr. Steiner again left his work of schooling at Dornach to spend two intensive weeks in cities where the work of the previous year had established such a broad field—Stuttgart, Leipzig, Berlin, Breslau, Munich, Mannheim, Elberfeld, Cologne, Bremen, and Hamburg. The first lecture in this period from May 9 to 23 was for students and university persons and brought into discussion the problem of agnosticism in our time, but the lectures in the nine remaining cities dealt, before crowded halls, with Anthroposophy and Spiritual Knowledge. The great majority among the thousands who heard these lectures received them with intense interest, but in Munich and Elberfeld a few violent opponents did everything possible to interfere with the lectures, including personal threats to the speaker. In Munich he had even to be personally protected from physical attack, but the following lectures were received in those cities with the greatest enthusiasm.

In all of these public lectures Dr. Steiner carried his description of the processes in the life of the soul as given during the previous year still further, beyond the two thresholds of human life, birth and death, showing what sound forces for the mastery of the earthly life develop for the human being when he penetrates knowingly into those worlds which provide him with spiritual impulses out of the pre-natal existence and which unite him again after the earthly life with the Creative Powers of the world. The planned development of each individual human life, in which we ourselves may participate more and more through such spiritual knowledge, was thus illuminated, which gave strong forces for endurance and creative work in that very difficult time.

And before the climax of this expansive work of 1922, the West-East Congress, Dr. Steiner returned for a week to Dornach. Lectures to the permanent collaborators there served to deepen the knowledge of the historical foundations of the present way of working by dealing with The Changing Ways of Supersensible Knowledge. The spiritual polarity between Orient and Occident was here once more illuminated in a decisive aspect: the indication that methods of spiritual schooling developed in the Orient "were valid only for human beings of an exceedingly ancient past culture as the right way for ascending into the higher worlds55; but that the Occident must blaze new paths for the achievement of spiritual knowledge in the earthly life. An understanding of the West-East problem requires a knowledge of this polaric tension due to changes of consciousness working over from the past into the contemporary world, but the present spirit of the times demands the exercise of deeper-lying forces of the soul, determined by the present spiritual, soul, and bodily structure in Western existence. The Oriental human being in the Yoga system, for instance, obtained cosmic wisdom through the controlled rhythm of breathing of the body and found the Spirit in isolation from the world and in blissful quietude. The spiritual and the corporeal worked at that time directly and harmoniously into one another, and the soul rested in peace. The contemporary human being, however, finds the Spirit only through the door・ way of battle, opposition, pain, suffering, and their overcoming through the exercising of the soul:

“For the modern human being the situation is such that this immersion in pain, in suffering, becomes an inner way of the soul so that it occurs purely in the soul, that the body really does not participate in it provided the body is robust and strong and adequate for the external world, as is the case in general with the present-day human being. But, through the fact that man begins to permit his knowledge to come to him as something in itself which signifies suffering, he once more enters today those regions of the spiritual life out of which once upon a time the great truths of religion were obtained. The great truths of religion—that is, those truths which create a religious mood through the impression which the higher world, the supersensible world makes, the world in which our immortality is rooted,—these truths cannot be achieved without painful inner experiences. When they have once been thus achieved, they can be given over to the general consciousness of humanity...

“This is said not for the purpose of creating discouragement^ although it is discouraging at present for many persons. It is stated for the simple reason that it is true. What good would it do to say to human beings that they can enter comfortably into the highest worlds when this is simply not true, when entering into the higher worlds simply demands that there must be an overcoming, that what causes suffering must be surmounted.”

Out of the struggles and distressing experiences which came to him intensified during this year, he could speak out of a profound and living experience to his students about the path through battle and suffering to spiritual knowledge.

At the end of May he went from Dornach to Vienna, where the WestEast Congress began on June 1. An understanding of the significance of this Congress requires a glance at the condition of contemporary Europe. A view of the city of Vienna at that time gave one an impression of its tragic state. This ancient cultural center of Europe had been radically changed in its essential nature by the catastrophe of the war and the so-called treaty of peace. The birthplace and nurturing center of culture and art was now immersed in an atmosphere of gloom and wretchedness. There was a chaotic confusion of languages through the streets. International profiteers of the worst sort had taken up their home here and all thinking and reflection were dominated by the ominous word "currency." The value of currency had fallen into an abyss. One meal cost a thousand Kronen, a hotel room 20,000, and uncertainty as to the values of tomorrow was imprinted upon all faces. Luxury and misery were crowded together. The faces of persons, marked by the characteristic lovableness of the Viennese, bore also the expression of melancholy and despair. The air of the city vibrated with the indestructible will to live accompanied by fear of in-breaking chaos.

It was, therefore, an elemental experience to pass out of the city into the rooms where the West-East Congress was to take place. One exchanged utter confusion and anxiety outside for a sphere of concentration, self-achieved spiritual security, the will to build up and to help. Unnumbered persons experienced in those days of June 1922 this polarity of the dissolving and despairing world and the reborn force in this spiritual center, and thankfully affirmed this. One sensed immediately that there was a new way of helping, not a patching up of old facades, to be seen everywhere in this city, but the beginning of a healing process in the very roots of the diseased tree. For the entire problem, in its deepest causes, was neither political nor economic, but spiritual, and people recognized in the wholesome inner life that only a new spiritual foundation could overcome the results of wrong paths in thinking and action in the surrounding world. Why could not a new and wholesome knowledge of the nature of man and of the world once more bring plan and order into the foundation of thinking, and thence a reconstruction of the spiritual and social order.

Presenting here a new picture of the human being, active in both knowledge and deed out of the spiritual world order, Dr. Steiner chose for the themes of two cycles of lectures given at the West-East Congress Anthroposophy and Sciences and Anthroposophy and Sociology. The first cycle gave the foundation in knowledge; the second the impute to right action.

But the condition of the times and of this city required that these problems be placed within the polarity of East and West. In Austria the tremendous tension caused by this antithesis was a daily reality. Having been the center for centuries where the spiritual radiations from the two worlds met each other, it had always been the bulwark against the waves of Eastern conquerors. Hence there had penetrated into the souls of these people the radiations from East and West in both light and dark colors; each human being had to achieve a balance within these polarities and find his own way as a representative of the Occidental spirit.

The mission here to be achieved within world history, both in knowledge and in will, could be achieved only through a courageous and profound penetration into the spiritual bases of this world situation. A wonderful evidence of the sound inner being and courage of so many persons at that time is to be found in the fact that there was now such a tremendous stream of participants, not only from Vienna but also from the whole of Europe, flowing to the center where an insight into these problems and their solution was now to be given. The great and noble hall of the building of the Music Association of Vienna was filled every evening between June 1 and 12 by thousands of persons.

For those of us who actually experienced these days, it is difficult to put into words the tremendous tension, expectation, enthusiasm, and gratitude so powerfully manifest in that hall on every one of these evenings. Looking before the beginning of the lecture into this tremendous auditorium crowded with some two thousand persons, one always experienced that intense mood of human endeavor. There was a sense of certainty that the tragic and melancholy atmosphere of the city outside was not the essential thing; but that among these persons within the hall there was the beginning of a new spiritual ascent in Europe, unfolding its powerful forces of growth, needing only the right kind of awakening and strengthening. When Rudolf Steiner entered the hall, he was greeted by a storm of thankful applause, intensified by the academic custom of stamping applause of the numerous students present. When his sonorous voice, filling the expansive hall, formed its first word, the thousands listened in tense stillness, and one could sense in the hall and on the faces the struggles and the changes in the minds of listeners, the rigidly maintained or dissolved opposition of the skeptics, the sustaining force of the agreeing, the questioning and willingly following in thought of the youth, the enthusiasm and gratitude of all those who found here what they had sought for years in the misery of the time.

It was characteristic of Rudolf Steiner that he had once more gone to the place where at this moment suffering and the need of help were greatest, but that he did not approach these human beings as did so many others, with vague promises or comforting challenges, but that he addressed from the first moment their readiness for knowledge. He appealed to calm, consequent thinking, the trained scientific spirit of the West, its historical conscience, when he put the questions: What was really known at present of cosmos, earth, and man, the fundamental elements in the situation of the time; What was being viewed rightly or falsely in the external world and in the inner being of man; Where were the blind alleys in thinking; Where pioneer work in a deeper penetration must begin. He did not by any means make things easy, but spoke consciously to the hardness, the strength, the readiness to resist existing in people. Not to vague feelings but to man's capacity of thinking did he address himself; to the capacity of people to test themselves and to abandon what had grown too old; to their willingness to act only out of insight. In this appeal to the strength and the resistance within the hearers, they themselves sensed that one was speaking who had himself overcome, that he spoke out of experience, out of knowledge and capacity. Sensing this directly, even the persons who had not been acquainted with him expressed after the lectures the experience that one of the great personalities of the time had here stood before them.

The main theme of this Congress was: West-East. Yet it did not suffice merely to point out the "world contrast of Occident and Orient,n but it was necessary to present what had been achieved by spiritual science for a survey of the world situation and the solution of its problems. Each day during the first cycle of lectures was devoted to presenting the contribution of Anthroposophy in a single field: to natural science, psychology, the history of the East-West relation, the evolution of the world from a geographical standpoint, cosmology. The second series of lectures presented sociology as resting upon this foundation in knowledge: “The Time and Its Social Requirements,” “The Time and Its Social Shaping (Atlantic and Pacific Culture),” “The Time and Its Social Deficiencies (AsiaEurope),” “The Time and Its Social Hopes (Europe-America),” “The Central Points of the Social Question.” One who listened to these lectures became awake to the spirit and plan of world history, the nature and the goal of man, the oppositions and the perils, but also the requirements and the potential formative forces in the spirit of the times.

To gain a survey of this important Congress, we must return to its beginning. The preparations had been made in a large-minded manner by a personality of great initiative, J. van Leer, supported by many others. After an introductory address of greeting by Count Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, the opening lecture was given by Ernst Uehli on The Spirit of the Time and World Conscience. On each day of the Congress there were both forenoon and afternoon lectures, seminars and discussions in the fields of science and sociology, during which great numbers of students participated with intense interest. The entire building was occupied by many scientific or artistic programs. For instance, in one hall there were discussions in the fields of chemistry and physics; in another in those of biology or psychology, medicine or pedagogy, sociology or economics; while in another the interpretation of the German lectures was proceeding in French or English. For persons had come from various parts of Europe and from great distances, including America. It was really a great gathering of companions at the very time when mutual understanding in the outside world had sunk to its lowest level. The good spirit which worked at the Goetheanum was here also to teach the human beings in the Congress of Vienna mutual understanding.

Side by side with the scientific undertakings of the Congress, one experienced the religious questions and the artistic impulses. On Pentecost Sunday, June 4, Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer spoke on The Spirit of Pentecost and Religious Renewal. The artistic part of the conference was introduced by Albert Steffen in a lecture on The Position of the Artist between West and East and a lecture by Dr. Erich Schwebsch on Anton Bruckner's Musical Mission. Out of Albert Steffen's lecture was later developed one of his most beautiful literary productions, and Dr. Schwebsch, inspired by Rudolf Steiner's long-continued high evaluation of Bruckner, produced later a book which helped greatly in expanding the appreciation of this composer. During the Congress there was a magnificent production of Bruckner's great Mass in F minor by a combination of three musical organizations of Vienna. Classical music was represented by a program produced on modem instruments built by the violin-maker Thomastik. All of this artistic production came to a conclusion in the lecture of Rudolf Steiner on June 7 on Poetry and Recitation and three programs of the new art of Eurythmy. Many persons here experienced for the first time the harmony disclosed by Dr. Steiner among all the elements of spiritual creation, the art of speech, music, light, color, and movement.

A large part of the press was either extremely reserved or hostile in relation to the entire Congress, but this seemed to exercise no influence over the tremendous number of persons attending enthusiastically. It was like a repetition of the experience of Anton Bruckner during his own lifetime. On the last day of the Congress, Dr. Steiner summarized its totality in a lecture on The Architectural Idea of Dornach. Out of this lecture those participating in the Congress would realize that, whatever may happen in the world, a germ was growing on earth into which forces stream from the broad expanses of the spiritual world, forces which penetrate through the fog of the day and bear witness to an inextinguishable light.

I wish to mention one typical detail out of this time of the Congress which shows that Rudolf Steiner was not only a helper of thousands of people through his public lectures, but at the same time counselor of individuals. For, of the many persons who had come to the Congress, hundreds wished to converse with him in person, in order to ask for advice or to place before him special scientific or personal questions. Thus the entire stairway hall of the Hotel Imperial, where he resided, from the entrance all the way up to his room was occupied constantly by a chain of persons waiting for the possible few minutes when he could receive each of them. It was a strange picture presented in this elegant Vienna hotel, and I had to create a special organization, with the aid of a friend, in order to keep within limits this endless stream of visitors. Thus almost every one of those waiting had an opportunity at least for a brief conversation with him. For many who had traveled a great distance, this signified a decisive moment in their lives. Rudolf Steiner's power of concentration and his immeasurable human love rendered it possible for him in a few words suitable to the nature and the life situation of each individual present to send him on his way decisively aided in his destiny.

While regulating this stream of visitors at his request, I had the opportunity to experience his extraordinary gift of intuition—indeed, I must say the capacity of clairvoyance—to overcome spatial distances in strange examples. For, among the many serious visitors, there were naturally in this cosmopolitan city some who had come out of curiosity only. When I announced each individual on arrival for a call—many of them never hitherto seen by him nor known by name—it was always astonishing to note how he immediately made his decision in spite of the fact that the person was not standing before him but was outside in the stairway hall or waiting below. Without any description of the visitor on my part, he always indicated after brief reflection whether he would receive the person or not. One special example: A visitor, playing the role of an important person, urged upon me the necessity of speaking to Dr. Steiner but would not state his purpose; and I could not understand his name. I announced him, but Dr. Steiner said to me above in his room, without having seen the person: "Give him a few shillings and he will then go." I was dismayed, since this seemed to me impossible for a person making such an impression, but I went down and did reluctantly what I was told to do, expecting violent indignation. But what happened was precisely what had been said: he took the money and left. This is a petty and yet a typical example of numerous such experiences. In other cases he received for painstaking conversation utterly unknown persons.

Most of the visitors came to him with questions about scientific research or the spiritual conduct of life. It must be borne in mind that this occurred in the midst of an overwhelming daily burden, with numerous programs included, and that he never gave any indication of weariness but carried out everything, great and small, kindly, definitely, and clearly.

Dr. Steiner took his meals in the dining room of the hotel with some of us, and during these intervals related with pleasure amusing experiences of his own youth in Vienna and typical Viennese anecdotes, in the Austrian dialect. It was especially during journeys and at mealtimes that he showed a heartfelt gaiety, and loved an unrestrained humorous conversation. After the meal, the stream of visitors began again immediately, or the next program, a lecture or a seminar. New riddles were constantly presented to those associated with him by his creative power, intuition, and knowledge of human beings, as well as his plenitude of knowledge in general.

On June 12 the Vienna Congress came to an end. The thousands of participants returned to their homes immensely enriched. In the midst of the European chaos, a deed had been performed whose influences must now work out in the hearts of human beings, but from these centers of radiation what was here received was spread over the world, and might release new impulses and actions.

It is important to note how, in a report of June 18 at Dornach, Dr. Steiner brought into the consciousness of his collaborators the two poles of the Movement which he had inaugurated: the esoteric center, resting upon spiritual schooling, and the exoteric sphere of activity reaching out into all realms of life accessible to the influence of this center of force. He emphasized especially that such an action as that of the West-East Congress had not been sought for or brought about through propaganda, but that here out of the very force of the external relations a task had been given by destiny to the Movement, a question which had to be answered. He said in earlier years that his task in this time was "to say” the things and then leave it to the freedom of every human being to draw his own conclusions. Since now in recent years, and especially through the activity of the younger element, these questions had come from the external world, the answer had now been given from the center of the Movement to the questioning periphery, neither less nor more than this spiritual necessity and concrete putting of questions from without correspondingly required. Rudolf Steiner said, therefore, in his report of June 18:

“You know from much that I have said here that such Congresses as that in Stuttgart and then the Vienna Congress are really necessities demanded of the Anthroposophical Movement from without. I have said to you that the Anthroposophical Movement from the beginning on has worked out of the esoteric, and in the case of an esoteric movement it is obvious that there can be nothing of an agitative quality; but it must so far as possible seek its path in such a way that, in spite of giving to every one who wills to hear the opportunity to hear, the Movement directs itself to those human beings who feel a certain inclination toward it out of their hearts and out of their thinking, and who then—this must be said—find the way according to destiny.

“After a certain point of time, however, our literature especially experienced a very rapid dissemination, and thus came into the hands of many persons—primarily of persons who possessed a certain scientific trend in keeping with the situation of the present time. Then all possible scientific trends began to take account of Anthroposophy polemically or otherwise.

“This led our younger friends in turn to defend the Anthroposophical world view by means of the scientific equipment which they possessed, and thus it came about, one might say, that the Anthroposophical Movement had to become active in the most varied branches of life under the challenge of the world. It can be said without any bias that this has simply come upon us from without, and there was no inclination at all to abandon the old way of spreading Anthroposophy. We have been compelled to do so. We were put into a position of defense from various directions; for, as you all know, Anthroposophy was attacked and, indeed, generally in the most unobjective manner. But it developed through the younger friends a number of extraordinarily capable forces, which are able to apply the fundamental principles of Anthroposophy and also Anthroposophical research in the individual fields.

“Now the simple fact is that, when the beginning is made with such a thing, it is extended; so that it began to occur that a great number of important branches of life and of science were dealt with in an Anthroposophical sense.

“The fact that publications took place then in these various fields brought it about, in turn, that the Anthroposophical Movement was brought to the attention of the most varied circles of people, and it was inevitable after a certain point of time that one had to appear before the general public. It became necessary precisely from the Anthroposophical point of view, for reasons often explained here, to take a certain attitude with reference to the great questions of the time, at least from a cultural standpoint. It is this, in essence, which provided the impulse to bring about such a thing as the Stuttgart Congress and now the Vienna Congress.”

In other words, the world had shown that it had become aware of the Anthroposophical Movement; that here was something which every spiritually striving person must deal with; and aid must be given from the center to this striving. But, as with all living things, expansion must be followed by concentration, openness of heart toward the outside must be supported by the constant strengthening of the center of life. Dr. Steiner said, therefore, at the end of his report:

“This is something which, if it is understood in the right way, can be observed especially in connection with the Vienna Congress: the fact that the judgment has come into existence in the world that here is something with which a person who is concerned, not only with forces of decay but also with forces of ascent, must concern himself, which he must take into account.

“It can certainly be said that, apart from the external success which was obvious in the cordial response given to all our lecturers, the acceptance which our speakers met with, the acceptance which our artistic programs met with, there was also without doubt a certain inner success. And out of this there arise for us new duties, duties which are truly of a profound nature.”

One sees in observing the course of Rudolf Steiners life how he always held in balance the two poles, outward action and more intense inner strengthening, but that he looked upon the inner strengthening of the core as the essential thing, entering into the external sphere of action only when this was called for by destiny. The great lecture tours of the spring of 1922 and the West-East Congress, as climaxes of the expansive action, had come to him out of external situations. We shall see how in the next two years he devoted to the central core of the Movement an intensified attention and strengthening for the future tasks which destiny had in store.

For this reason the Dornach lectures from June to August were devoted to the central Anthroposophical sphere. The first series of lectures were concentrated upon continuing the representation of the central substance of Anthroposophy, a description of the union of cosmos and . man in their being and their becoming. The second course brought new impulses for the artistic and the dramatic work; the third, the National-Economic Course, applied the newly gained concepts and pictures of life to rendering sound in the present time the earthly sphere of existence.

In the first series of lectures to members, Dr. Steiner elucidated the inner world of the present-day human being, who has become "phantom-like” through the influence of the decadent mystical world of the Orient and the blind materialistic concepts of the Occident. He clarified the real relations of human thinking, feeling, and will with the forces of surrounding space; he rendered clear the reciprocal relation between the planetary world of Beings and the cosmic sphere, on the one hand, and the functions of the organism of man, on the other, and the soul developing within it. Beginning with the human being, the most delicate instrument of reaction, he passed over to the system of influences in the realms of plant and mineral, which can become heaEng forces for the sick human organism as well as the plant organism. He carried these explanations even into the earthly substances. It was in this year, as will be seen, that the agricultural movement also came into existence; and for this reason Rudolf Steiner gave to collaborators being trained for this work the necessary conceptual pictures for a spiritual-scientific consideration of these primal elements in the world of matter. It has already been stated that for some time, through the founding of the biological research laboratory in Dornach, active research and experimentation had been carried on in the realm of the formative forces, in plant cultivation, in discovering the subtle capacities for reaction between living organisms and dissolved and crystallizing substances, in all of which Dr. Steiner was always at hand to give counsel and help, correcting and giving directives. For the supplementation of this work I, together with my fellow workers, had arranged for a discussion evening in natural science, held every week, at which Dr. Steiner was generally present in person to aid in the answering of question. Those sharing sat in a semicircle before a blackboard, brought forward their problems, difficulties, experiences, and ideas and received from him in this natural and informal way corrections and incentives for further effort. In this primitive setting, many important results of spiritual research were provided by him. It is here that the elements of the theory of the formative forces, arrangements for chemical, physical, geological, and botanical experimentation were discussed and clarified, as well as general problems of cosmogony. To give a concrete example, the question arose one evening of the origin of the forms of movement in the cosmos, and I asked Rudolf Steiner how the movement in the lemniscate, which he had often mentioned, had originally come about. He then entered, in a vivid manner into the very beginnings of the cosmos, the so-called uSatum condition," and described how the first motion in the cosmos came about through the balancing rotations of tremendous warm and cold bodies, how the whole cosmic system then began to move also around another axis; and how, through the combination of these movements of the system around different axes and on the inside, the lemniscate movement developed. He accompanied these descriptions in a vivid manner with the movement of his hand or with drawings on the blackboard and thus enabled us to penetrate more deeply into primal laws of the cosmic process of coming into existence. These Thursday evenings, with their discussions full of life and content, remain unforgettable, and have provided us with very much for our lives and for the practical work in the laboratory and in agriculture.

At that time I was working on my book The Etheric Formative Forces in Cosmos, Earth, and Man, and, in spite of the overwhelming load of work Rudolf Steiner was carrying at that time, he devoted time to my task and aided me through suggesting literature for preliminary study, and suggestions regarding the general direction and the structure of the material, contributing to my courage, strength, and substance for the working up of this research material. In moments of anxiety lest one break under the excessive volume of the material and one5s inadequacy for mastering it, a few words from Rudolf Steiner in conversation could once more bestow strength and concentration, self-confidence and the right perspective, for additional months.

On the other hand, he could often suggest suddenly to a student, as a sort of work therapy, an entirely different field of activity; and one would realize only later after the initial surprise how beneficial such a sudden change in the sphere of thinking and working can be, both in the rhythm of one's own life and also in the renewed advance upon the main line. For example, he once suddenly suggested to me in a conversation to investigate the nature of the gall-forming process in the human organism from specific points of view. In every historical epoch, he said, certain definite organs were of special importance for the total evolution of humanity, and that at the present time this was true of the gall-forming process and that it was necessary, therefore, to clarify the relation between the ego-consciousness and changes which occur in this process during the waking and sleeping states of the human being, in contrast to the animal kingdom. He said that these processes take their course in the waking state in man otherwise than in the sleeping state and also differently in man and animal; that the activity of the ego-consciousness in man, all the way down into material processes, becomes intelligible in this way as well as the difference between man and animal. Having never concerned myself previously with such questions, I was astonished at the suddenly given task; but I began working at it according to his suggestions through the study of literature and special experiments. At that time I could not bring this research to any conclusive results; but, when I took up the other work after some time according to his advice, I became aware of the benefit of this change of scene for the continuance of the previous line of research. This is mentioned only to show by a concrete example how much more deeply he saw into the inner situation of a student and his possibilities of development than the student himself.

In Dr. Steiner's fundamental works—most of all, in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment—he, gave the necessary guidance for spiritual schooling in meditation and concentration for a self-mastery of the inner rhythm and course of one's personal spiritual development.

We have already quoted his words about the place of meditation in his own life, especially at one crucial stage: “The soul-life at the stage then attained required meditation just as an organism at a certain stage in its evolution needs to breathe by means of lungs.” When the student had in practice tested the systematic methods of schooling given by Dr. Steiner, he would naturally from time to time confer with the experienced teacher. Except in reply to questions from the practicing student, Dr. Steiner never entered upon such steps in the development of the individual. But, if questions and requests for advice were addressed to him, he never failed to give such assistance to the individual student, whether through awakening the consciousness for deficiencies or for something that needed to be strengthened, or through exercises suited to the individual, and he often accompanied through years in kindly confidence all of a student's developing stages. But in all this process the unlimited freedom of the student was always protected as the most important of all prerequisites, and every step had to be taken by the individual upon his own decision. Any one who has begun and tested this strengthening of the organism of soul and spirit through exercises knows what great value in life, what wholesome inner strengthening, what unexpected furtherance in the control of one's course of life, but also in every scientific, artistic, or other sphere of work, came to one engaged in these practices. This esoteric schooling which Rudolf Steiner gave to so many human beings during decades of time has radiated as a constantly effective influence into the spiritual sphere.

Of decisive significance was his advice and help at the moment when the very first concrete supersensible perceptions appeared in the student. In such a situation experiences arise unsupported by any previous experience. Dealing in thought with such spiritual processes is something utterly unlike the sudden concrete perception. Much is so different from what one has expected that one feels under pressure to question a teacher. It may not be out of place to illustrate the advice of Dr. Steiner at such moments.

The first supersensible perception came to me unexpectedly and suddenly during an evening walk in the open air. This occurred without my having been concerned beforehand with such questions. The external senses were awake and attentive to the surrounding nature as that supersensible phenomenon of light suddenly entered the field of vision which has never since disappeared. Such a light form is brighter than the daylight; its form, its contours, just as clearly visible as any physical object It is a flame figure pulsating from the center above and toward both sides, with a constant rapid vibration and motion. The content of this perception is not transient but permanent; after once appearing, it remains for years and decades in the field of vision, beyond any possibility of illusion. Such perceptual content, however, possesses a strange characteristic, of which one has heard beforehand out of the teaching of spiritual science but which is surprising when it becomes a concrete experience. Such a process in the supersensible etheric light is experienced differently in spatial dimensions from a physical process. In its height and breadth, its above and below, its right and left, it can unmistakably be determined, but not, strange to say, in its proximity or distance. For this reason, it appeared to me on that walk as if the light form appeared outside in nature, and I sought to determine its location, but observed that, if I closed my eyes, it was still there in the same brightness and clarity. With the eyes open it appeared at times as if projected upon objects—with the upward gaze as if on the dome of Heaven, with a gaze upon a near-by object, a wall, a book, the face of a person, it appeared to be there. This lack of a dimension of depth is at first confusing. I sought now quite methodically and exactly, through all sorts of changes in the position of my body, to discover where it was actually located. It then became dear that it was just as bright in the darkness of night in my room. Since it remained visible by day and night, with eyes open or closed, in every situation, it was now clear that the process was occurring within the human being himself. Indeed, it became clear that this figure of light was shining in the human head, precisely at the level of the middle of the forehead, between the eyebrows, but within; it is a part of one's own supersensible structure. Only after I had observed this carefully for a long time and determined it in its specific characteristics and action, I went to Rudolf Steiner for explanation and advice as to what attitude one should take toward this. I described to him exactly the content of the perception, which at that very moment was clearly visible, reported to him about my experiments in the effort to determine its position—which drew from him an understanding smile—and also commented on the strangeness of my difficulties at first in the determination of the proximity or the distance as well as other characteristics of the phenomena. When I had finished this report, he sat for a time in silence, his eyes closed as if in inner concentration, then he said that this had all been correctly and accurately described. After some additional questions and answers, he gave me in conclusion the surprising advice: "But do not think about this." I soon saw how important this advice was; for it is altogether natural that one's thinking would constantly be occupied with this thing, but the intellect is a disturber of calm, it brings its concepts to bear upon things and thus affects the pure viewing of the phenomena. If one excludes the intellect and gives oneself over to pure observation, the processes are then present in their actual nature, their changes uninfluenced in the presence of the observation, and one will soon observe that they cannot be altered either by thinking or by the will, but must simply be taken as they are; that one must wait, observe, and wait.

Dr. Steiner had said once in a lecture that, in natural science, observation comes first and thinking follows out of this; but that, when the human being confronts supersensible processes, he must first be familiar with them through thinking in order to be inwardly prepared for the different kind of thing, and not to permit himself to be confused. When the phenomenon is there, however, thinking should withdraw and pure observation should take its place. The content of that lecture, which I had previously taken in a theoretical way, could now be experienced in its concrete significance in connection with the advice given me. It is by no means easy to follow this advice, because thinking is a stiff-necked aggressive creature, but one soon observes that here observation and waiting alone are of assistance.

It is obvious that such an experience signifies far more than the mere content of what is perceived in the deep impression which it makes upon life. For previously the content of spiritual science—what it has to say about the supersensible structure of the human being, the nature and the action of the etheric body, of the formative forces, about the existence of an organized world of light not visible to the physical eye but existing and active—all of this is something regarding which the person may be convinced because it is confirmed by thinking and research, regarding which, however, there remains much uncertainty. But, when this world of light is once perceptible, even if at first only in a single special phenomenon, clearly visible in radiating brightness even in daylight and independent of any special conditions of soul, there can then be just as little doubt as there is about physical objects that one touches, about one's own body. It is simply constantly present as is everything physical also, and thus the certitude of the truth of what spiritual science affirms becomes irrefutable. The supersensible world regarding which it speaks has a perceptible existence.

I look upon it as a duty of gratitude of the pupil toward his teacher, who spoke of these spiritual realities which result for experience, to make this statement here after further decades of quiet observation and continuous objective confirmation.

We return now to the events of June 1922. After dealing with the inner dynamics of cosmos and man in the first Dornach lectures, Dr. Steiner dealt in the following lectures with the mirroring of these inner processes of becoming during the course of history in the thinking and the action of definite periods of time and of single personalities. This reflection was formed in such a way that it illuminated the historical metamorphoses in consciousness from the time of Plato and Aristode through that of Plotinus, lamblicos, Julian the Apostate up to the theology of the earliest Christian centuries and on past the Middle Ages to the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, the thinking characteristic of Franz Brentano and Nietzsche, and finally to the misguided announcement of decay in our time as presented by Oswald Spengler and others. It thus called attention to the necessity for a renovation of the spiritual forces.

On June 18, Frau Marie Steiner began a course lasting a number of weeks, the Dramatic Course, for the many artists and students coming to Dornach. This provided in sixteen hours of practice the model and material for work in the art of speech, in connection with which Rudolf Steiner from time to time provided elucidations and supplementations. In this course Frau Dr. Steiner led her hearers, through multitudes of examples into the practice of the speech exercises given by Dr. Steiner, with all the details of variation in the art of speech for various purposes. She herself demonstrated this through recitations, while Dr. Steiner gave much additional knowledge as directives for the development of the voice, the use of the organs of speech, and most of all for the right point of view, to be observed especially in the art of the stage. In the following years, great dramatic achievements came out of this beginning, both at the Goetheanum and in many cities of Europe. During this period, there were also teaching and further development in the art of Eurythmy, to which Dr. Steiner contributed through providing carved and colored Eurythmy figures each representing a tone-pitch or a sound, a movement, the element of feeling and will in the art of Eurythmy. These figures, designed by Dr. Steiner and produced by a number of artists in succession, have been of great assistance in the teaching and practice of the art. On August 4, Dr. Steiner gave a lecture on their significance.

On July 22, he provided for scientific researchers a special lecture on The System of Cosmic Laws in Plant, Animal, and Man. He chose this day because it was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Gregor Mendel, the great discoverer of laws of inheritance in the plant world. It was characteristic of Dr. Steiner to observe in his lectures such historic dates in the development of science. Ignored through his own lifetime and becoming famous only long after his death, Mendel has suffered the misfortune of having his exactly confirmed theories in the world of the plants falsely transferred also to the animal and the human world. Instead of following in this false course of natural science, misapplying what pertains to the plant world in research dealing with animals and man, spiritual science shows in an exact way the essential differences among man, animal, and plant in all that pertains to the organic nature and the processes of life. The stimulations which Rudolf Steiner provided in his reflections regarding phylogeny and ontogeny in the world of the plant has resulted in the succeeding decades in a wealth of literature in this field. On July 24 began the important National-Economic Course, of fourteen lectures, intended especially for university people and students, setting forth the phenomena in the present structure of national economics in precise details, and providing also a survey of the comprehensive interrelations. This science of economy developed at this time was taken directly from actual practice, and provided for one who entered deeply into it the "perceptive power of thinking” in this field. Whereas the practice at that time was either to surrender helplessly to the constant crises in an economic system shattered by the war, or to intervene in these processes with abstract theories, in this course no theory was given but only the organics inherent in the phenomena themselves. How to aid in bringing to a sound birth these processes of development imminent in the economic sphere was set forth, to the end that they might be integrated into the social life of the peoples and the organism of world economics. Rudolf Steiner gave vivid descriptions of the interaction among the functions of the human spirit, nature, and work, of the process of emancipation of capital from its basis in nature, the relations among nature, capital, and work, ware and price, and other essentials of the economic sphere. He dealt with enterpriser, capital, ware, and means of production, the right integration of land in national economics, income from land, interest and wages, purchase money, loan money and donation money, the influence of the factors of rights in these processes determined by nature and the human spirit.

He gave to those who desired to know social science and to deal with it, not theories and concepts, but pictures of the spirit, substance, life and dynamics of the social processes. He said:

“It is here that the great difficulty lies in forming concepts in the area of national economics; for you cannot form national-economic concepts otherwise than by grasping something pictorially. Concepts do not enable one at all to grasp the national-economic process; it must be grasped in pictures. This is something which is felt to be extraordinarily uncomfortable by all the scholarship of the present time when the demand is made anywhere that anything must pass over from the mere abstraction of concepts into pictorialness. But we never shall be able to establish a genuine national-economic science otherwise than by passing over to pictorial concepts: that is, by getting into the position of conceiving the individual details in the national-economic process in picture form, so conceiving then that we have in the picture itself something dynamic and know just how such a national-economic detailprocess works when it is formed in one way or another.”

Since a genuine national economy develops out of the concrete knowledge and capacity of various human beings, of whom some are able to survey the nature of production, others the needs of the consumer or the process of circulation in trade, the representatives of these areas of life must, therefore, come together in Associations in which the picture of the totality of the economic process can be discovered on the basis of the exchange of experiences and the community purpose of the individuals. It is out of the unitedly achieved picture of the concrete situation that the judgments of the individuals result as to the conduct of matters:

“The judgment which must be formed in the economic sphere needs to be shaped out of the absolutely concrete. This can occur in no other way than that for definite areas—the extent of which, as we have seen, is determined by the national-economic process—Associations shall be formed in which there shall meet together out of the various branches representatives of all three divisions existing in the economic life: production, consumption, and distribution.”

In this way there comes about, in contrast to the egoism of the individual, a community feeling, to be achieved not through any theoretical pleading or compulsion but only through the creation of a social order in which the community feeling may be embodied and activated as the Associations aid in bringing about the birth of community work. Dr. Steiner drew the following conclusion from this description: "In these Associations there must exist a feeling for the community, a true feeling for the whole course of the entire national-economic process." In this conclusion he had given the directive lines for the realization of a goal which is required at present more than ever before by the social order spread over the entire earth.

Those who listened to the spoken words of this National-Economic Course will still remember what tension of consciousness and difficult thinking activity were demanded as in a few hours such an abundance of concentrated substance was provided. I remember especially the comparison which occurred to me out of the intensity of the demands on the forces of thinking and will in contrast with the ease in following the colloquies of Professor Brentano at the University of Munich or those at Oxford University before the war—the contents of which were so quickly refuted by the events of the war and the time following. Here again, as in so many other spheres, Rudolf Steiner knew how to awaken the dynamics of a living thinking and a creative will.

The last lectures which he gave at the beginning of August before the next lengthy journey continued the process of introducing the members into the comprehensive spheres of Anthroposophical spiritual science, continuing the earlier historical reflections up to the phenomena of the present. He once more pointed out the dangers of the widespread penetration of ideas regarding "the decay of the Occident/5 as understood by Spengler; but also the dangers in the religious realm in the fact that, instead of a spiritual Christology, there had come forward more and more a banal earthly conception of Jesus, which tended to drive out of human consciousness the true nature and cosmic deed of Redemption through the Christ, thus contributing to the "mood of decay.”

In this connection it is significant that the first thing published by Dr. Steiner in this year, an article in the weekly “Das Goetheanum” of January 1, dealt with the great Russian philosopher Wladimir Solovieff, to whose significant contribution toward a Christian world view he had referred many times during these years. This paper bore the title Wladimir Solovieff, a Mediator between Occident and Orient, thus belonging within the theme primarily emphasized during this year, the great West-East problem. In this paper Dr. Steiner wrote:

“In the soul of Solovieff there were clearly present two experiences: the experience of God the Father in the existence of nature and man, and of God the Son, Christ, as the Power which releases the human soul from the bonds of natural existence and first unites it with the true spirit existence.

“Contemporary theologians of Middle Europe are no longer in a position to keep these two experiences separated. Their souls arrive only at the experience of the Father, and out of the Gospels they gain only the conviction that Christ Jesus was the human proclaimer of the divine Father. For Solovieff, the Son stands in His divinity by the side of the Father. Man belongs to nature as do all beings. Nature, in all its beings, is the outcome of the divine. It is possible to permeate oneself with this thought. One then looks up to God the Father. But it is possible also to feel that man does not need to continue to be nature. Man must lift himself out of nature. If he does not lift himself above nature, it becomes within him sinful. If one follows the way of the soul in this direction, one arrives in those regions where man finds in the Gospels the revelation of God the Son. The soul of Solovieff moves on both of these paths. He provides a world view which is elevated far above the orthodox Russian religion, but which is religious in a Christian sense, although manifestly also genuinely philosophical thinking.

“The present age needs a broadening of the horizon of the human spirit. The people of the whole Earth must come nearer to one another. Solovieff is a representative of European East. He can serve for a broadening of the spiritual life of the Occident ... the West and the East must find an understanding for each other. A knowledge of Solovieff can contribute a great deal on the side of the West toward the gaining of such an understanding."

In this Christian philosopher we find also a picture of the cosmos comprised of beings in ranks from the loftiest Hierarchial Beings downward, which he conceived in a truly Goethean spirit as a cosmic organism. Thus Solovieff says in his Lectures on the Divine Man:

“God, who exists from eternity, brings Himself to realization eternally in that he brings to realization His own substance: that is, in that He brings to realization everything ... A multiplicity brought back to a unity is a whole. The real whole is a living organism. God, as truly being, who realizes His substance as unity and holds the multiplicity enclosed within Himself, is a living organism ...There is no reason whatever for limiting the concept organism to material organisms; we can speak of a spiritual organism as we can speak of a people's organism, of the organism of the whole of humanity, and therefore also of the divine organism."

The work of Solovieff, which for decades had been almost completely forgotten in the European spiritual life, and which offered so much with respect to the spiritual polarity and synthesis of East and West, was freed from this oblivion in those years on the advice of Rudolf Steiner and has since then found recognition.

Indeed, during the last decades numerous authors of the past who were then being ignored were brought back into the book business because of such references of Rudolf Steiner, and made available in new editions. One may mention here the many Goetheanists but also very many others at that time virtually forgotten. It may be mentioned also that many of the editors and commentators of such works have not rendered it clear that they received from Rudolf Steinefs spoken and written words the inspiration for what they have done, though this can easily be proved in many cases. A striking exception is the editing of Solovieffs principal works by Harry Kohler (the pseudonym of Harriet von Vacano), translated by this editor from the Russian.

In the middle of August, Dr. Steiner went to one of the most important spiritual centers of the West, Oxford, where he had been invited by teachers to deliver lectures. During August 16-29, a conference occurred there in the interest of “spiritual values in education and social life.” Regarding this conference the "Oxford Chronicle” of August 18 gave the following report:

“Approximately 200 students are taking part in this. Presiding at the conference is the Minister for Labor, Dr. H. A. L. Fisher, and prominent representatives of the most varied special fields are included in its council. Among the names of the lecturers are to be found those of Mr. Glutton Brock, Dr. Maxwell Garnett, Professor Gilbert Murray, Mr. Edmond Holmes, and others. The program thus comprises an extensive area of pedagogical ideals and endeavors.

“The most prominent personality at this congress is probably Dr. Rudolf Steiner ... Dr. Steiner speaks every forenoon on The Spiritual Foundation of Education.”

Regarding the first day of the congress the same newspaper reported:

“An extremely well attended opening festival occurred Thursday evening in the library of Manchester College, where opportunities were given to the Society for entertainment and refreshment. After this, those in attendance went to Arlosh Hall to receive there the official greeting, spoken by Dr. Jacks, Principal of Manchester College, in the following spirit: He said that he was happy to be permitted to greet those attending the congress in the name of Manchester College, especially in consideration of the lofty goals of the congress, which were the same in substance as those which the College had set for itself—that is, the cultivation of spiritual values in education and in social life. But also as one individual he welcomed the participants, especially Dr. Rudolf Steiner, whom he designated as the principal personality at the congress. He said that the writings of Dr. Steiner impressed him as something extraordinarily stimulating and valuable.n

“The Manchester Guardian^, of August 21 and 31 gave the following report of the successful course of the conference on education:

“The entire congress finds its central point in the personality and teaching of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and through this fact the audience is especially impressed. Many of those sharing in the conference—and these come, indeed, out of the most varied lands of the world—are already eager adherents of the teachings of Dr. Steiner. Others, who heard him for the first time, received a strong impression from his personality, and look forward with intense eagerness to the further development of his theory of education in the twelve following lectures . . . Most of those at the conference bought for themselves books of his as well as books about him and his educational system, at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, and in Dornach bei Basel...”

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“The conference for spiritual values in education and in life, which has been in progress during the past two weeks at Manchester College of Oxford University, came to an end early today with Dr. Steiner's final lecture, the last of three lectures on social problems, whereas he had previously spoken on education. The conference had placed in its program during the week-end the social problems. Mr. I. M. MacTavish, the General Secretary of The Association for Popular Education, delivered on Saturday lectures on the theme Some Thoughts Regarding the Problem of Work, and Dr. Steiner spoke on The Social Evolution of Humanity.

“The conference, which held the intense interest of its participants to the very last moment, gained the interest also of personalities who were attending other conferences at the same time in Oxford. It was hoped that Dr. Steiner would make it possible to speak also at the Conference of Modem Churches, but the brevity of the time rendered this impossible. Nevertheless, many members of the clergy and laymen had the opportunity to hear him when he spoke Sunday evening in the chapel of Manchester College ...

“Dr. Rudolf Steiner's lectures, for which we express our very special thanks, brought to us in a very vivid way an ideal of humanity in education. He spoke to us about teachers who, freely and unitedly, unrestricted by external prescriptions and regimentation, develop their educational methods exclusively out of thorough knowledge of human nature. He spoke to us about a kind of knowledge needed by the teacher, a knowledge of the being of man and of the world, which is at the same time scientific and also penetrates into the most intimate inner life, which is intuitive and artistic.”

The conference made a strong impression in all areas of English life, as is evidenced by numerous other reports in newspapers and magazines. This is all the more remarkable since Oxford University is not only a spiritual center of the Western world but also represents a strongly conservative trend to which it is most difficult to find access with such new ideas as those represented by Rudolf Steiner. It was a unique and striking historical occurrence that he, as a representative of a spiritual current building for the future, spoke in the halls of a Gothic style university before professors and students about pedagogy and social questions, and in the solemn chapel of Manchester College before clergy and laymen on religious subjects.

The first of twelve lectures Rudolf Steiner gave here dealt with The Development of the Child in Spirit and Soul; the three following lectures with The Social Question. In a lecture on religion in the chapel of Manchester College he spoke on The Mystery of Golgotha, which was presented as the central event in the entire evolution of the earth; and concerning ancient and modern initiation knowledge. On August 18 there was a Eurythmy program, and on the 19th one by pupils and children.

After this center of a worldwide influence had received an impulse out of spiritual science, Dr. Steiner spoke on August 30 in London to a circle of friends on one of the intimate questions of every human being, which he had answered also in other countries for the solution of problems of life: The Mission of the Spirit. Gaining a Relation to the Dead through the Language of the Heart. Much that is essential in the special manner of expression of Rudolf Steiner became clear and intelligible when he said in that lecture on August 30:

“Indeed, one of the most difficult tasks of initiation knowledge is that of gaining a relation to those souls who, a shorter or longer time previously, left the earth, have gone through the portal of death. But it is possible to gain such a relation through the awakening of the profounder forces of the soul. But one must first of all understand clearly that it is necessary first of all to become accustomed through practice to the language which must be spoken with the dead. This language, I should like to say, is in a certain sense a child of human language. But one would be in utter error if one should suppose that these human languages would help one here to foster intercourse with the dead. For the first thing of which one becomes aware is that the dead understand only for a brief time what lives here in the earthly language as nouns, substantives. That which designates a thing, a self-enclosed thing, as this is designated by a substantive, no longer exists in the language of the dead. In the language of the dead everything has to do with mobility, with inner movement. We find, therefore, that when human beings have passed through the portal of death some time earlier, they have a real feeling only for the verbs, for that which we call words of action. Indeed, in order to hold intercourse with the dead, we must at times address questions to them, formulating these in such a way that they are understandable for the dead. Then, after some time, if we understand to give attention to this, the answer comes. Generally several nights must pass before the dead person can. answer our question addressed to him. But, as I have said, we must find. our way into the language of the dead and only at last is the language discovered for us which the dead person really has, into which he must livingly enter because he must with his whole soul life move away from the earth. We then find our way into a language which is no longer formed according to earthly relations, into a language which is formed out of feeling, out of the heart, into a sort of heart language.”

One who finds his way livingly into the word-formation of many lectures and verses of Rudolf Steiner during those years, can learn through these hints why, just when he was giving guidance for an inner union with the spiritual world, he adjusted himself to a soul-spirit dialogue; why for this reason he dealt with the element of language according to the theme he was handling or the situation out of which he spoke, in such various ways. One was confronted by the unique phenomenon that a personality was at work who spoke to all men on earth, but at the same time carried always in his consciousness the relation with the supersensible worlds.

At the beginning of September, he took up his work at Dornach again with two lecture cycles drawn from the esoteric substance of the Movement: a cycle of ten lectures during September 6-15, during a French week at the Goetheanum, on Philosophy, Cosmology, and Religion and a Course for Theologues between September 7 and 22. He continued his creative work, and also the series of lectures for men working on the Goetheanum building.

Surveying the worldwide sphere of his activity, one sees that the questions addressed to him by persons and his answers, dealing with their deepest problems of life, related his creative work to the whole circumference of the earth, all national regions, but also individual realms of knowledge and daily life. In Middle Europe, in the East and in the West, the North and the South, professors and students, teachers, theologians, economists, scientists and artists, spiritual researchers and working people of all technical and hand-working occupations took an intense interest in the totality of his rejuvenating action in accordance with the spirit of the times. What he created of new at the center of his work was carried out over extensive areas and brought its echo. Multitudes of human beings were impelled by it to come to Dornach, and he was brought in turn into relation with all these areas. His central work in Dornach had come under the view of the world and he himself referred at the beginning of the year 1923, in a retrospect published in the weekly “Das Goetheanum,” to this pulsation between the ^centralization and radiation.”

As a part of the continuing intensified activity in creative spiritual work, an esoteric lecture cycle was delivered, as already indicated, during Michaelmas of that year on Philosophy, Cosmology, and Religion. In the opening lecture of this course, Rudolf Steiner once more set forth the methodics of the spiritual-scientific path before visitors from many lands, clarifying this and distinguishing it from false paths as he had often done before. We quote these opening words:

“It gives me great satisfaction to be able to give this cycle of lectures in the Goetheanum. This institution is intended to foster spiritual science. What is called spiritual science here must not be confused with what frequently appears especially in the present time as occultism, mysticism, and the like. They endeavors either depend upon old, no longer rightly understood spiritual traditions, and provide in an amateur manner all sorts of supposed knowledge about supersensible worlds, or they imitate in an external manner the customary methods in science of the present day without any knowledge of the fact that methods of research developed in a masterly way for reflection upon the world of the senses can never lead into the supersensible worlds. And what appears in the form of mysticism is either a mere renewal of ancient experiences of the soul or unclear and often fantastic and illusionary self-observation.

"In contrast with this, there is the method of reflection of the Goetheanum as such, which approves and recognizes in the most complete sense the contemporary point of view in natural-scientific research where this is justified. °n the other hand, it endeavors through the strictly regulated development of the soul for real perception to gain objective and exact findings in regard to the supersensible world. It accepts as such findings only what is gained through such a perception by the soul as permits the organization of soul and spirit to be just as exactly kept in view as is a mathematical problem. What is important at first is that this organization shall exist in vision scientifically free from preconceptions. If one calls this organization 'the spiritual eye； one must then say that, just as the mathematician has his problem before him, so does the spiritual researcher have his own 'spiritual eye.' For him, therefore, the scientific method rests first of all upon the preparation of his 'spiritual organs? If his 'science' resides in these spiritual organs, he can then make use of these, and the supersensible world lies before him. The researcher in the sense world directs his science toward the outside, toward the findings. The researcher in the spiritual fosters his science as a preparation for vision. Once the vision has begun, then the science must already have fulfilled its whole task. If such perceiving is called clairvoyance, it is 'exact clairvoyance? Just where the science of the sensible worlds ends, there begins the science of the Spirit. The spiritual researcher must, most of all, have developed beforehand his entire method of thinking on the basis of the modem science of the sensible.

“It is for this reason that the sciences prosecuted at the present time merge in that region which is laid open by spiritual science in the modem sense. This occurs, not only for the individual fields of natural science and of history, it occurs also, for example, for medicine. And it occurs for all fields of practical life, for art, ethics, the social life. It occurs also for religious experiences.

"In these lectures three of these fields are to be dealt with and it will be shown in regard to them that they all merge into modern spiritual perception: philosophy, cosmology, and religion.”

In these lectures Rudolf Steiner presented clearly the ascending and descending curves in these three realms of experience for humanity from the times of the primeval wisdom till modem intellectualism, imprisoned in the sensible-corporeal. Philosophy, born once out of a living devotion to wisdom and out of the activity of the etheric formative forces in the supersensible organism of the human being, has become today "a mere dry, cold, knowledge. One no longer feels here that one is within reality when one is active in philosophical thinking.55 Not until there is a rediscovery of the eternally active supersensible organization of the human being, belonging to the creative etheric world, will a new philosophy be born which shall enter into a concrete relation with the world of the Logos, filled with wisdom.

Cosmology, he said, “once showed to man that he is a member of the universal world. To this end, it was necessary that, not only his body but also his soul and his spirit, could be looked upon as members of the cosmos." This experience was mediated through an inner organization which was recognized as the cosmic "astral” being of man. If this inner structure and dynamics of the human being is systematically investigated, there arises again a cosmology which includes the human being as a member of the world organism.

Religion was once the content of the spirit-man, who experienced himself within his ego, independently of everything corporeal, as a spirit being, feeling himself, even beyond this life between birth and death, as possessing an existence and a union with the divine world. The ego-consciousness, of which contemporary abstract philosophy speaks, is no longer the expression of his true spirit-being; it has become today a faculty united with the body, extinguished every night in sleep. But the higher ego of the human being frees itself from these bondages preventing the experience of supersensible worlds:

“The knowledge of the true ego has been lost to the modern spiritual life; and therewith also the possibility of arriving at religion by the way of knowledge. What was once present as religion is accepted out of tradition; to this human knowledge can no longer attain. Religion becomes in this way the content of a belief, which has to be achieved outside of the experiences of knowledge. Knowledge and belief become two ways of experience with reference to something which was once a unity.

“There must arise once more a knowledge of the true ego in vision if religion is to have its rightful place in the life of humanity. Modern science understands the human being as a true reality only with respect to his physical nature. He must be understood also as etheric, astral, and spirit man —or ego man. Then will science become the foundation for the religious life.

“Thus is indicated the third step in Anthroposophy. For the following lectures the task will be to indicate the possibility that the etheric human being can be known—that is, that a reality can be bestowed upon philosophy. The further task will be to establish the knowledge of the astral human being —that is, to show that a cosmology is possible which includes the human being. And, finally, there will be the task of leading to a knowledge of the true ego, in order to bring to light the possibility of a religious life which rests upon the foundation of knowledge.”

These steps in schooling, which eliminate the separation of the human from the supersensible world, which had come about during the last centuries, were methodically taken in the following ten lectures.

In a restrospect in 1923 upon this course of September 1922, Dr. Steiner himself spoke of the great need of the spoken word in these realms to be enclosed within an artistic framework:

“I went to each of my lectures and also away from it with an innermost feeling of gratitude toward those who had rendered possible the building of the Goetheanum. For precisely in the case of these lectures, in which I had to lay hold upon an expansive area of knowledge from the Anthroposophical point of view, I had to sense deeply the benefit of being permitted to utter ideas which had been enabled to create for themselves in the building an artistic framework.”

For this course also numerous participants had come from many countries. The initiative for such a program had been taken this time by members and friends from France, and for this reason the lectures were at times translated into French during the "French Week," the interpreter being the famous journalist Jules Sauerwein, brother of the prominent French leader in the Society, Alice Sauerwein. The lectures were very warmly received by the French participants, and the corresponding activity in the development of this spiritual culture has continued still under the leadership of Simone and Paul Coroze-Rihouet and their friends.

The Eurythmy programs during these weeks, and presentations of scenes from Dr. Steiner's Mystery Dramas, mediated a light and a unifying spiritual substance during a period of storm and darkness in Europe. Had adequate attention been bestowed upon what was then occurring in Dornach, much would have been avoided in the destiny of Europe.

There now occurred an event which was decisive for the founding of the “Christian Community.” Between September 7 and 22 there occurred the third Course for Theologians. Out of the circle of persons who had shared in the course of the previous year, those had now come together who intended to devote their entire activity in the future to this task. Thus there were present at this time approximately forty-five persons, and to these Rudolf Steiner spoke in fourteen gatherings. What was essential did not consist only in the content of the lectures but in the event that the spiritual teacher bestowed upon these persons the substance of a new cult, which they received during these festival days for their future lifework. The inauguration of the cult liturgy took place and the consecration of the priests. The "Christian Community” had been founded. Rudolf Steiner had thus given his help for the birth of a new sacramental466 ism which came out of spiritual knowledge. It is not our place here to give the basic substance of what was imparted to this new movement, but its origin, time of birth, and place of birth will not in future be forgotten.

In lectures which Dr. Steiner gave during these weeks for all who were his fellow workers at the Goetheanum, he proceeded further in the spiritual-scientific schooling, dealing with the facts derived from research on The Fundamental Impulses in the Cosmic-Historical Development of Humanity. Here were described the action of Spiritual Beings in the epochs from the ancient Indian to the Egyptian time, in the Greek period, then in the early Christian evolution up to the striking figure of Pope Nicholas I in the ninth century, the epochs which brought the East and the West into a new contact in the Crusades, and the further development of consciousness from the Middle Ages to the turning point in the Goethe world view.

On Michaelmas day, September 29, he gave a striking preview of the necessity for the introduction of a new form of cult, a new appeal to the Spiritual Powers working in the cosmos; such a cult as would correspond to the consciousness of our age and would prepare as a real spiritual power the future stages in evolution. Such cult actions as can be carried out by every individual human being following a road of spiritual schooling for himself he had been inaugurating during these years both by way of esoteric development and also through the information given regarding the spiritual celebration of the festivals of the year for the future, most of all the festival of Michael—Michaelmas.

At the beginning of October, he set out again upon a lecture tour in three countries, beginning with a Pedagogical Course for Youth in Stuttgart, which provided in thirteen lectures answers on problems of life and occupation especially for the young, many of whom had joined the Movement. The problem of the tension between the young and the old had then become very violent, and many young men had begged Rudolf Steiner to aid them in this situation. By way of introduction, he dealt with the fact "that, fundamentally considered, the younger generation and the older generation speak entirely different soul languages,” and then made it clear how the situation had come about through the fact that the hardened customs of thinking in the nineteenth century had slipped across into the utterly different dynamics of the twentieth century:

“It has often been possible to see in factual clarity—though perhaps not very clearly expressed—young persons and old persons together just at the time o£ the dawning of the twentieth century. The older person said: ‘This is my standpoint.’ Alas, people had gradually, as the nineteenth century drew toward an end, all adopted their standpoints. One was a Materialist, another an Idealist, the third a Realist, the fourth a Sensualist. All of them had their standpoints. But gradually, under the domination of phrase, convention, and routine, the standpoints had formed an icy crust. The spiritual ice age had arrived. Only because the ice was thin, and the standpoints of various persons had lost a feeling of having any importance, they did not break through the icy crust. Moreover, they were cold in their hearts and they did not warm the icy crust. The younger person stood beside the older, the younger with their warm hearts not yet speaking but feeling warm. This broke through the icy crusts and the younger person did not feel: ‘This is my standpoint’; but the younger one felt: ‘I lose the ground under my feet. My own warmth of heart breaks this ice which has come about out of phrase, convention, and routine.’”

But Rudolf Steiner did not by any means make things easy for the younger person. In this course he led them to look fundamentally into the course of history with its hard destinies, into the blind alleys of science, the abstractions of philosophy. He caused them to think through once more the course of evolution from the times of Socrates, Heraclites and Anaxagoras up to the opportunism in the Principles of Ethics, of Spencer, to the tragedy of Nietzsche, the pessimism of Schopenhauer, and all those typical representatives of the nineteenth century who have brought about the present final spiritual situation. He described the development of the group spirit, the thinning of the content of truth in words, the loss of the spiritual capacity of intuition, the weakening of the power of thought, and many similar symptoms which had contributed to the crippling of the spiritual life. On the basis of such a survey, he gave the requirement "Know thyself" a new path and a new goal. He brought into view the forces of soul which in the youth today demand their rights, but which must first receive their direction in social living:

“We see today two of the most important ethical impulses developing, but disregarded or misunderstood by the greater part of civilized humanity. They are rising in the lower levels of the soul life. When they are to be interpreted, people arrive generally at the most falsified views. If they are to be made practical, generally no one knows what to do with them. But they are arising. In the inner being of man, it is the impulse of ethical love; and, viewed in the outer direction, in the intercourse among human beings, the ethical impulse of confidence between man and man.”

A pedagogy and an ordering of the social life had to be brought about directed toward this force of confidence, and in that way helpful in relation to the aspiration of the new generation. After a survey of the past, Dr. Steiner directed their attention to the setting of goal for the forceful intervention of the personality for the future:

“Anything which constitutes in any form a movement of youth, if it sees into life with complete sense of responsibility, must have a Janus head: must be able to look not only upon the demands which one has toward the older people, but to look upon the still indefinite demands which storm upon us with tremendous force, which the future youth will present us with. Not only to carry out opposition against old persons, but also to look creatively toward the future: this is the right guiding word for a true youth movement.

"Opposition may be at first a generator of enthusiasm. But only the will for creation, for creative molding within the present course of humanity's evolution, will provide working strength.”

He called attention to what had been given to those born since the turn of the century by older persons who were aware of the significance of that turning point in time. He warned younger people

“that it is really possible for a person only from a certain point in his life actually to know something, to know something of life-relations, of those things regarding which the human being must know something but which are not concerned only with superficial information about external matters. Naturally, one can know even at the age of nine years that a person has ten fingers, and such things. But, in matters which require a judgment developed out of an active thinking, one cannot know at all up to a certain point in life, which is somewhere between the eighteenth and the nineteenth year...”

Such fixing of the significance of this and also of other stages of maturity was very necessary at that time when so many young people considered themselves entirely too early as already capable of judgment. As constituting the bridges of understanding and confidence which must be developed again between the young and the old, he gave to them now a deeper insight into the physical and spiritual rhythms of development in the organization of the human course of life. And he mentioned art as one of the essential elements in a sound schooling of the will in youth. Among the exercises which he gave them for the thinking and willing forces, there should be mentioned also the requirement that he once addressed at that time to young persons that every one should have a concrete picture of his conception of the world as it would be in future, perhaps fifteen or twenty years later. In his last lecture, he placed before these young people a picture of Michael overcoming the Dragon.

Having returned to Dornach, he devoted himself again to the tasks of the healing art, and gave during October 20-23 for the members an insight into the spiritual connections between the formation of the human organism, health and illness of the organs, processes of nutrition, and the development of the healing art. There followed between October 26 and 28 in Stuttgart a cycle of five medical lectures in association with the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute. The medical period ended with a special lecture on “Curative Eurythmy.”

We must mention as belonging to 1922 the birth of the agricultural movement later called the biological-dynamic method in agriculture, now known widely over the earth. Mention has already been made in connection with the years 1920 and 1921 of the aid Rudolf Steiner gave to Ehrenfried Pfeiffer and to me, who were initiating work in the biological research laboratory. When we now went to him with the request for suggestions for rendering practical in agriculture the results of our research, he gave us for the first time the stimulation to acquire preparations for such use out of the realms of animals and plants. These should be exposed in a particular way to the rhythms of the cosmic and earthly forces in summer and winter so that the forces beneficial to life within the preparations might be concentrated and enriched. They could then be applied, although in extremely fine division, in agriculture. Such measures have since been so extensively employed and with such clear results that one needs here to mention only certain details.

I remember, for example, vividly our astonishment when Rudolf Steiner gave us the advice to take cow horns, fill these with certain substances, bury them under the earth, and let them remain there through the winter. Naturally, we asked many questions: for example, whether the horns were to be closed above, with wax or cloth, how long they should be left underground, how deeply they should be buried, and the like. All of these questions were at once answered precisely. In regard to things which should not be done, I still remember my question whether metallic supplements were to be added to the animal and plant preparation, whereupon Dr, Steiner immediately provided a very instructive discourse on the harmful effects of certain chemical products in present methods of fertilization and control of pests. He said, for example, in answering my question about quicksilver that the evil effect of this not only shows itself in influences upon processes of nutrition but would even continue to be effective in following generations and for that reason was to be utterly eliminated.

We carried out his instructions precisely. I mention one more humorous detail. In burying the preparations in a certain meadow, we forgot in our enthusiasm, to mark the place clearly so that, when Rudolf Steiner himself appeared the next spring as these were to be dug up, we could not at first find them. He himself related this amusing incident in the Koberwitz course of 1924. Smiling in a friendly way, he watched our digging and searching in anxiety and in sweat, for we wanted him by all means to be present when the first preparations were brought out of the earth. When we had already dug over a great extent in vain and he was about to get back into his automobile, our spades fortunately struck the buried horns. They were brought into the daylight and were examined carefully by him. He then instructed that pitchers of water should be brought, and he emptied the substances into these and began to stir the preparations violently in the water. Farmers in many countries have since that time carried out every year this strenuous process of stirring, but it was a very peculiar experience when the creator—more than 61 years old—of this agricultural method, for the first time with a strong hand and unweariedly kept the stirring stick moving rhythmically back and forth in the fluid, to provide the first preparation for the biologic-dynamic agricultural method. We then took turns in this process of stirring, and he explained to us meanwhile thoroughly for how long a time and in what manner the mixing and the stirring were to be carried on. At the same time he gave the next following lines of direction for providing other preparations and for further research. How many thousands of times may these preparations have been provided in all parts of the world since those first made at the Goetheanum, and how tremendously beneficial they have been for agriculture! During this year he gave also to a courageous pioneer in agriculture in Marienstein the directives for the first actual farming without the applications of artificial manures and for the sound development of the agricultural organism. Out of these first researches and preparations in Dornach and the systematic farming practice in Marienstein have the first steps of the biologic-dynamic agricultural method grown. It is, therefore, for all of those who apply with gratitude and with success these methods for the benefit of humanity that we have called back into memory the initial moment at the Goetheanum in 1922.

At that time I was permitted to place before Dr. Steiner certain questions in the fields of physics and technology in which we were greatly interested. The radio had at that time reached only a primitive stage of development but it was then being greatly improved through technical advances and was beginning to enter private homes and to exercise a wide influence on daily life. I had such a very primitive apparatus in my home; and, when I asked Rudolf Steiner whether I might build one for him, he had nothing against this. But we protected his studio from this. The problem with which we were concerned was the fact that this was an apparatus for conveying language, the word, the loftiest, noblest expression of the human being, and it was activated by means of electricity and subtle processes of life as these are at work in human speech. In a con-magnetism, with mechanical forces, which are utterly alien to the most versation which I had, together with Dr. von Dechend, with Rudolf Steiner about this, we placed the question before him whether it would not be possible to find a more delicate reagent for the spiritual and physical molding forces of human speech. After brief reflection, he said: There you must work with the sensitive flame. In this and later conversations, he gave us a profound insight into the peculiar place held by the element of warmth in the transition sphere between the psychic and the physical processes in nature, that subtle interweaving of the inner spiritual-psychic processes of the human being with the processes of warmth in the body, the relation between consciousness and temperature in the processes of life, the processes of molding which the speech organs exercise upon the out-breathed warmed air in the process of speaking. He reminded us then of the discovery of Tyndall, who had observed the delicate changes in the gas flame burning in the open caused by noises, tones, and words in the same space, and he advised us to concentrate our thinking and research in this direction.

Out of these suggestions of Rudolf Steiner, comprehensive series of experiments have taken place in the physical laboratory which had been established by the side of the biological research laboratory in Dornach, and these have been brought to valuable results by Paul Eugen Schiller. The first findings have already been published in scientific periodicals. The experiments during a number of years with the sensitive flame brought about the necessity for developing a new and finer research apparatus and this was produced and patented by Dr. Schiller. Thus in the field of substances and forces, in physics and technology, new knowledge has grown out of the first suggestions made by Dr. Steiner within the circle of his students, as had already occurred in the field of the living.

At that end of October 1922, Dr. Steiner went on a lecture tour to Holland, holding in The Hague and in Rotterdam public lectures on Knowledge of the Spiritual Nature of Man and The Supersensible in Man and the World, He dealt here primarily with the fundamental capacities of man, which originate in his spiritual nature: walking, speaking, and thinking. This theme was then in the following years taken up again and again and dealt with from new points of view. It is often most informative to observe the process of development in dealing with such themes. In The Hague, under the direction of Frau Marie Steiner, Eurythmy programs were given, presenting scenes from Goethe's Faust and from the Mystery Dramas. The art of Eurythmy found an enthusiastic body of students in Holland. On November 5, a lecture for members dealt with The Hidden Aspects of Human Existence, life after death in the light of the Christ Impulse. On November 6, he spoke in the university city of Delft on the theme Supersensible Knowledge and Science of the Present Time. For in the circles also of the Dutch university persons became active in connection with his ideas, and this development has continued in the following years.

In August, Dr. Steiner continued in England the pedagogical work he had begun in the preceding November. Being invited by the “International World Association for Problems of Education,” he spoke on November 20 on The Art of Education through Knowledge of Man, and for a larger audience in public lectures on Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and on Moral Education. His talks for members had to do with the Time Spirit, Michael, and his guidance in the molding of human destiny.

In the month of December, crowded with events, Rudolf Steiner gave to the members in Dornach a retrospect over the developing work of the preceding decade. He spoke in the evenings to members, in the forenoon to those working on the building, directed the rehearsals of the Christmas Plays, aided the artists in Eurythmy and in carving and painting in the building, gave suggestions for the biological laboratory, visited the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, and received a never broken chain of visitors and questioners. At one moment he was in his studio, at another at the artistic rehearsals, in the great workshop, or on the scaffold in the tremendous spaces of the domes in the Goetheanum. Besides the usual unending work on the building, the preparations were being made for the Christmas festival. Destiny was to bring it about that this would be the last conference in the building, and this greatest disaster, when it occurred, could be surmounted only because the persons whom he had schooled received the strength from him to rise above the destruction of the visible work and to begin immediately again to look forward to a rebuilding.

The lectures of December 1-22 for members on The Relation of the World of the Stars to Man and of Man to the World of the Stars brought to light the action of Spiritual Beings in the rhythm of the course of the year, capable of being experienced even in changes in man's soul forces, to be read in the dominance of elemental beings in nature, but also in the good, the true, and the beautiful in the world. These cosmic rhythms should now in the Age of Michael be integrated consciously by the human being into the earthly order and brought into consecrated festivals in the summer and the winter Mysteries. He laid the foundation for such a new cultural activity in the spirit of the School of Michael in the solemn Christinas lectures in the Goetheanum on The Spiritual Communion of Mankind.

In the Christmas cycle of lectures, dedicated to a new knowledge of nature, he once more caused the cosmic hour to arise before his hearers as the contemporary scientific world picture was born at the turn between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a turning point in spiritual history which has during half a millennium caused the question to arise which stands before us in the twentieth century—whether we recognize the decisive hour of our time and are equipped to meet it. This cycle of nine lectures bore the title The Moment of Origin of Natural Science in World History and Its Later Development. Rudolf Steiner placed at the initial point in this historical metamorphosis that great thinker Nicolaus Cusanus. Having grown up in the twilight of the past religious and social life, having been educated by the "Brothers of the Community Life,” and having become a cardinal because of his gifts, able to survey the science of his age and its future path of development, Nicolaus Cusanus announced at the beginning of this path what was confirmed 500 years later by DuBois-Reymond in the word Ignorabimus—the tragedy of an epoch which made ignorance of the Spirit its coat of arms. Humanity entered upright and with vision into this epoch and ended in blindness imprisoned in the senses. The fall of man from the level at which he knew of his origin out of divine spiritual worlds to that low stage in thinking where he seeks for his ancestors in the animal kingdom was brought out in this survey of a half millennium. The sinister narrowing of the field of vision out of the breadths of the spirit-filled cosmos, and all that has followed, was set forth by Rudolf Steiner in living pictures of the history of natural science. At present this development places us before the need to decide either upon a belief in the animal origin of humanity and to continue in the darkness of the world of the senses, or to walk on the path which leads back into the brightness and the breadth of spiritual knowledge, which can be disclosed to us in the twentieth century only through initiation knowledge—objective knowledge of the Spirit in nature and in man.

The first five lectures of this natural-scientific course were delivered by Dr. Steiner up to the end of the year in the great domed auditorium of the Goetheanum building. On December 29, 30, and 31 he wove into these lectures those which, drawing upon the totality of the spiritual-scientific research and action of the preceding decade, had given the foundation of a “cosmic cult,” which raises knowledge to the level of consecration, cognition of the forces active in the cosmic rhythms to a festival of the great hours in the course of the year. The lecture of December 29 set forth the course of the day and of the year as the basis of this cosmic cult. The lecture of December 30 raised into consciousness the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society and the Movement for Religious Renewal. The content of these lectures must be left to the reader for personal study. On the afternoon of December 31, we once more experienced in the great domed hall of the building the beauty, the wonder of color, the mirroring of spiritual-cosmic laws in the presentation in Eurythmy of the “Prologue in Heaven” from Faust. There was a unique harmony between the art here presented and the living colors and forms of the surrounding shell of the building.

On New Year5s Eve of 1922–23 Rudolf Steiner presented his final gift within the building, the lecture on the Spiritual Communion of Mankind. Having in the preceding lectures brought into consciousness that the changes in beings, forces, and substances in the course of the year are mirrored in the human being, he now indicated the answer that man must make to the cosmos through spiritual knowledge and action. uSpiritual knowledge is a real communion, the beginning of a cult suited to the human being of the present time." In great pictures he caused the Powers and forces of life and death to stand before one's inner vision. The human being in this world is not only a receiver but also a giver:

“Man changes the world through his own spiritual nature when he communicates to the world out of his spiritual nature, when he vitalizes his thoughts to imagination, inspiration, intuition, when he carries out the spiritual communion of mankind. But man must first have a consciousness of this...

“What would otherwise be a mere abstract knowledge becomes a relation in feeling and willing to the world. The world becomes a House of God. The cognizing human being, elevating himself in feeling and in will, becomes a being offering sacrifice. The fundamental relation of man to the world ascends from knowing to a world cult, to a cosmic cult.”

In the great domed hall of the building people listened to his words. The mighty columns also, the forms of their capitals, the paintings of the dome in the lofty work of art of this most living of all human buildings spoke to them of spiritual action and the sense for sacrifice, of a decade of creative molding through a human being who was leading toward the spiritual communion of mankind. Deeply moved by what was being bestowed upon them in this earthly place, never dreaming that this would be the last view of so much beauty, they went out into the stillness of the Eve of New Year.

What now occurred can be given from the report of an eye witness: “About ten o5clock, the last member of the audience at this lecture had left the building. Shortly thereafter the watcher on duty noticed smoke. The line of alarm of the Goetheanum fire brigade was activated by the watcher and an employee of the Goetheanum, whereupon the persons organized as a fire brigade took their places. The announcement was: 'Smoke in the White Hall !5 All of the rooms in the south wing of the building were immediately opened and searched through. In no one of these rooms was fire to be discovered. Out of the external west wall of the south wing, smoke penetrated into one of the outer comer rooms. This wall was immediately broken through, and it was discovered that the structural work inside this outer wall was in flames.”

When the alarm and the terrible report reached the residences in the neighborhood, we all rushed out and up the hill. Within a few minutes, very many lines of hose were laid, the terrace of the building ascended, and the center of the fire flooded with water. We believed that the blaze could be subdued and extinguished. The fire brigade, supported by hundreds of helpers, boldly risked their lives. But the smoke, with its sinister message, rose more and more densely out of the south wing of the building. We plunged into the interior with handkerchiefs soaked in vinegar rendering it possible to breathe in the smoke-filled stairway hall. Arrived in the great domed hall, we were met even there by the droning of the flames, which were devouring their way between the two walls. What could be carried away was rescued. But very soon the smoke was so thick that breathing was smothered. A voice called out to us the command of Rudolf Steiner to leave the building. The power of fire had been victorious over the will of man. All our forces must now be devoted to saving the neighboring structures, the workshop, the studio in which the "Statue" was standing. We broke through the wall of the studio and carried out into the open air the wooden sculptural work of the Representative of Humanity, and thus this was saved for the future.

When this had been secured, we stood before the flames throughout the night. About midnight, the two domes collapsed, and even as late as seven o5clock in the morning the mighty columns were flaming in the destructive element.

During the night, Rudolf Steiner walked around the building in silence. Only once was he heard to say: “Much work and long years.” Until the morning, he stood before the ruin of the building, quiet, concerned only that no one should be endangered. His greatness, dignity, and goodness gave to all of us during this night the power of endurance. As the dawn of New Years Day appeared, he said: “We shall continue to perform our inner duty at the place which is still left to us.” He gave instructions to put in order the provisional rooms in the workshop for the continuance of the conference, saying: “We shall continue with the lectures already announced.” He asked us whether we had the necessary strength to produce the Play of the Three Kings, which had been announced for the afternoon, and received our affirmative answer with appreciation. That afternoon at precisely five o'clock the play began; the three kings, Joseph and Mary, Herod, angel and devil, the starry singers—all performed their duty. The mood which united actors and audience on this first day of January cannot be expressed. In the evening, Rudolf Steiner ascended the lecture podium in the great workshop and gave the sixth lecture in his cycle on The Moment of Origin of Natural Science in World History. The work for the year 1923 took its beginning.

The foundation stone of the building was still there, and upon this the Goetheanum was later to be newly erected.