The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1923
What Rudolf Steiner gave to humanity in this earthly life was not only a teaching which one could reject or accept, or only a work which one might develop or destroy. Teachings and works have always been subject to destiny, determined for them by contemporaries. Rudolf Steiner, however, achieved in the course of his life the deed of receiving the spiritual Being "Anthroposophy" out of spiritual worlds and incorporating it into the earthly sphere. Such a Spirit Being now dwelling in the earthly sphere cannot be overcome by the Opposing Powers through the fact that one or another of its forms of expression on earth is destroyed; it does not lose its existence because of the fact that a blind decade, will not look at it; it does not die even when a part of earthly humanity is not ready for the acceptance of it or betrays or destroys its place of work and its dwelling. For it is of a supersensible nature, and as such it rebuilds for itself constantly its earthly body. Once incorporated through the deed of a human being into the earthly sphere, it becomes forever creative there, guiding spiritually, an inexhaustible fountainhead of power realizing itself through the heads, hearts, and hands of human beings of good will as an immortal being in the earthly sphere.
For this reason the Opposing Powers, spiritual, elemental, and human, could cause pains and wounds to the body of this Being, could destroy outwardly the “House of the Word,” the physical, visible form molded out of earthly matter, but they could not reach the spirit which had there expressed itself in words, could not penetrate to its creative sphere. They will, no doubt, often attempt this, but will always learn anew that it is possible, indeed, to destroy the bodily forms of expression of a spiritual being but not to touch the soul and spirit in their existence and their action.
It belonged, therefore, to RudoE Steiner as the earthly bringer of this Spirit Being and the leader to its supersensible place of dwelling, to move forward toward the rebirth of its earthly form through a new creative deed: through the rebuilding of the Goetheanum, as the House of the Word, which received a new earthly molding through a new formation of the community and through the communion of human hearts with the creative original power, the spiritual Foundation Stone which this spiritual Being safeguards as a supersensible reality for the future. It was, therefore, no accident but the expression of a higher law of life that in the year 1923, on the twenty-first year of the life of this spiritual creation, at the moment of the birth of the ego, a new place of work was created, and that in the hearts of human beings who were to be the bearers of this spiritual impulse the spiritual Foundation Stone was sunk which unites within them this place of work with that immortal core of being.
It was an expression of the knowledge of the indestructible nature and continued creative power of this essential Spiritual Being that led Rudolf Steiner to continue his work of lecturing on the very day after the destruction of the Goetheanum, and also to move forward toward a renewal of its physical center. Only a short distance from the provisional place of work in which he continued his lectures, there remained the smoke-stained ruins of the structure, only the forms of the stone terrace which surrounded the main wooden edifice, above which had arched the domes of the building itself. What was necessary now was to protect during the continuance of the spiritual work the remaining structures, the great workshop with its provisional lecture hall, the studio in which the Statue was now replaced; and at the same time to prepare through the permission of the governmental authorities and the action of friends for the erection of the second Goetheanum building.
It was necessary, of course, to take steps to protect these remaining structures. It was not yet clear whether the fire had come about through technical causes—a short circuit in the lighting system—or through the evil deed of opponents. The reflection of the conflagration, visible over a great expanse, and echoed in the press of Europe in many different tones, had created great excitement: voices of sorrow and embitterment, of the unshakable will for a rebuilding in innumerable human hearts, but also voices of hatred, of the will for destruction in an evil opposition. Everything of an unusual character which is brought about by a strong spiritual movement always awakens both poles in the human soul, love and hatred. Love must now be watchful in order to meet and guard against hatred.
Because of warnings of Rudolf Steiner in previous years, a group of persons had been formed to watch over the building at night. Every night of the week one of us had walked constantly around the building, ready to give a warning if necessary. It was for this reason that warning was given the moment the fire was discovered. Nevertheless, it had still been believed that evil words would not become evil deeds. The motive for this watchfulness was only that neither the elements nor some misfortune of a technical character should cause damage. Now, however, it was necessary to guard, not only against nature and the elements, but also against human passion, which had been inflamed. For that reason, I suggested to Dr. Steiner during these days the formation of a "watch and this was now organized with his approval. It consisted of about thirty young men, who watched day and night over the remaining structures.
It was a characteristic symptom of social community feeling that every one was ready at that time, in association with Rudolf Steiner, to undertake any kind of service for the common interest. When students, scientists, and artists undertook as a perfectly natural duty to stand watch day or night in wind and rain, they did this out of the consciousness that even such a form of service to the whole is as valuable as any other kind of sharing in the common task. This time of the founding and development of the organization of watchers at the Goetheanum still leaves the strongest impressions in memory. Frequently Rudolf Steiner assembled the watchers around himself for a brief conversation, thanked them for their service, gave his hand to each one, and then spoke a few words about phenomena of the times and the demands which they made. He said to us that, in what we were doing, we should be watchers not only over a building but also over culture—watchers who practice keeping awake and knowing their responsibility for the whole. It was also instructive to experience in another example how Dr. Steiner was related to anything which served the community interest and to what could be done only out of the initiative and responsibility of the individual. He had approved of the establishment of this watch only because it served the total community need. Some one, who had not been long enough acquainted with him and his attitude, now asked him whether he might watch over Rudolf Steiner personaUy also in his home. This offer he abruptly decUned. The questioner had not realized that such a personal service can be rendered only out of one5s own sense of responsibility and not by placing the responsibHity through a previous question upon the one to whom the service was to be done. Some of us knew that Rudolf Steiner would strictly decline such an offer; but, since we knew that he was personally threatened at this time, we simply went to his home and watched over it without any questioning. Two of us did this every night and it thus happened that he unavoidably met us one night when returning home. The first time he paid no attention to us; passed by us as if we had not been there. Only after some weeks, when he met us at a later hour one evening in a room, he greeted us heartily as if it were a perfectly natural thing that we should be there. I then learned later from him that what had been done was right, but only because of the fact that it had been done on the basis of one's own responsibility and had been consistently continued.
After some time, when the tempest of external excitement had quieted down, this service was ended. For, when the relation with the world in general, uninfluenced by isolated groups of opponents, proved to be heartfelt—that the main body of the population, out of a sense for the common destiny and also the steadily increasing esteem for Rudolf Steiner5s unshakable upbuilding activity, provided protective and helpful forces for the work on the Dornach hill, particularly the Dornach township and its broad-minded officials—even the watch at the building had then fulfilled its task.
As indicated above, the great workshop with its provisional lecture hall, Dr. Steiner's studio with the still uncompleted Statue, and his working room remained intact, so that it was possible to begin immediately with further creative work.
Places for the work of the Goetheanum administration were arranged in various houses in the environs of the burned building, so that in this activity no interruption had to occur. The secretariat, responsible for the organization of the whole activity and for correspondence, was at that time still located in “House Friedwart,” where I was able to carry out this work for many years together with Frau Marion Metzener, until we transferred much later to the new Goetheanum building, where Rudolf Steiner had planned in advance for special rooms to house the secretariat. The Building Bureau was again established in another structure, the so-called uGlass House,n where the pertinent responsibilities were entrusted to Ernst Aisenpreis, Thomas Binder, Elise Ruschmann, later also to Karl Day, Emil Estermann, and additional associates. The Conference Bureau was directed by Dr. Otto Frankl, who at that time did much to develop introductory courses. The still surviving “Service for the Maintenance of Order,” entrusted to Wolfgang Moldenhauer and some friends both at that time and during succeeding years, aided in maintaining the good tradition out of that time of the foundation of the building watch.
During the early weeks of the year 1923 it was necessary in numerous conferences with the pertinent officials to clarify the causes of the conflagration, to reach decisions regarding insurance, and to take the first steps which would render certain the rebuilding. On the basis of thorough investigation, the public officials established the fact that the burning of the building was not due to any fault on our part or any technical defect, and that the entire amount of the insurance was due. This amount, however, covered only an extremely small fraction of the enormous damage that had been done, since the construction of the building had cost more than seven million francs, contributed entirely through gifts of members. Thus what had been destroyed was not only the labor of an entire decade of the most intense activity, and a priceless work of art, but also very great material values. The fact that Rudolf Steiner, in spite of these very great injuries, set to work immediately upon plans for rebuilding, and this at a time when external conditions, both spiritual and material, were growing steadily worse, is an indication of the inner certitude that a creative work born out of the Spirit possesses within itself, even in the most difficult times, the sustaining power to renew itself, and still to realize its own destined way even under the greatest external hindrances.
It was a symbol of his power of concentration, and capacity to lift his spiritual activity above the waves of external tempests, that in these very weeks, filled to overflowing every day with numerous strenuous dealings with officials and organizations, bringing the very heaviest strain upon his forces, he entered in the evenings the lecture hall of the workshop and, in the same calm and lofty manner, bestowed upon the members in an unbroken stream new results of spiritual-scientific research. He lectured in this spirit during those weeks on natural science, spiritual history, philosophy and Christology, on spiritual schooling and on tasks whose fulfillment was demanded by the times.
These Dornach lectures of the first weeks of January after the burning provided profound insights, penetrating into the depth of spiritual history, the development of spiritual life since the fourth century of the Christian era, the soul needs which had fiDed the being of man since the loss of spiritual vision, up to the time of the redemption through the experience of the Christ, which should be brought to humanity by the twentieth century. He spoke about the spiritual struggle of a Giordano Bruno, Jacob Boehme, Lord Bacon; about the solution of the riddle of life which has arisen since the Middle Ages through a cognizing penetration into the relations between the prenatal, the earthly, and the afterdeath existence. He rendered clear the ways in which the true, beautiful, and good can be rediscovered in nature and in man through research in the supersensible force-structure of the human being, which brings him into relation with the elemental realms and with the Beings of the cosmos. He spoke of humanity's paths of evolution through original sin and forgiveness of sin, from awaking out of the sleep of the senses in past centuries to the shining wakefulness of spiritual consciousness which is demanded by our age. On January 6, the Three Kings5 Day, he led the assembled members to a discussion about the rebuilding. When he had thus insured the continuity of the work in Dornach, he set out at the end of January for other places to aid in solving new problems created by the situation, and to make clear the point of departure from which a redevelopment must begin. For his spiritual Movement as well as for individual human beings, such events of destiny are the occasion for retrospect and perspectives. To this end, Rudolf Steiner directed his lectures and discussions in Dornach and Stuttgart at the end of January toward a decisive and clarifying retrospect. For, when he demanded of those who wished to help that they look the opposing forces of the world in the face and advance against them, he required first that each individual and the community submit to the test to discover whether the Hindering Forces had broken into our own ranks and thus interfered with the proper development. To this end Dr. Steiner at this very time uttered the most earnest and unreserved words to the members, demanding a “searching of conscience” and yet at the same time with all gentleness, though without reservation, demanding a retrospect free from illusions. It is not possible to understand very much in the development of the Movement before and also after the year 1923 without giving proper consideration to the retrospect which he so insistently demanded at that time. To this end served especially lectures and addresses on January 23 in Stuttgart under the title Words of Pain, of the Searching of Conscience, Words Calling for Awareness of Responsibility; on January 30 on The Formation of Judgment on the Basis of Facts; on February 6 and 13 on The Three Phases of Anthroposophical Work; and lectures which he gave during February 26-28 at the meeting of delegates in Stuttgart.
All of this belongs to the total picture of Rudolf Steiner's biography, for he himself said about the period after the turn of the century: “In what is to follow, the presentation of the course of my life will be difficult to distinguish from the history of the Anthroposophical Movement.” Here belong also many helpful but also many hindering experiences which came about through this very fact. In the retrospect given in Stuttgart, he described thoroughly the events of recent years as due to the fact that the course of evolution of this spiritual Movement had become entirely different in many respects from its beginning in the year 1902 and during the period up to 1919; and that, during the period 1919–1922, a whole series of new elements had worked their way into this development, requiring that the inner and the outer situation of the Movement be greatly changed, bringing about many positive enrichments but also dangers, hardships, and aberrations from the right course.
Whereas Dr. Steiner in his own work had always proceeded from the essential center of spiritual-scientific research, transforming the various areas of work and fortifying them, and had determined this method of working for the Movement, yet numerous new forces had become active within the Movement, bringing in, with good intention, methods of thinking developed in the external world, without having brought about a rebirth of these things through the essence of Anthroposophy. In this way a number of alien bodies entered into the organization of the Movement, without having previously gone through a certain transformation coining out of the nature of Anthroposophy itself. Dr. Steiner himself had called attention on the previous year to the fact “that the Anthroposophical Movement from the very beginning has worked out of the esoteric.” The question, therefore, whether any of the many elements entering from without constituted an enrichment or an unfavorable influence depended upon the extent to which it was completely adjusted in spirit to the essence of Anthroposophy. Regarding this he said in that lecture in Stuttgart on January 23, 1923:
“There has come about since 1919 in connection with the Anthroposophical Movement various things different in character from what would have arisen if Anthroposophy had gone forward as the same kind of movement of the same nature as that which had been maintained up to the year 1919. It is undoubtedly a fact that Anthroposophy is called upon to work into the most varied realms of life, and obviously also into all of those which are supposed to have been fruitfully fostered in connection with the Society since the year 1919 by various friends. But external events have in a certain manner brought it about that these things have not been derived directly out of Anthroposophy; on the contrary, they have been established and fostered in a certain way side by side with Anthroposophy—but certainly not in an Anthroposophical sense. Thus we have seen various things since 1919 which have been fostered as a different kind of movement, not Anthroposophically but by the side of Anthroposophy—a different kind of movement from that followed in an elementary way by the Anthroposophical Movement up to the year 1918.”
Using here the comparison of the mother and her daughters, he warned that the daughters might forget the mother. The specialized scientific work, pedagogy, economic undertakings, the movement for the threefold social order; and that for religious renewal and the youth movement as well as others, born out of Anthroposophy, were in danger of forgetting the source of their life. They might isolate themselves from the main current of the spiritual movement.
“For we must not become a circle of pedagogues, a circle of renewers of religion, a circle of scientists, a circle of youths, and one of old people and another of middle-aged people. We must be an Anthroposophical community, conscious of the source out of which it draws and from which it nourishes its daughter movements. Of this we must be strongly conscious!...
“May you hear with the right seriousness what I have had to say to you today with profoundly heartfelt pain. May this be within you the force for work, for will, for the will to hold together in the area of the Anthroposophical Movement. It must not become offensive to anybody if he is told that he is an excellent member in work of Der Kommende Tag 1“The Coming Day," an economic organization related to the Society. in the Waldorf School, or an excellent worker in the area of religious renewal or some other area; only, all of these—by the side of those who have not entered upon any special realm, and also those who are the old and the young and middle-aged—may all of them, all become conscious of the mother: that is, the Anthroposophical Society itself, out of which all this must take its course and within which all the various specialists must work together. Too much specialism has grown great among us, without the proper attention to this matter; much of it is so great that it is already again small because it has entirely too much forgotten the mother.”
These were fundamental truths and warnings that Rudolf Steiner gave for the Movement inaugurated by him, for the danger will constantly appear that special circles will come into existence representing concessions and compromises and special interests and forgetting the mother, the one original source of all. These Words of Pain, of the Searching of Conscience, these Words for Becoming Aware of Responsibility, were to be inscribed for all time deeply in the hearts of the members, Dr. Steiner declared.
“All that is at present united with Anthroposophy cannot exist without the Anthroposophical Society; requires the Anthroposophical Society as its vehicle. One can be an excellent Waldorf School teacher, an excellent pedagogue, can at the same time be an excellent spreader of Anthroposophy in word and writing, but may at the same time withdraw his activity from the nurturing and fostering of the Anthroposophical Society, or altogether out of that which works from Anthroposophy in the relation of man to man .-・ We have had energetic and enthusiastic people working in the area of the Movement for the Threefold Social Order; while these have been active in the field of the threefold social order, they have withdrawn their activity more and more from the genuine Anthroposophical Society. And now the danger threatens us that, in the area of religious renewal, there may perhaps be brilliant work by excellent personalities, and it might occur, and this time in an especially important area, that once more forces might be withdrawn from the Anthroposophical Society...
Again, one may be an excellent scientist inside the Anthroposophical Society and yet pay no attention to the Society's fundamental requirements. As a scientist, one may carry across into chemistry or physics in an excellent manner the Anthroposophical teachings and yet be the worst Anthroposophist possible ... Then those who seek for Anthroposophy within the Anthroposophical Society simply out of their human hearts are sometimes affected unpleasantly by the fact that these scientists speak with a certain tendency, with a certain undertone, which they have brought with them out of chemistry, out of physics, etc., in which there is something of the common human element, chemical, physical, biological, or juristic in its nature, but which is very remote from the universal human. What we need, however, is that the mother shall not be forgotten. For, if the Anthroposophical Society had not fostered Anthroposophy through a decade and a half from the center, Anthroposophy as such, scientists would not have been able to take their position on the basis of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy has given to them what they needed. They need to bear in mind the fact that they must give back what they have received by uniting in the work of the Anthroposophical Society, must give back what they have gained for science out of Anthroposophy.”
Dr. Steiner called attention also to many false tendencies toward adaptation in various fields of activity, the false opinion that Anthroposophy can be cultivated in a roundabout way, by mention of its practical results and the like.
“Another thing which has caused us the greatest difficulties is the fact that the power of impulse in the Anthroposophical Society itself has not always been estimated in a thorough manner. It is possible to hear once in a while opinions which are utterly false to the Anthroposophical Movement, which place it side by side with the very things which must be eliminated by it for the sake of human evolution. Only in the last few days I have had the experience that some one said to me that, if that which Anthroposophy provides is introduced in the presence of these or those persons, then even the most practical persons accept it; only, one must not mention to them Anthroposophy or the threefold social question, but must deny these. You see this is something which has been practiced by many persons for a number of years. This is the falsest thing that we could possibly do. In whatever realm it may be, we must stand before the world as representatives of the Anthroposophical entity under the banner of complete truthfulness, and we must be aware of the fact that, to the extent that we are unable to do this, we cannot further the Anthroposophical Movement. All veiled representation of the Anthroposophical Movement leads in the end to nothing wholesome.”
Regarding many over-zealous or wrongly directed or neglected new undertakings during that period, Rudolf Steiner said:
“Thus one difficulty after another has come about through the fact that extremely premature undertakings have been entered upon since the year 1919, and especially—as must be emphasized again and again—through the fact that persons have established all sorts of things and afterwards not continued to work at what they themselves brought into being.”
Such divergencies, not properly followed up, often coming out of the utmost good will but also an unbridled excess of energy, were contrasted by Dr. Steiner in his retrospect and perspective with the central essence of the Movement, out of which in this whole turbulent period the "purely Anthroposophical,” the esoteric current, was continuously and calmly carried forward by him.
In this connection he called attention to the fact that the Goetheanum building had proven to be a delicate instrument which revealed unmistakably whether something brought in by a speaker from the outside was in harmony with the artistic, organic forms within the building, or alien to this environment. In his retrospect he said regarding the first collegiate course of the year 1920:
“The first series of lectures as a whole showed that not everything had developed organically out of the same idea as the building itself. It was like something which had been brought into the purely Anthroposophical building ..・ Scientifically educated persons have become members of the Society. Science had been their way of life and the substance of their education. Anthroposophy has become the interest of their hearts. They have permitted themselves to be inspired by Anthroposophy for their science. Thus we have received scientific dissertations, by persons thinking Anthroposophically, delivered before the individual fields of knowledge have been born out of Anthroposophy...”
Among other things he said: “I have described in the weekly publication ‘Das Goetheanum’ how, for example, the lines of the Goetheanum itself continue in the movements of the human beings in the art of Eurythmy. But, according to the original intention, this must be true for everything in connection with the Goetheanum. So I permitted my spiritual glance to pass over the manner in which this inner architecture, sculpture, and painting corresponded with what the speakers were saying from the platform. And I found that whatever was in the very best sense of the word an Anthroposophical tableau, when what was spoken came out of Anthroposophy in the most restricted sense, this agreed wonderfully with the style of the building. But with respect to a number of lectures, one had the feeling: ‘These, indeed, ought to have been delivered only when the Goetheanum should have arrived at the stage of erecting a whole series of neighboring structures, designed in such a way that they would harmonize with these special studies and special reflections.’ The Goetheanum in its almost ten years of destiny has really shared in experiencing the destiny of the Anthroposophical Society, and it has been easy to observe in sensing the harmony or the lack of harmony of the style of the building with what is carried on within it that, in fact, something inorganic has been introduced in the further advance of the Anthroposophical spiritual Movement.”
As a model in this respect he called attention to the activity of Frau Marie Steiner and Albert Steffen:
“Programs of this character always included presentations of Eurythmy. One became aware in connection with these that the building required that cognitional matters presented within it should be supplemented to a whole through the artistic. The inner space of the Goetheanum seemed not to endure a cycle of lectures if not rounded- out with something artistic. I imagine that it was felt by people to be a necessity when Frau Marie Steiner, from the organ loft, blended her art of recitation and declamation with the program of lectures.
"For me personally it was always the greatest joy to hear Albert Steffen speaking from the lecture platform of the Goetheanum. Everything that he says will always be felt to have a plastic form. He is like a sculptor of speech; indeed, a sculptor who carves in speech. I was conscious of a harmony between the forms of the building and his plastic speech, which he deliberately and securely integrated into the building.”
Thus were certain hints given, which at the end of this decisive year led to a new constitution of this spiritual Movement.
In a lecture of February 6, 1923, Rudolf Steiner described once more in living pictures “the three phases of Anthroposophical work” as developed up to that time. He characterized as the first phase the epoch from 1902 to 1909 when, side by side with the development and elaboration of Anthroposophy and of his own spiritual-scientific research, the additional task was fulfilled of "bringing into contrast with what existed in the Theosophical Society—which was the taking up in a traditional way of ancient Oriental wisdom—the spirituality of Occidental civilization with its middle point in the Mystery of Golgotha." Regarding the second epoch, he said:
“This second phase of the Anthroposophical Movement had as its prerequisite the most important teachings regarding destiny and repeated lives on earth; it had the Mystery of Golgotha in a spiritual light harmonizing with the civilization of the present time. In addition, it had interpretation of the Gospels which showed the tradition as being in harmony with what can be comprehended today also through the livingly present and active Christ. In the second phase, which lasted approximately until the year 1916 or 1917, it was necessary, I should say, to take a survey of everything existing in the external scientific and practical civilization of the present. It was necessary to show that Anthroposophy can be brought into harmony with what is scientific at the present time, what is artistic—naturally in a deeper sense—and with what constitutes today the practical life...
“An additional element in this phase was the further development of the artistic. Approximately in the middle of this phase there arose the intention to erect the Goetheanum, the Dornach building. What had been given in an artistic way in the Mysteries has thus been carried out in the architectural, sculptural, painting element. Eurythmy was added to this, and I have often been able to describe this in its essential nature. And all of this arose in a certain sense out of the source which was laid open through the way which I have indicated in a sketchy manner in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment—have indicated to a sufficient extent for any one who desires to acquire a conception of how one has to follow such ways.”
When the third phase, between 1916 and 1922, brought about the extension into the external world of what had been obtained by him out of the purely Anthroposophical through spiritual-scientific research, certain other elements now entered into the Movement which had not found an organic union with the totality and the right balance between insight and action. Regarding this Rudolf Steiner said:
“It had now come about that a number of personalities desired to do one thing or another, to do these things on their own impulse, and they actually did them ... so that inside the Anthroposophical Movement all sorts of things came about out of communities different from what the original Anthroposophical community was.”
He said that it would be possible to recognize these inorganic elements and to avoid them in the future only
“if those, for example, who are active in the Society as scientists shall be mindful of the fact that they should not forget Anthroposophy in connection with science, but, on the contrary, that they should make Anthroposophy the crowning newest phase of science ... Those who are active as teachers have a similar task. And most particularly would those have a special task who are active as practical persons ... How much opposition has been brought upon the Anthroposophical Movement by the Movement for The Threefold Social Order because of the fact that the latter movement has not understood how to take its position upon the basis of Anthroposophy ... The situation is similar in other fields. What we have to give attention to is that Anthroposophy is the mother of this whole movement ...There must not exist as a separate thing a Waldorf School Movement, a Movement for a Free Spiritual Life, a Movement for Religious Renewal ... but all of this can succeed only if it feels itself as being within the mother movement, the Anthroposophical Movement. I know that, in the last analysis, this is spoken out of the hearts of all those who are earnest in their relation with the Anthroposophical Movement.”
Since, therefore, during this phase individual groups “had forgotten Anthroposophy in a certain sense in their relation with individual movements,” it was necessary now to recognize this fact and in future to avoid it. All that he had brought to the attention of the members was later brought into realization by him at the end of this year.
All of the developments mentioned had been observed by Dr. Steiner for some time and left to take their free course in order that those who were active within these movements should learn as free human beings what would come out of them. But the time had now come to bring into full wakefulness the forces of consciousness and to concentrate upon the essential core of the Movement. In this connection he spoke of the necessity of devoting oneself to the central element in Anthroposophy, since it was just this content of Anthroposophy which “becomes manifest as the soul need of an ever increasing number of human beings.”
In a retrospect upon the period of Stuttgart economic undertakings previously referred to, which had caused him so much trouble he gave the following fundamental hint:
“The development and the acceptance of Anthroposophical endeavors at the present time render necessary a change in my method of work. Anthroposophy has proven to be, on the one hand, a soul need of an ever increasing number of persons. On the other hand it sees itself confronted with misunderstandings and false judgments on the part of many persons in increasing measure.
“This requires that I should devote myself still more to the intensifying demands for cultivation of this Anthroposophical need than this has been possible since practical institutions of many kinds have been developed in connection with our cause through the objectives of friends. These institutions have come into existence in a thoroughly justified manner on the basis of the purposes of these friends and on the basis of the Anthroposophical Movement. It was also understandable that these friends, in endeavoring to bring to realization such practical ideas, conceived the wish that I myself should be included in the administration of these institutions. I have responded to this wish, although it was clear to me that responding to it as a matter of natural obligation would for a certain length of time result in drawing me too much away from my real task, the cultivation of the central element of Anthroposophical work.
“For a certain length of time, relatively short, I had to respond to the wishes of these friends. But, in spite of this, I must now adopt the standpoint that I shall be able henceforth to be active only in this central element of the Anthroposophical life with its artistic and pedagogical outgrowths...”
Rudolf Steiner was able to remind his hearers that, even in this stormy epoch, he had without interruption continued in the progressive “direct setting forth of the spiritual world." Indeed, as we know, he had continued on this course throughout the stormy period during the war and in the immediately succeeding years. This spiritual substance and power from his research and teaching were there; the members ought to devote themselves with concentration, and an awareness of the present momentous period, to this central element in order to develop to the point of being able to perform their duty.
During these weeks, still another task had to be dealt with in Stuttgart. With the growth of the Movement, the younger generation had demanded consideration of their own thoughts and impulses of activity, in many respects seeking a different form of activity from that of the older generation. Those active in these groups now in process of formation came to Dr. Steiner with the request for help and advice. Since he saw that in this phase of the development a course to follow could be discovered only if he gave the advice that the two groups should be separated, there came about on February 28 in Stuttgart the formation of the "Free Anthroposophical Society" for younger members. Dr. Steiner himself declared that this unavoidable division was an anomaly, contrary to the fundamental basis of the Anthroposophical Society. The organic integration of the whole Movement into one occurred at the Christmas Foundation Conference in December, 1923. But he continued to give assistance to the enthusiastic work of the younger people just as before.
During this process of metamorphosis, which led to the reconstitution of the Society at the end of this year, there still continued the tremendous daily tasks of lectures for the public and for members, individual conversations, many tours, and dealing with the opposition in the surrounding world. This period bore heavily upon the physical health of Rudolf Steiner. Those living close to him at that time were filled with astonishment and admiration at the manner in which, in the midst of this tempest from the surrounding world which would have been shattering to almost any other person, he maintained his undisturbed concentration upon the central essence, his unshakeable calm and the maintenance of the freedom of the inner space for himself, where his spiritual creative work continued.
As the constant opposition against Rudolf Steiner intensified because of conditions in the years 1919-22, he had to a certain extent been forced to meet these attacks, but he had declared that it would be the greatest mistake to permit himself to be absorbed by this reaction. For this, he said, was precisely the objective of those evil Powers standing behind all this opposition; they desired to draw the spiritual researcher into constant negative argumentation and defense in order to hinder him in the spiritual research, the really fruitful work. Of course, there were decisive moments when it was necessary to remove the mask from the faces of these opponents, and this had to be done then in complete clarity and convincingness, but always on a spiritual level.
With respect to less degraded forms of opposition he said still again in his lecture of February 1923:
“A large part of the group of opponents is of such a character that it lives in some sort of definite life relation. For instance, it has studied In one place or another one thing or another, and there it is customary to think in one way or another about this or that thing. Because of the fact that the person concerned must think in one way or another, he must become an opponent of Anthroposophy. He does not know at all why he becomes one, but he must because he is unconsciously held on the leading strings of that which formed his education, which he experienced. Such is the inner situation. Externally it is such that it is a question of the success or the ruin of what has been founded by the Anthroposophical Society that these opponents also should be driven from the field in the necessary manner.
“But the really leading personalities in this group of opponents know perfectly well what they wish. For among them there are those who are well acquainted with the laws of spiritual research—even though from a point of view different from that of Anthroposophy. These know that the very best method is to bombard with opposing writings and criticisms the one who needs quiet for his spiritual research, in order that he may be drawn away from this spiritual research. For these know very well that the continual refutation of opponents cannot be united with spiritual research. They wish to cast a stumbling block before one's feet when they bring these things into opposition with one. To those persons who really know what matters, the content of their opposing books is not the important thing, but the fact that these books may be thrown at the head of the spiritual researcher. It is of great importance to them, by any kind of tricks or other means, to compel him to defend himself. It is really necessary that these things be viewed with complete objectivity.”
In this respect also, Dr. Steiner called upon the members to recognize and avoid the deficient insight and wrong reactions characteristic in many instances in preceding years.
When some one questioned during a conversation as to the danger of the destruction of the Movement by this opposition, he replied:
“It has been said that the Anthroposophical Movement might be destroyed by the opponents. This cannot occur. Through these opponents the greatest peril may arise for the Anthroposophical Society, and perhaps for me personally, etc. But the Anthroposophical Movement will suffer no damage; it can at most be delayed by these opponents.”
He knew that the Being “Anthroposophy” was sufficiently strongly united with the forces of the spiritual evolution to be safe against the prevention of its advance into the future, though liable to being opposed and hampered.
Having in these lectures and discussions of January and February kindly and earnestly brought about a general clarification within the Movement and in respect to the opponents, he could now apply himself entirely to the new epoch in the development to begin in the year 1923. Before the impulses indicating the future esoteric tasks of the Movement which he gave at Easter and Christmas in 1923 in Dornach, he prepared the way for the new advance in this development in the evening lectures at Dornach between March 11 and 23. In these he spoke of the changes in spiritual activity from the ancient Mystery places down to the present centers of spiritual work. He described "the activating of cosmic-historical events by Spiritual Powers/5 the changes in the mood of soul in the human being in the Post-Atlantian cultures, especially since the fourth century, the taking over of the work of the Spirits of Form by the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, and the solutions now to be found during the twentieth century by human beings out of a conscious cooperation with the world of spirit.
It is instructive to observe that, in this period which was devoted to the development of a new harmony of the community life, Rudolf Steiner applied himself in the themes of his lectures especially to the spiritual laws of the musical. Thus on March 7 and 8 he gave in Stuttgart two lectures having to do fundamentally with the nature and the practice of the musical art, entitled The Experience of Tone in the Human Being, and continued these reflections in the Dornach lecture of March 16 on The World of the Hierarchies and the World of the Tones, going all the way to the esoteric sources of harmony and musicality in the total organism of the universe.
For one who has been able to observe the inexhaustible many-sidedness of Rudolf Steiner's knowledge and ability, it is a matter of astonishment to experience how in these lectures he showed a mastery of the nature, history, systematics of musical creation and contributed material essential for music both for the recipient and for the practicing person. He gave first a glimpse of the stages of evolution of the human experience of tone in the course of history—for example, of the structural changes in humanity through the transition from the experience of the fifth to that of the third, to the experience of the octave. He then made clear that in the course of evolution such metamorphoses of the musical experience are connected with the development of the spiritual-soul organization and the ego-consciousness, and described the corresponding influences upon the nerve-man, the rhythmical man, the limb-man. He clarified the significance of this in pedagogy for the various ages, the beneficial effect of the major and minor moods for the soul forces of the developing human being, and he showed also to creative musicians the way through the development of the forces of imagination, inspiration, and intuition in our age to the spiritually productive spheres of the musical, to the primal source of composition.
In the Dornach. lecture of March 16, he called attention also to the fact that, at early stages in the evolution of humanity, “the musical experience blended with a direct religious experience"; how in that age a consciousness still existed of the truth that the action of the Godhead, the Hierarchies, was expressed in the experience of the seventh, the fifth, the third; that man then still shared in experience of the “cosmic sound of jubilation of the gods” and the “cosmic mourning of the gods,” and how this hierarchal action within the cosmic spheres imprinted itself in the course of ages upon the human organization; how the human being, who in the last centuries has more and more lost this experience and is for that reason in danger of becoming unproductive in the musical sphere, can again unite himself through spiritual knowledge and schooling consciously with these spheres. An extensive creative work has occurred among various musicians as a result of these lectures.
During the same period, he spoke about the opposite pole of such harmony, about cosmic pathology and therapy, about manifold phenomena of decadence and destruction in the organism of man and in the spheres of nature. He rendered clear how, through the materializing of language, man more and more isolates himself from the Spiritual Powers which were and are creative in language. He called attention also to the disharmonies in the lower realms of nature—for example, in the action of poisonous plants and their influence on the human organization but also as aids in the healing art. This general survey he continued then up to an insight into the danger which threatens the total organization of the earth in its future evolution through the intellectualism of the present-day human being, alien to the Spirit.
At the end of March, Rudolf Steiner went again to Stuttgart to take part during March 25-29 in an Artistic-Pedagogical Conference of the Waldorf School, during which he gave two evening lectures entitled Pedagogy and Art and Pedagogy and Ethics, and an introductory address for a recitation evening of Frau Marie Steiner and a Eurythmy program and for two Eurythmy presentations by children.
At that time the chaotic conditions in Germany had grown to such an extent that, for example, admission to such a series of programs cost 5,000 marks; admission for a single program from 300 to 1,000 marks. By the month of June, a course of training in Eurythmy cost 60,000 marks. There was a general condition of utter chaos and incapacity to master life.
It was logical, therefore, that Rudolf Steiner during Easter 1923 in Dornach directed the consciousness of those persons who were willing to hear to that esoteric central essence where they could find strength and firmness instead of losing themselves in the chaos of the dissolving surrounding world; where they could find "spiritual communion,, with the Creative Powers. He had spoken of this spiritual communion as an esoteric act of the human being—schooling himself and, through his own forces, reuniting with the spiritual world—in his last lecture in the first Goetheanum building during the preceding Christmas festival. Now at Easter time the Resurrection thought was to be experienced, not traditionally but in the knowledge of the wisdom of the Divine, which can bestow the impulse for action suited to the spirit. These Dornach lectures were entitled The Course of the Year and the Four Great Festival Times of the Year.
These sacred hours, which carried the inauguration of the spiritual cult of the festival times at the Goetheanum to a new stage of development, took their departure from the consideration of the course of the year as a supersensible, spirit-soul "process of breathing of the earth,” organic and living. When viewed in connection with cosmic pictures given at other festival seasons of the year of the action of the Hierarchies in the course of the year and of the Mystery of Michael, they opened the door to a cult of the festivals of the year which will give spiritual guidance to the community life of the future, in order step by step to introduce into the disharmony of the surrounding world the harmony and objectives of spiritual guidance.
Once more, Rudolf Steiner began with visible processes of nature in order then to unveil the spiritual which is manifest in these. Goethe spoke of a “breathing of the earth,” and Dr. Steiner now dealt concretely with the rhythms and forces which are manifest in this tremendous process of breathing. Mention has already been made of the elementary part of this matter. We mention here the processes in the world of the elements and in the cosmic-spiritual world which human beings in the midst of the primeval wisdom of early ages associated with the consecration and festival periods in the course of the year. The summer and winter equinoxes were for them not a mere external astronomical occurrence. They were aware of the subtle changes, material, psychic, and spiritual, which take place in nature and in man during these periods of the year. The spiritual research of the present day can also penetrate to these subtle changes in the soul structure.
Whereas during summer the earth radiates its forces out into its environment, exhales and in doing so brings to life the plenitude of the vegetative phenomena, in winter she draws these forces back into her protection, concentrates them within and holds her breath during the depth of winter. Rudolf Steiner described now the wise insight by reason of which in that time of clairvoyance the festival of the birth of Christ was placed precisely in that time of the year when the earth holds its breath, is concentrated in its being:
“This is the time in which the birth of Christ was rightly placed： because at that time the earth, in a sense, is in inner possession of her totality of forces of soul. And, as Jesus was born at this point of time, he was born out of an earthly force which bears within it all the soul element of the earth. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the initiates who were worthy of the ancient initiation associated a profound meaning with the view which placed the birth of Jesus in this time of the earthly inhalation^ the earth's holding of its breath.”
In the period of the appearance of Christ “a great metamorphosis in spirit and soul occurred in all the Mysteries” and changed the ancient cult, festivals, and liturgies. Whereas in earlier epochs the right time for a union through cult ceremonies with the essential Powers of the world was read out of the constellations of the sun, moon, and stars—the cosmic dock—it was now known that these creative Powers and forces were now also united with the earth itself, and the festival times of the depth of winter and of the spring were, out of an understanding of the real spiritual processes, made into the annual festivals of the birth of Christ at Christmas and the Resurrection at Easter. “The cosmic significance of the birth of Christ” was understood. It was known that “when Jesus is born, he will be born at a time in which the earth does not speak, in a certain sense, with the Heavens, when the earth in its essential being is completely withdrawn into itself.” But at the time of the spring equinox and the ascent of the sun's orbit, when the “flowing soul forces of the earth stream out into the cosmos,” when the earth prepares for “the reception of the solar element,” this is the time of Resurrection, of the Easter festival. Then, in June, at the summer solstice, when the forces of the earth are all breathed out into the expanses, when "the soul element of the earth is permeated by the forces of the sun, by the forces of the stars/5 then is the festival time of St. John. And the inhalation, the concentration, of the earth forces in the autumn leads again to that point of time in the course of the year when, the consciousness of man is united with the event of the birth of the Christ child on earth.
Because of the changes which have taken place in the nature of Mysteries and in the knowledge of the Spirit during the last third of the past century, the task of our age is to recognize the appropriate time for the introduction of a new festival of the year, and to bring to realization the festival of Michael in the autumn, that festival which recognizes in a solemn way the victory of Michael over the Dragon as an event affecting cosmos, earth, and man annually in the great rhythm of the course of the year.
Rudolf Steiner then described thoroughly how the spiritual union with the forces of the Christ at Christmas time is confronted by the threatening peril of a mastery by Ahrimanic Powers, hostile to the Christ, which develop a perilous excess of power in the summer when the earth is absorbed completely in the natural vegetative process. When the primeval wisdom spoke of the battle of Michael with the Dragon, it indicated then the victory which this Being, Michael, would once achieve over the Ahrimanic hosts. In earlier lectures Dr. Steiner had described this event in the spiritual worlds which occurred before the turn of the previous century. He now showed how, in the great rhythm of the course of the year, in the breathing process of the earth, the autumn is the right period to direct one's consciousness in a festival way upon this deed of Michael. For it is this Cosmic Being who overcomes the Ahrimanic Powers so overwhelming in the summer, and who is destined to bring about the union with the forces of Christ which renders it possible for man at Christmas and at Easter time to be luminous within his inner being. It is once more a sign of the spiritual truth of ancient wisdom that the time about the twenty-ninth of September, the period of the autumn equinox, has always been dedicated to the name of Michael. Rudolf Steiner summarized this sacred rhythm of the course of the year in the following words:
“Up to the present St. MichaeFs Day has been a peasant festival day— and you know what significance I attach to this—a festival day of simple human beings. On the basis of the knowledge of the whole meaning of the earthly cosmic breathing year, it is destined more and more to become a festival supplementing that of Easter. For it is in this way that humanity, when it shall once more understand the earthly life in a spiritual sense, will have to think.
“While the summer breathing is taking place, the earth becomes Ahrimanized. Alas if the birth of Jesus had occurred in this Ahrimanized state of the earth. Before the circle has been completed and December has arrived, which. makes it possible for the Christ Impulse to be born in the earth filled with its soul, the earth must be purified by spiritual forces from the Dragon, from the Ahrimanic forces, and the force of Michael must unite with that which, as the breath of the earth, from the time of September on into the time of December is flowing inward; there must unite itself with this the purifying force of Michael, victorious over the evil Ahrimanic, in order that the Christmas festival may approach in the right way and that in the right way the birth of the Christ Impulse may occur, which then grows more and more mature up to the Easter time.”
Thus the force of Michael is in the service of the force of Christ, and the present-day human being can, through the service of consecration of man in the cult of the festivals of the year, place himself consciously in the service of the spiritually guiding Powers, who give form to the destiny of the earth and of man.
Rudolf Steiner now explained the history of those cults which in earlier epochs were connected with the festivals of the year, and the meaning of popular practices in the earliest times based upon a sense for the Mysteries of nature—characteristic, of course, of a stage of consciousness entirely different from that of the present. He then spoke of the wisdom which was communicated in the process of initiation in the Chthonic Mysteries of antiquity, in which there was the knowledge that, during the winter time, the healing forces of plants are enriched, and out of this knowledge developed an art of healing. He described the teachings and the actions of those initiates of ancient times when, during such festivals of the winter and the summer, the polarity between the subterrestrial and the superterrestrial Mysteries in nature were laid bare. This knowledge of the Mysteries underwent a complete change when the appearance of Christ brought into the consciousness of the initiates the fact that “the Christ has united Himself with humanity since the Resurrection: since that time He does not dwell only in the extra-earthly Heights but within the earth existence; He lives within the evolution, within the stream of evolution, of humanity.” Through this fact the entire relation of man to the spiritual world, to nature, to the meaning of the festivals of the year had to be lifted to a new level. And a further step into the Mysteries of the spiritual order of the world around us and within us is now brought about through the supplementation of this sacramental rhythm of the festivals of the year through the festival of Michael. He is the path-breaker for a new experience of the Mysteries of birth, burial, and resurrection. As the human being in the succession of the disciples of Christ learns to behold the Resurrection, so must he take into his will the force of Michael which is victorious over the Dragon:
“In the festival idea of the autumn solstice, the soul must feel its strength, in that it must now not appeal to what it beholds but to its will: 'Take into thee the thought of Michael victorious over the Ahrimanic Powers, that thought which makes thee strong to achieve spiritual knowledge here on earth in order that thou mayest be able to overcome the Powers of Death? As the Easter thought is directed to what is beheld, so is this other thought directed to the Powers of the will: to take in the force of Michael—that is, to take the force of spiritual knowledge into the forces of the will...
"Human beings must learn again to bring together in their thinking the spiritual and the course of nature. It is granted not to man today only to carry out esoteric reflections; it is necessary for man today once more to perform the esoteric...
“When it is understood how to think together with the course of the year, then will those forces blend with thoughts which will enable the human being to hold a dialogue with the divine-spiritual forces which are revealed out of the stars. It is out of the stars that human beings have derived the power to establish festivals possessing an inner human validity. Human beings roust establish festivals out of an inner esoteric force.”
We see thus how Rudolf Steiner, after a period of the most intense outward radiation into the expanses of the surrounding world in all fields of life, as destiny had rendered necessary for this spiritual Movement, now centers the consciousness of those working with him upon the inner pole of human development, upon the service of the consecration of man, which can be carried out by each human being. This inner intensification was necessary in order that human beings, so equipped, might be able to meet the difficult tasks and pressures of the coming times victoriously in the service of the Michael forces.
After this esoteric work in Dornach, Rudolf Steiner entered upon a manifold activity of lectures and tours. He first gave lectures in a number of Swiss cities, giving directions to an extensive circle of people regarding the objective of the rebuilding of the Goetheanum; and then visited six other European countries, to expand the new impulse, an activity which he continued during the following year. Between April 5 and 12, he spoke in Bern, Basel, Zurich, Winterthur, and St. Gallen on the subject What Was the Intention of the Goetheanum and What Ought Anthroposophy to Do? It was necessary to clarify both the ways and the goals connected with the erection of a new Goetheanum building and the development of a university.
It may be permissible to mention a personal experience in connection with this lecture tour, as it will serve to clarify the mood and the situation. Since it was still possible that the last lingering flames of excited tempers in some persons might lead to danger for Dr. Steiner, I decided to accompany him on these tours, but, on the basis of earlier experiences, without asking him in advance about this. Once more I could experience that this was the right way; for, when I entered the same coupe on the train with him, he accepted this as something natural. This experiment thus became a regular practice for the following years. Later, when the excitement had entirely died down so that there appeared to be no danger, for him, and I thought it appropriate to abandon this practice of traveling with him, he came to me in the workshop and gave me detailed information about a journey he was about to take. When I asked by way of suggestion whether I had not better stay at home this time, he said: “No, no, you are to go with me.” Thus it came about that I accompanied him from that time on till the end of his life—a most beautiful privilege, giving the opportunity frequently through questions and answers on train or ship, in the hotels, on walks, to receive something essential from him and to experience the great personality of Rudolf Steiner also in daily life, in his human kindliness and exemplary practice of life. During the present journey he often called my attention on the train after lecturing, or, as he liked to do, when taking a cup of coffee, to many a special detail in his lectures,—how, for example, although the theme of the lecture was the same for all cities, he had supplemented this or that in Bern, Zurich, or St. Gallen with some different nuances.
Thus the lectures in St. Gallen were always interwoven with a special spiritual element drawn from the historical element existing there since the times of early Christianity in Europe. Such differences in nuance were also to be observed in lectures in different countries. One could see how he called forth in different places the latent spiritual forces due to history. On the occasion of the lecture in St? Gallen, we visited the Cloister library with its unique treasures, during which Rudolf Steiner gave very much to me out of the fullness of his historical, knowledge.
This lecture tour in April 1923 contributed much toward clearing away many arguments of opponents, which had influenced also the public through misunderstandings of the plan to rebuild the Goetheanum. During sessions with public officials and others in the coming months, which succeeded in removing the last hindrances against the rebuilding of the Goetheanum, the insight created during this tour was of the greatest importance. For instance, when I had to handle alone some months later a conversation with a representative of the opposing side, he gave me the directive for the conversation by saying: "With respect to the height of the building [the question was whether the new building would be of the same height or higher than the old one] we can negotiate, but with respect to the artistic forms we do not negotiate; in this we shall be as hard as iron." I said this to the person with whom I was dealing, and it was thus settled The new building was erected in the course of the next five years according to a model that Rudolf Steiner had formed with his own hands. We shall deal with this later.
After these steps had been accomplished for the further development of the total work, Dr. Steiner gave during April 15—22, before his next trips, on the initiative of a group of Swiss teachers, a pedagogical course of eight lectures, since published under the title Pedagogical Practice from the Point of View of Spiritual-Scientific Knowledge of Man, This placed before a larger circle of people the pedagogical practice already initiated by him and in use. What was published in the “Berner Schulblatt” by a teacher at that time who had no relation whatever with Anthroposophy regarding his experience during this pedagogical course is characteristic:
“Every morning when we once more listened to Dr. Steiner himself, we felt that we were one step nearer to him, that we understood better and better what he had to say, how he had to say it. And then we newcomers got together again and we had to ask ourselves most seriously every day: Why are not many more of our men and women colleagues present? It is not at all true that Anthroposophy boxes one in> that it develops narrow-mindedness, that it passes life by; it cannot be true that, with its teaching about the supersensible it is simply hovering in the air, for Dr. Steiner shows step by step its application to life, which like a searchlight Uluminates the details and discloses their connection with profound questions of life and existence ...
“I came here to seek for stimulation and gain in connection with my school work. This I have found in rich abundance. In addition to this gain, there comes to me unexpectedly a much greater richness for heart and soul. and out of this there shall stream again richness for my classes, for my companions...
"In the last few weeks, since we have once more been engaged in our school work, very much has become clarified, and stronger and purer arises the conviction that Dr. Steiner has very much to offer to us present-day teachers. I wonder why Dr. Steiner has not been requested, like Scharrelmann and like at present Kühnel, to give a course in Bern. We shall gladly attend and receive thankfully what Kühnel may offer us; but those of us who now know Dr. Steiner should wish that he also should be invited to give a course in Bern. We do not wish to be one-sided, but to accept the good from all sides, whatever name the source may bear, provided only that it is a pure source. To have experienced this as a conviction is, perhaps, the most important of all.”
Any one who came into relation with the work of Rudolf Steiner without prejudice could always gain the conviction of a profound enrichment in the human, factual, and professional circles of tasks.
At the end of April 1923, Dr. Steiner left on tours which took him first into Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Norway. In Stuttgart he spoke in an introduction for two Eurythmy programs and on May 2 to the members on the theme The Individualized Logos and the Art of Releasing the Spirit Out of the Word. During this period he frequently lifted into consciousness the inner spiritual powers of the word, speech—as in lectures in Bern and Dornach on April 6 and 13 on The Spirituality of Speech and the Voice of Conscience and on Regaining the Living Source of Speech through the Impulse of the Christ. These themes were also used in lectures during April 27-30 in Prague, where he spoke on The Three Stages in the Awaking of the Human Sou—the supersensible forces unfolding in man in the processes of walking, speaking, and thinking. The public lectures in Prague dealt with the themes The Eternity of the Soul in the Light of Anthroposophy and Human Evolution and Human Education. He returned to Dornach for the Whitsunday festival and there lectured on The Ascension and the Mystery of Whitsunday.
After this festival he went, in the middle of May, to Norway to prepare for the new impulse which was to go out from the Goetheanum, and to place the work of the members there on a new basis. A series of public lectures in Christiania developed the spiritual-scientific knowledge of The Human Being, Human Destiny, and World Evolution. To a circle of members, he spoke on Cosmic Whitsuntide, the Message of Anthroposophy. On May 17 he shared in the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in Norway. That he was thinking at that time of the General Anthroposophical Society to be founded in Dornach at Christmas is clear from indications during this meeting in Norway. He spoke of the founding of Societies in Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, and France and elucidated the fundamentals of the world organism to be created:
“If an Anthroposophical Society is now founded in each country with a personality at its head with whom we can have dealings from Dornach, so that the common interest can thus be cared for, a very satisfactory constitution will thus be created both for the national and for the international requirements. We should really gradually arrive at the point of bringing the Anthroposophical Society in the world to a certain position of being represented ...We shall be able to accomplish this best if in every land—here, for instance, a Norwegian Anthroposophical Society is founded, which shall in turn unite with the international Anthroposophical Society, which should have its center in Dornach.”
In reply to a question about admitting members, Dr. Steiner gave the direction
“that the admission would, of course, be handled by the national Societies, but that the membership card would be signed at the center in Dornach. It has been treated in this way everywhere. It would, in the first place, establish a kind of federalism, which is much to be desired, and on the other hand establish by documentation the fact that a large society is centered in Dornach. To this end it is naturally necessary that in Dornach there shall be confidence in the person who then represents the national Society in relation to Dornach. This is what matters. Indeed, the entire constitution of the Society rests upon this system of personalities in whom confidence is reposed." In reply to the question about a General Secretary, Dr. Steiner said: "Representation in relation to the center in Dornach would be handled by a General Secretary. How he is to be designated is, once more, an affair of the Society in that country. Only, it is to be presupposed that in Dornach there is complete confidence in that personality who is then to form the bridge with the center.”
The organism of the unity to be created was described in its spiritual foundations and functions of life. Thus a Society for a country was founded here also. The first General Secretary was chosen and the constitution formulated in accordance with the fundamental directive lines. During this year, in preparation for the refounding of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference in Dornach, Rudolf Steiner constituted anew Branches in the various countries and at the same time indicated to them the way in which to prepare for the decisive action of the coming Christmas period.
During the return journey from Norway, he gave a lecture in Berlin on The Riddles of the Inner Man. These dealt with what Dr. Steiner called “Pneumatosophy.” Having returned to Dornach, he devoted himself once more to the spiritual mission of a reunion of science, art, and the religious experience. From May 27 till June 9 he gave that important series of lectures on The Artistic in Its World Mission. He began with the earliest historical stages of art in the dawning period of humanity, and described the first sources of inspiration for art, in the life after death, at that time still within human consciousness—for example, the art connected with burial places. On the other hand a knowledge of the pre-natal life was manifest even in the designing of human raiment, in the art of clothing, the ordinary and the ceremonial garments. He set forth how the earlier human being experienced the molding forces in his head and organism, and that this was then manifest in the art of sculpture. In these reflections he dealt with the art of speech, the manifestation of the supersensible in music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, and with the task of our age, which is to work, through the conscious regaining of spiritual forces, in the direction of bringing art in a new form into integration within the unity to be created. Thus was the world mission of art related to the spiritualizing process in connection with the life of nature as this had been presented at Easter.
The goals thus set forth of spiritual knowledge, artistic creation, and social rebuilding he included in the area of tasks for the spiritual-scientific Movement—goals for which he had been preparing the way since the beginning of the century—when he gave in the Dornach lectures of June 10 to 17 a survey of The History and the Requirements of the Anthroposophical Movement in Relation to the Anthroposophical Society. Here the development of this community body and the ego-consciousness within this organism of the Society were once more set forth in detail with all of the defects and processes of growth—in kindness and in admonition, to awaken self-knowledge. The year constituted, indeed, a period of retrospect and perspective during which all from the past which had proven to be not in accord with the whole organism was to be stripped off, and all which had proven sound, creative and organic was to be preserved and united with the central essence of Anthroposophy.
Since by June all negotiations with government authorities and the insurance companies looking to the rebuilding of the Goetheanum had been completed, the requirements for the rebuilding were brought to clarity in a meeting of members on June 10 and in the General Meeting of the Goetheanum Association on June 17, and the rebuilding was unanimously determined upon. In this connection, Dr. Steiner said:
“That which came to expression as something self-evident for us as we stood under the direct visible impression of the burning of the Goetheanumthat we must under no circumstances give up the continuity of the work of our spiritual life—this must always dwell in our souls, and what is especially important is that we shall really conduct ourselves in accordance with what I said yesterday: work out of the center of the spiritual and during the most painful as well as the most exalting impressions from the outer world, never permit ourselves to be confused in this truly inward work and mood coming out of the center. It is upon this that the real perspective for the Anthroposophical Movement depends. It does not depend upon how many blows of destiny and of what kind shall come from without. These must be met with that mood which results inevitably from the Anthroposophical view of life. But that, in spite of all blows of destiny, also in spite of all favorable events of destiny, this inner energy in working out of the center of spiritual life shall not be harmed,—it is this that determines what ought to be achieved by the Anthroposophical Movement and also what can be achieved ・・.I should like to remark here only that, in a spiritual movement of the nature of the Anthroposophical Movement, genuine earnestness is necessary if the right path is to be found; that success and failure do not represent anything essential; that the only thing which counts is what proceeds from the inner strength and the inner impulses in the cause itself...
“I might naturally have expected that, when that dreadful misfortune befell us, there might have been souls even among Anthroposophists who would have said: 'Why, indeed, have the good Spiritual Powers not protected us in this instance? ... Such an idea is connected with something external, it is not connected with that which, unconfused by the external, proceeds solely out of the inner center of the cause. If this is earnestly taken, that moods, ideas, especially impulses of consciousness are realities, one must then believe in these things, in these impulses of consciousness, in these thoughts, in these sentiments, not in the aid which they might have from without but in their own strength. One must then be certain that what one draws out of such impulses, in spite of every external appearance of failure, arrives at its right goal, at the goal which is preordained for it in the spiritual world...
“For that which is willed out of the inner being, success is sure, but one must then speak of success only in the sense that inheres in the inner impulses, the thoughts, the purposes of consciousness themselves. Things which take place in the outer world occur generally in a manner which can be explained only after decades, perhaps even after longer periods of time.”
Rudolf Steiner himself gave the example of inner strength and right attitude in tragic times of external testing. Indeed, his life was a clear sign that the Spiritual Powers subject the strong to the severest testing for the increase of new forces and capacities. The timid who ask why these Spiritual Powers permit such blows of fate indicate a complete lack of understanding of spiritual guidance.
It may be permitted to mention here an answer that Rudolf Steiner gave me in a personal conversation to the question which I told him was being asked by some persons in the outer world: Why, in spite of the gift of clairvoyance, he had not prevented such a blow of fate. He said that the effort must be made to convince such persons that one who is working in accordance with the good Spiritual Powers is never permitted to ward off a blow of destiny from himself even if he should foresee it. This, he said, is a spiritual law. Moreover, that the conception such persons hold of the nature of clairvoyance is utterly inadequate. They hold the utterly erroneous conception that the clairvoyant person must have a vision of all present and future events, and be able to control these for his own advantage. Apart from the morally unjustifiable nature of such thinking, it ignores the fact that the clairvoyant person must direct his attention deliberately toward a present or future occurrence in order to see it. Even if one stands in the presence of the spiritual, he does not constantly see all supersensible occurrences, but the spiritual vision must be directed toward a definite occurrence just as the physical eye must be directed in perceiving. He made the following comparison: "If, when you go into your room in the evening, you do not look under the bed and for this reason do not see that an intruder is lying under the bed, this does not prove you do not have good eyes; you might have the very best and sharpest eyes, but you did not look in that direction but somewhere else and for that reason did not see this particular thing." So is it with supersensible vision. But, moreover, the clairvoyant person who obeys spiritual laws does not direct his look toward that which has to do with his own destiny or which might be directed against him. He will concentrate his look upon what concerns humanity and will seek for what contributes to the progress of spiritual research and work.
What he said cast light upon very much which takes place in the life and the work of a spiritual researcher. His clairvoyance never serves to show him where the clock is pointing with respect to his own life, things affecting his own destiny, his own death, but it shows him the cosmic hour, the hour of destiny for humanity, what is to be done, to be investigated, in this regard. This is what Rudolf Steiner's own course of life made clear in word and deed: that one who works out of the central essence of such a spiritual Movement is invincible in the midst of all turbulence from the surrounding world in his radiating power and continuity.
Simultaneously with the lectures on The Artistic in Its World Mission, in June 1923, the practical schooling of the artists was intensively fostered. On June 24, in further development of the festivals of the year, Dr. Steiner spoke on the Festival of St. John, and on the same day a Eurythmy program was given in that spirit. The work in painting and sculpture continued also as far as was possible in the provisional space available. The painters suffered during these days a great loss in the death of Hermann Linde, who was one of those sharing in the painting of the great dome of the Goetheanum in motifs given by Dr. Steiner from the history of the earth's evolution. The painters were still profiting from the study of the sketches made by him for the painting of the interior of the first Goetheanum, and also when he himself took the brush and demonstrated before them the nature of painting out of the element of the color itself.
The artistic development of the painters was continued in later years by his own students in the training of individuals and also in courses of instruction. Many of these artists might well be mentioned here were our space sufficient for the purpose. Directives also in the realm of carving and modeling were being continually developed.
The men who had been working on the building received also in this spring of 1923 their regular lectures and hours of discussion. They were engaged in breaking up and removing the great concrete terrace of the first building, which was not expansive enough for the new building now being planned. The first building embraced an inner space of 66,000 cubic meters; the new one was to include 106,000 cubic meters. The new building, to be so different in character, constructed out of the hard element of steel-reinforced concrete, could be more completely adapted to the world of forms in the region. The model was constructed by Dr. Steiner himself in the course of the next year. Within the Society, filled with firmness and enthusiasm through his influence, there were growing both the outer and the inner foundation for the new Goetheanum building on the Dornach hill.
During July 20—23, there now occurred the important meeting which brought to the stage of a promise to Rudolf Steiner the decision to bring about the reconstruction of the building. This was a congress of members and delegates from all countries. The meeting was opened by Albert Steffen in words which brought to presentation in an artistic form the spiritual currents from East, Middle, and West, North and South, in their relation to the work here to be carried out. Dr. Wachsmuth gave a survey of the measures taken up to date toward the successful carrying out of the plan, and the generous contributions already made or promised from individual countries for this work. After the decision reached on June 10 and 17 had been unanimously ratified, to make certain in a united spirit and with all possible forces the rebuilding, and also to request Dr. Steiner to take over completely the designing and the erection of the new building according to his own directives, the meeting was brought to a close with the following words of Dr. Steiner himself:
“It will undoubtedly prove to be a memorable gathering if now there can result from it the erection of a new Goetheanum. And it would be splendid if this new Goetheanum could be of such a character that it also nught radiate out to us in its forms what ought to be said to humanity through the word on the basis of Anthroposophy. You will thereby have done very much for Anthroposophy...
“I may be permitted in all these matters to speak in an impersonal way at this moment. It is a matter which really does not concern me, and I should really not like to speak about the decision which has been taken to the effect that it should be left to me to determine the inner decisions regarding the building j for when I requested that, if I was to carry out the direction of the building, I should be enabled to carry it out under these conditions, this occurred because of the fact that I could undertake responsibility for the building only under such a condition. And all of this remains entirely in the objective sphere.
“Nevertheless, it is an occasion for appreciation that this requirement has been met understandingly. What results out of this fact will surely be for the advantage of the Anthroposophical Movement. Thus, as I express my good wishes at the close of this conference to the friends who have come here, I should like to be only the interpreter of the Anthroposophical understanding, and the result of this Anthroposophical understanding will not fail for those who have such an understanding. In truth, one can see out of the spiritual realm what a great sacrifice our friends have made for the rebuilding of the Goetheanum, but the feeling has simply permeated our ranks that the willing of what stands before the eyes of our souls as the ideal cannot be brought to realization without such a great sacrifice.
“The right blessing will rest upon the Goetheanum only if those really will it who make this sacrifice and if the sacrifice comes out of a sacred will. But it may be permitted to the interpreter of Anthroposophy to express as a heartfelt farewell the beauty, the beautiful earnestness of this will. And I can assure you of this: now that this sacrifice has come about, the Goetheanum will be rebuilt to the best of our ability.”
Thus the great work of the second Goetheanum building resulted from this memorable gathering as the decision and responsible deed of all those belonging to this spiritual Movement.
During the solemn and festival days of this “International Assembly of Delegates of the Anthroposophical Society,” Dr. Steiner gave before the members lectures on "Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy,n the physical, psychic, and spiritual perspectives; and in close connection with this three esoteric reflections on "The Spiritual Individualities of Our Planetary System. Planets Which Determine Destiny and Those Which Free Human Beings." Thus action within the sphere of the earth was more and more united with the spiritual sphere of the world organism.
In the month of July he went a number of times for lectures and conferences to Stuttgart. Between July 11 and 14, Dr. Steiner carried further his work with the priests of the Christian Community through four lectures and conversations. Since the decisive experiences of the preceding September in Dornach, this circle had been able to bring together the first experiences in their priestly work. Since May 1923, there had been appearing also their own monthly periodical—at first under the title uTatchristentum" (Christianity in Action), later "Christengemeinschaft” (Christian Community).
The days spent in Stuttgart in that month provided also an artistic contribution, in keeping with the ideal of the unity of science, art, and religion. Aid was given to the faculty of the Waldorf School in consultations. These conferences were always a combination of statements of actual experiences, questions, and also additional important knowledge.
After Rudolf Steiner had provided and clarified his new directives in a number of countries in the north of Europe, he went at the beginning of August to England to strengthen and supplement what had been developed there and to prepare for the new duties. At first he devoted himself to carrying further the pedagogical work of the preceding year, giving a lecture on Contemporary Spiritual Life and Education, at Ukley, under the auspices of the “Union for the Realization of Spiritual Values in Education.” Many distinguished personalities, not only of England but also from other European countries, took part in this course of lectures. Lively discussions between the lectures gave a manifestation of much stimulation. Dr. Steiner spoke also at a seminar for teachers before a large audience on methods in education. The presiding officer at this meeting was the Archdeacon of Halifax, who showed a marked objectivity and interest in new spiritual values. The lofty ethical value marking the pedagogical ideas of Dr. Steiner could evidently be realized by all who had open minds, and here in England this was strongly manifest.
From Ilkley, the tour continued to Penmaenmawr, a magnificently located place on the coast of Wales where a great gathering out of many lands had come together for an “International Summer School,” brought about through the initiative of Mr. D・ N. Dunlop. Here there were two weeks of intensive creative work in the study of nature and history at this ancient center of the Druids. Those participating were together not only for the lectures but also throughout the day, taking their meals at the little hotel of this place and going on excursions into the country, with its steep rocky cliffs, their lonely peaks and the evidences of ancient cult centers, the stormy sea coast, and strange indications of the spiritual culture of the earliest human history. There was only a small and very crudely constructed hall for lectures, and one does not easily forget how, during a lecture or a program in Eurythmy, the storms from the sea came through all the crevices, even wetting some of those present with rain leaking from the roof. In this landscape, Rudolf Steiner said, the events of history and of the spiritual struggles of the past were still densely inscribed in the ether. One could experience in the lectures, and then in many conversations alone in the living quarters or on the coast of the sea, the working together of the weighty spiritual substance of Rudolf Steiner s lecture course, the beauty of Eurythmy, and the excessively rough elements of nature.
In the characteristic manner of Dr. Steiner always to form and color his lectures according to the surroundings and all the elements of the locality, he dealt in England directly with the world of facts, with the facts of the occult, supersensible phenomena. We were all astonished at the manner in which in these lectures, attended by numerous persons unacquainted with Anthroposophy, he dealt with the concrete phenomena of the supersensible experience, but also with false and misleading paths of much occult endeavor. In these thirteen lectures of August 18-31, he dealt with The Evolution of the Spiritual and the Physical World and of Humanity in the Past, the Present, and the Future in the Light of Anthroposophy. The cycle has since been published in a book form as Initiation Knowledge. It led in the most concentrated and at the same time unreserved directness into the realm of spiritual research, its results, its dangers and their overcoming.
After these forenoon lectures, trips were made in larger or smaller groups or alone to the lofty dolmen of the ancient Druid centers, the history of whose origin and decay had been brought much nearer to us out of the lectures. There remains in my memory one of these unforgettable experiences as Rudolf Steiner requested me one day to go alone with him to the lofty plateau, resting on the cliffs above Penmaenmawr, in order to visit one of the Druid circles. In spite of his sixty-two years, he climbed stoutly and rapidly. In keeping with the spiritual atmosphere of the place, the conversation was centered upon the Mysteries of the Druids and their opposite pole in Europe, the cult of Mithras, in which was contrasted the southern Mysteries. During this walk I was permitted to relate to him a strange experience of mine some years before upon the discovery of an ancient Mithras center on the Danube. While climbing steadily and without weariness, Dr. Steiner interpreted for me the great antithesis between the cult of the Druids and that of the Mithras religion; how Mysteries from the north, radiating outward from Ireland, came into contact with those from the south in the middle of Europe, of which there is evidence in the Mystery places in the area of the Danube, and how both then met their fate in the rise of Christianity. When we had reached the cliff high above Penmaenmawr, there now lay before us the lonesome circle of the plateau surrounded by rocky peaks, in the midst of which stood the mighty stone symbols of the Druid circle. It was a moment in life the memory of which remains vivid, a unique and strange picture, as Rudolf Steiner now in the loneliness of this lofty plateau entered into the midst of the Druid circle. He suggested that I look at the peaks of the mountain domes surrounding the plateau, and described to me, with an intensity in his retrospect as if the event were occurring at that moment, how the Druid priests, through viewing the signs of the zodiac passing along the horizon in the course of the year experienced the spiritual cosmos, the Beings working within it, and their mandates to humanity. He explained how they determined the consecration of the festivals and the cults of the year according to these cosmic rhythms, and gave their priestly directions to those belonging to their communities; how the occurrences in the course of the year had to be spiritually mirrored in the cult, and physically even in the carrying out of the agricultural labor. He spoke of the experience of sunlight and shadow within the stone chamber of the ancient sacred place, and of the spreading of the visions there received and their impulses into the expanses of the earthly environment. The words spoken thus in loneliness, and the pictures given by Dr. Steiner, he later caused to shine forth in many lectures and supplemented through further results of research. When we left the Druid circle and the still plateau, to return to Penmaenmawr at the foot of the mountains, there was within me a certitude that within the sphere of this place something real, above the temporal, had happened through the fact that a seer personality such as Rudolf Steiner had once lingered here, had read the spiritual occurrences of the past in such a place, and could now communicate to human beings what he had seen—to those who in our time desired to take the path of schooling for the future.
Upon our descent to the shore of the sea, we met the friends once more, and they were astonished to see that Rudolf Steiner, after the steep ascent and descent, regarding which he now talked in an animated manner, was entirely unwearied. Indeed, during days filled with lectures, artistic programs, discussions, and trips into the surrounding country, he showed a freshness and vigor in which only a few of the younger persons could equal him.
I take the liberty of mentioning another small characteristic experience out of these days to indicate the way in which he systematically learned to use foreign languages. In the hotel in this small coastal resort in Wales there was the strange custom of cutting off the light every night after twelve o'clock for a number of hours. Rudolf Steiner, who was still reading or working for a number of hours after midnight, requested me the next day, after the first experience, to buy candles. He went with me to the small shop and listened attentively as I spoke in English in buying the candles. A few days later he said that I must go with him to buy candles but that he himself would give the order in English this time. And so he did, in perfect expression and sentence formation. A few days later he met me on the street and said very happily that he had himself now bought the candles. Many friends at home in other languages were often astonished at the rapidity with which he could find his way into the spirit and character of a strange speech.
The following occurrence also introduced one to an important glimpse into the manner and nature of his spiritual vision. There had been a custom for many years for parents who were members of the Society to request Dr. Steiner to suggest the right name for a new-born boy or girl. Since the fixing of the name had to occur quickly after the birth for christening and legal registration, these requests generally came by telegram. If Dr. Steiner was away on a lecture tour, these telegrams had to be forwarded to him, and the time was thus still further shortened. During our stay in Penmaenmawr several such telegrams came with requests for the suggestion of names; and, since one of these arrived on Saturday, so that the answer could probably not have been sent on Sunday, I asked Dr. Steiner whether he could give me the name to telegraph to the parents on that same afternoon. He answered :“But you know that a night must always pass before I can give the name for the child. For I must always come into touch with its spiritual being.55 Now, I had not known this, but it was an important bit of instruction to me, and I always asked after that on the following day for the answer, even if the elders were disturbed.
An amusing scene occurred in the somewhat stiffly correct English hotel when Dr. Steiner, during one luncheon period in the dining room, passed by my table and called out to me: "Just think, Dr. Wachsmuth, three boys in a single week!" Naturally, none of those who heard this remark could attach any meaning to it, and all sorts of strange hypotheses developed about it. Moreover, this designating of names provided many an interesting glimpse. For instance, in the course of designating numerous different names, he gave twice for boys the name Gotthard—Gotthard Johannes and Gotthard Michael. When I wrote the names on the second occasion for him on a tablet, he leaned over, read it, and said: “No, this boy must have a hard t-sound: Gotthart.” A still more amusing interlude occurred when, as one of two names for a girl, he designated Lichthild, and the telegraph operator changed this into Lichtbild (thinking apparently of a cinema picture). The parents were utterly confused until my letter corrected the error. As children grew, it was often possible to observe on the basis of their characters and temperaments how closely the names given corresponded with their inner nature.
During these delightful days in Wales, we made also interesting excursions to the other ancient Druid places in that region, including the island Anglesey, Carnarvon, and other centers. There also we had the unique experience that Rudolf Steiner described out of his clairvoyant vision occurrences of long past ages so concretely and vividly that the human beings of those times stood before us in their thoughts, customs, and actions as if present.
After these eventful weeks in Wales, we traveled together to London, where Rudolf Steiner shared as elsewhere in the reconstituting of the English Society. In very animated conversation, he explained the necessity for a world organism comprising all individual groupings: “No spiritual movement can really flourish in our day which represents only a special group within humanity. This is simply an occult law, that every truly enduring and fruitful spiritual movement must be universally human: must be that which is called in trivial external life international, universally human.” This principle was to be realized at Christmas of that year. During further discussions Mr. Harry Collison was chosen as General Secretary. Thus the English national branch of the General Anthroposophical Society was founded on September 2.
On September 2 and 3, Dr. Steiner gave two lectures to a special group of invited physicians on the subject How Is a Rationale in Therapy to Be Established? These difficult lectures were extremely well interpreted in English by Mr. George Adams Kaufmann. A similar lecture had been given a few days before at Penmaenmawr on Anthroposophical Therapy. As a result of Dr. Steiner’s lectures on medical subjects in England, valuable activities by doctors were brought about and later also a number of homes for children needing special care. For the members, Rudolf Steiner lectured on September 2 on the subject Man as the Picture of Spiritual Beings and Spiritual Influences on Earth. The conference came to an artistic close in a Eurythmy program given in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
At the beginning of September we returned to Dornach, where Dr. Steiner gave, on September 9, a report on his spiritual researches on the culture of the Druids and of Wotan, which had been aided by this trip. After some attention to duties connected with the planned rebuilding of the Goetheanum, he went for the second half of September to Stuttgart and Vienna, lecturing twice in Stuttgart on Man in the Past, the Present, and the Future. He spoke also to members regarding the planned reconstituting of the Society. Here in Stuttgart also, the various institutions which had developed between 1919 and 1922 fell more into the background and central Anthroposophical work was again playing the leading role.
Dr. Steiner returned from Vienna on September 21 to Dornach to share in a commemoration of the laying of the foundation stone for the first Goetheanum a decade earlier. At the end of September he went to Austria to share in a conference between September 26 and October 1, at which he gave a cycle of lectures on Anthroposophy and the Human Inner Life. He spoke of “expanding the horizon of life into the breadth of the world” in order to overcome “the contemporary hermit existence of man within the world,” and to achieve a union with the deeds characteristic of the forces of Michael. Here in the area of the Danube he spoke on the polarity between the Mysteries of the Druids and those of the Mithras cult, mentioning results of his research which had been aided by his stay in the region of Penmaenmawr.
There stood before one's vision a great picture of the history of the European Mysteries. Precisely in the differentiation between the European Mysteries of the north and those of the south, which later came to a unity on the higher level, could easily be read the phenomena of spiritual guidance in the evolution of European culture in the past. Dr. Steiner explained in clear detail the difference between the Mystery places near the Danube and the Druid Mysteries in the north. The southern Mystery current led more through a self-knowledge of the inner nature of man to an understanding of the nature of the cosmos; the northern Mysteries led through a spiritual vision of the macrocosmic processes to an understanding of the inner nature of man, the microcosm. Thus the Mystery wisdom which was taught in early times in the regions of the north and the south supplemented one another to form a harmonious world picture. In connection with the lectures in Dornach regarding the festivals of the year, he then explained how the right development of the forces of feeling and of the inner being, when they are cleansed in a wakeful cognition, brings a new stage in the consciousness of nature and in self-consciousness in the observation of the course of the year, through which man gains an outlook into those regions from which the helpful forces of the Spiritual Powers stream to him. Their presence he can then reinforce in his consecration of the festivals of the year—most of all in the development of an autumn festival, that of Michael.
In addition to this cycle of lectures, he gave two additional public lectures in Vienna, on September 26 and 29, on Supersensible Knowledge as a Demand of the Time and Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious Conduct of Man's Life.
It was extraordinarily informative to see how entirely different were the fundamental substance and formation of these Vienna lectures from those given during the West-East Congress in Vienna in the preceding year. The lectures of the winter of 1923 were directed, not to an expansive public, but to the innermost germinal center, which can be developed in spiritual schooling out of man5s inner forces and can be led to a vision of the wisdom-filled guidance which can come about for humanity in the course of history out of the esoteric substance of the gradually changing Mysteries.
Here in Austria also a reorganization of the national Branch of the Society for this country took place. Rudolf Steiner did not address the assembly, but in replying to a question during the members' evening meeting, he spoke of the “altogether special Austrian soul milieu,” manifesting therein his familiarity with what had been his own homeland. There was a Eurythmy program on October 2, and Dr. Steiner addressed a gathering of physicians in a further impulse for the development in the medical field.
He requested me one morning to accompany him on a call he was about to make. I had no idea where we were going, but we went to the home of the Viennese writer Rosa Mayreder, who had been a member of his circle of friends during his youth in Vienna, one for whose literary and artistic work he had been deeply interested in the years 1888, '89. He relates in the ninth chapter of The Course of My Life discussions he had with her in connection with the writing of his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. After thirty-five years had passed, he had suddenly decided to call upon this friend. We found the writer in her residence, and multitudes of memories of the long past rose in the course of the conversation. It was an impressive experience to hear the conversation of these two personalities whose courses of life had led them to such utterly different situations.
The return journey from Vienna to Dornach on October 4 still remains vivid in my memory. During the long trip on the Arlberg Express, Rudolf Steiner had arranged a little festival for my thirtieth birthday, which came on precisely that date. On such occasions his inexhaustible human goodness and warmth of heart were a real experience. In the small coupe, our group sat for hours during that day around a little gift table, and he introduced at times into the conversation amusing remembrances of his own life, and then again the profoundest problems of the esoteric life as this confronts at the present time the individual and society, answering questions about such things in expansive connections. This small group of persons, so varied among themselves, must have interested in some way our fellow travelers—Rudolf Steiner's striking figure in his black traveling coat, beside him the rest of us with our frequently humorous and worldly manner, the party shifting from merriment to long earnest conversation. The following morning just before the arrival of the train in the Basel station, one of our friends heard a fellow traveler ask the porter of the sleeping car what sort of people these were. After a moment's reflection the porter replied: “C'est une famille religieuse.”
These long railway journeys with Rudolf Steiner were always for us the rarest times of personal contact with this great individual, who could enter with such understanding and hearty interest into association with every single person. In this connection, I should like to mention a further example. During that time Dr. Steiner had shared kindly with stimulation and advice in my work on the book The Etheric Formative Forces, and had even promised me a pen drawing of his own for the title page. Because of the numerous tasks, this had been somewhat delayed, and I dared not mention it again. One night on such a journey there was a sudden knock on my door in the sleeping car as I was about to fall asleep, and Rudolf Steiner looked through the door and handed me the sheet of paper with the drawing for the title page completed in colors. In spite of all the strain under which he was working, he had found time during this night journey to carry this out. This artistic reminder has been borne by that book since that time through all the experiences of destiny. But, besides, during the coming months he was good enough to read through the content of the book and to discuss it with me thoroughly, making corrections and supplementing parts.
Immediately after the return to Dornach, Dr. Steiner gave on October 5 the important Michael Lecture which introduced the esoteric reflections on The Experience of the Course of the Year in Four Cosmic Imaginations. In this lecture he presented vividly the process of development of that material out of which the sword of Michael can be forged, as it were, if the human being reflects upon the substances of the earth, not in accordance with their technical significance but in the light of the missions which are assigned to them in the evolution of the total organization of nature and of human existence. He spoke of the cosmic mission of iron. The description began with the changing of the forces of nature in the course of the year, and gave a picture of the metamorphosis in the effects of smaller and larger entities in such earth substances, both in external nature and also in the human organism. In the world of the elements and also in man there are dominant in the course of the year influences which came to be known according to the consciousness of the medieval researchers, such as Jacob Boehme and Paracelsus, as the sulphuric, the mercurial, the salt-forming processes. When, in the height of summer, cosmic iron falls upon the earth in the numerous swarms of meteors, this signifies not only a material but also a spiritual-soul occurrence in the universe. And every cosmic occurrence has, in turn, its counterpart in the inner nature of man, in whose blood also the forces and substances of iron circulate. In this lecture Dr. Steiner brought into consciousness "what is at play behind the veil of the senses in the form of supersensible cosmic occurrences, determinative and directive." He spoke •n this lecture also of the fact that one who sees into the supersensible world finds in the form of spiritual light, as it were, the "tables of direction written in a spiritual script55 which reveal to him the goals indicated by such cosmic processes of development. On the basis of this knowledge, he expressed the mission designated for the force and the substance of iron in the process of the earth's evolution in the verses:
O man,
Thou formest it unto thy service,
hou showest it according to its substance-worth
In many of thy works.
But healing will it be for thee
Alone when it reveals to thee
Its mighty spirit power.
When the midsummer time passes on to autumn, and the sprouting and growing forces of nature yield to those of withering and dying, this is the right time for the human being in the presence of dying nature to fortify his force of self-consciousness, which frees itself from nature and becomes the master of nature. The picture of Michael, who conquers the Dragon, is then the true expression for the demand made upon the human being to resist victoriously the Ahrimanic Powers which are dominant in the middle of the summer and also the forces which now bring about the dying process in nature. For that reason the festival of Michael must be “the festival of the strong will.”
For that reason, during this year also Rudolf Steiner made an important demand for the coming time: the inauguration of a "Festival of Michael,” in which would be placed before man's consciousness, in a festival of the most intense concentration and dedication, in the rhythm of the year in the autumn, the results of natural-scientific research achieved in the spirit of Michael, of artistic endeavor, and of the social will. The great “breathing process of the earth“—the expansion, the out-breathing of the terrestrial forces into the cosmic surrounding world in spring and their concentration, the inhalation of these forces into the earthly element in the autumn—must be experienced by man in the future with soul and spirit in its significance in the universal organism. The totality of the natural and spiritual occurrence in the cosmos ought to stand in the center of such a festival of the year.
“The human soul undertakes in the spring to follow the out-breathed soul of the earth, which is seeking the cosmos—but the soul does not reach it. The human soul, under the influence of the feeling of freedom, the ego-consciousness, has become helpless in the presence of the Heavenly Heights.
“But, when autumn arrives, the human soul can then feel, if it feels rightly, how Michael comes down and, as a representative of the Christ, becomes a fellow-worker in the autumn with man.
"When the leaves wither, become brown, when they fall from the trees, when nature dies, man then feels in this autumn nature, if he is able to feel rightly, how Michael comes down out of the Heights which man cannot reach with his human soul, in order, as a representative of the Christ, whom he will bring to us at Christmas, to become the helper of the human being through the time of need in the autumn. One then feels the possibility of introducing a festival into the course of the year which will be established by man himself out of his will, will be established by man out of his spiritual consciousness. It is recorded in the calendar, but only as a prophecy, an indication :end of September, the Festival of Michael ...
“If human beings came to such a spiritual decision, to establish something which would be established out of the spiritual worlds in the social life, it would have a tremendous significance for this social life. I know that the material consciousness will consider this something fantastic if any one whatever strives to establish an autumn festival, a Michael festival. But whoever sees into the facts of the world knows that a greater influence will be exerted upon social adjustment, a greater influence upon social progress than all the social agitation in process in the world today, by the fact that this decision of will occurs: that human beings establish an autumn festival as a purely spiritual matter as a sign that they intend to strive between birth and death for an awakening of the soul, a resurrection of the soul, after which a physical death can then follow in the right way. To will the spiritual again in the physical world,—this is what is important.”
The immediately following four lectures between October 6 and 12 provided a further foundation and preparation for the important lecture cycles with which, between the middle of October and the beginning of December 1923, he led the way to the decisive Christmas Conference of this year. While the first of these four lectures was devoted to the nature of a Michael festival, the three following gave a picture of the course of the year through the “Christmas Imagination,” the “Easter Imagination,” and the “St. John Imagination.” In keeping with the true spiritual origin and nature of the physical world, the presentation of the rhythms and processes of transformation in the earthly sphere during the course of the year presented the possibility of clarifying the integration of the earthly substances into the great metamorphoses of the organisms of earth and world, and to show how in these cosmic processes the power of creative Spiritual Beings is at work. In the tremendous picture of the action of Spiritual Beings in the course of the year there arose the picture of the Archangel Gabriel as the active spiritual figure in the winter time, Raphael in the time of Easter, Uriel in summer, Michael in the autumn. By reference to the Sistine Madonna of the great painter Raphael, he pointed out that the great artists of earlier epochs still preserved an inspired knowledge of the union of these sublime Spiritual Beings with the elements of nature and with humanity, and that this knowledge can be achieved for humanity again through the faculties that must be acquired of imagination, inspiration, and intuition.
During a brief visit of October 15 and 16 to Stuttgart, he gave three additional lectures to the Waldorf teachers on pedagogy and communicated to the members there, in a lecture entitled The Michael Imagination. Spiritual Milestones in the Course of the Year, the substance of the Dornach lecture of October 5.
In Dornach he then gave the second of the three cycles of lectures preparing for the Christmas Conference. The first, between October 5 and 12, had set forth the work of the four Archangels in the course of the year. The second, between October 19 and November 11, dealt with the theme Man as Symphony of the Cosmic Word; the third, between November 23 and December 23, bore the title Mystery Formations. These three cycles led spiritual-scientific knowledge systematically from an insight into the work of the spiritual Guiding Powers, the Hierarchical Beings, to man as the earthly being who is to receive the creative action of the Cosmic Word and bring it to realization on earth; and they gave the foundation for the new impulse to be initiated during this year, a survey of the nature of the Mysteries in the history of humanity, the work of which is now to be observed in the further stages of evolution and continued in a manner in keeping with the times.
The second of the three cycles we have just mentioned began with the structure of the human being, spiritual, psychic, and bodily as a microcosm in which are reproduced the archetypes and formative tendencies of the cosmic organism. In this connection, Rudolf Steiner emphasized especially how the artistic element must be drawn into such forms of cognition in order to understand the harmony between the human structure and the cosmos. For the Creative Powers are not only engaged in forming matter, mathematizing, and dynamizing, but also in forming as artists. He called attention to the fact that the truth of the inspired wisdom of earlier times was strikingly artistic and at the same time was representing the Archetypes of the cosmos, when that ancient wisdom spoke of the Archetypes of Eagle, Lion, Steer, and Man. He described in great detail the genesis of the kingdoms of nature out of the forces of the zodiac and the dynamism of the cosmos and illustrated in specific examples drawn out of the succession of the signs of the zodiac how there can be read in nature, not only a corporealizing of the spiritual, but also a spiritualizing of matter as a tendency in evolution. What Rudolf Steiner then brought to light in connection with the metamorphosis of plants, of the butterfly, and of the world of birds might well form the basis for an entirely new way of considering phylogeny and it has also stimulated many natural scientists to choose new paths in research and representation of morphology. Out of such a way of reflection there results also a new perspective for the differences existing from the very beginning of evolution in the cosmic forming of the human being and of the higher animals, a view of nature according to which it is irrational to derive the spiritual form of man from the animal world. It is a picture of the world in which the phenomena themselves lead to the knowledge that the harmony between human evolution and the creative forces of the Cosmic Word has been the mission and the goal from the primal beginning.
But such reflections of Rudolf Steiner never confined themselves to the spiritual nature of man, but led profoundly into a concrete view of his corporeal nature, even into the wisdom of the processes of metabolism, the dynamics of the living circulation of substances and forces in the human body. Only when the bodily nature also could be completely understood on the basis of such a world picture, did he proceed to deal with the tasks of the future: that of discovering, through exact schooling also of the supersensible power of perception, a contact with the elemental world and with the Hierarchical World of Spiritual Being. Here does the way lie open for a return to the primal fountainhead of moral impulses in humanity, which will then not be the content of mere faith or abstract philosophy, as during the last century, but will be read in the deeds and the goals of the Creative Powers, the Cosmic Word. In this work of the Hierarchies in the transformation of the spirit form of man for ever higher stages of consciousness is to be found the task of a Mystery Center suited to the present time, and applying itself to the consciousness of the present time. Out of such a picture of the world, with its phylogeny and its interpretation on the basis of the history of humanity, is to be found the goal which must be adopted by the spiritual Movement which has in the Goetheanum its center for research and work.
Before this next step of the Christmas Conference, he undertook the final foreign trip of this eventful year, in connection with the reconstituting of the work in the various national societies, taking part between November 13 and 18 in the conference of the Anthroposophical Movement in Holland. He gave a cycle of five lectures in The Hague entitled The Supersensible Man, Anthroposophically Conceived. To these friends in Holland he brought a great deal in a general survey out of the Dornach lectures. After reflections upon the history of nature and of humanity, these lectures led to an indication of the forces of the sacrificial flame which in earlier epochs established from the altars of the ancient Mysteries a cult union between the human being and the ascending and the descending cosmic forces. In our age, as the spiritual sacrificial flame within the being of man, this makes known the supersensible character of man and of nature. While thus kindling anew in the circles of students and collaborators the esoteric impulse, Rudolf Steiner gave here also stimulations for those engaged in educational and healing activities through special lectures for teachers and physicians. He visited a school which had been established in The Hague. An intensive therapeutic activity developed in Holland. On November 15 and 16 he spoke in two public lectures on Anthroposophy as a Demand of the Times and on Anthroposophy as a Human and Personal Way of Life.
On November 18 occurred a reconstituting of the Society in Holland. Much of the discussion occurred in the Dutch language, while Mieta Waller and I, sitting beside Dr. Steiner, were kept busy providing him with notes from translation until we observed that he understood perfectly well without this. There was a fine mood, bent upon upbuilding. Rudolf Steiner urged that Anthroposophists ought to be “men of the world” and “women of the world.” Dr. F. W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven was made General Secretary. In his words of farewell, Dr. Steiner spoke of Anthroposophy as something "living and possessed of real being/5 which knocks at our hearts and can be experienced "as if living Cosmic Beings entered into our souls."
In reporting after his return to Dornach, he spoke with satisfaction of the fact that the Societies in the several lands had now come into existence and one could proceed to "the founding of that for the sake of which these Societies of the various countries exist: the International Anthroposophical Society, which must have a central point in Dornach." The sacrifice that Dr. Steiner made in working and in traveling in order to carry out this comprehensive reconstituting in all the countries will become living in one's memory if, in retrospect, we recall what endeavors, wearing away his physical health, he took upon himself during those years in order to bring into the minds of people the decisions confronting them and to aid them in assuming spiritual and earthly responsibility. In the year 1923 he still possessed the strength for the numerous journeys within Europe, for accomplishing all the indescribable external measures—lectures, conferences, conversations, and many other things. But we who accompanied him on these journeys and were daily with him had many a time occasion for anxiety lest the excessive strains of this year might manifest themselves in the first symptoms of failing health. In the following year the strength for all these activities, which had to be drawn from the reserves of physical forces for the unexampled energy characteristic of a person now sixty-three years old, had also to be wrested from physical illness. And yet he did not reduce the additional lecture tours, but even increased them. During the tours of the year 1923 he gave to all of us, through his unwearying happiness in undertaking things, his warm open-heartedness, and his inexhaustible work both day and night, the example of a human being bearing the greatest burdens himself and taking on those of others besides.
It would be utterly misleading if one should create the impression that, in this time of spiritual activity and new creation, Rudolf Steiner gave the impression to those about him of a sense of importance and solemnity. How happy, open-hearted, gay he was during those unforgettable railway journeys, at mealtimes, and in evening conversations in the hotels of the great cities of Europe! While we were sitting together, for example, in the famous hotel “Oude Doelen” in The Hague, he narrated to us the most delightful and amusing occurrences out of his eventful life; and how heartily he could laugh when we reported to him in unvarnished style what stupid struggles we had with the water faucets of the hotel in our rooms during the preceding night. I still remember a gentleman who followed him steadily during a walk at that time with the facial expression of a corpse, and how he turned suddenly and said to the person with a friendly smile: “What a face that is you are always making !n He liked to have happy open-hearted persons around him, who were serious at the right moment but also gay, and he often quoted with amusement an expression of an Italian member who spoke in her very original way with great indignation about persons who always "make a face all the way down to the stomach.”
The time from the end of November until Christmas was devoted to the preparations for the coming decisive events. Rudolf Steiner did this through the third of the lecture cycles mentioned above dealing with Mystery Formations. By way of introduction, he explained the path that a human being must follow in his soul life in order to penetrate to an insight into the spiritual foundations of the world. He set forth that the spiritual in the course of evolution has worked each time upon the soul element of man, and molded the physiological element, even into the metamorphosing of the activity of thinking, of the forces of memory, of hereditary impulses, but also into the individual imprint in gesture, physiognomy, and structure of body. He gave also a detailed description of the early stages in the evolution of the earth and the relations of the human being to the Beings, substances, and forces of the earth planet. And he now developed in the lectures of December 2-23 a magnificent picture of the history of the ancient Mysteries, out of which we can still read how in early epochs this knowledge was achieved, protected, nurtured in the Mystery places of the earth, and developed in the Mysteries of the North and the South as the most sacred treasure of humanity, unfolded from stage to stage.
This description of a previously almost completely unknown chapter of spiritual history and the history of the Mysteries is so comprehensive, and so important in its details, lays open such an abundance of knowledge about the methods and stages of the spiritual guidance of humanity through the centuries that we can only allude here to the most important main divisions: "The Ephesus Mysteries of Artemis. The Mystery places of Hybernia. The Great Mysteries of Hybernia. The Chthonic and the Eleusinian Mysteries. The transition from Plato to Aristotle. The mystery of the nature of the plant, the metal, and the human being. The mysteries of the Cabire of Samothrace. The transition from the spirit of the ancient Mysteries to those of the Middle Ages. The soul striving of the human being during the Middle Ages. The Rosicrucian Mysteries.”
It is now the task of the modem Mystery place, of the spiritual-scientific Movement and its school, the Goetheanum in Dornach, to bring about again in human consciousness the lost knowledge of the spiritual guidance of man and of humanity out of the spiritual history of the past. The revelation given during these weeks out of the history of the Mysteries was for that reason the right foundation for the decisions to be carried out at Christmas of this year. Those who heard the lectures of November and December 1923 experienced the fact, and will still remember it, that at this decisive point the future history of humanity was inscribed in the consciousness and forces of the earth and the consciousness of those human beings who had a will for its reception.
At this stage of preparations there occurred in a room in the residence of Rudolf Steiner, at first with a very small group, preparatory discussions in which the plan and form in the refounding of the Movement which was to occur at the Christmas Conference, and also of the Society, the school, its esoteric tasks were set forth by Dr. Steiner. Decisions then set forth were carried out by Rudolf Steiner during these months together with Frau Marie Steiner, Albert Steffen, Dr. Ita Wegman and Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth. At a later stage in these discussions, Dr. Elizabeth Vreede was also included. Dr. Steiner spoke about the fundamental structure of the Anthroposophical Society which was to be founded, the division of the school into sections and their tasks: the founding of a General Anthroposophical section, a section for the arts of speech and music, a section for belles-lettres, a medical section, a natural-scientific section, a mathematical-astronomical section, and a section for the plastic arts. What he had prepared in his mind was communicated and clarified in conversation. When he wanted to assign to me, besides the natural-scientific section, also a social-scientific section, and I raised the question whether two sections, together with everything else, would not be too much, he went carefully into this. He discussed with us the tasks for every field of work. In these communications and discussions we were permitted to experience the wonderful pre-natal stage of this creation. It is impossible within the limits of this book to go into the fundamental knowledge, the spiritual laws and directives which Rudolf Steiner explained in these preparatory discussions; for it was actually a harmonious blending of the impulses and objectives which had come to maturity within him through his insight into the spiritual evolution of the past, the present, and the future which he wished to impart in the strongest concentration to the germ of the spiritual organism now to come into existence. He gave to me before the Christmas festival an outline of the statutes written with his own hand—which were later called "Principles." This pen-written copy, which he then presented to me as a gift, had been written down by him in complete form with only a few corrections. The archetype of the organism to be created was already there in its totality. What was now needed was the approval and the cooperation of the members in all countries.
After the prerequisites and the directions for the decisions to be reached in the Christmas Conference had been made clear, there followed in the middle of December, on Dr. Steiner's request, an invitation published in "Das Goetheanum55 to all national branches and members, in the name of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland, signed by Albert Steffen and Guenther Wachsmuth, to take part in the meeting for the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society at Christmas 1923.
A stream of friends much greater than was expected arrived at the central place of work of the Movement in Dornach on December 24, 1923. Since the new Goetheanum building was still rising on the hill only in its very first beginnings, and all the programs had to take place in the provisional rooms of the great workshop, dedicated through the creative work and the sufferings of the Movement, it was necessary to expand the small rooms through the removal of walls and through building extensions in order to have room enough for all those participating.
Before we enter further into the dedicatory act of foundation let us take a glimpse at the total general order of this Christmas Conference. The conference was so arranged that the foundation assembly and the Laying of the Foundation Stone occurred on December 24 and 25. The conference as a whole was sustained through Rudolf Steiner's lecture cycle on World History in the Light of Anthroposophy and as a Foundation for Knowledge of the Human Spirit. The conference found its dedication through art under the leadership of Frau Marie Steiner in the form of festival productions of the old Christmas plays and programs of Eurythmy. Albert Steffen initiated the Christmas Conference on December 24 with the lecture Out of the History of the Destiny of the Goetheanum. The unity of science, art, and religion, set as a goal for the Movement and the School, came to expression in three lectures on “Anthroposophy and the Knowledge of Nature,” “Anthroposophy and Art,” “Anthroposophy and Religion,” as Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth spoke under the first theme on The Countenance of the Earth and the Destiny of Humanity; Jan Stuten under the second theme on Music and the Spiritual World; under the third theme, Dr. Karl Schubert on Anthroposophy, a Guide to Christ. In the second half of the conference, the future tasks of the Society were discussed and decisions reached in general meetings beginning at ten o'clock each day. The words of challenge and of provision for the journey into the future were spoken by Rudolf Steiner on January 1 in the ninth lecture of his historical cycle.
To understand what occurred in the Christmas Conference of 1923, it is necessary to recall briefly the previous history. We have described the great loneliness in which Dr. Steiner, at the turn of the century, received the decisive knowledge about the spiritual being of man and the macrocosmic Event of the action of Christ, and sought for ways through which to mediate this knowledge to humanity. We have described how in his loneliness of spiritual research, he first offered to those who were open to such knowledge the possibility of taking into their societies based upon tradition or other spiritual streams the new spiritual findings; that at length in the years 1909-1912 the decision had to ripen of itself to lay aside the old sheaths and to give a new earthly embodiment for the new content.
Very naturally, during the first- period of seven years, so long as other traditional relations existed, he had adapted his work correspondingly to their external organization. He was in the German Section of the Theosophical Society, upon whose request he had become General Secretary, carrying out the external functions as called for in such a tradition. When now, during the next two periods of seven years, a new sheath for the developing living being of this spiritual Movement was evolving, he had given to this organization the possibility of free evolution, holding himself since the year 1912 no external function within it, but serving as its teacher and councilor, who provided for it the spiritual content. As to its external development, he remained during that period, as he often expressly declared, a "private person/5 whose advice could be accepted or declined. Through approximately two periods of seven years this organization could, so to speak, pass through all the illnesses of childhood and changing trends in development in accordance with its own destiny and will. Rudolf Steiner with utmost devotion pointed to the way, but left it to the freedom of others whether to follow this way or not. But, when the moment for the birth of the ego arrived, it was no longer possible to remain bound to what had come down in tradition, and, moreover, the relation between the one teaching and the community of pupils had to be reconstituted. He could no longer continue to be, as at the very beginning, the one who administered what had been taken over; nor, as in the second stage, only the teacher and fosterer. The interjection of the spiritually creative principle into the matured organism of the community must now, in accordance with eternal laws of life, lead to a new form of life and community.
This was the decisive change which Rudolf Steiner brought about in his relation to this spiritual organism at Christmas 1923, after it had gone through the process of maturing for twenty-one years: that he united himself with it—his entire being, existence, and work—so that its process of development would be his own, its destiny his destiny; so that he would no longer be only administrator or councilor, but would become the very central essence of this organism working on earth and in the spiritual realm—bringing about a unity which is inseparable through all the external blows of destiny, and all future destined paths. It was the life-form of a spiritual Movement taken from the laws of the spiritual world which Rudolf Steiner created through this action at Christmas 1923. Whoever does not realize that this work was of equal rank with his other works, his books and writings, his achievements in knowledge, art, and the religious life, his gifts and sacrifices, and that it is inseparable from them, permanently united with them—such a person has failed to understand the totality, the unity, the consequential bringing to realization of the original ideal of his creative work.
In the sphere of earthly events, one cannot approve an entity and reject its incorporation, cannot be willing to be taken up in the stream of destiny of a spiritual entity and yet remain outside the form of life in which it is incarnated on earth. For a community founded out of the spirit towers above every other community on earth and yet is more deeply rooted. Therefore, Rudolf Steiner's other spiritual creations and that which he brought about at Christmas 1923 constitute a unity inseparable for any one who experiences the spirit of the totality.
For this reason Dr. Steiner brought about this association of his whole being with the Movement, this creation of a new social form of community and life, resting upon the enduring foundation of the forces ，of the human heart, not as a changeable arrangement in the area of organization, appealing only to the forces of the head or the will, but as a process of dedication, the laying of a foundation stone in the immortal forces of the human being. To this life-form he gave substance, direction, and goal. It may pass through many changes, tests, struggles against opposing forces, but in the very nature of its origin it is a lasting spiritual reality, indestructible in the center of its being and destined for constantly new stages of development. What occurred on Christmas Day of the year 1923 was experienced by those present and it then included in its nature and its sphere of action the hearts of all persons who united themselves with the decisions which occurred. It must be sought out constantly anew in its supersensible dwelling place, and each individual person must preserve in consciousness his union with it, in spite of all externally disturbing forces. Here we can relate only the external course of events and leave the individual to seek for the central essence and unfold it within himself.
In the midst of the course of events which we then experienced on December 24, 1923, Rudolf Steiner appeared before the assembled members and connected what he had to say directly with the opening address of Albert Steffen on The History of the Destiny of the Goetheanum. Here we shall make use of a report which Dr. Steiner himself wrote down immediately after the conference. He referred to the call which had been sent to Societies and friends in all the countries to send their representatives to Dornach for the carrying out of this refounding, or themselves to take part in this, and he said in an introductory way about this:
“The call has been heard in a manner altogether unexpected. Between seven and eight hundred persons appeared for ‘the laying of the foundation stone’ of the ‘General Anthroposophical Society.’ What they have done is to be reported gradually.
“It was my duty to open and to direct the meetings. And this was very easy for my heart—this opening. Beside me sat the Swiss poet Albert Steffen. The assembled Anthroposophists looked up to him with hearts full of thankfulness. They had gathered on Swiss soil for the forming of the General Anthroposophical Society. They owe to Switzerland in Albert Steffen a leading member during a long period, and to him they look up with genuine enthusiasm. In him I had before me Switzerland in one of its noblest sons. An expression of my heartfelt greeting to him and to our friends constitutes my first words, and the second was to request him to provide the meeting with its beginning.
“It was a profoundly moving beginning. Albert Steffen, the wonderful painter in words, the poet picture-molder spoke. As one listened to him one saw mighty soul pictures in vision before one.
“The laying of the foundation stone of the Goetheanum in 1913 stood before the eyes of the soul. I cannot find words in which to express my inner feeling as I saw before me once more in Steffen's paintings that occurrence at which I was permitted to act ten years before.
“The work on the Goetheanum, in which hundreds of devoted hands were active, and in connection with which hundreds of enthusiastic hearts were beating, was magically called forth in words molded in perfect artistic form.
“And—the burning of the Goetheanum; the entire tragic event, the pain of thousands of persons,—they trembled as Albert Steffen spoke to us.
“And then—in the foreground of a more expansive picture: the Being of Anthroposophy itself transfigured through the poet soul of Albert Steffen— in the background, the nature of its enemies, not censured but simply set forth with plastic power.
“‘Ten years Goetheanum’; Albert Steffen's words about this penetrated deeply—one could feel it—in the hearts of those gathered there.
‘After this so worthy opening note, it was my duty to speak about the form which the General Anthroposophical Society must now take on.
“It was needful to say what was to take the place of an ordinary set of statutes. A description of what human beings desire to bring about in a purely human life relation—such as the Anthroposophical Society—was to take the place of such ‘statutes.’ At the Goetheanum, which possesses since the burning only provisionally erected wooden rooms, Anthroposophy is fostered. What the leaders of the Goetheanum understand as this fostering, and what effect for human civilization they expect from it, was to be stated. And then how they conceive this fostering in a University of Spiritual Science. Not fundamental rules which must be accepted were to be set up; but a reality in its own special character was to be described. And then it had to be stated that any one who willed to give his cooperation to what happens at the Goetheanum can become a member. As 'statutes； which were not really to be ‘statutes’ but the description of what can result from such a purely human and living social relation, this is now proposed.”
Here there followed the reading aloud of the principles, or statutes. They are the very freest that could possibly be given to a spiritual community, for they consist simply in setting forth what a union of human beings will do who “intend to foster the life of the soul in individual human beings and in human society on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world.” Rudolf Steiner then continued in his report:
“In closest connection with the opening meeting of the forenoon of December 24 was the festivity of the morning of December 25, which bore the title ‘Laying the Foundation Stone of the General Anthroposophical Society.’
“This could deal now only with an ideal spiritual laying of a foundation stone. The ground in which the 'foundation stone' was laid could be only the hearts and souls of the persons united in the Society; and the foundation stone itself had to be the mood of soul flowing out of the Anthroposophical molding of life. The mood of soul is formed in the manner in which it is required by the signs of the present time through the will to find through the deepening of the human soul the way to a vision of the Spirit and to living out of the Spirit. I should like to place here the verses in which I undertook to give form to the ‘Foundation Stone?’”
There now followed on December 25 the dedication procedure through the words of the ^Foundation Stone Laying," which Rudolf Steiner brought about in the hearts of human beings. One must take the words of this Foundation Stone Laying again and again into one's heart in concentration and meditation in order to maintain in consciousness the living source of this action. When Rudolf Steiner called human souls and the spiritual worlds to reciprocal work and reciprocal fostering of what was occurring and of this community, this corresponded with what he had brought to realization since the beginning of the century. Erected upon the firm foundations of knowledge, the scientific research of the sensible and the supersensible realms, art and social achievement, and constructed out of the best building stones of the human world of activity, a pyramid as it were, of earthly activity had developed which came into contact at its highest elevation with those pyramids pointing below of the Hierarchical Spiritual Creative World out of which the guidance of the spiritual and earthly events is imparted. Since he had advanced toward this contact by stages which had been formed out of the best scientific, artistic, and religious forces of our times, so this contact between the spiritual world and the earthly world could no longer, as in past centuries, arise out of faith and myth, but only out of knowledge and action. For this reason in the Foundation Meeting of the previous day, in a historical description of the development of this spiritual Movement, he had been able to set forth the fact that:
“Not out of earthly arbitrariness but through obedience to a call which has resounded from the spiritual world; not out of earthly arbitrariness, but in the light of the magnificent pictures which have been given out of the spiritual world as revelations to the modem age for the spiritual life of humanity,—out of this has flowed the impulse for the Anthroposophical Movement ...We will inscribe in our souls as the foremost fundamental principle for the Anthroposophical Movement, which is to have its sheath in the Anthroposophical Society, that everything within it is willed by the Spirit, that it wills to be a fulfillment of what the signs of the times impart in shining letters to the hearts of human beings.”
For this reason, he could cause those words to resound in the consecration meeting in the prayer to the Helping Powers in the spiritual world: "That what we will to found out of our hearts, what we will to guide out of our heads, may become good.”
Here we can only indicate the further steps taken in the Christmas Foundation Conference, consisting in the fact that the Principles which Rudolf Steiner knew to be the prerequisites for a sound working in accordance with the Spirit were adopted and the guidance of the Society, the establishment of the school and its sections, the manner of working of the organism of this Society were explained and adopted as a decision. In the opening lecture of December 24, Dr. Steiner spoke about the spiritual history of the Society, about the reasons which led him "to take over now this task of being myself the President of the Anthroposophical Society"; explained the nature of the Principles; named the persons who were to constitute the Foundation Vorstand (Executive Council)—Rudolf Steiner, Albert Steffen, Frau Marie Steiner, Dr. Ita Wegman, Dr. Elizabeth Vreede, Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth. On December 25, he now carried out the dedication ceremony of the Laying of the Foundation Stone through the consecration verses. In the founding meeting, in conversations of the Vorstand with the General Secretaries, and in the following days there was now thorough discussion of the Principles, or Statutes. Rudolf Steiner requested me to read every paragraph before the gathering, and there followed expressions of opinion, questions and answers, during which he gave profound glimpses into the spiritual foundations, laws of life, tasks, and goals of this organism. In the course of the founding meeting there came about a living picture of the many-sided work and of what was to be undertaken and carried out on the new basis as a work of upbuilding. At the beginning of these united discussions Dr. Steiner gave a number of times, as the central element of the community in destiny, introductory explanations of the verses of dedication which had been given in connection with the Laying of the Foundation Stone. For the esoteric work of the school he gave further directions in January and February of the following year.
Between December 24 and January 1, Dr. Steiner delivered the lecture cycle entitled World History in the Light of Anthroposophy and as the Basis for a Knowledge of the Human Spirit. As had been his practice always to unite what was new with what had already been involved in prior history, such was the course he followed in the present cycle. In his book The Riddles of Philosophy, written near the end of the past century, he first traced the history of human thinking in the preceding centuries. What he now gave at the beginning of the new phase of the evolution of this spiritual Movement was not any longer based merely upon the historical evolution of human thinking but upon the planned spiritual guidance of humanity in the past and up to the present point of time. It was a history of the Mysteries and of the Spirit, which, out of research into facts of evolution, placed emphasis upon those events and phenomena which furnish a proof of such guidance of the human being out of the spiritual worlds.
For that reason this cycle of lectures went more deeply than that at the beginning of the century into primeval history, bringing into a clear light at first the origin and the development in the oldest Mystery places of the "localized,” the “rhythmized,” and the “temporal” memory, and proceeded then past the Mystery schooling in the Atlantean, ancient Asiatic, and European primeval history. The evolution of the southern stream of Mysteries was then set forth as represented in the ancient Egyptian and Greek periods of culture, to be deciphered in the symptoms of the epoch of Gilgamish, the ritual of Artemis at Ephesus, the Chthonic, Ephesian, and Samothracian Mysteries up to the new spiritual situation which was inaugurated in the epoch of Aristode. Dr. Steiner described the tremendous impulse which was added out of the Mysteries of Hybemia and of Northern Europe to this spiritual process, and showed how the synthesis of these two streams and a new birth came about out of the spirit and power of the Christ Event, its radiations in the first Christian centuries, in the Middle Ages, in the symptoms of external religious development and in the more concealed Mysteries and deeds of a true Rosicrucianism.
Out of this comprehensive survey of the meaning and the plan of spiritual history, he guided his hearers then in the last lecture to the decisive event of the twentieth century: the fact that humanity, after the loss of a knowledge of spiritual guidance in the last centuries, is through the necessity of evolution today once more placed at the Threshold of the Spiritual World, and must now achieve the entrance into this sphere consciously and by action of will, in order to guide the coming centuries out of chaos to order, out of misleading sense-thinking to a harmony with the Cosmic Plan which can be known within the supersensible. The words in which he closed this lecture cycle constituted a challenge to courage and alertness. He stated what he himself, the Goetheanum, the Society would at once begin with all possible power and would carry forward, and called upon all friends to cooperate:
“We have here laid the Foundation Stone. Upon this Foundation Stone shall the building be erected, the stones for which shall consist in the work to be achieved in all our Groups by individuals outside in the whole expanse of the world. We will now look at this work in our spirits and become conscious of the responsibility of which we have today spoken.”
He called attention to the responsibility consisting in the fact that humanity at the present time stands in the presence of the Guardian of the Threshold, and gave to all who were willing to go to work, as the key for entrance into this new sphere of activity, the dedication verses of the “Foundation Stone Laying.”
This brought to a conclusion the decisive step of the Christmas Conference of 1923.