The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1925
In the lectures of the year 1924 on Initiate Consciousness, Rudolf Steiner stated, as a finding of spiritual research, that, if the inner formative processes of the individual seven-year epochs of a human life become at an advanced age "a force of Inspiration,55 then the initiate consciousness in a retrospect over each of these successive life stages expands into higher and higher spheres of the cosmic world in which they originate in their essential being. Thus the experience in retrospect of the first three seven-year periods becomes a force of Inspiration for the revelation of the spheres of Moon, Mercury, and Venus surrounding the Earth in nearest proximity, their nature and their forces. The retrospect over the middle three seven-year periods, between the ages of 21 and 42 years, becomes united in revelation with the Spirit of the sun sphere. The third epoch, between the ages of 42 and 63, if it becomes a force of Inspiration, bestows an insight into the profoundest mysteries of the entire cosmos. He thus expresses this experience:
“The individual epochs of life, if they are transformed to inner organs, afford the capacity to expand consciousness out into the cosmos, to expand it by stages.
“It is not true, in turn, that nothing can be known about the sphere of the sun before the forty-second year ..・ But, in order to experience something in one's own consciousness within the sun sphere, in order actually to enter into the sun sphere and experience within it—it is necessary that one shall not only live through the period between the twenty-first and the forty-second year, but shall have passed beyond the forty-second year, shall be able to look back, because only in the retrospect are the mysteries revealed.
“When, in turn, it is possible to look back upon one's life up to the forty-ninth year, the mysteries of Mars are revealed. If it is possible to look back upon one's life up to the fifty-sixth year, the mysteries of Jupiter are revealed. And the profoundly veiled mysteries of Saturn, affording tremendous knowledge,— these mysteries, which conceal in a sense the depths of the cosmos, the Saturn mysteries, are revealed when one looks back upon what occurred between the fifty-sixth and the sixty-third year.
“This enables us to see that the human being is really a little world, a microcosm...
“We are, together with the earth, in interpenetrating spheres. Seven spheres are thrust within one another, and we grow into this state of interpenetration in the course of our lives; we are bound together with it. From birth until death our life is evolved out of its original state as the spheres of the stars, s。to speak, penetrate into us from birth till death. When we have arrived at Saturn, we have passed through everything that the planetary spheres—that is, the Beings of the planetary spheres—can in grace bestow upon us; and we then receive, in a spiritual sense, the bestowal of a life moving freely in the universe, which looks back upon the planetary life from an initiate standpoint, and which in a certain sense can be emancipated from what constituted compulsions at earlier stages of life.”
Thus does initiate consciousness, after the sixty-third year of life, receive that greatest gift in the development of the life on earth, where necessity at the highest level is united with the inner state of freedom, and the survey of macrocosm and microcosm becomes a unity. This sixty-third year of life Rudolf Steiner had completed and left behind in the last year of his activity among human beings; the most sublime gift of such a retrospect had been imparted to him. He handed it on to human beings. And now destiny gave him still a brief time in quietude.
The course of the suffering to which the physical organism was a sacrifice was accompanied also in these first months of the year 1925 by the most brilliant radiation of spiritual creative power. He wrote the lofty sentences, received in the quietude of suffering borne, which foretold the victory of the Spirit over the Opposing Powers of the earth, the battle of Michael with the Dragon in the earthly sphere, in nature and in the human being; week by week he gave to those who were to be schooled the “Guiding Thoughts” for their meditations; he continued the writing of his autobiography, The Course of My Life, carrying this forward during these months to the first epoch after the turn of the century. His attention was not centered upon his own pain and suffering, but day by day upon fortifying and advancing the spiritual Movement founded for the future, and he urged his friends and co-workers to carry the work forward. We find a symbol of this powerful activity of spirit if we recall that, in spite of the utmost distress during this period, the artistic work under the leadership of Frau Marie Steiner unfolded its greatest forces in order to carry this new art into the cities of Europe. Moreover, we find every week Rudolf Steiner's articles in the weekly "Das Goetheanum,n under the editorship of Albert Steffen, which was carrying spiritual science into many lands. Dr. Steiner continued to work further with Dr. Wegman on spiritual tasks in the medical science. For the organization and the organic development of the Society and the School, he gave during these weeks decisive supplementary directives. When I reported to him in morning conferences on negotiations under his direction with the political authorities, on the stream of incoming and outgoing correspondence with Branches of the Society and many individuals, he gave at such times his directions, drawn out of spiritual principles, for the firm and sound development of all these spheres of activity.
On February 8, 1925, there occurred an important constitutional assembly which united the spiritual decisions of the Christmas Conference with the forms of life and activity in the outer world, reaching decisions regarding the integration of the constitution and fields of activity of the School and the Society into the external legal forms; decisions regarding the Statutes; the organization of the Society itself; and other important matters. The directives which Rudolf Steiner gave in these matters always maintained the unity of spiritual laws and earthly form, the essential nature of the principle of continuity, and yet at the same time the possibility of organic change and a development directed toward the goal. It was during this time that everything possible was done to safeguard the future course of development of the spiritual Movement, the Society, the School, its Sections, and all fields of work fructified out of spiritual science, as a living unity.
After the completion of this fundamental task, Dr. Steiner gave to the Movement for Religious Renewal further assistance in fixing its constitution and planning its organic development. The Reverend Emil Bock came in the second week of February as a representative of the Christian Community to inquire about certain important directives for that work. Since Rudolf Steiner could no longer receive callers, these questions were given to me, and I placed them before Dr. Steiner. He requested that Dr. Bock remain, since he wished to give him something to take away. Two days later I was able to hand him the ritual for the ordination of the ruling bishop (Erzoberlenker), as composed by Dr. Steiner. Since in this connection the personality of the bishop (Oberlenker) had also to be decided who was to utter the actual words in the ritual of the investiture, Rudolf Steiner inserted the name of Emil Bock into the text; and, since Dr. Rittelmeyer had raised the question of the succession in the position of ruling bishop, Dr. Steiner gave the answer that this position was to pass from Friedrich Rittelmeyer to Emil Bock. The festival of investiture was planned for the end of February. I handed the document and gave the answers to Emil Bock, and he immediately summoned the members of the priesthood by telegraph to meet in Berlin.
It was an experience to remain unforgettably in my memory when Rudolf Steiner, before handing to me this document laden with destiny from his sickbed at the foot of the Christ statue, requested me first to listen to its content and take it into myself. In a voice which had become delicate and weak from iDness, but which caused the words to sound forth so endlessly intimate and filled with spirit, he read the sublime words of this liturgy of investiture. Only in such exceptional decisive moments have I ever seen Rudolf Steiner so inwardly moved and yet at the same time so filled with joy at a work achieved. When he had read aloud the words of the liturgy, he said as he handed the text to me: “This has been given directly out of the spiritual world."
When the day of the investiture was near at hand, Dr. Steiner had me summoned and appointed me to be present as his representative. I set out immediately for Berlin. This experience also, of the consecration on the very next day, February 24, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, remains in tremendous force in my memory. At this investiture of Friedrich Rittelmeyer as ruling bishop of the Christian Community all members of the priesthood, summoned for the decisive hour, took part, and also Frau Marie Steiner, who was at that time in Berlin, and I as representative of Rudolf Steiner. It was an event whose force for sustaining the future stood inscribed in the strong atmosphere which was created by the first members of this priesthood, schooled in spiritual science. The words of gratitude and the last message of Friedrich Rittelmeyer to Rudolf Steiner I was permitted then to give to him in Dornach the next day. Only a few weeks later destiny summoned Dr. Rittelmeyer to perform for Rudolf Steiner himself the funeral ritual which he had given to the priests of the Christian Community.
One who lives through in memory all the spiritual bestowals and the decisive events of that period can possess the knowledge that, even in these last months, when RudoK Steiner could receive only few persons by the bedside in his studio, he still remained united in the stillness of this working room with everything for which he had laid the Foundation Stone at Christmas in 1923, and whose progress and development he ceaselessly watched over. The message of his cooperation and perspectives into the future for all areas of the work he had created continued to be sent out. Thus even on March 5, 1925, a few weeks before his death, he wrote in a letter to Frau Marie Steiner: "My condition is improving only gradually. And it is imperative that I shall soon be capable of working; for what might come about, after all that has occurred, if the work on the building were interrupted by my illness is beyond calculation?3
Even the last weeks in March 1925, during which he had to endure unspeakable suffering, were devoted in the most intense concentration to spiritual research, creative work, and bestowal. Shielded under the devoted care of Dr. Ita Wegman, he still communicated many a spiritual message received, and he had us to report to him what was occurring on the hill of Dornach. He loved the living noise of hammering and scaffold-building which penetrated from the building place of the Goetheanum into the quiet of his sickroom, announcing the building in the process of coming into being. He was united through his counsel and help with this work to his last breath and beyond death. We refrain here from drawing near in words to the last days of this sacred course of sacrifice. For one who experiences in vision the course of Rudolf Steiner in its spiritual totality, the inner picture will arise.
The last moments in his earthly life were free from all struggle with the physical entity, free from all uncertainty such as characterizes the death of many human beings; his countenance spoke of peace, grace, inner certitude, spiritual vision. He folded his hands over his breast; his eyes were shiningly and strongly directed into worlds with which in vision he was united. As he drew his last breath, he himself closed his eyes; but this filled the room not with the experience of an end, but with that of a most sublime spiritual action. An exalted, transfigured wakefulness spoke out of his countenance, out of the praying strength of the hands. As the great artists of the Middle Ages gave to the pictures of the knights resting upon the sarcophagus the expression indicating that their closed eyes were still beholding, their resting form was still able to stride forward, so did the figure here resting speak of a super-terrestrial wakefulness, of a striding forward into the spheres of the Spirit.
The forward-striding figure of the Christ statue, pointing into the expanses of the universe, which he himself had created and at whose feet he now lay, spoke for the eye of those left behind on the earth what was here taking place for the spirit of a great human being who had dedicated his life to the annunciation of the Christ. Even in dying, Rudolf Steiner bestowed upon humanity the most sublime gift of consolation: the certitude that death is a waking entrance into worlds of life and action.
For very many persons this thirtieth day of March 1925, and the following day, when they could enter this room and for the last time see the earthly form of their beloved spiritual guide, became a decisive turning point in life, the final certitude of the eternal presence of the Spirit, the decision to render constant service to his living work. During these days people came out of many lands to this place, and what was brought during these hours to the bier of the great dead in the power of thankfulness, of faithfulness, of determination to play a part with one's whole being for the victory of the Spirit in the coining century— this remains as an active force in the hearts of human beings, in the ether of the earth, in the unfolding process of the future. For with the flowers which every one laid down and which filled the room with a living sphere of shining beauty, with the strong and loving hearts out of all lands which here united, every one made his vow that the words and the deeds of the one who had led them hitherto and now would continue to lead them from the realm of the Spirit, should embody an inextinguishable power which would continue to work in the earthly sphere for all coming times.
In the lofty, darkened space of the studio stood the bier of him who had completed this earthly life, surrounded by a sea of flowers, by the light of candles, the death watch by his side day and night. Many hundreds of persons came in soundless silence for the last visit, went back into life comforted, trusting, having received in their affliction assurance of the victoriousness of the Spirit, of rebirth. On the third day the body was brought into the great workshop, to lie in state finally in the lecture hall, at the place from which he had for decades proclaimed the knowledge of the Spirit. At the request of Frau Marie Steiner, Friedrich Rittelmeyer conducted the funeral service which was the gift of Rudolf Steiner to the Christian Community. The next morning the coffin was carried away for cremation. When it was passing by the newly erected structure of the Goetheanum, the workers at the building stood still on the scaffolding, and greeted the master builder and friend. At the cremation ritual, Albert Steffen united us with our beloved teacher in a picture of his being which only the artist could draw in such shining perfection. He spoke of "the friend of God and leader of humanity." And what has come into being in us earthly persons through the leadership and the schooling of Rudolf Steiner as a certitude, what we are called upon to do in his spirit, he summarized in the following words:
“He has again showed the world to us in such a way that we know it has come forth out of God. He has died in such a way that we feel: Christ lives in this death. May his immortal Spirit be resurrected in our deeds. We will, as well as we can, make them holy.”
In Dornach the sounds of hammers, the work of those laboring with their hands, again took hold upon us as we returned; the building continued to grow toward the incorporation of the forms which Rudolf Steiner in his last year, both in spirit and in the model, had molded. In the Goetheanum building, in which his spiritual knowledge, his artist capacity, his creative power are interwoven, his funeral urn stands today by the side of the statue of the Representative of Humanity, the Christ, which he had created and at whose feet he died. With his entire being he is now also united with his work, in the present, in the future. In the Spirit he is in our midst.