The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends!

For the kind of striving you are involved in, it is of primary importance to cultivate a true impulse for feeling yourselves within the spiritual world as well as striving towards the achievement of such an impulse, but taken from the viewpoint of your Movement, of which I intend speaking to you today. You see it really involves establishing a connection with a definite point to enable you to link to a spiritual impulse, if you want to be a sure, broad minded, active person, which you all want to be. It involves enlivening the appropriate impulses for this particular activity. From my observations in the spiritual world as such, it appears that the following will be helpful to you.

A connection can be established with the manifestation of the spirit of speech, the wielding of the speech genius. We must firstly be very clear, my dear friends, how far we are removed as a rule from the real spiritual, inner self-activation of grasping speech within ourselves. We basically are involved with speech but without its divine quality. We take up speech in such a manner that by the very act of applying it to ordinary life, we actually profane it. We allow ourselves as contemporary people to use speech by not venerating it in any way at all. We basically speak in sinfulness and this can awaken the awareness that our speaking sinfully enables us to acquire an attitude, I may say, to develop a relationship with speech towards obtaining a spiritual impulse. Examples to confirm this arise of course from all areas.

How many people today have obtained some guidance which empathises with any of the sounds in speech? This naturally means a large number of sounds are spoken conventionally and inhumanely, without comprehension, uttered as if without human input. Who feels at the moment the word “harden” is spoken, that in expressing the word the speaker's mood is permeated by something which hardens it like a mineral and simultaneously cools down his mood? Who feels, when the word “Word” is spoken that it is linked to life from ancient times, a past spiritual weaving which has been killed in the present time, the past crystallized in the present, and so on? We have absolutely no experience of the most important words any more. I would like to know how many people today have the experience with the word “thinking,” how many people have an experience with the word “feeling,” the word “willing.” This I'm only saying to you with reference to what I really want to entrust you with today.

You may of course name yourself in the most varied expressions of language. You can call yourself “I” as one does usually, or you can start to theorise about it and say to yourself you can be called a “human-being” (Mensch).¹ Then you substitute the speech genius and determine your own being out of the being of the language. However today a person has the feeling when he does something like that, he is applying a word which he designates to himself. When a person of today says to himself he can be called a “human-being,” he thinks that under all circumstances he has in a comprehensive way with a word, he believes, described an idea.

Now, when the starting point is feeling, it is good: in the true sense of the word language is so little understood, making the description which a person as a human-being applies to himself actually something whose understanding must first be wrestled with, whose understanding must first be arrived at. Feeling should actually always be a starting point so that when I believe I can describe myself in some or other words, even in my mother tongue, they designate an infinite pride in me. When we permeate ourselves with the feeling that we believe we can manage a language, even our mother tongue, so far removed from the spirit that we can legitimately name ourselves with the word “human-being,” if we consider this belief as terribly proud then we start to draw courage for the preparatory feeling towards a specific spiritual impulse such as I am indicating today. We should much more often be able to say: ‘I am placed on the earth as a human-being through some or other divine circumstances unknown to me and this leads me to call myself a “human-being,” but the basis for this description lies high above my horizon. It is the will of God who prevails here, who has lead me out of the unconscious deep substrate, to describe me as “human-being.” I have as a human-being, as this human individuality standing on earth, actually not the right to characterize myself.’ Then the next step must be to say to oneself: Before I can become capable at all of understanding the entire preliminary stages in existence which leads to me saying “I” to myself, I must undergo three developmental steps—right up to the judgement which I may express as the following: I have no right to call myself “human-being,” I need to first go through three steps of development, I must push through three tests. When I have passed these three tests to satisfy my own judgement, will I have earned the right to say to myself: ‘You are a human-being.’

This we should actually feel toward every spoken word: an extraordinary noble humility towards the point of origin for the development of spiritual impulses. We need to say to ourselves: Just like we as human-beings stand on earth today in our 5^th Post-Atlantean period, we may, if we are honest people, start by falling quiet, name nothing and then start to conquer the three steps which will give us the right to rename things out of ourselves. Through this can we first get a feeling for how extraordinary a meaningful cosmic experience it had been, as indicated in scripture, that in the presence of God Adam was permitted to name animals and things, which only God's proximity could enable. We come through such experiences which need indeed to be concrete personal experiences, to the necessary depths of the scripture, so that it, through its inner power which we can give it, reach the necessary nuances and coloration and out of every word in each verse let it ring out, to which we can't merely say: ‘We don't have the right to name things’—but we could say: ‘Through God the right has been given to us, to name things out of ourselves.’

These things must firstly be experienced through the depths of our soul in a priestly way to really encounter the world. Outer gestures do not make a priest, because the priest expresses what comes out of the deepest depths within. When we designate the words “human-being” as such to ourselves, we should only be able to do so when we have gone through these three stages:

The being to whom I want to ascribe the word “human-being”
has depths which I must first need to fathom;

The being to whom I want to ascribe the word “human-being”
has heights to which I need to rise first;

The being to whom I want to ascribe the word “human-being”
has widths which I first have to look at and grasp.

These three sentences contain something meaningful: being a human-being. By deepening these sentences through meditation, they can take you a long way.

In truth it is so: by the human-being placing himself in earthly existence he places himself outside spiritual heights. Solely through the fact that our earth existence is a cooperative task towards human development, cosmically validated, do we contribute a part of our totality as earthlings. Earth shapes us while we walk on it between birth and death, as earthlings, and everything which is shaped out of the earth come out of the depths which cooperates in everything, even in the most minute parts of the smallest organs in us. Just imagine the earth as a being in space has endless secrets within it which work creatively. How your eyes, your ears are formed, how every singular, how every smallest member of your body is formed and fashioned, for all this the creative forces lie within the earth. If we succeed in gradually grasping what the earth's expression of its inner being is in its countenance, with thinking, feeling and willing as an unveiling of her inner secrets, so we meditatively, gradually come to search for an answer to the question: How do I fathom the depths of the being of man?

When we succeed in placing ourselves into our bodies as the multitudinous ways of crystallised earth, which dissolves the crystallisation again, atomised to a powder, when we succeed in observing this development, pulverising and re-crystallising which in the course of time was characterised for the sensitive human-being, for example with Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva; if we succeed in experiencing this entire process which will be for us a kind of bed of the Godhead, by us being embedded in it, so that the bedding within this Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva process becomes something like a cosmic sleep for us during our earth existence, if we experience this crystallisation and dissolving as something which weaves through us with a cosmic urge for sleep, so that we could say: the human-being is so profound, so deeply fashioned in earthly existence that the depths of consciousness doesn't endure but with the entire created earth as a physical body it expires into a cosmic sleep—then we gradually approach the feeling of what it means: what it is for the human-being to be connected to the depths of the earth. If we can finally say to ourselves: the earth forms us out of its depths, permeates us out of its depths with earthly sleep, while out of the depths of earthly sleep the archetypal divine works fully consciously, then we experience something of this earthly depths within the human-being. If we could say something like: the harder the earth appears to us, diamond hard, the harder in its parts, just so more true, so powerfully speaks from this diamond hard heart the condition of sleep of the spiritual world, the light filled spirituality which works in the earth as awakened, active divinity.

Thus we need to go through our meditation in an ever more deepening feeling way and transfer the earthly foundation and say:

‘Oh man, before you can name yourself, before you can establish your depths, you need to ever more deepen yourself into the foundations of the earth.’ When we observe plants sprouting out of the earth, we may acquire a more lofty feeling of piety, a feeling of reverence, that in every plant morsel we can behold something of ourselves, something like a revelation of what is happening below in the earth. We must really clearly understand the exchange of activities taking place between the earth's depths and the breadths of the heavens. See how the blossoming roses grow out of the earth, look at the particular way the rosebud pinches its petals so tightly together as to complement the ground of the earth, counter positioned to the central point of the earth as a mighty rose of light, permeated with divine thought gestures which need to wait until the rose unfolds its bud upwards. Every sleeping rosebud you empathise with the waiting, creating, living light rose in the earthly depths. So it is with all plants. Look at the green cover of plants over the earth and experience that which sprouts out of the earth as green, in the depths of the earth, as quite light-filled but permeated with deep violet, which appears in the world, weaving through it with life. Then you have something which I have said to you: ‘I may only call myself a human-being, when I have explored myself in the earth's depths.’

So the feeling must be reached towards becoming worthy through such meditative penetration, through the conquering of this first step, for the word “human-being” to be used for people. When one takes what the profane person takes as obvious, as a level hovering high above and think one can only reach this level by climbing up to it; through humbling yourself three times more than an ordinary person, becoming three times more humble than an ordinary person believes himself to be, then one is only starting to sense oneself gradually approaching the calling of a priest.

When one has gradually in such a way led oneself to reach the first step, then one takes on the second step which lets us look into the infinite widths of the worlds and one says to oneself at the present moment: Oh, how trivial this world has become, where humanity has only developed trivial images of the wide world. Yes truly, wiser than the wisest student was Stifter's grandmother who was asked about the evening red glow and answered it was the mantle of God's mother, which is hung out in the heaven to be aired. This naive, picturesque imagination is in contrast to scientific knowledge much wiser, much wiser than the most learned astronomy.

This one must be able to absorb: To actually see the shining stars in wide space, stars with essentially the eyes of divine spiritual beings who glance down at us, children of the earth, while their spiritual hands reach out to us, while our spiritual hands reach up to their spiritual hands because we were with them before we came down to an earthly existence. The gods look after us out of space, out of the heights above worlds, in order to explore how we feel towards their predisposition while our spiritual hands reached their spiritual hands. When we are able to possibly develop many imaginations of the heights and become more and more empathic, how the being of humanity originate out of the heights, towards which it needs to climb up once again, then we will be able to come one step closer to earn the right to, as people, call ourselves ‘human beings.’

The word ‘human-being’ must first be dipped into the depths of the earth, as I have indicated, so that its absorption during this immersion becomes part of our minds and enable us to say: We understand this. Now this word ‘human-being’ need to rise up with the mists into the heights and give us the feeling that it will come again in the falling rain, when the word “human-being” will carry within itself the possibility of learning to understand it. We really must initially be clear about everything which works between the depths of the earth and the heavenly heights. In a lively way we must follow the haze rising from woods and mountains. We must not believe that the haze is rising from an area which belongs to the earth. We must develop every kind of modesty towards those people who see in a drop the dragon rising in a thermometer or a barometer, to facilitate measurements. The tendency is to immerse everything in earthly images only. We must reach a point where we can say: ‘How foolish to believe thunder develops out of the friction between clouds; clouds consist of water as every child knows, all moisture is completely kept away from a glass rod if electricity is to be created.’—Naturally this foolishness comes to the fore when a person tries to experience something in the heights of heaven which he experiences on earth for he has descended down from the heavenly heights and now he needs to feel related to it again before he can truly call himself a human-being. We must clearly understand that while the fog rises out of the mountains and forests, where water is somewhat different than it is on earth, in regions where water itself becomes spiritualised, it is ‘de-watered’ and goes through spiritual processes so that it can materialise once again until it descends again as rain out of spiritual spheres. We must know that if we rise up into such regions then we need to be familiar with these regions of our origination, out of which we descended from in a previous existence. We need to know that lightening is something which rules and weaves in spiritual regions and take the imagination of ancient times, where lightening was the arrow of the Gods, as an imagination far more wise than we can ever make today.

In total stillness we must be able to develop such meditative imaginations in the depths of our minds, enabling us to be the leaders turning a completely de-spiritualised world culture towards the Spirit. When we turn towards the hard earth, we must also turn towards the gentle, flowing water, combining with one another in the depths, right into the most concentrated minute matter, which expands in the heights and must atomise, then coalesce to become rain again in their descent to earth. We must discover all the secrets of water, everything relating to water and draw it all together in our minds. We must meditate over it, we must ask ourselves: ‘How does the sun's warmth come out of the world expanse during summer and into the earth to enable plants to bear fruit which turn ripe? How does this warmth of the sun sink into the earth to enable the farmer to entrust his seeds in the earth's warmth during winter?’ At the end of winter it is this warmth which expands again into the vastness of existence. This warmth, found in all areas of existence, working in all cosmic undertakings, is a communion of the opposites between the heavenly heights and the earthly depths. As human-beings we originate from both. We must fathom the earth's depths before we can enter into the world's expanse.

By increasingly entering into such meditations we come to a kind of feeling, a mindfulness, towards the second step, which gives us the right to apply the word ‘human-being’ to ourselves. We must achieve an awareness that all languages can only be provisional, until through the third step we have reached that union with the linguistic genius who actually speaks unconsciously within us while we, when we have made ourselves the tool of God's Word, only then need to have the right to apply the word ‘human-being’ to ourselves.

As a third step we must try and observe the world's expanse. This we can perceive when the rising and the setting sun becomes a reality in our minds. Similarly with the rising and sinking stars when we learn to understand the great journey of the sun chariot going through the world, then we are really able to recognise what the variations are between East and West, what is different from Southeast compared to Northwest and so on. This we can observe when we are able to say to ourselves: You as human-being may take five steps and so change your position on the earth's surface. For you to be able to do so, like the animal as well, is as a result of forces which draw from East to West in width and breadth, also working on you. You are also shaped out of the earth's depths. While the heights of heaven throw light on you from above and forms and enlivens you, you are all given the ability to be formed into beings able to walk on the earth's surface. The world's expanse you should sense and you can sense this by placing yourself in some distant landscape and experience the air as becoming something increasingly more real. In your immediate surroundings the air appears transparent to you, you don't see it; when you look at a mountain you can paint the air with it because it appears as dew on the surface; when you look at the air in the distance then you see the blue sky. Drenched with it you experience the beings of light as a feeling which becomes real because the experience is bound to actions of will. Thus you rise to the third step in your meditation which leads you to earn the right to name yourself a ‘human-being.’

When you deepen this step in the secret of breathing, you start to understand what the air and the widths of the world are; what is working in the heights and depths and in the horizon and you admit: what permeates your breathing lives in the wide world—it is how the wide world experiences you—and it is this that you must sense in your breath. Further, you must sense in your breathing that an act of will is the basis of penetrating your entire being with the powerful impulses of breathing. You get an inkling of how the depths of the earth give material cohesion to your entire body which you transform according to thoughts given to you from the wide world. So they work together in the whole person:

Depths of earth in your Physical
World widths in your Astral
Heavenly heights in your Etheric

Thus you can feel entire cosmic dimensions in yourself. You can sense when you enter with your feeling into the diamond hard earth how you are a sleeping being. You can feel, when you raise your gaze to the heavenly heights, you are snatched from sleep and become a dreaming being. Yet you can also feel how you are a being who is awake in the width of the world. Gradually you learn to recognise the comic human in the earthly human-being.

In this way you learn to recognise how the human-being is actually formed by God out of the entire cosmos, placed by God on earth. Thus you sense the threefold positioning in the cosmos. This is how you learn to feel how the Father God works out of the earth, whose lively activity must preferably be looked for in the past because what has remained is the firm ground on which we stand, the fixed forms repeated in the world, all that has remained appears to us in fixed images. By meditating with our mind sunk into the earthly depths we hear the words of the Father God sounding up to us. Out of the heavenly heights we hear how the presence of God speaks to us but the words are more profound and more complicated that human speech. God has descended from the heavens down to earth and had to go through the Mystery of Golgotha to allow heavenly speech to penetrate our words. The actual communion of the earthly with the heavenly we can depict in the rising water vapour, in the rain which falls down again, in the rising and again descending warmth of the world. When we allow that to work in us it will permeate us with spirit and we will sense the presence of Christ in those who we feel are under the influence of the heavenly heights. When we penetrate into our breath as coming out of the widths of space and we humbly link our feeling to what happens at every instant, when we in our physicality, ruled by the forces of earthly depths, feel formed and shaped under the leadership of Christ Jesus out of the heavenly heights then we come to really experience, and are permeated by, the activity of the Holy Ghost as the fulfilment of the Trinity and thus out of this our meditation could be:

The Father God has given me the strength which lies in my material existence, as solidified Spirit.

The Son God is always the heavenly which lives in me, which works and weaves like a watery cosmic existence, which is a symbol, an image of it. I sense Christ-God in all my weaving and living, in all which has made me from a child to an adult, in all which grows in me daily and needs to perish again, enabling me to be an earthling through my becoming.

I feel the Spirit God carry into the future that which Christ Jesus has become in us, in the past.

You see, when you meditate like this on the content born out of a word, a word previously only used provisionally, then you have earned the right to call a person a ‘human-being.’ We must begin by developing reverence towards the genius of speech because through such a meditation real reverence is cultivated. Our starting point must not be to refer to the outer impression of the human form only but as a human-being created by God, as a thought from God, as a God-filled human-being, when we speak.

When we prepare ourselves as we have through our meditation on a word such as ‘human-being,’ then the impulse is born for these three steps to be applied to some other words and for the human speech on earth to be implemented in this way. The genius of speech will teach us how we can become living tools for the Word of God when we allow the congregation to experience this Word of God. The Word of God is always there, and what we are doing, is but a moment's experience of the continuous spiritual cosmic weaving Word of God. In the very first beginnings the word existed, in ancient beginnings it was already divine. When we are however not in the position to sense the holiness in the words ‘human-being’ for the people, then our approach is not right, we do not have dignity to also express the first words of the St John's Gospel in the correct way. The priest today has not yet come so far as to be able to say these words in this way.

In our time the primary importance for priests, if they continue in their calling, is to further such things. What has actually been left over from the ancient words revealed from the holy heights above the earth? What has remained from the words such as “Deus,” “Christus,” “Spiritum”? Earthly sounds they now are, hardened by dogma. The truth within words need to be awakened in us, the truth of these words must live in us. We may not neglect anything which will still make it possible for the old, hardened and therefore dogmatic words to become alive again within us. We may no longer turn and twist in the way it was done with God's words in past times in which the Catholic Church extracted the Mystery of the Mass.

In the Old Mysteries priests were far more humble than those of today, when they are like I have just described them. The priest of old said to himself he couldn't be a priest if he was just as he was. As a result, before he was allowed to speak, those things were performed in which the last remainder of incense was still held. As a result of the sensing, which has come to its right in our Consecration of Man ritual, there is indicated that in the Mysteries of old, outer substances were used to shift the consciousness of the priests. This resulted in them feeling shifted out of their bodies and enchanted by the genius of speech, taking them to the higher Genius so that the priest of old, out of his body, experienced the Being of God. No priest was of the opinion that he could move his tongue when he expressed the Word of God; he knew he had to first go out of himself and allow his tongue to be moved from outside. We can no longer do this today and nor should we try. We should through inner spiritual means, with internalized feeling and will work towards the understanding of the foregoing, when we can call ourselves ‘human-beings.’

Just consider, my dear friends, what the Act of Consecration will become under your handling when you start from today taking these things I've spoken about into your priest meditations. These things can also just gradually be taken in by us. Mankind has distanced itself from the divine and must find its way back again. We have absorbed the Act of Consecration into the Christian Movement for Religious Renewal like religious artists. Today we have come to the point where what can only be accepted like a religious art must be taken up in such a way that we are in the position to make it into a lively organism, in order for the Act of Consecration to become really alive and in this way be experienced within the Christian Community as ever new at each fulfilment of the ritual, just like the physical body experiences something new each time it takes in nourishment.

My dear friends, take this into your souls: the Act of Consecration is to become alive. Through this you will earn the right to place yourselves in the earth's becoming and through the Act of Consecration be present within the earth's becoming. Then may you express the following truth: If this Act of Consecration is not performed then the earth will waste away and remain without nourishment. It would be just as if no plants would grow. Plants grow in the physical world; the Act of Consecration of Man must grow in the spiritual realm. If it was not enacted there on this higher level it would be the same as if on the lower level of the physical earth no plants would grow. A human-being only has the right to say this when he or she succeeds in continuously enlivening the Act of Consecration so that this self-expressed word ‘human-being’ has been achieved in the correct manner and being and weaving, within the earthly existence, through achieving the three steps of inner soul development.

Only then, my dear friends, when you have experienced it in this sensitive way can you really place yourself in the right way in our present time. According to your need to gather again after a certain time, I may say this to you, because it belongs to the entire development of the Christian Community. Thus you have taken something full of life into yourselves which can work in an enlivening way in yourselves. I wish that today's words are taken in all seriousness, in the right way.

• 1. Translator's note: “Mensch” has no English equivalent. Collins Dictionary considers mensch used in English as “a well-meaning person.” Reverso suggests ‘human,’ ‘person’ and ‘man.’ Google adds ‘individual’ to this list. The word ‘human’ is seen in contrast to ‘animal’ or ‘robot.’ To translate “Mensch” as ‘human-being’ is not quite correct, nor is ‘individuality’—the latter indicating a person being different from others in some way. “Mensch” has a humane as well as individual character so the best solution is using the expression “human-being” in this translation. As “the Word” is under examination, a hyphen is an attempt at forming a single inseparable concept.

Yes, my dear friends, I would like to supplement what I said yesterday. I wanted to offer it then already, but time was too short. This occasion gives us the opportunity to refer to our relationship we need to gradually re-establish with the Bible. The Bible, namely the New Testament, is a document which we must learn to grasp as a supersensible revelation, not in a dogmatic sense but through arriving at knowledge which indicates that religious documents originating up to about the time 4 AD were not only of human origin but were poured into the consciousness of humanity; knowledge which could not have come out of humanity. I would like to mention that you only need to bring humanity up to this point while a kind of instinctive atavistic consciousness still existed, presenting the most manifold images depicting the highest spiritual things and processes, yet these images were not conceptualised in human consciousness.

So it has come about that right at the time when intellectualism has become authoritative, religious documents are misunderstood in many areas. They are approached with intellectual thinking and basically it is quite natural that even with much goodwill, misunderstandings come to the fore. Thus it has happened that when today's presented texts are transcribed into a common language, they do not represent the original documents because a national language has an intellectual basis which is alien to the original elements in which the religious documents were embodied.

When religious documents, particularly the New Testament, are referred back to in its original language, it also becomes apparent that this original language can no longer be experienced in an adequate way in the constitution of souls of today. Actually, a kind of untruthful element enters into the understanding of ancient religious knowledge, also the New Testament. It is hopeless to think that translations done up to now can somehow be improved continually, because it must firstly involve finding the preconditions which will enable a kind of reawakening of ancient spirituality with the purpose of really understanding religious documents. This we can do, this everyone can basically do, if the trouble is taken to apply researchable spiritual scientific facts to, let's say, the New Testament.

I would like to give a small example and that from one of the most important places in the New Testament. I would like to stress from the start that representations in the New Testament are connected to a historic fact; the depiction in the New Testament can only be understood when it is very clear that the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha is placed within the rest of humanity's evolution, but as a fact which falls outside the rest of humanity's laws. The Mystery of Golgotha is a totally singular event and for its understanding should not be considered out of historical foundations but it should be grasped out of itself. Only when you take—I would like to call it super-historical fact—this cosmic fact in relationship with scientific spiritual knowledge about the development of humanity, only then can you actually start understanding the deep sense of the words and the sentence formation of the New Testament. If you don't do this, a far too strong trivial tone enters into the New Testament. We can remind ourselves of various impulses towards a possible understanding of the Bible where absolutely no preparatory understanding is regarded necessary and that it should simply be taken in a naive, primitive manner. You need to remind yourself of this fact in order to judge how strong the reluctance is to perceive the New Testament in its total profundity.

Just consider, my dear friends, that the Mystery of Golgotha, taken in its right sense, was fulfilled for the earth as a specific act of grace out of higher spiritual worlds at a specific time when a certain part of humanity was passing over from a previous state of consciousness to the next one. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the evolution of humanity's becoming in earthly life reached up to an inner ego reality. The “I” gradually unfolded at the same time as the Mystery of Golgotha. We may not look for the connection between these two facts, whether causal or just as a connection. We may only consider it a connection when it is compared with one seeing something happening and something is done towards it out of free will. The Mystery of Golgotha appears as a cosmic fact of free will which has come about within the development of humanity in such a way, that the ego consciousness is awakened. Now, you know the remainder of the important facts which are linked to the appearance of the ego consciousness. Something extraordinary may be added to this. It is necessary to know that with the embodiment of the ego consciousness in evolution there was a condition where people looked up at every opportunity of their conscious lives to gods, or—where monotheism existed—to that God who has remained as an image of the Father God. As long as we stand in the imagination of the Father God, the imagination is fulfilled so that we can say: ‘When a human being is aware of his ego nature then he feels that within his ego is the inner working of the Father God in his soul.’ The Father God distils in a certain way a drop of his own Being which remains connected to the entire spiritual sea of the Father God, to the beings of individuals and every person can say to himself: ‘The Father God is alive in me, the abundance of the Father God lives in me.’ However, the entire humanity is permeated with the being of the Father God. Experiencing all of this at present is to say to yourself: ‘I am!’ That is: ‘The Father God is in me.’—To live in this way in present times is becoming increasingly impossible. You must come to your own “I” via your own consciousness which makes it a product of yourself. This production of the individual “I” is in connection with the entire cosmic-spiritual world only possible when individuals identify themselves with Christ, thus with the Son of God.

What can be said about the relationship between people blessed by Christ and people who have not been enriched by Christ? Upon looking back at the consciousness of unblessed mankind, therefore the individual being of their souls, can you say: ‘I am the only one who has been blessed with an “I”?’—No, the soul could only say: ‘Within me the Father God lives and because He lives in me it enables me to say “I” to myself.’—People had not been completely individualised, the individual was a child of God, but as if the child was still connected to God by an umbilical cord. What the soul could have when it was aware of this divine capacity, it could have no more, later on. The Christ-blessed humanity acquired it in such a way that each single soul could take up their “I” out of this divine substance.

In this way the Christ-blessed people were able to take their own “I” out of the substance of their individual soul being.

Thus the Christ brought the same as what the Father God had given humanity on earth, but He brought it in a new way in order for every individual to find a connection to the ego being born within. Thus the Christ could say to humanity: ‘I bring to you what you are used to recognise out of the Logos but I bring it in a new way. I bring it to you through what the Father God has given to me, what He had given directly to you before, but for another state of consciousness. As his messenger I bring this treasure from the Father God to you, to each independent consciousness of yours, to every single individual. I don't want to just make you into some kind of member of the whole cosmos, I will by virtue of the full authority given to me by the Father God make each single one of you, if you want to come, into an “I” filled person with a divine consciousness.’

That the manner in which the divine consciousness should come to people now in a different way to what it had been in earlier times, is because of the Mystery of Golgotha. Similarly, it also applies to the Words of the Gospels taking on quite a different sense as a result of the Mystery of Golgotha. It is for instance possible to refer back to the stages of evolution of humanity from the contents of the Our Father prayer. It doesn't refer to the contents in this case but that the Our Father comes across in a different and in a newer way to the “I” filled conscious soul even though given in the same words, in the same sentences. Penetrating this event with spiritual powers makes it possible again for us to research it ourselves. This fact brings us back to the original meaning of the Gospels. This original meaning must be revealed again today. Humanity should not be allowed to be fobbed off with misunderstandings of Gospels not taken from a lofty view. One should overcome the point of understanding the matter in such a way as to ask oneself: Can you, when you are quite honest in your soul, today still, discover meaning in the words of John 17, verse 1 to 9?

My dear friends, much can be said and repeated about this if you want to disregard the facts that a clear understanding can't really be found. In an artificial way (of the commentator) no meaning can be linked to these words. Only through belief can meaning be connected to them because nothing actual is touched when you have one these sentences (of some or other terrible translation) in front of you. By contrast when you make an attempt to empathise with the (original) texts in a word-for-word translation into your mother tongue (original text says “German”—translator note), then a deeper meaning comes into it. You should not allow, if you are honest with yourself, to say these words would be simplified and be comprehensible to every ordinary human mind, through artificial comments. Actually you realise the deeper meaning in the original and this fact must be your starting point.

Humanity today would prefer not to have to search for such deep meaning in the Gospels. One can't escape the fact that there is deeper meaning which we need to discover. We can't deny it. It would be a subjective fantasy to say: ‘Don't interpret anything in the Gospels, simply remain with the contents.’ That as such is the interpretation. When we go back to the meaning which is there on quite a mundane level then we could translate it in the following way:

After Jesus saved him, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour has come, let your son be revealed so that he may reveal you, as You have given him power over all who have flesh, so that he may give everlasting life to them. This now is everlasting life, that You are recognised as the only true God and Jesus Christ as your emissary. I have revealed Your being on earth, to fulfil the work You have given to me. And now reveal me, Father, with the light of revelation which came through You to me before the world began. I have brought You into manifestation to humanity which You assigned to me out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to me and they have remained fulfilled with Your Word. Thus they can see that everything which You have given me comes from You. For the power of thought which You have given me, I have brought to them. You have linked yourself to them and seen how I come from You and that You have given them to me. I pray for each single individual, not for humanity in general, but for those you have given me, for they are yours, created by you.

As I have said to you before, this entire version is nothing other, my dear friends, than the facts of humanity's evolution depicted within the Gospels. The precise truth in the Gospels can be found when you enter into the spiritual facts within them. With this, the kind of awareness develops, I might say, for the right light to be thrown on the words. Is it not true, it is certainly not my intention to utter some idle criticism when I say it is not possible to say the words: “Father, the hour has come for You to reveal your son, so that Your son can reveal you.” If you are honest, you will admit: this doesn't really say anything, even by trying to make it comprehensible through the human heart. In contrast the truth becomes obvious by taking the Greek Text which says: “Father, the hour has come, reveal your son ...” which asks the Father to reveal the Son. The δοξα is no statement, the δοξα is to reveal, to announce, to-bring-to-recognition, and thus it is meant: “... so that your son is revealed out of You.” The mediation of the Father-contents through the power of the Son are expressed directly in these words in a naive idea. Earlier, humanity had the substance of the Father God within them, as described. Now the Father God has brought the Son to becoming the mediator for humanity. This is really written here and is no lie: “... as You have given him power over all who have flesh ...” The expression “flesh” (Fleisch) is difficult to translate here because it can be misunderstood in ordinary speech. In fact, it should say: “... as You have given him power over all human physical bodies so that he can give everlasting life for those given to him.”—When one contemplates these facts, that the human body originally had the consciousness of being filled with God and thus earned everlasting life, you realise that while this power no longer fills the consciousness, the bodies can no longer reflect back the gift of everlasting life. This is why the Christ had to be sent to humanity. ‘This now is everlasting life, that You are recognised as the only true God and Jesus Christ your emissary. I have revealed Your Being on earth, to fulfil the work You have given to me. And now reveal me, Father, with the light of revelation which came through You to me before the world began. I have brought You into manifestation for humanity which you assigned me out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to me and they have remained fulfilled with Your Word.’

Christ Jesus has made it possible to stop the Word from dying and for the contents of the Father substance to remain in humanity. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place, humanity would have forgotten about this content. The Father God would have been forgotten if the Son had not perpetuated the Fatherly content. Thus they have seen that everything which You have given me comes from You. For the power of thought which You have given me, I have brought to them. You have linked yourself to them and seen how I come from You and that You have given them to me. I pray for each single individual, not for humanity in general, but for those you have given me, for they are yours, created by you.

I add here ‘for humanity in general’ instead of ‘for the World’. This is no longer understood. This spiritual connectivity experience has just been referred to which at the time was an acceptable image: For them as individuals, not only for humanity in general.

In truth, the New Testament does not become less beautiful, magnificent and sublime through our understanding of its contents. This concerns your correct positioning in the present, in the spiritual life of the present, in a religious movement of the present to once again return to the reality contained in the Gospels. How often the request surfaces for the necessity to return again to original Christendom! It fails because nothing can be achieved by an attempt to grasp the Logos in its ancient meaning and then one repeatedly comforts oneself conveniently that the Gospels should be taken up as simple content. However, simple content would not fail if one would actually enter into what is written there. We may not forget, my dear friends, that words do essentially change in their feeling-value in the course of time. It is not possible simply to translate a word out of the ancient language lexicographically. Already today when one translates something lexicographically, the results are entirely different. This applies even more when translating historical events. It does not come down to directly taking the sentimental value attached to words of the present and applying this to ancient wording, but the task is to go back to the feeling within the contents of the ancient working. We can find examples of these facts everywhere in the New Testament where the Gospels were expressed in a time when revelation was given through grace from the spiritual cosmos to mankind which had not yet moved from the partially developed ego consciousness into the fully developed ego consciousness. All other facts need to be judged according to this basic fact. We may not remain fixed in an opinion and say that the earlier, the simple people emerging from the lowest levels could not understand the meaning in it. If the meaning of the Gospels is so simple to understand, we must reveal the other side of this wonderful fact: How were these simple people capable of relating such a profound meaning in the Gospels?—It is far more spiritual to say these simple people born from the folk could not have understood the meaning. Such a conclusion depends on another opinion.

I don't know if any of you—perhaps those of us who are older—have had this kind of experience of going with a loving heart among the country folk. You go there as an educated person feeling tremendously clever and you speak to the folk of what you've learnt. They don't understand you. Yet if you go along with them, you discover an unbelievable deep wisdom among these simple people which outshines anything you can offer out of yourself. The wisdom of naive people is actually deeper than that of educated people. The theory of simplicity among primitive people is an intellectual theory of educated people. For example, the meaning in some of Jakob Bohme's sentences could have been learnt from a herb gatherer forty years ago rather than in a university. This can't be denied. However faithfully an old text can be translated is something from which Professor Beckh can create a song for you, concerning Sanskrit in oriental texts. One will not be going too far by saying Indian philosophy becomes unrecognizable in translation, which for example was done by Professor Deußen (after the visit of Swami Viviknanda to Germany in 1896-translator note). If one wants to examine the original human contents of Deußen's translation, simply the straight forward word combination, you experience it as empty words in which no sense can be found at all. These things are of the utmost importance and are related to the deepest questions of our time. As a result, I do not want to hesitate to decide our future meeting in relation with this consideration, because I believe that it is necessary precisely at this time.

I hope you can experience it as the truth—what I mentioned yesterday—that for the Religious Movement the Act of Consecration becomes the deepest and most everlasting fact which is not merely rich in imagery but that it must become alive and remain capable of becoming ever new and more rich. I hope that we can continue with our working together in this lively unfolding way with which we have started with so much hope.

Werner Klein expressed in closing the wish of the good will remaining so powerfully in the work that in a year's time another meeting will be held where they could ask Dr Steiner's advice.

Rudolf Steiner: We wish for this as well and will hold this in our hearts.

The chairman, Mr. Roser, opens the meeting. He then announces that it is intended to introduce study evenings at which explanations of the idea of the threefold social order are to be given and at which, in particular, the book “The Core Issues of the Social Question” is to be thoroughly discussed. The first study evening is to take place in the coming week. He then reports that the shoe industry has made progress with regard to the works council issue. They have already come so far that the works councils in the leather industry have joined together to form an action committee that intends to become active within the shoe industry in the near future.

Opening words

Rudolf Steiner: Dear attendees, As on the previous evenings, I will also give only a brief introduction today, so that we can then discuss one or the other specific question in detail. But in view of the waning interest in the works council issue, it may be advisable to make some more general comments at the beginning of this evening.

You see, on the part of the “Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism”, the aim has been to take the first really practical step in the direction that has been outlined by the social movement for more than half a century, by creating a works council. This movement is, after all, like an outcry of the proletariat against its oppression. But this outcry is basically nothing more than a kind of world-historical critique of the capitalist economic order. Due to the world war catastrophe, conditions have now emerged that make it necessary to replace the critique to which the parties of the socialist movement have become accustomed with something else. When people within this movement began to find ways to achieve social renewal, there was hope that, especially among the broad masses of the working class, firstly from their experiences within the capitalist social order, and secondly from the undergrounds that arise because the working class is really much more politically educated than the bourgeoisie as a result of its experiences, an understanding would develop for what should replace the previously merely social criticism of the social order. After the so-called collapse of the German Reich, one could basically only hope for something really decisive from this side, because those who were completely tied to the old state and economic order had nothing to offer that could really lead to a new structure, despite the experiences of the world war catastrophe and its consequences.

One gets quite gloomy thoughts today when, on the one hand, one realizes that the intelligentsia is necessary for a new beginning, and when, on the other hand, one considers the mental and political state of this intelligentsia in today's Central Europe, especially the intelligentsia of those who belong to the leading personalities. From all that has been said here so far, those of you who have been here often will have seen that if we really want to make progress, a new social order must also be found from a new spirit. This applies in particular to the present moment, which clearly shows that Central Europe is in the process of collapse. That nothing can be hoped for from certain circles is illustrated by the following example.

You see, when one speaks of a new spirit with which the future is to be shaped, then one must first ask oneself: where are the manifestations of this new spirit? Now, the political spirit that dominates today, especially the leading classes, I would like to illustrate with an example that could be multiplied a thousandfold. The following words were spoken in Berlin. Please listen carefully, for today it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the spirit of the people. So listen carefully:

"The fact that before the revolution we were generally able to trust in the honest and objective reliability of our government, that in the excellent Prussian civil service we could spare ourselves the need to have a say, is not the least of the reasons for the intellectual superiority that Germany in general, and especially in its scientific and technical development, has demonstrated during the nineteenth century. You cannot serve two masters at the same time. The general politicization is necessarily an enemy of strict concentration and immersion in creative work. May the German mind develop the strength to work its way through the ugly political flood of sin and mud back to that glorious state of trust that Prussia gave us in the form of the Hohenzollerns!"

[Interjection: Is that the Oldenburg Januschau?]

Yes, that's what you think, that it's the Oldenburg Januschau! It would be comforting if it were at least him. But you see, these words were spoken by the leading professor of German language and literature at Berlin University. That is the crucial point! These words, spoken by the representative of German language and literature, the leading representative of this subject at the leading German university, are indeed somewhat indicative of the spirit that prevails among those who today have to inspire our youth for what humanity can expect from the future. Is it any wonder that gloomy thoughts arise when one thinks of this future? Basically, this is mentioned as a characteristic because, after all, those people who are leading the way in journalism today, especially in the journalism of the parties, have learned a great deal from these people in terms of their overall thinking, even if they have adopted individual program points. Above all, they have learned to be short-sighted, not to say dull-witted.

In the face of this, it must be emphasized again and again: Unless people can muster the strength to develop a truly new spirit, a comprehensive spirit, things cannot fundamentally improve. That is why it is so regrettable that the idea of founding a works council was drawn from a truly new spirit, that this idea of a works council, which is a truly practical idea, has found so little favor with the masses. Of course, things can move slowly at first, and that wouldn't even be the worst thing, but the way things have happened must be counted among the worst things.

We started our work here with the threefold social order in mind. At first, as I have already mentioned, the people who are always listened to said: Well, that's just a little folly, we'll let it go. But then this folly turned out to have found a following of thousands in Stuttgart and the surrounding area. That made people extremely uncomfortable. Then the practical idea of workers' councils emerged in a truly practical form. Then people became even more uncomfortable, and then this strange fact arose, which must be recorded again and again: that the parties are now raising objections to the threefold social order in general and to the works council issue in particular. On the one hand, we hear: Yes, the threefold order is all right. When our friends Gönnewein and Roser spoke at a public meeting in the Dinkelacker Hall recently, for example, one of the various speakers, most of whom were opposed to us, said: Yes, the threefold social order is all very well; it must ultimately prevail, but we are fighting against it! — Well, it is good and must ultimately be realized, but it is being fought against. - We want something completely different to start with, and then, when we have realized this completely different thing, then the threefold social order will come about by itself.

Now, there can be no question of the threefold order ever arising by itself; rather, it must be worked hard for. It is, I have to say the word, the biggest swindle when people repeat the old word over and over again: We only need to do this or that, it only needs this or that class to gain power, and then a properly ordered social being will arise by itself. No, the properly ordered social organism must first be recognized and then worked out. And it is characteristic that they keep saying: the threefold social organism is all very well, but that is how a social order must be, as the threefold social organism says, but we are fighting it. But if people are to say what they want, then one hears nothing but slogans and

The only thing I found within the Communist Party with regard to its fight against the threefold order is that they agree – as far as one is confronted with it – that the threefold order is quite good, but that it must be fought. In that they agree. And from the other side it has been shown — do not think that I care about anything, but when it comes to fighting for something, then such things must be looked at — that on the occasion of the publication of the first number of our weekly magazine 'Threefolding of the Social Organism', not a single one of the thoughts contained in this magazine was addressed, but it was all just scathing abuse. This is the result of dullness, of the inability to produce even one real thought of one's own. Therefore one can do nothing but rant. Much has also been said from third and fourth parties that aims in a similar direction. Things were always treated in such a way that it soon became clear that all these critics do not raise any real objections. On the one hand, this reveals an inability, an impotence; on the other hand, it reveals stupidity, in that one says again and again that threefolding is good in itself, but must be fought. Now, if these things are not looked at, if the cancerous damage resulting from party activity is not seen, then nothing healing can come out of the struggle in which we find ourselves.

Dear attendees! Today is truly not the time to get lost in such party squabbling, because today we are close to the point where people with the kind of attitude of Professor Gustav Roethe of the University of Berlin, which I have read to you, are gaining the upper hand again in capitalist circles as well. You don't have to be a friend of these ideas, which are only half or quarter ideas and, on top of that, quite impractical, and you don't have to be a friend of Wissell and Moellendorff, but you have to say that from a certain side they had the power to suppress them. If they had been ousted from another side, it would not have been a particular problem, but the fact that they were ousted from that side proves the current seriousness of the situation in Central Europe. It proves that certain circles feel safe again, circles that felt very unsafe relatively recently.

A few weeks ago, just as I was coming from Switzerland, from Dornach, to Stuttgart and we were beginning our work, it was still the case that the business community, indeed the leading circles in general, felt insecure in a certain sense. There was still a very strange mood prevailing in these circles. And so one could certainly have the impression that something can be achieved if a vigorous movement with content and meaning comes along. At that time, those who abhorred the planned economy and the framework laws of Moellendorff did not yet have the courage to come forward as boldly as they do today. But because it was possible to foresee how things would turn out, one idea was put forward again and again here and in other meetings at which I spoke, probably to the point of tedium for many, namely: Action should be taken on the idea of works councils before it is too late.

In connection with the farewell of Moellendorff and Wissell, it should be noted that the Works Council Constitution Act has now been reintroduced to the National Assembly. You can take all these symptoms together, and you will not find it incredible if today someone who has some insight into these things tells you: all this is the systematic work of the other side, the systematic work of former entrepreneurs who had already felt very close to the abyss and who are now gradually paralyzing the social movement in Central Europe. From this side, no means are spared, including going into partnership with the Entente, if it means paralyzing the social movement in Central Europe. If the ideas of those people who are at work today are fulfilled, and that is no exaggeration, then it is the case that all social striving, as you feel it, is an impossibility for many years. Because then it is not a question of how strong capitalism is in Central Europe, but of how strong Entente capitalism is.

That is how things are on the one hand. On the other hand, we have the most savage party infighting, which would have to be swept away in order to arrive at an objective striving. What does this party infighting reveal? Above all, it reveals the necessity for the threefold social organism. In this threefold order, spiritual life should have an independent administration, on the other hand, state or legal life should have its own administration, and on the third hand, economic life. Within economic life, as a purely economic institution, we want to develop the works councils. This works council system would mark the beginning of a real socialization by separating economic administration from spiritual and political life. What would be the safest way to keep economic life at the mercy of capitalism? By continuing to mix economic life with political life! And what is it that squeals out of the foolish party squabbling? It is the wild mixing and merging of economic points of view and political points of view. These modern parties are so harmful because they are based entirely on what has survived as a fusion of political and economic life. That is why we keep hearing from people who understand absolutely nothing about the structure of the social order that you first have to have political power and then economic power. Then they turn it around and so on. All these things show the most chaotic amateurism. The fact that such views are appearing within the parties shows how necessary the threefold social organism is. And in our day, I would say, we should really, as the twelfth hour approaches, consult with ourselves and ask ourselves: Do we really want to be the fools of the rising reaction by blindly following the party slogans more than ever the seemingly well-meaning Catholics follow them? Don't you want to rely on your own judgment? If you had relied on your own sound judgment, then the works council would have been established already. Just think what it would mean if the works council were already a reality and if the economic demands of the proletariat were taken up by the works councils and were to be heard in all that is now happening within the newly strengthened capitalism and entrepreneurship, in what is being driven on the part of the ore mining industry, which is much more damaging than one might think, and in what is connected with the peace treaty. People have repeatedly emphasized that the main thing is to conquer political power.

Oh, my dear audience, nothing strikes me as more ridiculous than such phrases. Of course, you can say such phrases, that you first have to have political power. But when the first step should be taken to gain power at all, as it could have happened through the election of the works councils, then this first step is not taken. It is not taken because people love to speak in grand words and phrases. But they do not love to approach the issue in a truly appropriate way.

The previous draft of the Works Councils Act has turned out to be impractical and unacceptable. Now a new draft is being presented to the National Assembly, after the timid attempt by Moellendorff and Wissell, which also contained rudiments of a planned economy, was thrown into the underworld, along with the two personalities. All this shows the kind of nonsense being perpetrated by a certain faction, which ultimately will lead nowhere. Imagine if our works councils in Württemberg had been in session for the last fourteen days and had sent tangible proposals for real socialization into the world every day! If that were the case, then one could say: the new spirit necessary for a new beginning arises from this proletariat. If there were a thousand works councils here instead of just a few, then we could say: We laugh at what the big industrialist said after the start of the November Revolution and the outbreak of the strike: “We just have to wait!” Because the time will come when the workers will come whining and begging to our establishment and will be satisfied if they are allowed to work a quarter of what they are asking for now. Well, but today we are not yet in a position to look at things with the necessary seriousness. But it is not enough to express this seriousness only in words; it is important that it is also reflected in actions. If we consider that the Central European industrialists will receive support from the Entente in terms of their power, then we must come to the conclusion that this works council system must be created before it is too late. I am not saying that nothing can be done now. Of course, we must continue to work in the direction we have begun, but it would be playing blind man's bluff to close our eyes to the general world situation. We are in it now, and actually we should not have got into it at all without already having works councils.

You see, in times of such upheaval as the ones we are living through, it is of the utmost importance to recognize and seize the right moment. You can't afford to wait four to six weeks for the right thing to happen. Today, many people know that with the great French Revolution at the end of the 18th century and with the following revolutions in the 19th century, only a kind of emancipation of the human being as a citizen was actually achieved. But the fact that individual people have become freer to a certain extent is meaningless for the broad masses of the proletariat. Why? Because those who rose up against the old feudal order may have seized state power, but they failed to remove the economic straitjacket from the workers, even though they were now personally free. Today it is time to realize that merely seizing state power is not enough. As a result of the revolutions, other people came to power, but nothing really new was created. The old framework of the state was retained. And so they continued to work until the catastrophe of the world wars. They squeezed everything into the framework of the old unitary state. Today the time has come to recognize that the proletariat cannot simply imitate the bourgeoisie, which only wanted to conquer state power. The proletariat must develop something new and not cling to the old unitary state. The proletariat must develop the tripartite social organism. Either we understand this tripartite structure or we will end up with an impossible construct like the state of the 19th and early 20th century. It is not enough to keep saying that we want to overthrow the old institutions and replace capitalism with new social forms! One must also know what these new forms should consist of! That is why an attempt has also been made with my book 'The Crux of the Social Question' to present to people something that really gives the longed-for social community an organic structure. It shows how this social community can become possible and how it can develop. What use is it to always say: things must come from themselves!

Well, I could imagine that such fanatics of self-origin still believe that the social order came by itself, even when it actually had to be fought for hard. You see, if the cockerel on the dung heap crows before sunrise, when it is still dark, and then the sun rises, the cockerel can imagine that it was his crowing that made the sun rise. It is quite certain that a new social order will not come about just by crowing about socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It will only come about if a sufficiently large number of people think: we have to work to bring about this new social order. We must choose from among ourselves those in whom we have confidence, so that, on the basis of existing economic experience, something beneficial for economic life may come about, which can then eclipse all the bureaucratic proposals for laws and the like that are being sought from other quarters. I ask you: Are you afraid of such work, or why do you refrain from creating such a works council, which would really be a power factor because it would be supported by the trust of the workers? At the moment, you can be sure of that, when such a works council produces new fruitful ideas, in that moment the works council is the greatest power in certain areas. It is not the crowing of a cockerel on the dung heap, who believes that the sun rises because of his crowing. It is a call to action, but to an action that is known to be the right one.

You see, I believe that the new spirit could flourish out of such a feeling alone. But as long as this new spirit does not live in people's minds, nothing good will come of it. And the current economic situation is such that, above all, we have to think about how we can get our economic life in Central Europe back on its feet to some extent. Thus, new sources of raw materials of the most diverse kinds will have to be tapped, especially in the East. There will be many a necessity that Central European entrepreneurship has not yet tackled. However, sources of raw materials in Siberia can no longer be tapped, because the course of the world does not allow this today; the Americans and the Japanese no longer allow it. Where we can be effective is in the entire European East. But there it will be a matter of finding the right tone to go along with the Russian national soul. That was precisely the worst thing about the industrial circles that have been leading up to now, that they never found the tone to enter into a corresponding connection with other national souls. That is another reason why a new spirit must enter into our economic life. Otherwise the East will slam the door on us, especially if we come with the spirit that our leading circles have developed so far. Above all, we are dependent on developing a brotherhood, an economic brotherhood, with the East, otherwise we will never get out of the situation we have gotten into.

A new spirit is needed in a wide variety of directions! This new spirit may flourish in hearts and minds, for we need it. You will not find the new spirit in what I read to you at the beginning, because it says that “before the revolution, we were generally able to trust in the honest and objective reliability of our government, that we excellent Prussian civil service state, we could spare the need to have a say in it, and it is not least in this that the intellectual superiority that Germany in general, especially in its scientific and technical development, has demonstrated during the nineteenth century, is rooted. ... May the German spirit develop the strength to work its way through the ugly political flood of sin and mud back to the glorious state of trust that Prussia's Hohenzollern gave us.

You will understand that one cannot speak in this way today. But, ladies and gentlemen, I will now translate these words into another language and then ask you whether one can speak in this way today: the fact that before the revolution we were able to place our complete trust in the honest and objective reliability of our party leaders, that we the excellent Party bureaucratism we could spare ourselves the need to have a say, and it is not least in this that the intellectual superiority is rooted, which Germany in general, but not in its social-democratic and socialist development, has demonstrated during the nineteenth century. One cannot serve two masters, the Party bureaucrats and the tripartite division. The general politicization is necessarily an enemy of strict concentration and immersion in devotion, in loyalty, in party bonze-hood. May the social spirit develop the strength to work its way through the ugly political flood of sin and mud back to that glorious party system of trust, as the party bigwigs have given it to us Social Democrats. You see, you have applied the same thought forms to something else. Whether you are Professor Roethe and speak about the Hohenzollern in this way or whether you are just an honest party man and speak about the party bigwigs in this way, both are based on the same mental perceptions. It does not make a person freer if he simply worships other idols! One becomes free by relying on one's own judgment, on one's own reason and on one's own perception. It is to this inner perception that we have appealed. I hope that it will yet be shown that we have not appealed in vain, for if we had appealed in vain, then the situation of the proletariat would be dire.

Discussion

Mr. Huch: The speaker fully agrees with Dr. Steiner's remarks and expresses his regret that the idea of the threefold social order is not taken up as it should be. He sees the fault largely with the trade unions. As a member of a workers' committee, he also notes that the business community today is again acting quite differently than it did six to eight weeks ago.

Mr. Fischer: He introduces himself as a trade union leader and defends the work of the trade unions against the previous speaker. He explains that it is the fault of the workers themselves if the union does not proceed correctly. — The poor attendance at today's meeting is probably also due to the fact that the workers are suspicious of everything that comes from philosophers, theosophists and commercial counselors. Regarding the works councils, Mr. Fischer criticizes the fact that the works councils in Germany are also fragmented. If there is now competition between works councils in different cities, independently of each other and based on different industries, then that is a big mistake. The speaker professes himself to be a supporter of the works councils. At the moment when the parties and the trade unions have outlived themselves, they must of course be swept away; the only question is what we put in their place. It must be clear that you can't just throw away the organizations that have had the trust of the masses so far. The speaker cannot imagine how unity can prevail in a works council when people with different economic and political views are represented there. If practical socialization is to be pursued, then one must begin by taking the means of production and land out of the hands of the exploiters and transferring them into the ownership of society, because the power of the capitalists is based on the ownership of these means. The speaker asks Dr. Steiner to indicate how the works councils can accomplish this task. Furthermore, Dr. Steiner is asked to provide information on how, in his opinion, the works councils can be put in a position to determine demand. Because as long as the worker has to ask, “Do I have enough to live on?” he will not concern himself with lofty spiritual problems. The starving masses crave bread, not spiritual ideals. Only when food is available again will there also be mental resilience. The masses will certainly not grovel and beg for work, but will throw society overboard. The proletariat's confrontation with the capitalists will not take the form of fine speeches, but of violence.

Another speaker: Dr. Steiner's idea that we must orient ourselves towards the East coincides with what I also said at a meeting. I also said that the new comes from the East; a new form of society has emerged there, perhaps not yet as it should be, but the new comes from there and we must orient ourselves towards it. What do we experience? Our government has known nothing but to look anxiously to the West and to make sure that nothing happens that the Entente does not like. That is the whole evil we are facing today. German capitalism has simply been replaced by Entente capitalism, and we will have to fight very hard battles if we want to eliminate this Entente capitalism from the world. No one has yet succeeded in pointing the way. If Dr. Steiner succeeds, the workers will follow him.

Rudolf Steiner: I would like to make a few remarks before I return to the words of the previous speaker.

First of all, it was said that the working class is strongly opposed to the threefold social order because it is based on philosophers, commercial counsellors and the like. This is not true at all; in fact, the working class was not very prejudiced at the beginning of our work. On the contrary, it turned out that we found thousands and thousands of supporters for what we were spreading, not as a utopian idea, but as something that is directly the germ of action, as I called it at the time. The workers at that time didn't give a damn whether these thoughts came from philosophers or commercial counselors, but they relied on their common sense and listened. And those who were prejudiced whistled from a completely different direction. And they have managed to ensure that this prejudice has only gradually emerged. So the matter is quite different.

Although the previous speaker has correctly characterized the movement of commercial employees, which is showing some better traits and deserves to be studied in more detail by the rest of the working class, his words nevertheless show that he is completely unaware of what threefolding is in general and what it specifically seeks to achieve with the founding of a works council. For this is precisely what must be most vigorously combated by the threefolding of the social organism, namely, that this fragmentation occurs. It has never been our aim merely to create works councils for any industry or to individualize within the works council. How often has it been said: If works councils are created for the individual industries, this is the opposite of what must be aimed for in the context of a real socialization. We have always striven for a works council that extends uniformly over a larger, self-contained economic area. And only from such a works council should everything necessary for individualization then emerge. The fact that the matter has taken on the form that more zeal is shown in individual sectors than in others has nothing to do with the works council as it should have arisen from the idea of threefolding.

Yes, and then the previous speaker brought up the argument that one would have to start by transferring the means of production and land into the ownership of society. Just try to think through what is actually meant by this nebulous sentence to its logical conclusion! Consider what such a demand means in practice! I would like to take this up again. I once spoke about these things in a town, I think it was Göppingen, and after me spoke a man who actually spoke quite well from a certain point of view. He was probably a communist. He said he was a cobbler. At first he spoke very well, but then something strange happened: he said, “Yes, I already know that since I have not learned a trade, I cannot become a registrar, for that you need intelligence.” Well, excuse me, but that doesn't require much understanding. But a great deal of understanding and insight is needed for what this man wanted to know about the conquest of political power and the like. These things must be faced.

Now, the specific question is how to implement the fundamentally correct demand to transfer the means of production and land into the public domain. Of course, there must also be people available who can properly manage the means of production and land. The thing is this: what has been the capitalist form of production up to now has a very specific configuration; a very specific way of handling it was necessary for that. This must be transformed into a different way of handling it, and this must first be created. Today, before you have any concrete ideas about how to manage the means of production and the land, you cannot simply demand that the means of production and so on be transferred into the public domain! That is precisely what the workers' councils are supposed to do in practice. You cannot revolutionize anything with phrases and theories; you can only do it with people, and these people should have been the workers' councils, and I mean the unified workers' councils, not the fragmented ones. That is what it is all about. We shall make no headway if we keep on saying that the proposals of the philosophers and commercial counsellors come from the clouds, and then contrast them with a so-called practice that has arisen from even more nebulous regions, because then it becomes apparent that it is impossible to say how such things can actually be implemented. But it is precisely this “how” that is at issue. This “how” is explained in my book The Essential Points of the Social Question; it is only necessary to understand it, that is what it is about.

Yes, and then it has been said repeatedly that we must first change the economic order. The spiritual will then arise by itself. — It will not. We already need this new spirit to change the economic system. And it is precisely then that one speaks impractically and nebulously when one says again and again: We change the economic system, then the new spirit will come by itself. No, you need the new spirit to change the economic system. That is why I say to you: For my sake, you can chase the whole of society away with the words of the esteemed previous speaker – but then also be clear about what you have to do when you have chased away the old society. Do you know what you want to do then? You can't do the same thing, otherwise you wouldn't need to chase them away. If you centralize the entire economy and put super-bonze above super-bonze, do you think that will improve anything? I would like to see if something would be better for the working masses if you were to put the highest-ranking union bonze in the top positions instead of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. That is what you should think about. That is what emerged from practical considerations, however much I liked the tone of the previous speaker's comments. But it has not yet been understood what it is really about, because everything that is happening in the optical industry, in the automotive industry and the like is the opposite of what is being propagated here. And so it is not enough just to point out ways; there must be a real understanding among the broad masses of workers, and then these ways must be developed in concrete practice. That is why I feel I must say, when I hear it said, “Steiner shows us the ways,” Steiner shows us the way – that it will be of no use if I show these ways, as long as large masses are repeatedly kept from understanding by the fact that people keep coming who have not yet understood this way and then speak of the opposite, as has just happened again, and then say: If we are shown the way, we will follow it; I am happy to be taught. – But when something is shown, the objection is that it is nothing. No, as long as this is the case, we will not make any progress. We will only make progress if we develop an instinct for what is right. And that is what we lack from the “Federation for the Threefold Social Order”. At first we found a certain healthy mass instinct, but then we had to learn that there is still a great deal of obedience to the old leaders. I will not doubt the emergence of a healthy instinct, but it will only emerge when those speakers no longer appear before the masses who, without sufficiently penetrating the matter, simply talk and prevent the masses from from taking further steps, but on the contrary, lead them back to their old obedience and to dubious ideas, by saying again and again: “Go ahead and form works councils; they will only fragment again.

If what we have been striving for had really been achieved, we would not have fragmentation, but a unified organization of economic concerns within the works council into the future, at least for Württemberg. This would then have a motivating effect on others and could have an impact beyond this economic area.

Mr. Fischer: He states that his criticism of the works councils was not directed against Dr. Steiner, but against the remarks made by the chairman at the beginning... I said: I am convinced that the ideas that Dr. Steiner developed and carried to the masses were different. But something different was propagated than was shown in practice. Dr. Steiner said that the socialization of the means of production is a phrase and that afterwards there would be no one left who would know how to manage the means of production. It would be sad if the workers and employees who have done the work since then did not know what to do with the means of production! What I mean is that the shareholders should be eliminated and it should be said: the shares are no longer valid. The property should become the property of the general public and be administered by the general public. Dr. Steiner puts spiritual ideas above everything. But the workers today only want bread because they are physically exhausted and unable to accept spiritual ideas. I ask Dr. Steiner to address this and show how these ideas can be made accessible to the masses with hungry stomachs.

Rudolf Steiner: That is a snake that bites its own tail. Do you think it is said on the one hand: We can transfer the means of production into the general public. Well, a really concrete body that would represent this generality would be the works councils. But such a body must first be created, it is not there! Certainly, the great mass is weakened by hunger. But should we wait for manna to fall from heaven so that bread can be socialized? This is a snake that bites its own tail. We must, of course, strive for both at the same time, and we will achieve nothing if we do not all work together, because the manna will not just fall from the sky. There is work to be done! We will all have to work, but we will only really want to work if we see what comes out of that work. We will work even with weakened muscles, with hungry stomachs, when we know that tomorrow our work will lead to a result. – But if we are always told that it should be socialized, then we will not be able to work even with an empty stomach, because we know that we will not be full tomorrow if we do not work with practical ideas.

So today it is important that we engage with this and also say: Well, the old society was chased away in droves on November 9 [...] The previous speaker, who said very good things in general, then described very well what happened then. I do not want to examine now how much of what happened there can be attributed to incompetence. I attribute more to the incompetence of those in power today than to their ill will. Because of this incompetence, what should actually be overcome keeps coming to the fore. This must be avoided. Whether or not this society, which was discussed today, is chased away with or without violence, is another question. But those who take its place must know what they want. That alone is practical. And that is the aim of the 'Federation for the Threefold Social Organism': to ensure that November 9th is not repeated and that in a few months' time we do not have to say: 'Now you see, now we have a different regime in economic life, but it is doing exactly the same thing as the previous one'. This must be prevented. But it can only be prevented by setting up a works council and then showing that things are done differently under the new regime. Of course, if no people can be found among the working population, among the employees, who really know how to work, then one would indeed have to despair. But that is not the only thing. It is essential that new forms of socialization then become visible. After all, people are all accustomed to working in some way under the old regime. Therefore, now that power has been gained, those who have gained it must really recognize how to deal with that power. So, it's a matter of really taking a practical approach for once. And the sad thing is that there is no understanding of such a practical approach today, and people keep coming up with old phrases. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that the transfer of the means of production and the land into the community is a phrase as such. That is not what I said. But a phrase, what is a phrase? Something is a phrase for one person because he cannot see anything special behind the words, while for another it is a deep golden truth because he sees something concrete behind it. When, for example, Bethmann-Hohlkopf, I mean Bethmann-Hollweg, says, “Free rein to the efficient!” it is a mere phrase, because he may understand it to mean that, for example, his nephew or someone else is the most efficient. But when someone who has real social insight and a real sense of humanity says, “Free rein to the efficient!” it is not a mere phrase, it is real. If someone simply repeats the old party line about the socialization of the means of production, then it can be a mere catchphrase. But when someone characterizes it as it is in my book, then it is not a catchphrase, then it is an expression of a reality. Therefore, you do not have to believe that when I call something a phrase, it is meant to be absolute. I mean, it is a phrase when there is not the necessary reality behind what has been said. That is what I wanted to say.

Mr. Roser: The previous speaker is mistaken if he thinks that I welcomed the works councils in the shoe industry because they formed separately. I just wanted to state that the leather industry has grasped the tripartite structure of the social organism. I must note that the works councils in the footwear industry have been firmly established on the basis of the tripartite division; only for this reason did I welcome the matter. A start has to be made at some point.

Mrs. Bühl: I would like to tell Mr. Fischer that the union secretary said: Without a law, there can be no works councils; the law must first be created. The main reason why we still have no workers' councils is the fault of the parties. It's a disgrace that when you go to a meeting and express your convictions, people immediately say, “Ah, one of Dr. Steiner's people.” Why can't we express our convictions? And then they always come to us with the “Kommerzienräte”! Why do you always speak in the plural? I only know of one Kommerzienrat in our family, and it wouldn't be a mistake if we had a couple of dozen of them. Just think of all the things that one Kommerzienrat has achieved! First of all, the free school. It's a shame when you hear how the matter is judged. It's good when Kommerzienrats do it that way. I couldn't open a school. It's the stupid mistrust among the workers and the parties. [Shout: Where does he get the money from?] One opens his wallet, the other doesn't; that's the difference. If a person thinks socially and has a feeling for his workers, that's the main thing!

Mr. Huth: Mr. Fischer's comments call me to the scene. First of all, I would like to confirm to him, because I know him, that he is not one of those union bigwigs who move in the spirit of a Legien, but one of those who are active in the spirit of a truly revolutionary working class. But when he criticizes the fact that works councils have been formed and united in the shoe industry, and when he wants to use this to assert that a fragmentation would take place because other occupational branches also have works councils, then I have to correct him. In the shoe industry, when we elected our works councils, we waited quite a long time for the metal industry here to start electing its works councils as well, so that we could form a works council in the sense of the tripartite division together with them. But as time passed, and this was due to the fault of the proletarian parties, and in the other occupations the matter has not yet progressed as far as in the shoe industry, we had to say to ourselves: There is no point in not getting together and doing practical work ourselves. We have to form a works council, no matter how small, and then spread the idea of the works council to the circles of those workers who have not yet taken any action in this direction.

We cannot wait for some government to bring us socialization. The liberation of the proletariat must come from the proletariat itself, and if it is on a path that a philosopher has shown, if the path is good. It has been pointed out that the old slogan: We must first conquer political power - is repeatedly haunting people's minds. This is hammered into the proletarians again and again. This word is actually a phrase, a dishonest phrase of the parties that call themselves proletarian today, but do not know what to do in the given hour. Because they do not know, they always put off the proletariat to the great Kladderadatsch, until we get reinforcements from the West that will give us political power. We had the power, but what did we do with it? We let it slip out of our hands again because we didn't know what to do with it. We must start by conquering not political power, but economic power through the works councils. Then the power will no longer be able to slip out of our hands. The factory councils, which are to be only economic instruments, will then be supplemented by political councils, by a legal organization. But if we do not also associate the spiritual organization with these two organizations, then we will not arrive at a healthy state, as Russia shows. The leaders of the USP have already risen to a two-fold structure. But the cultural part must not be forgotten either!

When I read Däumig or Müller, I have to say to myself: Put into practice, this will lead to a threefold structure, because they have actually only forgotten the cultural part. — I am a member of the USP, but I am not afraid to tell the parties that they do not know what to do. As proletarians, we have to say: if you don't understand how to lead us, then you have to leave the field. Every movement has the leaders it deserves; so do we. The proletariat as a whole has not yet mustered the courage to tell its leaders who they are. Even if it is already quite late, we must nevertheless take up the question of the works councils with renewed energy. Mr. Molt: The person speaking to you this evening has repeatedly mentioned, if I may say so, the old council system. Mr. Fischer, whom I have the pleasure of meeting again, asked me the specific question of where the money I have actually comes from. This money comes from exactly the same capitalism from which Mr. Fischer also draws his money, that is, from the capitalist economic cycle. And the question is only whether one keeps the money that one acquires on capitalist ground to oneself or whether one gives it back to the general public. By their deeds you shall know them! – In the past, it was said: By their fruits. If you found a school to implement true socialism, if you used the money you had saved through hard work – really through work, not through capitalism – to educate the rising generation in ways other than what we were taught, I would call that the practical fruit of a good idea. If it only came about because I was able to fill my stomach a little better during the war and therefore had a good idea, then it's good that at least that's there. The idea seems to be there for real. And if there aren't good ideas everywhere, then at least we can be glad that there are still people who have ideas, and the main thing is that they are carried out.

You see, the question of the works councils, which Mr. Fischer has so thoroughly misunderstood, has really reached a much more serious stage than has been expressed here tonight. It is truly a matter of life or death! Either we create the works councils, and then we have socialism, or we perish at the hands of Entente capitalism, not only the manual laborers, but also the intellectual workers. And this fact, together with a true idea of socialism, can already warm our hearts for the cause, so that we make the works councils a reality and even put ourselves at the service of this cause as a commercial councilor, and we do so because we really mean it. And the fact that one means it honestly is proved by the wonderful fact that even proletarian assemblies want this strange commercial councillor to give them lectures on works councils, not to the detriment of this assembly. That is why I conscientiously stand on the side of the works councils as well as on the side of the threefold social order. These works councils are different from those in the automotive and optical industries, because they are nothing more than political means to strengthen the parties; they are not there to thoroughly socialize economic life on a large and true scale. That is why we at the “Bund für Dreigliederung” are so strongly opposed to the fact that the works councils that come from the parties are mixed up with the ones we want.

You have probably already read in a daily newspaper that this works council law has again been submitted to the government. We are clear about the fact that the works councils cannot be standardized because every company is different. Economic life cannot be regulated by political power or by laws, but can only regulate itself. Once the law is there, it is difficult to oppose it; you have to be a revolutionary. But if they do not even take a serious stand against the drafts, how much less will it be possible once the law is there? Only a few weeks separate us from this law. This time must be used. If it is not used, it will simply be too late for the works councils and for socialization. That is why one so fervently hopes that the working class will finally wake up. It is not right to think that the workers are prejudiced against 'philosophers and commercial counsellors'. The matter is different. Anyone who has read the newspaper and has read what the “Social Democrat” said about this Waldorf school - he says: “The school is nice, but it comes from factory owners, so it is nothing at all” - must say to himself: These are the people who are hindering true socialism and true progress. The party bigwigs of all stripes are to blame for the fact that our honest efforts and the works councils have so far achieved nothing. But the proletariat itself will soon see how it is driven into misery and hardship if it does not pull itself together in time.

This appeal should be addressed to you again today. There is no time to lose! We only have three to four weeks left. If we lose these, it will be over for good. To show you how serious the situation is, I would like to read you a few lines from a letter that I received just today. This letter was written by a German diplomat who is the first to go abroad, and you should hear how the German situation is characterized from that side: “The situation at home is getting worse and worse, and I fear that the catastrophe that was to be avoided by accepting the peace has only been postponed in order to break over us all the more powerfully. What is now called the government in Germany is really just a caricature of one, wavering between party doctrine and fear of the revolution from left to right. The people's morale is completely collapsing. The speed with which our reputation abroad is declining cannot be described; it is impossible to salvage anything.

This is a letter that arrived today from a German diplomat, who is familiar with the situation and knows how things stand, how we are viewed abroad. But things can truly only change if people in working-class circles do not fall asleep and fail to realize that we are only now approaching real misery, and if they pull themselves together in the last hour to arrive at a state of affairs in which our economic life, which is on the brink of the abyss, can be lifted again. And that can only happen if we ourselves lend a hand, if we ourselves want to see an upward turn in our economy through the introduction of works councils. I wanted to make this appeal to you again, so that we do not have to say in three to four weeks: 'Now it is too late.' There is still time, but it is the twelfth hour. It is up to you, not us.

Mr. Jansen: When Dr. Steiner began his lectures eight to ten weeks ago, there was really great enthusiasm for the idea of the threefold social order. But the moment Dr. Steiner and the Federation for the Tripartite Social Order moved on to the practical, and passed over from thought to reality, the moment work and effort were demanded of those who had previously only been allowed to applaud and clap, some of the enthusiasm already waned. The cool attitude of the workers was also to blame for the fact that the enthusiasm for Dr. Steiner's ideas did not go so far as to be able to fight against the leaders. All of us who were involved in the agitation know what it is to speak out against this apathy. Dr. Steiner also experiences the apathy of the masses. The idea of workers' councils, in the face of capitalism, which was not all that secure a quarter of a year ago, has evoked the last dormant forces within him. He has tried to kill off these workers' councils by denying their validity and feasibility. And the so-called educated caste of our present-day society and the even more vulgar press of all shades have managed to drag the true idea of the threefold social organism and the works councils as it is in the newspapers. |

Half a century has passed since Karl Marx died of starvation, and today people are arguing about how to implement socialization. And it has been more than half a year since the Jena of the German workers, the November Revolution, broke out, and still no one knows how to implement socialization. We should be grateful to a man who has taken the trouble to seek out a practical way, a way by which socialism can be introduced in a relatively short time. The opposite is true! It can be put down to jealousy on the one hand and stupidity on the other. I have already illustrated this a few weeks ago with an example: People talk about killing the lion, capitalism, but they are afraid of the little mouse, the representative of the factories, the director, and of the union and party officials and the like.

Mr. Fischer spoke of commercial counselors, professors, doctors who support the idea of threefolding. Don't we also have professors and doctors in the parties? Do we also say that their ideas are therefore worthless? And if they weren't in the party, the stupidity of the masses would have long since destroyed the parties. One more peculiar little chapter: Mr. Molt, whom I welcome as a colleague and whom we have asked to speak in an informative way at our meeting tomorrow about works councils, this gentleman has money. We have a great many people in the party who also have money, who had it earlier or who have made money through their work in the party. These men, who call themselves party comrades, party leaders, keep their money to themselves. They do not make it available to the party! They buy themselves villas and settle up there nicely. Therefore, let's not be too quick to reproach them: “The man has money.” We have to see what the people below us do with their money. It has been said: “Hunger must be eliminated first so that people are even open to spiritual food.” A communist recently said: Hunger is the worst revolutionary. Once hunger is raging, there is no stopping it, and what has been suppressed for so long breaks through. What are strikes if not hunger revolts? And because hunger is a good incentive, it would not be good to eliminate hunger today. Let us ensure that we abolish mass hunger by abolishing mass exploitation. Socialism is the way to do this! Hunger is an incentive to finally implement socialization.

Mr. Kühn: As managing director of the “Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism,” I would like to say a few words about what has been asked. We intend to call the works councils together for their first meeting next week. We will also begin the study evenings next week. Mr. Roser has already spoken about this. Perhaps I may say a few words about the discussion that took place with Mr. Fischer this evening. Unfortunately, Mr. Fischer has already left. I wanted to tell him in front of the meeting that I definitely know that he has never, neither here nor anywhere else, attended lectures by Dr. Steiner. The only time I met him was at a meeting to discuss the question of the works council, which was convened by employees and where he heard something about threefolding from some speakers. Dr. Steiner was not present. That is how people who know nothing about the matter judge it; they imagine all sorts of things and want to dismiss the matter out of hand. However, Mr. Fischer told me this evening that his union or association wants to hold meetings in the near future to discuss works councils and to set up trial works councils in the factories. You see, people come along when they have heard something here and there and make something out of it. That is what we want to avoid and what we must fight against. We must not make common cause with those who do not want to know about the threefold social organism and do not work towards it. Works councils that are not created on the basis of the idea of the threefold social organism will never be able to realize socialism. The works councils we wanted to introduce would have been the first step towards socialization in the sense of the threefold order. We must reject everything else. It is a pity that Mr. Fischer has left and can no longer discuss the threefold order with us.

Time and again, objections to the threefold order come from people who know nothing about it, but also from people who have already heard many lectures on the threefold order. I would like to tell you an example. There is a communist leader who has a fairly great gift as a speaker and captivates large crowds. He appears at almost every meeting. This man has heard a lot about the threefold social order, but has not grasped any of it. For example, he says: Yes, the threefold social order leads to a three-class system, because if you create three parts, then there is a class in each part, and so we get even worse conditions than today; today we only have two classes. If one wanted to draw conclusions about classes from the organizations, then one would have to say: Today we have a unified state, so there is only one class. So today there should only be one class! This man does not understand such things and comes to such a prejudice. We want to put the social organism on a healthy footing precisely in order to eliminate class rule. There is no question of a three-way division of the classes. The same man also asserts the same thing that Mr. Fischer asserted, namely that the threefold order protects employers. Anyone who has read Dr. Steiner's book knows that today's type of entrepreneur will disappear altogether. But the most beautiful objection of this communist leader was that he said: You cannot separate the economy from politics. You see it all the time in the Reichstag or in the National Assembly, how people represent their economic interests; just think of the industrialists in heavy industry! They cannot help but represent their economic interests. So people cling to the old, to this idol of a unified state, because they do not see that this is precisely what we want to fight, what we want to abolish. It is economic policy that has driven us into this disastrous catastrophe. People readily admit this in private, but they are unable to muster the strength to take measures that would no longer make such economic policy possible. There are the party leaders, above all, who have ruined the works council system for us. We must get rid of these people. The proletariat cannot see socialism realized before that.

We have also encountered an incredible prejudice among the employees, whom we have also called upon. I would like to give an example of this: a person whom I respect very much, who is a leading employee in a factory, said to me: I don't yet know whether capitalism is so wrong. In any case, I insist that it is better today than it will be. I will stick to my views and go down with them rather than introduce something new. I know that I am alone in this and that I may soon be out on the street, but I would rather it be so. I will remain honest and consistent. I have been told that this man has a heart for the proletariat, and that is why he speaks in this conservative way. When I told him he was conservative, he got terribly angry. He said it was just honest. I told him: It's just the same as when you take a train. At one station, the train driver comes in and says the train will derail at the next station, and you then say: I'll stay on the train anyway; I'd rather be injured than get off. I said: I would get off as quickly as possible and see if the train could be moved to another track where it would not derail. — So we have to pull ourselves together at the last moment and do everything we can to get the works councils together. We must present and defend the approach that we see as practical, and not be afraid of being too strongly attacked by the party bigwigs. Actually, word of mouth should teach people again and open their eyes to the philistinism of their party leaders.

Rudolf Steiner: The question has been raised: How can what is healthy in syndicalism be related to the threefold social organism? - Well, it would of course be taking us very far if we were to talk about the essence of syndicalism today at this late hour. But I would like to say that there is much that is genuinely healthy in syndicalism, as there is in other contemporary endeavors. Above all, the healthy aspect of syndicalism is that many syndicalists are dominated by the idea that, regardless of the eternal insistence on the rule of law in the state, economic gains for the broad masses of the working population must be achieved in direct competition with entrepreneurship. The idea that something for the future can arise out of economic life itself through a kind of federal structure lives as a healthy thought within syndicalism. Syndicalism has emerged particularly in recent times within the French labor movement, and it is somehow significant that it has emerged most strongly there. The French have a very strong sense of state. But just at the moment when people in France who were well-disposed towards the state wanted to found a particular labor movement, they came to the conclusion that this could only be useful if it operated exclusively on an economic basis. The federative structure of economic life, as envisaged by syndicalism, even shows certain similarities to what is sought through the associations based on the idea of threefolding.

You see, in the threefold social organism we have an independent spiritual life, then an independent state or legal life, and further an independent economic life. This independent economic life, as I have often said, will have to be built on corporate cooperative foundations, that is to say, associations will be formed on the one hand from the various occupational groups and on the other hand from certain connections between production and consumption. One of the objections raised, for example, by Professor Heck in the Tribüne is based on the fact that he says: Yes, but how will it be possible, for example, for craftsmen and small traders to be knowledgeable about the concerns of big industry if economic life is to be structured in the future as Dr. Steiner wants? Well, this shows that Professor Heck has not understood what is meant either. Of course, one cannot be knowledgeable in all fields, nor is it necessary, because if a federal structure is really established and the individual associations work together intensively, something fruitful for economic life will come of it. It is simply not possible for everything that must develop on a purely democratic basis, such as labor law, to be represented or administered in the same way as purely economic matters. This view is also encountered, at least to some extent, in syndicalism. In the Anglo-American labor movement, the principle of Anglo-American parliamentarism still prevails very strongly. Since this is based on a certain system of counterweights, namely power against power, the Anglo-American labor organizations are also aligned according to the same principle, namely, labor power against corporate power is played off against each other, just as the liberal and conservative parties face each other in parliament. We encounter a different form within the labor organizations in Germany. There is a certain centralism, I might even say a certain military system, based on command and obedience. I don't know if you will entirely agree with this, but I can assure you that I have attended several trade union meetings and that I was always unpleasantly affected by the fact that whenever different opinions arose, the chairman of the meeting stood up and said: Children, it's no use! — So, this centralized-military system is the second; and the third is what is meant by the federal structure, by the structure of independent bodies, in which there will be no majorization or centralization, but objective negotiation. In syndicalism, this appears as a good impulse, but here too a further step is necessary, as is aimed at with the idea of the threefold social organism, namely that the progressive factors that have yet to enter into the thinking of contemporary humanity are actually taken into account. And here I believe that an understanding of this may perhaps develop from syndicalism itself. But this should not be understood as if I were only singing the praises of syndicalism. However, I do believe that threefolding can be better understood from this side than from any of the other directions.

Now, I have little to add to what the last speakers have said. I would just like to make one comment, namely that I and the friends of threefolding have recently become very aware of what one speaker said about the apathy of the masses. Yes, in the place of the phlegm, one would need fire, because if we really want to make progress in this day and age, we need not only insight – this, of course, in the first place – but also fire. You see, when it is constantly being said that the spirit is not really needed, that it will come with economic transformation, then I ask you: Yes, the possibility of moving forward was there to a certain extent. On November 9, the National Assembly was elected. But is there any sign of a new spirit in this National Assembly? There was now a whole new group of voters who had not previously been entitled to vote: women. But it is strange that the spirit has obviously not yet descended on these women either, because the National Assembly shows absolutely nothing of what we really need for the future. But for that, enthusiasm and fire will be needed.

In this context, I ask you whether it is not rather short-sighted to refuse to see that a certain socialization has already begun – and this before the official socialization? Do we want socialization only on paper? Is that what it takes to satisfy you? Imagine if the commercial counsellor who devoted himself to the threefold order had done so like the other commercial counsellors. Then it would have come about that at the moment when socialization was to take place, there would have been no commercial counsellor at all! It would have come about that at some point this Kommerzienrat would have been expropriated like other Kommerzienräte, and then there would have been no more money for real socialization or better schools and the like. And now I ask you: Is it a great sin for someone to take money from another before humanity is ready, to give his money for socialization? Is it a sin if someone does not always trumpet the message that the means of production must be handed over to the general public, but does it of his own accord? I fear that those who always trumpet the phrase that the means of production must be put at the service of the general public will not apply it as sensibly as those who do something out of their own insight beforehand. This is socialization before the official socialization. This is worked out from the spirit that we are currently longing for as the social spirit of the future. And to raise the accusation that someone has the social spirit before, that is, before he is in any constitution, means not being able at all to penetrate into the spirit that can only save humanity, but only shows the longing for the written word. The law you give, you can confidently carry home. We need the spirit out of which socialization is done. Therefore, one should not fall into the trap of saying: The Waldorf School is nice, but it is done by a commercial counselor; we don't want to know anything about that! It would be wiser to say: Take him as an example, and as socializers in the future become like him, then it will be good. The things that are constantly being said from this corner against titles and the like only testify that, despite everything, one clings to words and phrases more than to action. And until we can bring ourselves to act and to acknowledge the deed, no matter where it comes from, we will not move forward; we must be convinced of this. And when we are convinced of this, then we will look only at whether someone is a reasonable person inspired by social feelings, and we will not ask about anything else. As long as we ask about something else, we will not move forward. If this does not become clear, all talk is in vain. Because the beginning must be made by those people who understand something of what is to happen, regardless of whether they play this or that role in the present order. All of us who live today, whether capitalists or laborers, naturally have what we live on out of capitalism. And we cannot change anything if we do not look to what lives in the spirit and must come about out of the spirit. We must finally overcome the phrase, we must move on to what can really become action.

Mr. Roser: As chairman, he thanks Dr. Steiner for his presentation and draws attention once again to the next event. He asks those present once again to study the book “The Core Points of the Social Question” so that they are able to talk about the book and the threefold social order in the circles in which they move.

Introductory words by Rudolf Steiner

Dear attendees,

Today, as we have the aforementioned agenda before us, it will be of some importance that we once again fully clarify what is actually meant by a works council in terms of the threefold social order.

First of all, we hold to the view that, in the way we are now approaching the setting up of the workers' council, we are striving above all to initiate the actual beginning of a real socialization with this workers' council. When one hears people speak of socialization today, one always gets the feeling that they do not really know what they want with socialization. Most people understand socialization to mean nothing more than the nationalization of existing businesses, existing branches of production, and so on. You know that the threefold social order is about clearly separating the three areas of human social life, so that in the future we will have the overall administration of spiritual life, preferably of education and teaching, as a member of the threefold social organism. Administration will only be carried out by those organs that are part of this spiritual life, in fact by the spiritual life itself. Thus, on the part of those personalities who will be involved in the spiritual life, the bodies will be organized that have to administer the spiritual life. Secondly, there will be the actual state, the political body, which is to be built on a completely democratic basis, so that everything that is to be regulated democratically belongs to the sphere of this second link in the social organism. The third link would be economic life. In this economic life, only economic activity is to be carried out. That is why I have often had to explain that actual legal issues should not be decided within this economic administration. These actual legal issues should be decided within the democratic life of the state. For example, labor law is to be decided within the democratic life of the state; the length of working hours and other rights that one working person has over another working person are to be decided. Everything that relates to such rights is to be regulated on a democratic basis in a kind of parliament, or whatever you want to call it, that emerges from universal suffrage.

Economic life is separate from this, and is supposed to be managed entirely by itself, in which it is merely to be managed. And on the basis of this economic life, we are now trying, I would like to say, to set up a kind of works council, as a kind of transitional measure.

How do we do that? We have already begun, and some of the members of the works council are already present today. We are proceeding in such a way that first a certain number of members of the works council are elected from the individual enterprises. Who can be elected to the works council? Anyone who is a manual or mental worker can be elected to the works council, and also, since we are in a transitional period, if they join the ranks, the former entrepreneur or the management of an enterprise. It should be noted here, however, that no one has a privilege, so that even an entrepreneur who is elected to the works council joins the other works councils. This works council is therefore a body in which everyone has absolutely equal rights and should count for as much as they understand in economic life in their field. So these works councils emerge from the individual branches of production. But we will only have something fruitful for the reorganization of economic life when we have many more works councils than we have now. Today we only have a small number of works councils, and hopefully after today's meeting they will work in such a way that a works council system will gradually come about. So, as I said, we initially have a small number of works councils. These works councils have emerged from individual companies. What we really need is for works councils to be formed from all companies in a self-contained economic area, that is, initially in a provisionally closed economic area, let's say Württemberg. You see, for the kind of works council that we have to think of, you need works councils from all companies, from all sectors. These works councils then form the works council for a self-contained economic area. And socialization should begin by establishing such a body over a self-contained economic area, with the aim of placing itself on a firm footing in the sense of rebuilding economic life. That is to say, this body should feel that it is the leading economic entity in the area concerned. It should feel that it is the real source of the management of all types of businesses in this economic area. This council should therefore see as its ideal a future in which no individual entrepreneur is responsible for the individual businesses, but rather that everything that is done in the businesses is done, so to speak, on behalf of this body, this original assembly of the council. If we keep this firmly in mind, we will have created for the first time what the demands of the social parties have always, more or less consciously, been striving for. The demands of the parties are usually formulated negatively, for example when one speaks of the abolition of capital and so on. Yes, but little is achieved by abolishing. By abolishing, all we do is gradually disintegrate our economic life! But how the tripartite social organism should work is precisely the opposite: it should build up. But to build up, one needs a constructive body.

Whether the works councils are elected or delegated in this or that way in the future is a question that must be decided within the works council itself. Today, we have the task of establishing the works council in the only possible way for the time being, namely through elections in the individual companies. The point is that one step must be taken before further steps can be taken. When the works councils have been elected – smaller companies can, of course, join together for the purpose of the election – then their first task is to create what could be called a complete overview of the entire economy in the self-contained economic area in question. This then means that the first tasks for the works councils will arise from this. These works councils – perhaps five in one company, three in another, and so on – form, so to speak, the atoms of the works council body. This body should already be prepared by the first task. So let us assume that company A has elected its five works councils. These five works councils would now initially have the task of drawing up a kind of inventory of the entire economic operation for their company. This inventory would then have to be brought to the first assembly of the works council. So you would have to know how much capital is in the respective company, how it has worked so far, and so on. You would also have to know what business connections exist in terms of the utilization of products, the procurement of raw materials, and in general with the outside world. At the same time, one would have to ensure that the best possible cooperation is established in the individual companies. Gradually, one would also know which entrepreneurs support the cause and which do not, because in the companies where the entrepreneur refuses to cooperate, the works councils would be prevented from being able to obtain information about the company, or these works councils can only come to the original meeting with as much information as is possible. On the basis of the information that the individual works councils can present from their respective companies, an overview of the economic life of the economic area concerned would first have to be created in the primary assembly. This is the first thing that is needed. Then one can approach the actual tasks.

Here, one must first take into account the fact that the structure of the tripartite social organism differs significantly from what is thought within, for example, the parties about the continuation of economic, political and intellectual life. The task at hand must therefore be regarded as an eminently economic one, that is to say, on the basis of what has been obtained as provisional material, what must first be determined is that which leads to a real stipulation of normal prices for the various goods produced. That is the first task in the course of future socialization, that we find out how much, according to the economic situation, for example, a pair of boots, a skirt and so on, may cost. I have often mentioned the basis for the price regulation in my lectures. Accordingly, in the future, each person will receive enough for what he produces himself to be able to satisfy his needs until he has produced an equivalent service. In other words, someone produces a pair of boots – the following also applies to services that cannot be clearly defined – and these boots should have a value comparable to that of other goods, so that what I get for the boots can serve to satisfy my needs until a new pair of boots is finished. That is what the individual price ranges stipulate. Of course, everything that has to be raised for the education of children, for the disabled, for widows and for those unable to work must also be included. The correct price emerges from all this. Setting this is the first act. But this is a very large task. The work of the workers' councils, if it is not to end in wrangling over empty phrases, must begin with the determination of price levels for what is produced, otherwise we will never be able to achieve true socialization. It is self-deception to believe that by setting wages from other bases we will achieve true socialization. That is simply nonsense, because you can increase wages at will according to the principles by which they have been paid so far. You can even double the amount you receive in wage increases, and this will be offset by the fact that housing and food will become more expensive again if you do not have a natural standard for pricing that arises from the economy itself.

Once this standard for pricing has been found – the works council will have a few weeks to deal with it – then we will have to move on to finding fair prices. This will then create a basis for what is to be created in the future, and we will know what we can count on. Then the so-called labor contract used up to now can be replaced by a distribution contract between the spiritual and physical workers. Of course, the present employers, with their experience, can also become spiritual workers when they join. Essentially, the contract will be concluded in such a way that it is based on the joint work of the manual and spiritual workers; nothing else comes into consideration. They work together on some product, and this product has a certain price. Taking into account the respective circumstances and possibilities, this price must now be distributed between the spiritual leaders and the workers by contract. So it is no longer a matter of paying the worker somehow, but rather, if one produces goods or manages the production of goods, then one receives the corresponding share according to the distribution contract. This can only be done when everything that is labor law has been established.

Now, of course, with the works council, one can only create economic institutions in the sense of the threefold social order. In the future, however, alongside the economic organization, which is primarily concerned with the fair determination of prices, there will be the parliament of rights, in which every person will find the opportunity to determine his or her relationship to other people. Of course, what happens in the legal parliament is not without effect on economic life. Those who now have to run a business in economic life will have to run it in such a way that they observe what is determined in the legal parliament on the basis of democratic principles regarding the value of work and working hours.

You can read about what intellectual work is, and how the administration of the means of production will essentially be assigned to the intellectual members of the social organism in the future, in my book “The Core of the Social Question”. However, it is still the case today that those who have so far held the intellectual share of the work have been left behind, that is, they do not want to engage with these matters; therefore, we cannot achieve anything in this field yet. But we have to create the system of works councils on the assumption that in the future there will not only be a right-wing parliament, but also a free administration of intellectual life. The spiritual leaders of the companies will also emerge from this intellectual life, and they will also have a say in the appointment of the works councils, so that the judgment of the spiritual leaders is also taken into account in the works council. This is not yet being considered, but we must remember that it will be considered later.

So it is important that this second task is also solved, that is, that a regulation on price relations is found in a general assembly in which all works councils come together. The first task is to be solved by the works councils within the respective company, that is, to inform themselves and take a kind of inventory of what is happening in the company. Many issues will arise that need to be addressed, such as legal questions, questions of operational disposition, and the like. And it will very soon become clear that the works councils and the council of works councils that is then formed will represent the social force from which socialization will then emerge. But the works councils alone will not be able to carry out comprehensive socialization. Above all, there will also have to be transport and economic councils, which will then also be given their tasks. The constituent assembly of the works council will show what steps need to be taken to organize proper administration, proper circulation of goods, the purchase of raw materials, and so on.

So various types of councils will have to be formed, but above all the three councils mentioned. The assembly of the works council can then decide on the details. Now, when the works council has fulfilled its initial tasks, it can begin to work out something that the state, which has developed out of the old state and which we now call the 'socialist republic', is currently unjustifiably trying to achieve: the law on works councils. The tripartite social organism would not want a works council law like the one the state has so far proposed, because economic institutions have nothing to do with legal institutions. The legal institutions belong to the continuation of the former state. Economic life has to stand on its own. In today's Abendblatt, it is shown how the current – let us say – 'socialist republic' appears to be working in the opposite direction. It is proposed that the goal should be an ever-closer interpenetration of state and economic life. That is the opposite of what is aimed at with the threefold social order. This interpenetration of state and economic life is precisely what is to be avoided! Economic life in itself and state life in itself, each should administer itself, that is the goal. And in state life only that should be administered that can be administered on a democratic basis, that on which every responsible person can decide. But not every adult can simply decide what is the best way to transport this or that product from one place to another; this requires expertise. And only the people from the respective economic sectors themselves have this expertise. Therefore, the entire economic life must be based on expertise and at the same time have a certain federal structure.

Professor Heck, who has said many foolish things, is mainly afraid that if such a form of administration is established in the economic parliament – but there will not be one, there will only be an economic central council – the small tradesman will not understand the big industrialist, the agricultural worker will not understand the scientist. Yes, but such a situation will not arise in the first place because the associations that arise in economic life will join together in a chain and will be properly negotiated from association to association. It is precisely such an objection that testifies that economic life cannot be administered in a democratic way, but only in a federal, associative way. Something can only come about through proper negotiations.

So, let's say representatives of the shoe industry, the metal industry or the textile industry are sitting there, and they all have specialized knowledge of their respective fields. And the assembly is there to ensure that everyone gives their expert opinion on setting fair prices. It is quite a different matter when you listen to the various judgments and everyone asserts their demands, than when you simply vote democratically. This would achieve nothing more than certain economic sectors joining forces and outvoting the others. Then the minority would never be able to get their rights. Such a majority is excluded in the case of a constitution that arises from the factual context of economic life itself. Thus what is now to be brought about unjustifiably by the Works Councils Act presented by the state would only come about through the negotiations of the works council. I ask that this be noted as the most important thing, that the tripartite social organism rejects every state law in this context.

You see, how this tripartite social organism comes about in detail is not so essential now. We must make a clear distinction in this area between sophistry or phraseology and reality. If you say, as I have always said, that the former state should not continue, but only its middle link should continue, so that the government that takes over the previous state constitutes itself as a liquidation government and is only responsible for public security, hygiene, legal life and the like, then the economic life and the intellectual life remain separate. But if it should turn out that the existing state has already interfered so much in the economy that the existing representatives cannot imagine giving up economic life, it can also happen differently, namely that the existing state says to itself: All right, I will continue to run my affairs as an economic administration, but I will leave out everything that is democratic; the legal and spiritual state should be established alongside me. Then, of course, it would be necessary to throw out all the apparent democracy from this economic administration. That would also mean that, for example, in Germany the National Assembly could no longer function as it has done so far, because the democratic has nothing to do with economic life. So, things can be done either way. In any case, in the future the three elements must coexist.

Then, in turn, the constituent assembly of the Württemberg works councils must produce all the necessary regulations with regard to the tasks and functions of the works councils. The works councils then take what has been decided at this original assembly into their respective companies. These people, who are now returning to the companies, act on behalf of the entire works council within their companies. They do not act on behalf of any individual entrepreneur, but feel that they are the representatives of the entire works council of a self-contained economic area. They manage the company according to these principles.

Now, it may well prove to be best for a great many businesses during the transition period to keep the old management, but now as a member of the works council, for the time being, in order to avoid sabotage or making the mistakes that were made in Russia. If the present management is not willing to accept that the works council is the real manager of the company, then of course the management in question, that is, the present management, would have to resign. Then the works council would have to take over the entire management of the company. It is, after all, really taking it over, but it will have great difficulties without the involvement of the former management, since it must act expeditiously.

But it could also happen, and this would be a further step towards socialization, that each individual company no longer has its own management, but that the management works on behalf of the economic entity of the entire economic area. But above all, care must be taken here – and this should be considered when drawing up the constitution – to ensure that the initiative is not undermined in any way. But the works council should not be structured in the way it is still being thought of today, because some of the proposals, if they were implemented, would lead to something monstrous. Just think that there are even proposals such as: in the future, there must be technical control, economic control and political control in every company. — There are probably even five or six such controls planned in total. The underlying assumption seems to be that everyone is actually a dishonest, a bad guy and therefore must be controlled. If this system of five- to six-fold control is implemented, you will produce nothing at all in the future, because this control system is built in the most eminent sense of mistrust. But if you want to build on it in the future economic life, then you will not move forward. You will only make progress if you build on trust, and this can be built on if the rational operation coincides with the egoism of the individual, so that everyone knows in the future that his work will be best served by the best manager being there. And through this system, the best manager can be delegated.

Ordinary voting will gradually change into a kind of delegation. It will be in everyone's interest that the person with the greatest expertise is in charge. This system will reveal who the best leader is, and even those who cannot lead themselves will know it. This system opens up possibilities other than mere democratic voting or a council system, as people imagine it today. Because both would only lead to informers, to pushiness, and in both the worker would not fare better than he does today.

The issue at hand is to establish economic life on an appropriate, not on a previous state basis. When the workers' councils return to their factories with mandates and the corresponding tasks, work can begin in the individual factories on a social basis. That would be the first practical step we want to take. The following must be implemented in practice: the election of workers' councils across individual industries. Then information must be provided about the economic situation of all industries. Following on from this, the workers' councils from the entire economic area would have to be convened. Furthermore, a constitution must be drafted on the basis of the factual circumstances. This constitution of the works council would be the beginning of real socialization. Until this happens, there can be no socialization, because the state cannot socialize through laws. Socialization can only come from within economic life itself. Today, people think that they can socialize this or that branch of the economy, such as the pharmacy system. That is, of course, pure nonsense; it is nothing more than state capitalization. A nice thing happened once. Soon after the founding of the socialist republic, a very clever gentleman gave a lecture on socialization in Berlin. First, he pointed out how impossible it would be to achieve socialization from the immediately given circumstances, that is, to achieve socialization as the socialist party had in mind as an ideal. Therefore, he said, we cannot arrive at real socialism today, nor tomorrow or the day after, but we must create a transition. And he characterized the transition he wants to create as follows: We must, he said, create a social capitalism between our present capitalist economic system and the future economic system. Well, that is nothing more than proof that one does not know how to begin socialization. But you cannot start before you first create a certain social structure, a society. How do you want to socialize if there is no such society, no social community? The inauguration of such a social community is precisely where the beginning should be made, by combining the works councils into such a society. They cannot socialize factories or branches of industry, only the whole. So they must base the whole thing on what can be extracted from society in terms of people, and then they must socialize with these people.

So those who have been elected as works council members will be able to say that they have a great and important task, and it is they who have to provide the basis for future socialization. And I believe that you are now at the stage where you will understand that the way it has been presented here is the only way to create a proper basis for socialization. It is true that people have the most diverse and at the same time the strangest views about socialization. Yesterday, when I read someone a particular view on socialism, a special thought occurred to him. It was an article by Dr. Georg Wilhelm Schiele, which was headed with the following words: “On true, purified” - then came another epithet, which I will not read now - “socialism”. The article then said:

"What is social? The state is social: it is the social. What is communism? The community is communism! And what is more, the family. It is the communism that human society always needs. What is more is evil. We had a state that had a great deal of real socialism in it, the Prussian state; and the other German states and the Reich were built according to its model. This state was the most social thing that has existed in a long time and will not exist again anytime soon.

What was social about this state? Look. The most Prussian thing about it was also the most social, namely the military system, universal conscription.

Now imagine what the ideal of this Dr. G.W. Schiele is!

"Many a father who watches his son grow up is already worried: how can I give my son, when he comes of age, the last education for body and mind, the education of a man, that turns every lout into a young warrior of steel and a handsome lad? Where is the true art of commanding and obeying taught now, which gave every young German the spirit of integration and subordination to a whole and at the same time educated him to be a leader and superior, a recipient and commander of orders, depending on the task? How do we replace this national education, which protected the German people from becoming foolish and simplistic?"

Then the Lord continues:

“For the time being, there is no longer any state with honest taxpayers and honest officials. We will soon see that there is neither state nor taxes. But if there is no longer any state, there is no longer any socialism either.”

The tone remains the same. Then he says:

“The hour will come when we will all sigh, weep and cry out for the social state that we had, for the Prussian state, and then we will try to build a new community according to the model that our fathers have given us.”

When I read this to our friend Mr. Molt yesterday, he thought I was reading from a joke magazine. But it is not a joke magazine. It is the latest edition of the “Eisernen Blätter” (“Iron Leaves”), published by the Eisernen Blätter publishing house in Berlin. It is something completely serious; the entire issue is edited by D. Traub.

That is the view of socialization held by a large number of people. But if something emerges that is not mere theory, but that extends as a works council over a large, self-contained economic area like Württemberg, and if there are, say, 800 people, not just a few as there are today, and if they join forces, it will be a revelation for the entire working class of Württemberg and thus for a large part of the population. That is not theory, that will be a force. But it is essential that this power is first really created, and that is why the 'Federation for the Threefold Social Organism' would very much like to see progress in the election of works councils, now that there is already a small base for the future works council. If this small base were to make it its business to ensure that works councils are elected everywhere, so that we – and this is so tremendously important – do not let the matter go sour, then we will make progress.

You see, it is important that such a thing be done with the necessary speed today, otherwise it will turn sour. In public life, as in the case of certain dishes, things turn sour if they are not enjoyed at the right time. Public affairs should not be left to indifference and lack of interest. They must be carried out with a certain speed. Besides, the Americans and the English will not wait for our slow progress. If we do not get around to saying, by a certain point in the future, which cannot be too far away, “This is how we want to organize things, and we will create a management from those working in the economic sector . Then the Anglo-Americans will pour in funds and join forces with the capitalists still in existence, and they will then run the factories of Central Europe according to the principles of Anglo-American capitalism. Then you will be left empty-handed for a long time. Then you can toil for a new capitalism, which will be much more terrible than the old one. Then you will no longer be able to socialize anything, then you will have to wait until you are so strong that something similarly bloody to what has happened in the last five to six years will give you the opportunity to think of such things. The complete capitalization of the West is already well on its way. In Berlin, the people have issued the slogan: socialization is on the march! It is not on the march. It will only be on the march when the works council system has been established. But the full capitalization is definitely on the march, that is, the penetration of all enterprises in Central Europe by American and British capital. Therefore, what we can risk today does not tolerate a long period of disinterest, but it is important that we act quickly. And if we now succeed in keeping alive the interest that has already arisen here in the tripartite division of the social organism and that has been thwarted, and if we manage to get such a works council to act as a basis for socialization throughout Württemberg, then we will have set an example for our colleagues in the rest of Germany. What the works council is doing here will set an example, and when the others see it, they will follow suit.

Make sure that you set up the works councils within two weeks, then hold a constituent assembly that draws up a constitution in a few weeks, which must be ready before the law is passed. But it would be really great for here if we could move forward with this example. That is what I wanted to remind you of today.

The founding of the preparatory Württemberg works council was unanimously decided. Mr. Huth was elected as the first chairman of the action committee, Mr. Roser as the second chairman, and Mr. Dorfner as the secretary. The working committee of the “Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism” is made up entirely of the members of the action committee. The office is that of the “Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism, Stuttgart, Champignystraße 17, Managing Director: Mr. Kühn.

Record of proceedings, Tuesday 11 o'clock

Hans Kühn opens the meeting and asks Rudolf Steiner to take the chair. Rudolf Steiner takes the chair with the unanimous consent of the assembly.

Rudolf Steiner: The call is for something quite different from what is usually intended by calls. It is not directed at institutions, but at people. If a new order is to be possible now, then as many people as possible must be found who start from healthy ideas. The general prerequisites are given in the flyer “Proposals for Socialization”. You can start practical work at every point, wherever you stand. Two areas must be separated from the state structure. This is the practical point of view. The state exists; through its various representations, it will have the task of separating out all spiritual life, and in the same way, economic life and its competence for what remains should be based on a democratic foundation. It is impossible to achieve anything by transferring all competencies to the state. Economic life must be based on associations: firstly, by profession; secondly, and more importantly, representatives of consumption together with representatives of production. A practical example: we wanted to implement something like this within our circles before the war. First of all, we found a collaborator in Mr. von Rainer, who had a mill and the associated bakery. A business like this is only possible if you start from consumption, not from blind production, which leads to crises. A circle of consumers was to be created out of the Anthroposophical Society. The reason it did not work was that Mr. von Rainer had the thinking habits of the old days and was not up to the task; all sorts of quirks came into it.

We also thought in terms of intellectual production in society. Blind production harnesses labor for nothing. 98 percent of writers are uncommissioned writers. Of a print run of 1000 books, 50 are sold, the rest are pulped. The printers and so on have done unproductive work. Now it is important not to do unproductive work. I have begun by creating the consumers first. We will also have a market for the brochure. After my lectures, people are now demanding the brochure.

When this is referred to as advertising, it is not an ordinary form of advertising. First, the needs are considered. Even for the spiritual, one must be able to think purely economically. The needs must not be dogmatized: this or that spiritual is not justified! - This must be left to the spiritual organization. In the book trade, there are only crises. The advertising must only begin when consumption is secured, and then one only draws the people's attention to it.

All legal relationships must be eliminated from the economic sphere: ownership and employment relationships. Today, as every textbook says, you can buy goods in exchange for goods, goods in exchange for labor, goods in exchange for rights. These are the economic terms. The latter two must disappear completely. Rights must not be bought. Labor must not be sold. The worker must no longer be in a wage relationship; the worker must, under all circumstances, be in a free relationship within his working community. Labor law must be created outside of the economic organization. The economy tends to consume; anything that cannot be consumed is unhealthy in the economic organization. In the old order, labor was consumed, while it is a legal relationship. Labor law must be created from the democratic organization.

During rest from work, there must be the opportunity for everyone to participate in social life. The working hours would be very short if everyone did physical labor. Division of labor is necessary. In the future, it must be a principle that the formation of prices in economic life is a consequence of labor law, just as it is a consequence of natural processes. The income of workers must only come from labor law. Then prosperity would depend on labor law. That, however, would be a healthy dependency.

If, for example, prosperity were to decline as a result of a six-hour working day, then the legal organization would have to agree on whether to work longer. It should not be possible to extend working hours or hire women and children for economic reasons. The working hours, the type and the amount of work must be regulated outside of the economy. Before the economic process begins, labor law must be regulated, just as the raw materials are given by nature.

Property law must also be removed from the economy. Things are sold that do not even exist. Ownership means that you have free disposal over some thing. This has only gradually been transferred into private property. In the future, property will no longer be an object of purchase at all. We must get rid of Roman legal concepts. Property and ownership are concepts that must disappear. One last remnant of the old way of thinking is the idea that private property must pass into the community. This is also outdated. Today, an acceptable property right has only been established for intellectual property. In the future, all material property must also be subjected to a similar process: it must circulate. Capital must be taken out. We will need capital, but the old concept of it must cease. The building in Dornach is not a capitalist enterprise. No one will be able to benefit from the Dornach building. What is needed for it has been withdrawn from the capitalist order. The Dornach building would have to be recognized as serving the spiritual organization. With 30 centimes from each Swiss person, we could easily complete the building. It could be socialized overnight. The concept of socialization must also be tenable. Recently someone in Switzerland said: Lenin must become world ruler. First, however, domination itself must be socialized. What is in the call must be realized because it is the only practical thing.

Hummel: He comes from Cologne and is the only person present from the occupied area. There are no signatories from the Rhineland. English censorship has prevented this appeal from being published in the “Mühlheimer Zeitung”. The “Kölnische Zeitung” has rejected the idea because of a “paper shortage”.

Rudolf Steiner: It is not only desired that the appeal be worked for in the occupied area, but it should be ensured that it has an effect wherever possible. Signatures could not be collected in the occupied area. Understandably, the English censorship will prohibit its distribution. There was also resistance in French-speaking Switzerland. This is based on the dislike of everything that comes from the German side. The hatred against the Germans has not been overcome. This is the result of Zimmermann's policy. A fraternization festival was celebrated with the American representative, while Zimmermann's infamous letter was already afloat. If something real like this appeal comes today, people won't believe it. We can only gain trust if we do not think of making common cause with those who pursued politics in the old Germany. There can be no compromise with the old regime. This principle should not be proclaimed to the outside world, but it must be in our actions. Mr. Collison, who is our representative in England, is currently in America. That is why the appeal has not yet been printed in England. Then the censor might think differently. The book should also be printed in England as soon as possible.

Ludwig Polzer and Walter Johannes Stein are asking about the developmental tendencies in order to better assess the tasks in the individual countries. Three questions: Firstly, what is the actual position of English politics on China, Japan and India; how is it influenced by America? Secondly, what would be the consequences of an Italian revolution for the peoples of former Austria? Thirdly, how does the far north relate to these developmental tendencies? Furthermore: How should our work be organized? Should the valuable personalities be concentrated in one place that is suitable for this, or should a rich island formation be considered?

Rudolf Steiner: More detailed information will be available in the next few days. Today, only the following: Firstly, the policy of the English-speaking population has not changed. These politicians knew what they wanted before the war and are sticking to it. Europe should be shaped in such a way that it is simplified as much as possible and becomes a market for England.

I recall the map that I drew up at the time according to English intentions. The Rhine forms a kind of border that continues to the south. Between the Rhine and the Vistula, a strip of German-speaking areas, to the east the Slavic Confederation, around the Danube the Danube Confederation. This policy also counts on winning China and Japan over. There is no difference to America. It all depends on whether we have a positive impulse for the future.

The Western policy will be able to work without decency as long as we don't come up with something that impresses people. They have to see that we are dealing with realities and practical matters. That is why we should not have capitulated to the 14 points. We should have responded with the same thing that is in our appeal. Surrendering to Wilson presents him with the most impossible task, because he is supposed to help and knows nothing of what we want. We can easily be understood by China, Japan, India, the whole of the Orient, if we do anything that is not an American imitation. We have already submitted everywhere, for example in commercial matters. The Orient counts on the spirit, despite the cleverness of the Japanese and the cruelty of the Chinese. If we do something intellectually and politically, we will be understood. German industrialists are not people like, for example, the English, but have simply become machines. Industrialists have had the last word in politics during the war.

Secondly: an Italian revolution will not have any major foreign policy consequences if it is not accompanied by a major industrial crisis, which will have a major impact.

Thirdly, the far north is an area about which I know nothing. I do not know what the north wants or how it feels about England. We go where we can with our appeal, and only give way to impossibility. Perhaps Mr. Vett can provide information about the north.

Carl Vett: In the north, there is an aspiration to unite the four countries, including Finland. They got to know each other during the war in order to supply each other with goods that used to be delivered from outside. This is also being striven for politically.

Rudolf Steiner: Do you think that there could be an atmosphere for such a practical ideal policy as I propose? In the north, there is also a certain conservatism. We could not do anything with that. We have to distinguish between countries like Württemberg, Baden and Prussia. There is a certain compulsion there. If the bourgeoisie resists, the proletariat will give in in this direction. In Russia, the matter would have been understood before Brest-Litovsk. Perhaps the time will come when Lenin and Trotsky would also wish that they had started it that way. It is quite different in such countries where something like this could be realized out of free will. That would be of the utmost importance.

Carl Vett: believes that there could be some understanding for this. In Denmark there is a socialist ministry that has already proved that it cannot get anywhere with its program.

Rudolf Steiner: This answer is very important.

Hermann Heisler recalls the sentence “Property must end, it must be put into flux”. For us, the land question has not become clear here. Can the land be kept in flux?

Rudolf Steiner: You will find that the land question is only dealt with in passing. Land is nothing more than a means of production and can only be treated as such. The question of money is linked to the question of land. The greatest of social lies prevails when it comes to land. You all own a piece of land in fact. What you otherwise own has no real value unless it is covered by a piece of land. You have to calculate: a certain territory, divided by the number of people living on it. The fact that you do not really own this land is a fraud. This is made ineffective by rights. This is how the land situation is related to the individual. Land is a means of production. Through the division of labor, much has become a means of production that was not previously. When a tailor makes a skirt for himself, it is a means of production. Land is to be treated in exactly the same way. Only those who can exploit the means of production should have access to them. The worker will work together when he knows that he works more rationally when one and not another leads. The relationship between employer and employee will be one of trust. The employer stands in his place through his abilities.

The gold standard means bruising the whole world through English politics. The useful means of production must take the place of the gold standard. An unnecessary war will be reflected in the currency because it puts the means of production in a damaging position.

Emil Leinhas: Objections are often raised that it is difficult to understand. How was the appeal received by the bourgeoisie on the one hand and by the proletarians on the other?

Rudolf Steiner: I did not understand much of what came from the headquarters, which ordered people to understand. Emil Molt: Bourgeoisie took up the call the least. The employees at our company slept through it, while the workers came to us with questions about it.

Alfred Meebold confirms Emil Molt's view.

Hans Kühn asks about joining a party.

Rudolf Steiner: There is nothing to be said against it. Our cause demands time, not party support. The greatest understanding will come from the proletariat. Of course, the appeal can also appear without bourgeois representatives. There are two impulses in the appeal. During the war, they should work for foreign policy. Now the social threefolding comes into consideration.

Alfred Meebold warns against entering into a party, because the call could then easily be understood by those who think differently as a party matter.

Schuler: Requests meetings in the smaller towns of Württemberg and the sending of speakers.

N.N: The labor leaders refuse. The individual workers sign because the matter is not a party matter.

Hans Kühn reports from letters in which the government is repeatedly referred to, especially from the bourgeois side.

Rudolf Steiner: Bourgeois politics is a product of fear, we can't do anything with that. But we must not proceed like Trotsky, who wanted to turn the world upside down. It is necessary that the professional training and experience of those who have acquired it is not lost. These are mostly middle-class people. We have to take in the people who support the call. The Social Democratic programs must also be incorporated into a program for humanity. Of course, we must avoid bourgeois sabotage.

Hermann Heisler recalls the mistrust of anthroposophy and speaks of his experiences with student youth.

Rudolf Steiner: Student youth can easily be won over if they are emancipated from their professors. We will have the worst experiences with the professors of economics. We will have to do without them. The quagmire of the universities shows the worst of bourgeois society.

Max Benzinger: What means of coercion will we have if the factory owners want to keep their means of production?

Rudolf Steiner: We'll just let them sit on them. Ultimately, forced expropriation comes into question. It will become clear that it is impossible to work against our cause.

End of program after 1 a.m.

Rudolf Steiner again chairs the meeting and opens the assembly.

Ms. Weisshaar, an architect, asks how the appeal is to be brought to the rural population.

Rudolf Steiner: The social ideas have spread mainly among the industrial workers. Marxism has never been able to gain a foothold in the rural population. Even if they are temporarily interested, the rural population would soon fall back again. But the appeal can certainly work. Here, too, a distinction must be made between the Catholic and Protestant populations. The former is suspicious of anthroposophy; otherwise, their church would have prepared them well for the threefold order by always striving for church freedom. There is less understanding in Protestant circles because the prince was often the 'patron' of the church. On the other hand, there may be some sympathy for the free school. In general, the farmer will be glad if the state cannot interfere in his economic life, especially after the experiences of the war.

Ludwig Polzer also worked among farmers in the sense of the call. He recommends speaking of “the dismantling of state authority”. In this regard, the farmers and the workers are united by a revolutionary mood. If the connection continues to be successful, struggles that are in preparation could be avoided. He also believes he can find understanding for the free school.

Wilhelm von Blume points out that small communities today are close to the threefold division because one already speaks of political communities in contrast to church communities. For the economic work, one often uses the term real or active civil community.

Rudolf Steiner: These are the remnants of an old way of thinking. In Austria we used to say, “No lawyer, no civil servant and no priest is allowed in the economy”.

Alfred Reebstein, Karlsruhe: People say that the food supply would be disrupted if the threefold social order had to be implemented first. Food should be provided first, and then everything would take care of itself.

Rudolf Steiner: This should not interfere with the work of the appeal.

Ludwig Polzer in Vienna has found that people are wary of the Entente.

Emil Leinhas often had similar experiences to Reebstein's, but always replied that food and coal would be provided as soon as the threefold order was realized. People should just not think and come up with such objections.

Schwedes: The Entente will not let us lose out if the threefold order brings calm to the country again.

Karl Stockmeyer, Mannheim, often hears that the state's basis of power will be lost.

Rudolf Steiner: That is what they want. To give in to such objections would be the most dangerous thing. Behind all this stands the rise of the old dictatorship (Ludendorff came to Germany via Kolberg and is now walking quietly in Berlin). The Center Party is working with all means to achieve reaction.

Karl Stockmeyer: In England, the revolutionary mood is also said to be very strong, although there is enough food there.

Rudolf Steiner: Above all, we have to work from factual documents. We must bear in mind that the English and German labor movements cannot be compared. The collapse of Germany brings a completely different basis. The German army was cut off from supplies from the homeland, so Ludendorff had to stop. The sailors in Kiel acted under the secure impression that their comrades over there would immediately join in loyally. Only in this way can the sailors' actions be understood. But the workers in the west did not join in. In England, therefore, the movement must be approached in a very specific way.

Carl Unger: A worker said that if the appeal is to be effective, the border posts must disappear. He thought that fraternization should be easy on the basis of the appeal.

Rudolf Steiner: The appeal should initially be geared towards foreign policy action. I already said to Kühlmann: Since the migration of nations, the disputes between nations have always been about economic issues. The movements of the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths went into the wasteland. But now people want to put the soil on top of each other, for example Germany and France in Alsace-Lorraine. If it had been announced that Alsace-Lorraine would only be administered by the state according to the legal issue, without regard to the economy and schools, so that children in France or Germany could have gone to school, the solution would have been easy. It was similar in Serbia. In Vienna one often heard the war called a 'pig war' because of the introduction of the Serbian pigs. It would have been tremendously effective to maintain economic relations across the borders. This is already justified in the call, but people do not want to introduce it through the peace agreement, but rather let it develop slowly and organically. In Austria, the development in the direction of threefold social order would have been most necessary.

Wilhelm von Blume: The nationality question has only become so pressing since the end of the 18th century. In the past, wars were waged for religious reasons or for reasons of conquest. It is only since the state has intervened in church and school that the state has become inconvenient for the people. If the state can take over culture and the economy, the nationality question will be resolved. Examples are Poland and Silesia, where German schooling had to be maintained. There was no ethnic hatred in the past either. This has only existed since the beginning of the 19th century. Here, too, threefolding will bring the solution.

Rudolf Steiner: I would like to mention an example from my youth. I lived in Hungary and had to go to school in Austria. There, in times of peace, children were sent across the border. Some learned Hungarian in Hungary, others learned German in Austria. This ended with the dualism of Austria-Hungary, when everything became pedantic. In Vienna, under the Stephanskrone, sloppiness prevailed. This meant that everything could develop peacefully in the past. The dualism put an end to peace. Hungary was made sharp.

Harriet von Vacano: Dr. Steiner often said that schools should be founded first. But the teachers in Munich often reply that nothing can be done because the church and the state do not allow it. The teachers have a latent fear. Wouldn't it be better to turn to the proletarians?

Rudolf Steiner: Teachers are the last ones to approach because they depend on the state. If the “Farce of Weimar” had released the school system, the teachers would have tried very hard. Today, one must approach the power that has the authority of the state. If the state wants to socialize, then bourgeois sabotage will follow. This is actually already the case in Germany. One then turns to the free areas.

In Germany, Lenin and Trotsky could not act in the same way. In Russia, they simply killed the citizens in order to suppress bourgeois sabotage. (Rudolf Steiner mentioned the example of Solf, whose officials went on strike so that he would remain in office. This was very dangerous.

Hermann Heisler, Tübingen: He always says that we should found schools based on a worldview, because we want to have anthroposophical schools. Of course, the Catholics would then also want to have Jesuit schools. How does Rudolf Steiner understand the unified school?

Rudolf Steiner: In the unified school, only the classes should disappear. The aristocrats will not be able to found private schools for the simple reason that they will have no more money to do so. Otherwise, the spiritual organizations will take care of schools. Above all, however, I would never found anthroposophical schools. The Anthroposophists would have to reshape the methods and the organizations, but never teach Anthroposophy. First of all, we must understand what spiritual freedom is. We must avoid schools of world view the most. (Under Minister Gautsch, Rudolf Steiner advocated the blackest clerical Thun as Minister of Education because he allowed all denominations to teach. He said schools should be managed objectively.)

Hermann Heisler: Does this not cause insecurity and inner conflict in children?

Rudolf Steiner: This is where a pedagogical factor comes into play. If we educate children up to the age of 14 according to a template and then let them go into today's competitive world, we would turn all children into neurasthenics. But freedom at school will bring truth instead of dishonesty. That will be the compensation. For education, it matters much less which religion the child hears than that one meets him with a true soul life.

Karl Stockmeyer: His parents sent him to Catholic schools for a time. He has always striven for teachers to be appointed as ministers of education and for the Ministry of Education to develop from the bottom up.

Ludwig Polzer believes that the Ministry of Education must disappear altogether. After the school question was postponed at Molt's request, Carl Unger raised the question of organization.

Carl Unger: The seven-member working committee should be supplemented over time by local groups from outside Munich.

Emil Leinhas asks whether the work in northern and southern Germany should be managed differently for tactical reasons.

Rudolf Steiner: This must develop out of the factual circumstances. It is not possible to set up regulatory principles. Perhaps the matter needs to be presented in one way in one district today and in another way tomorrow. This is a question of personal tactics.

Schuler, Tübingen, asks about the general debate: In the countryside, the land reform has won over many supporters for the Social Democratic Party. Couldn't we win over the farmers even more if they heard that we use land as a means of production and do not want to expropriate it?

Rudolf Steiner: I have not placed particular emphasis on the means of production of the land in the writing.

Clormann, Mannheim: Should the appeal not be particularly promoted among students?

Rudolf Steiner: These things are to be treated quite differently in the future. Of course, students and professors should be in full harmony later on. It should be possible to win over students as a unified group. I was asked to speak to students in Zurich and was very well received. Students should work for themselves and for the whole world. I was supposed to give a lecture to proletarians in Basel. The Social Democratic Party executive was approached, but they declined. Then they asked about a lecture to railway workers, the railway officials' association, which also refused because the leaders were afraid. After the public lecture in Basel, however, I received the invitation from them all by myself. You can deal with students who refuse today in a similar way.

Hermann Heisler: Thinks students are receptive.

Schwedes, as representative of the U.S.P., speaks out against arming the students. He also believes that the workers will easily go along. But it would be necessary to speak with one voice. The speakers should meet more often to discuss plans, like a kind of traveling conference. He is in favor of all speakers speaking on their own behalf and representing the ideas of the call as their own views. He speaks confidentially of the coming general strike. You should eliminate the leaders and win the masses.

Rudolf Steiner does not want to intervene in the latter. Because of the silence about various activities, Rudolf Steiner believes that it cannot be carried out, if only because it could be used against them in discussions. He gives the example of Winterthur, where the students were attacked, in front of whom he gave a lecture. He tried to convince the people that the young students hardly had a judgment, and that one must not ignore them. This answer was enough for the workers. You should always answer in such a way that you never advocate a program. The workers may say, for example, that they need economic strikes as long as state life is not detached from the economy. It is difficult to object to that.

The conflicts in Rudolf Steiner's life were rarely objective, but mostly personal. Of course, silence has no value against such attacks.

Party knowledge should be used and hiking speeches should be given. In particular, such friends should also educate the anthroposophists about the parties.

Hermann Heisler: The province would have to be better oriented. Debate requires in-depth knowledge of the subject. It suggests a speakers' and debate school from which those familiar with the topic can be sent out. If the foreign representatives cannot come together for such courses, Stuttgart should send out the speakers.

Karl Stockmeyer believes that one must acquire knowledge oneself. He calls for brisk work and non-centralization. He wants the same federation everywhere, but otherwise local freedom.

Max Benzinger is a member of the U.S.P. and would like to be trained as a speaker to support the appeal. He means training in the art of expression, because many find it difficult to express their thoughts correctly. One must work one's way into the old foundations (for example, of the party) in order to create something new.

Emil Molt: The league was founded on Easter Tuesday with a fixed name. Local groups can be formed outside, possibly independently of the anthroposophical working groups. It is good when foreign elements get involved. Different people are needed to work in different fields. Our working material is Dr. Steiner's book and also the Dornach November lectures. These should be duplicated as soon as possible. One must learn how to speak, but also practice it. You can only learn to swim by actually doing it. Conferences with local groups from other areas would be important from time to time.

Hans Kühn asks Rudolf Steiner for permission to reproduce the lectures to be given in Stuttgart, which is approved by Dr. Steiner.

Roman Boos, Zurich, wants only the book to be distributed. It is too late for speakers' schools. It is better to let Mr. Rudolf Steiner speak through the book than to provide surrogates yourself.

Ludwig Polzer: How should the organization in Vienna be done?

Rudolf Steiner: It cannot hurt if local groups outside of Germany stay in contact with Stuttgart (N.B.: It was later decided that Vienna should found its own federation like Zurich and that the German-Austrian local groups should communicate with the Vienna office).

Karl Stockmeyer suggests that all press releases about the federation or Rudolf Steiner's book be sent to Stuttgart by the local groups so that a picture of the movement throughout Germany can be obtained.

After various other requests - at the request - are dealt with by the committee, a request to adjourn the debate and continue it later is rejected because the most important work of the committee is neglected due to such long meetings. Wilhelm von Blume proposes, in accordance with the rules of procedure, to end the debate.

The chairman closes the meeting at 1:30 pm.

Protocol Record Stuttgart

After various speakers have expressed themselves in the general debate, Rudolf Steiner takes the floor:

Rudolf Steiner: It seems necessary to me that we now move on to the special debate. Mr. Leinhas has already made some comments not to derive things from gray generalities and to bring them into the realm of the necessary. And Mr. Molt has also made certain suggestions. But it seems necessary to me that the following be said in order to give a truly practical side to our endeavors.

First of all, it is necessary for this cultural council to address the task of propagating the whole idea of the threefold social order so that it penetrates into broader sections of the public and is understood there. Without propagandizing for the idea of the threefold social order, one naturally does not get ahead in a single specific area.

But then it would be necessary for this Cultural Council to do a second thing, through which it could actually carry out practical work as quickly as possible. So far, we have tried - just recapitulate what has happened - to create understanding for the idea of the threefold social order. Of course we were told: That is utopian, that is ideology, that has nothing to do with reality! But we did not let ourselves be deterred from continuing to work for this understanding and at the same time to bring it to a certain result: to the propagation of the works council idea.

And now that the idea of works councils has actually been presented to the world as a real thing to be worked out, people are beginning to see the idea of the threefold social order not so much as a utopia. Now they are beginning to take it seriously. The industrialists are up in arms about the works councils, the trade unions are up in arms about the works councils, in short, there is a lot of agitation against them from all sides. I don't know whether they would agitate so strongly against something they found to be completely harmless. This shows the transition from the original germinal idea, which already contains the fact, to real life practice. But the practice of life must then also be maintained with the appropriate strength. The question of works councils also originated in Russia, only it ended in failure there because all sorts of other things poured over it and fought against it. With regard to economic life, it is therefore a matter of the works councils providing the basis for economic life and its members to emerge from the current conditions themselves. I just want to show you that we are moving on to real practical work. First, there must be an understanding of the basic idea, then you can move on to the practical work.

The cultural council should first of all be aware that its first task is, of course, in the field of education in the broadest sense and of those suggestions that must come from the rest of the intellectual life for the education system. Today, it cannot be a matter of taking socialization in the abstract again. Entertainments which have gradually become distinctly capitalist entertainments in modern times – such as the theater and, to the highest degree, the cinema, which is, after all, only a concomitant of the very extreme capitalist-bureaucratic age – will only be able to achieve their socialized form when the foundations of intellectual life are first socialized. I really fear that we will soon also be hearing about the “socialization of purebred dog breeding, the distribution of Christmas trees to families” and the like. If socialization were to be understood in this way, we would not get anywhere.

What we have to deal with first of all, if the Cultural Council is to develop its activities, is, firstly, the elementary school question. Look at the elementary school question from a practical point of view. The Anthroposophical Society itself is a spiritual movement that has emerged from contemporary spiritual life and placed itself on an independent footing – at least in terms of its intentions. It could achieve a great deal if people had the courage to do so and did not rely too much on the forces that stand in the way of such courage. But the important thing is to grasp the right approach from the point of view of threefolding. The School of Spiritual Science has been founded in Dornach. It is certainly not located on any state property; it works independently in one branch of spiritual life. A number of our members have now expressed the wish to educate their children from the bottom up, in accordance with the principles and impulses of true spiritual life. I do not need to emphasize the fact that anthroposophists also have children; so we already had the children. In Dornach we might even have had the teachers. And the parents were highly motivated. We had everything, really. So what did we lack? Why did we not found such a school? Because the state, free Switzerland, does not give us the right to do so, because it does not recognize a school that is not established by the state itself.

My dear friends, the main thing is to fight for recognition of what is achieved in such a school on the basis of purely spiritual and educational principles. It is a matter of abolishing any kind of state school supervision and any kind of law that only allows teaching to be given by this or that teacher appointed by the state, and the like. That is the first thing. And here we have to struggle with the objections that are always raised today, especially by the Socialists, under the banner of the unified school, when it comes to a healthy basis for the elementary school system.

Let us take the example of Dornach again. Dornach is in the Canton of Solothurn. When I first spoke there about the threefold social order, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Arlesheim soon came to me and said: It will be very easy to see in the canton of Solothurn how difficult it is to accommodate such an endeavor, because it took a great effort to wrest the school from the school “brothers” and school “sisters” of the canton of Solothurn, and it took a great effort to secularize the school. If the right to found schools were granted to any kind of endeavor, then clerical schools would probably arise, perhaps even schools for the nobility. In short, people were terribly afraid that these things might take hold.

These are things that must be dealt with first. The discussion must be entered into with the public: How does the Cultural Council, with its idea of the threefold social order, relate to the so-called state-run comprehensive school with compulsory education? This is the issue that must be clarified in public. So the first task is: How does the Federation for Threefolding relate to what a member of the majority socialist party and member of the state parliament in Reutlingen recently said: What do you want then? We have now created a school law that is absolutely in line with the most ideal views! – Then the Federation for Threefolding has to show through its cultural council: Even if you were angel-like beings, we would never accept a school law from the hands of the state! – because the point is to wrest the school from the state. It must be shown that people will not become illiterate again if schools are freed from state control, that new classes of students will not emerge, and so on. That is the first positive question, the elementary school question. And until it is shown [in the cultural council] that there is an understanding of such a question in the face of today's political currents, the cultural council will only be a wild beating around the bush.

The second thing is to show that we can only get rid of the higher schools if we get rid of the awful system of qualifications. Everything that stands between elementary school and university can only be determined by the fact that it is preparation for university. The universities have to say: We want to get these or those people into our ranks, for this we make the demand that the secondary modern schools and the secondary schools – which must also become something completely different according to these or those principles – are managed. Consider that the secondary modern school has long since existed only to prepare students for the one-year voluntary military service by granting them the right to do so, to become future civil servants. So here, too, it is important: Get the schools out of the state!

Then we must fight for the autonomy of the university. It already had that in the old days. We have only just destroyed the last remnants of the university's autonomy in recent times. The university must be an autonomous corporation. It must regain what has particularly ventured in recent times. What the universities used to consider as self-evident was what they awarded when they granted a doctorate in any faculty. That was the expression for it: the university here and there, which is regarded as an autonomous body, gives XY the right to call himself a doctor in a certain field; it therefore awards him the diploma. This meant that the autonomous body had established the right for people, which it could guarantee as an autonomous body. And the state has conquered this whole thing, because today the awards of the faculties are only decorative pieces, titles without any rights, and the states have introduced their state examinations for this, that is, they have extended their tentacles to the universities. They are no longer autonomous. You can't find anything like in the past, where someone could be said to be a doctor who studied at the University of Montpellier; that's a good school! Today everything is abstracted. So the demand is: autonomous universities, abolition of all state exams. If the state needs people, it should test them. If it needs someone for a position, it can test them according to its own criteria. Such a test is only meaningful for the state, not for what must be free from the state in the areas of teaching and education.

The following positive questions arise:

Firstly, a free comprehensive school without state supervision, justified by the demands of the time;

secondly, the abolition of the so-called system of qualification for secondary schools,

thirdly, the reduction of state examinations and the autonomy of universities.

These things must be presented to the world as a clear program. If we start with this, we begin at a similar point as in business life with the question of works councils. If we start with this, the others, who of course need this or that, will follow. The point is to start by tackling things where they are universally human: in lower and higher education, which is generally also universally human.

That is what I wanted to say first about the transition to the special debate, so that this comes out. Certainly a committee should be elected. But it should deal with the most current issues and I wanted to point out to you that the most current issues and positive ones are important. Initially, no value should be placed on the content of the individual worldviews. What matters is not whether Catholics, Protestants and so on want to found their schools, but [that] we achieve the very next practical thing in a positive way – initially in the field of intellectual life, which concerns all people: the position of the school on its own feet.

These are the issues that must be vigorously discussed in the coming days and must crystallize into very specific individual points. And with these individual points, those who are truly able and have the will to do so must then go before humanity to implement these things. For this upheaval in spiritual life is more important than anything else. Because without this upheaval in spiritual life, none of the rest will come about.

Protocol Record Stuttgart

[Carl Unger welcomes the participants. Emil Leinhas then reads the revised text of the appeal. Wilhelm von Blume talks about the difficulties involved in propaganda and the practical implementation of the independence of intellectual life. He is against the distribution of a third version of the appeal, as it would be ineffective. The new text should be used as an explanatory pamphlet.]

Rudolf Steiner: It seems to me, ladies and gentlemen, that if the questions raised at this conference are to be fruitfully discussed, it is necessary to consider the starting point very carefully. When discussing the future realization of independence in intellectual life, I noticed that certain misunderstandings can easily arise in this regard. The day before yesterday, I explained my views on this subject to younger teachers here in this place and saw that the misunderstanding arises when it is claimed that the relationship between the state and school, as it has been practiced until now, should be thoroughly criticized and dismissed, and as if it should be asserted that this relationship between school and state has only produced something fundamentally evil, and that something new must take its place. This is actually how what is meant by the threefold social order in this particular case cannot be grasped. Today, it is not so much a matter of focusing on how the school has got along with the state so far, but rather, it is above all a matter of us really showing ourselves capable of adapting to the great moment of world-historical development today. The idea of the threefold social order can only be grasped by realizing that we are in a time in which, firstly, many things are changing of their own accord and, secondly, new formations must necessarily arise. The question cannot be: Do we or do we not like this or that about the school or the state today? but certain things are happening, want to happen, want to be realized, and we have to seize the world-historical moment. And it is precisely by propagating this threefold social organism that those who profess the idea of threefold social order believe they can grasp this world-historical moment.

Now I do not want to go into economic life in any further detail – I have already done so on numerous occasions – but I would like to focus specifically on what is happening in relation to intellectual life in general and to the school system in particular. It is not news that economic life is being placed on a new footing, that economic life is heading towards a certain socialization. This is not something that can be decided or not decided today; it is already happening of its own accord. We only have to ask ourselves the question: how do we shape what wants to be shaped in the most reasonable way? In such a way that in the future, state life democratizes itself, must democratize itself down to the last detail; that too happens by itself; one only has to consider how to do it most reasonably.

Now comes intellectual life. I do not consider this to be something that runs alongside the current task, but rather, I consider it to be the most important thing of all. For the school system may have been good or bad – we are not concerned with criticism today – but if we have a community that is economically socialized and legally democratized, then we need a different education for the people who want to live within democracy and within the social economic order. So, it is not a matter of asking: How do we get the school away from the present state? but rather: How do we educate people through school who can grow into a new social order that more or less arises by itself? It is of little importance to us whether school thrived under the old state or not, because this old state will simply transition into the new one, and we have to consider how to shape school for the new state.

It will not leave us much time for reflection. There are things that demand that we act quickly, that we rise to the challenges posed by human development itself. And one can often tell from the socialist program what needs to be done. You see, there are socialist economic programs, and there are socialist political programs; both have a number of things to be criticized. But from the same side from which socialist economic and political programs come, also come socialist school and pedagogical programs. People demand that this or that be realized in the pedagogical-didactic field. And anyone who is truly serious about the development of humanity, who has a heart and mind for what should and must happen, will find the pedagogical didactics that emerge from this socialist program to be something terribly horrific. One cannot imagine anything worse than what is depicted in this socialist pedagogical and didactic program coming upon humanity. It demands, for example, that socialization and democracy be forced as deeply as possible into the school. The children are to be socialized and democratized from an early age. The directorates are to be abolished. The teacher is to be forced into a school community with the children in a comradely way, based on democratic and socialist principles. Yes, my dear friends, if you educate in this way for what wants to emerge as the most radical democracy and socialism, then you will not get people into this democracy and socialism, but you will get beings with the most terrible, most elementary instincts, who will truly develop little socialism and little democracy.

That is why we must first make it clear to ourselves: when, on the one hand, socialization and democratization take place, that we then have all the more need to get people used to it at school – as I explained the day before yesterday – firstly, to a dignified imitation of what the child always wants to imitate after the parents in the first years of development , and that we have to accustom the child, above all from the age of seven to fourteen, which is precisely the school years, above all to a sense of authority – to an absolute sense of authority that is cultivated much, much more and much more energetically than it has been cultivated so far. We must not banish the belief in authority from school if we want to socialize and democratize. From the age of six or seven until the age of fourteen or fifteen, we have to get the child to look up to the teacher as if he were a “demigod” or, I would say, so that through the feelings that they develop within themselves during this time, what must be a state in democracy and socialism becomes strong in the soul, if all is not to fall apart into bestiality.

Therefore, we must develop these things all the more through a very thorough immersion in the very, very earliest impulses of human nature, if we want to somehow lead people into the so-called state of the future - and we do want that. So, my dear friends, what must be considered for spiritual life when we speak of the threefold social organism is based on the development of the times. Of course, those who today only want to turn their attention to economic life could not truly consider this; it is precisely those who have already stood on the ground of didactics, of pedagogy, who already have experience in it, who should consider this. It is only right that we talk about things based on the foundations of experience. It hurts so much today: when you come to proletarian assemblies, the proletarians speak their language, and when you talk to the bourgeoisie about the proletarians, you realize that they have no idea what has been going on in proletarian circles in recent decades. The people from different classes do not understand each other at all. And so it is now really a matter of our finally learning to talk in a way that is appropriate, not just in terms of our station and class – then people will understand each other. That is what I ask you to consider; then we will also come to a proper assessment of these three demands.

You see, I have now disregarded the first years of childhood, which are part of the education in the home, because I wanted to address the first stage of primary school. Yes, I think that in the future it is necessary that between the sixth or seventh year and the fourteenth or fifteenth year, education is built entirely on a truly more intimate and better psychological anthropology than we have done so far in our pedagogy. This must become something that really takes place between the teacher, who has his authority, and the child, who allows himself to be guided by this authority, and receives everything he receives in such a way that the source of truth passes through another human soul, so that he learns to have trust by looking up to the other person. And the teacher, in turn, must take into account from year to year the way in which the young person develops between the sixth, seventh and fourteenth, fifteenth years. We have to teach the school subjects in such a way that we take into account how the child's development is internally determined. We have to, so to speak, see the possibility – yes, don't misunderstand me, I mean, we sometimes have expressions that don't quite cover the matter, but we can communicate – we have to be aware of the possibility of seeing a religious act in teaching. We actually have to come to terms with the fact that we are gradually educating the child to free the mysterious spirit and soul from the physical body. This sense of devotion, freeing the spirit and soul from the physical, is what really needs to take hold. And here I think it is really a matter of not thinking that it should only be built piece by piece. I have full enthusiasm for the school that is to be founded here as a Waldorf school, so that we can once give an example of how we imagine anthropological education, through which the human being is truly made human.

But all this remains a mere surrogate. And the point is that everything that is conceived as the threefold social organism is really not so, that one can say: This must be realized slowly and gradually, these are far-reaching developmental ideals, but that one can actually do it right away, if one really wants to. All the explanations that I have given in the book 'The Core of the Social Question' are actually based on the fact that they can be immediately implemented in reality. My main concern is that once we have fully realized what independence of intellectual life means in relation to the tripartite social organism, we can replace everything that is state-run in schools today with objective pedagogy in schools. Why should this not be possible? It is something that only requires a decision and the courage to implement it. External conditions will not improve, but the foundations will be laid for such improvement. We should start at the top.

It would start with placing the administration of the school system on its own feet, on its own ground, that is, wanting the university or college as an autonomous body, and that within the autonomous university, those teachers who sit in the ministry and who are not bureaucrats, but who are themselves part of the living spiritual life, are not concerned with laws that are made in parliaments, but with human advice that goes from person to person, that they are concerned with what has to happen in the school system, they are to be placed on their own two feet, on their own legs, on their own ground, that they are to have their own university or college as an autonomous body, and that within the autonomous university, those teachers who are not bureaucrats but who Thus, a real, human detachment of the school system from the state system. If the question of how schools are paid for cannot be resolved today, transitional arrangements can be created in this regard. If the people who have to teach have no confidence that the nourishing goddess or cow, I don't know what, will come from the economic life, then let the state pay for the school for the time being. What matters is not that much, but that what is spiritual in the spiritual life really becomes independent, that the whole spirit of the pedagogical-didactic also passes through the administration and the structure of the spiritual organism. If one only attacks this, I would say, initially on one point and then works in this direction, then I would say, I have nothing against the “gradually”. But just don't think that it somehow depends on the fact that it is difficult. It is not difficult at all; once you have thoroughly grasped the idea, you will come to it. I once expressed it in the following way.

There is a contemporary philosopher. I value his acumen very highly – I distinguish between acumen and genius, as well as between depth of mind and expertise. So there is an astute man who wrote a book in the 1980s called “The Whole of Philosophy and its End”. In this book, he seeks to prove that, as a result of our scientific way of thinking, which has taken hold of everything, we have come to the point where all philosophical worldviews must cease, and the things that philosophy has done so far must be handed over to politics, science, jurisprudence and also state pedagogy. This is something very significant. This man has thought through to its logical conclusion what actually lies in the habits of thought. He has therefore come to the right conclusion: if we continue to muddle through – and he is in favor of our continuing to muddle through – he is enthusiastic about the dissolution of all philosophical thinking. He proves this very astutely and has therefore also become a professor of philosophy at a university. He talks about state pedagogy. For those who understand how to see the issue as a symptom, this also means a great deal. It means that there is no longer any kind of autonomous pedagogy, that there is nothing that takes the human being as such into account. Rather, the state has become something over the centuries; it demands this and that preparation of the human being for what it has become; the human being who is within the state must look a certain way. Now, if you are a teacher, you have to study: well, so the human being must look like this, we have to turn people into this, so that they look like this. - This is something that must be overcome. And if we want to face up to the historical moment, then we must overcome this. It is not the spiritual life that should receive its directive from the state, but the state that should receive its directive from the spiritual life. The trainee lawyer and the assessor - I am already of the opinion - take it as grotesque, but this opinion will not be long in coming: it is for the university to determine what a trainee lawyer and an assessor should look like in the world, and not the state. It is not the state's place to make laws about how this or that should be, but intellectual life should be the guiding force. It should tell the state: if you are a proper state, your assessor and your trainee lawyer should look a certain way. So, I think to myself: a truly inner autonomy of the whole intellectual life, that is what is most important.

I also think of the authorization system in this way. Isn't it true that anyone who has studied this authorization system in recent times – I don't even want to go into aptitude tests so much – will have seen that time and again, authorizations that arise from the matter itself have been transformed into state examination systems. The state has set its state examinations in place of the earlier diploma examinations at universities and

colleges. This was a move of the times; in many respects it was a justified move of the times, but it must be reversed again, not in the bad sense; we do not want to fall back into the Middle Ages, but we must come to a point where intellectual life is completely autonomous and , because if we are to enter into the material world as much as socialism wants, then we can only do so if we have a strong counterweight, if we have a very strong spiritual life.

Look, let's take things as they are. There's no denying that social democracy, as it has developed over the course of half a century, thinks in a more or less Marxist way. And anyone who does not adhere to Marxism today – that is, to the Marx whom today's party popes consider the real Pope – is considered worthless within the social-democratic party. This is how social democracy has developed over the last half-century. Through so-called revisionism, attempts have been made to blunt all sorts of things, but now they are being emphasized more and more sharply again. But there are also those who draw the ultimate consequences of Marxism. There is no denying it: who drew the ultimate, real conclusion of Marxism, first in theory and then tried to implement it in practice? That is Lenin – Lenin, who actually considers the Scheidemanns or Bindemänner, the Kautskys and whatever their names are – it is said of him – the German socialists, all of them to be scoundrels, Lenin, who with great logical acumen draws the final consequences of Marxism in all areas.

The realization of this is today's Bolshevik Russia. There is an inner necessity in this: Marxism leads to this and, when it is put on its own feet, can lead to nothing else. Now Lenin had written a book, “Revolution and State”. In it, Lenin says: the old state is bad, bad in every respect; there is nothing to be done, absolutely nothing to be done with the state. The state must be overcome, only we cannot overcome it immediately. - So he says: so we will just make a state in which the proletarian dictatorship will rule. We will set that up; there should be equal rights and equal pay for all. That is already the case in Russia today, where sometimes one person is paid six times as much as another. There are people who earn 200,000 rubles as intellectual workers, but still: equal pay and equal rights for all! In reality, things sometimes turn out quite differently, but then people like Lenin – who is very astute, who has really drawn the final consequences of Marxism – says: Let's continue with the old state a little longer, let's continue with the structures that we see in the old state. But if we do it this way, this state, this new state, has a certain task. Lenin actually defined this very strictly and logically in 'The State and Revolution'. He says: This state, which he has now established, has the task of gradually leading itself to its own death. The state has no other task than to lead itself to its own death. That is actually Lenin's definition of the state he established. Because first, he says, and by the way, he starts with things that can be found in Marx himself, because he says: So the present state, in which it is not particularly comfortable - it has not turned out as we wanted it to - the state will revolutionize itself to death, and only then will the new come, where everyone will be treated according to their ability and need.

But now Lenin adds, and I ask you to consider this as decisive: what then emerges from the state that has now killed itself cannot be done with today's people, but for that we need a new kind of people. In other words, we need to look to the future state, for which we first need a new kind of human being. Yes, my esteemed audience, the threefold social organism wants to prevent this world-historical madness, which is extraordinarily logical and methodical, from realizing what can be realized, what can be based on real ground. But above all, one must not be a supporter of the madness, of the idea that, even after everything has committed suicide, in some way or other – yes, I don't know how – the new human race will come into being. But if one does not subscribe to this idea, then one needs a heart and mind for the growing human being. Then one must understand that one needs a reorganization of the spiritual life, then one must above all have a heart and mind for the training of the spiritual life, for the development of an appropriate spiritual life. Then these insane thoughts that a new human race must first be created will disappear from people's minds, and one will take the courage to make people suitable for what they are to develop in democracy and socialism. This is a real thought, that is at issue here. But things are not so – truly not! – that one can prepare to discuss things leisurely and calmly over the next three years. The issues are too urgent and pressing; things must happen. What matters is that we have the good will to grasp things quickly and to do what can really be done. To do this, however, one must have heart and mind for these things, and realize that today's human race does not need to be wiped out for something to happen in the Lenin sense, but that the whole of today's human race is good.

But people need to be educated. Let us look at the present and say to ourselves: the people who are now to grow into what wants to be realized in history must be educated differently. It is now time to tackle the questions on a large scale. That is why I have often said: Above all, the real idea of threefolding must be understood. In relation to intellectual life, this consists of truly placing it on its own ground. For this, nothing is needed but the abolition of the usual school supervision, which is exercised by officials in such a semi-official capacity, as it is called in the new Württemberg constitution, where a contradiction that exists in life is immediately expressed by such a stylization: “officials who work on a semi-official basis”. One can fish where in reality that occurs which should not occur, but the point is to really grasp that only people of intellectual life come into the school, since the minds of people should not be filled with the spirit that speaks out of decrees. What more is needed than for the state to declare: You spiritual life, you shall govern yourselves; we are abolishing the Ministry of Culture and Education and giving spiritual life itself the opportunity to govern itself. I cannot see why it should be better for state officials to govern things than for people who are part of the spiritual life. This is something that can really happen overnight if only there is the strong will to do so. That is what I mean, and what I meant is that today it really depends on winning the masses over to the idea of the times in another area, that today it also depends on having as many people as possible who can understand that spiritual life must be placed on its own ground and who work together in their own way to make this happen.

You can see how we started our work here, initially in the economic sphere. Within three weeks, thousands upon thousands of proletarians from all walks of life had understood what was meant by the threefold social order. They understood it in their own way, of course, but there is nothing wrong with an emotional, intuitive understanding among the masses. On the contrary, it is something natural. Then the selfish leaders came along who thought: “Ah, Mr. Kohl, he speaks for Kohl, he won't make any impression on the people, he has no authority.” Then they saw that Kohl won over thousands of people. Then they became afraid that the reins would be wrested from their hands, and now we are faced with the possibility that the broad proletarian masses, who were already on the path to reason, will swing back because they cannot be disloyal to their leaders, because they are wedded to them. And now the party templates and party slogans want to triumph over reason once again. If you ask: Does it have to be that way? the answer is: the masses are, after all, just voting cattle. But the masses could also be something other than voting cattle, something that really comes from a rational organization of reality. You see, what was striven for there should be striven for to a greater extent in our own time, which can be said to bring terror every week. It should be striven for in the life of the spirit, it should be striven for by the spirit life, which has become independent, that education should be organized in such a way that the human being comes into his own, so that he can also stand in democracy and socialism. But people are so afraid when they see how little feeling there is for what is pulsating through human development today, they are so afraid that what I have so often said at the end of my lectures: What has to happen should actually be understood before it becomes too late. One fears so much that it could become too late; I really fear that if one says: We cannot simply destroy our state – then I fear it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we do not want to destroy it either, because after all, if we were to decide by tomorrow to leave the school system to its own devices until tomorrow, I believe that things would hardly look much different. You would only be making a start on what would gradually make intellectual life more intense. It would not be a matter of destruction at all; it would not look any different in the schools in the next few weeks; but rather so that not people rule over the school who rule from the bureaucracy, but rather those from education. If you didn't look too closely, you wouldn't notice any particular difference when the most important thing happened. And a revolutionary who was expecting that when the revolution came, no stone would be left unturned, would perhaps say: Nice revolution! It doesn't look any different than it did a fortnight ago!

So it can't be about destruction. But it is a different matter if you are too afraid of destruction, because then it could be that we avoid destruction, but that other, elemental forces, which are spreading through Europe with enormous power today, could take care of this destruction quite thoroughly. Therefore, I believe that we do not have the choice to rely too much on slowness, but we must take action. We must actually see what is at stake, and it is important that this threefold structure emerges from the reorganization.

After a lecture, a man once said to me: So the state is to be divided into three parts; whether the Entente quarters us or Dr. Steiner thirds us is completely irrelevant. But that is not the point at all. It is something quite different. For example, there is a man who always follows the lectures I give like a loyal Eckart (I don't know if he is here again today) and who usually says something very apt after the lectures. After some have objected to this and others to that, he says: “But children, just take what has been said quite simply; you just have to take it quite simply as it really is.” He is truly a faithful follower of Eckart, who always follows from lecture to lecture and at the end uses the apt words: “Just take things as they are!” What one sees in this threefold structure is simpler than one might think, and what one considers difficult is often only a difficulty that has been introduced. What I am about to say now, I say so that I am not misunderstood, so that people do not think that I want to belittle the state, the existing state, or that I believe that if the existing state remains, schools will change much. No, I don't think so, but we should recognize that we are in a great moment in world history, that we are grasping what can be grasped with regard to the liberation of intellectual life and especially to the reorganization of the school and teaching system in this moment in world history. We can talk about the rest later.

[The discussion is about the text of the appeal. At the request of Emil Molt, a commission will be appointed to prepare the final version. However, the debate will continue. One participant, Karl Bittel, criticizes Rudolf Steiner's account of the situation in Russia.

Rudolf Steiner, interjection: I did not speak about Russia, I spoke about Lenin's book 'The State and Revolution' and [about] what is directly related to it. This is not a derogatory criticism, it is meant quite objectively.

[Karl Bittel mentions the Württemberg 'Council of Intellectual Workers' towards the end of his remarks.]

Concluding words of Rudolf Steiner: Dr. Bittel has indeed misunderstood many things thoroughly. I myself, however, do not wish to be misunderstood, but would like to make it clear from the outset that I am firmly of the opinion that such objections as those made by Dr. Bittel must be accepted with all gratitude, even if they miss the point in such a way that we actually lose sight of the matter at hand. For example, what was most emphasized in my remarks was completely overlooked, namely that teaching should be based on a healthy psychological anthropology, and that we cannot have any hope that anything will come of an education system precisely because we do not have such a healthy anthropology. I did not make a demand – anyone who has heard me speak often should know that I am not a programmatic person and do not make demands out of the blue – but I simply characterized what must be the case according to the natural laws of human development. I said: If we want to prepare people to really grow into democracy and socialism, then it is simply necessary from the point of view of human nature that between the change of teeth, that is, between the ages of 6, 7 and 14 , 15 years of age, feelings of authority develop in the human being, so that he then has the inner strength that enables him to stand within a democratic state later on, in order to allow democracy and socialism to be expressed in the fullest sense. This view of the matter is conceived from the point of view of a truly real psychology. I ask you to understand this as the difference between what is happening here on the basis of the threefold social order and other programs that are based on demands. Everything that arises in this idea of threefold social order should simply be based on reality.

Another misunderstanding is the following. We would not continually run into dead ends and impossibilities in the whole discussion if we did not counter what is wanted here with all kinds of other program points. Please look at it this way: One may have many concerns about such programs as those of the youth organization, for and against – I do not want to get involved in that. I myself find this program, which has been read here, to be too senile; I do not feel old enough to take this path. But what really has inner youthful power is what I miss in today's youth movements: that they are already so old and cannot relate to the ground of a real youth. I once said to a younger representative who appeared with great emphasis in Bern, I think, “You are 35 years old, I will soon be 60, but from what you have said, I feel much younger than you are.” It depends on whether you can take things as they are meant. The pros and cons should not be considered at all.

The matter itself should simply be discussed – and I would be very happy if I could attend discussions on these questions for days rather than just hours. They are just not on the agenda today because we can only hold fruitful discussions when a real basis for them has been created. Only when the spiritual life is liberated do we have any prospect of penetrating these things and preparing the ground for them. Whether one is more for or against: the idea of threefolding creates a healthy foundation for all these movements, on which they can develop. I can honestly confess to you that I would be overjoyed if not only those movements that I tend to sympathize with would come to life on the basis of the new spiritual life, but also the opposing ones would live freely, because it is not important to me to implement any particular worldview, but to create a basis of freedom in which the individual spiritual impulses can compete. Then, on the basis of this free intellectual life, whatever is able to assert itself will come to pass.

So I ask not to misunderstand the matter of authority. It is meant to be perceived by the student as something selfless above all else. The fact that authority does not exist today is evidenced, on the one hand, by the beer newspaper and, on the other, by the pursuit of the school community. If authority really existed as I imagine it, we would have had school communities long ago. The fact that we have to strive for it today and don't even know where we have to get the teachers from to achieve a reorganization of the school is all the more proof that we long for the liberation of education. It is not enough to say: Those who want something must profess a spiritual revolution, must profess this call and so on. My dear audience, we will get nowhere by constantly emphasizing “radical revolution, revolution, revolution!” I am aware that if what is meant here is realized, namely a free spiritual life, then this is a much more radical revolution than what the gentlemen mean who only ever use the word “revolution” in the sense that the previous speaker used it. Just wait and see how radically different this will be from the liberation of intellectual life as envisaged by the Federation for Threefolding, and what will come out of a free intellectual life. I also agree entirely with what the previous speaker said about the press. But it is only possible to intervene there if we have a free spiritual life. I can see no hope in intervention on a legitimate basis or through some kind of press court. It seems obvious to me that history teaching will not look the same as it has always done.

Then there is the question of adult education. Yes, of course I am very much in favor of it, but we have no science and no art for this adult education. Above all, we need what grows out of a free spiritual life. The popularization of class science and class art that today's universities are tapping into does not produce adult education. For a folk high school, we first need a free intellectual life. I have emphasized this before: I know the difference between what is true, real intellectual property and what is taught by professors today as the thoughts of the folk high schools. Because, you see, I felt this dichotomy when I was a teacher at the Workers' Education School founded by Wilhelm Liebknecht. Few could speak to my students, who were all socialists, in the same way – I could speak in such a way that what I said to them was drawn from the universal human: everyone understood and everyone was included. But when I had to follow the customs and beliefs that prevail, so that I had to look at what was hung in the museums of class art – people often made requests to do so – then I had my anxieties, because there was class art, not what I tried to give to the people from the heart, but what the proletarian could not understand because he was not on the same level – so when you explained things to the people, you had to speak a different language. And I was always glad when I could say: This is what must be replaced by something else if something is to emerge that can actually be the art of the future or the like. Because then you can go right to the heart of the artistic feeling and see how impossible it is to get to the real folk art. Just consider how today's artist has grown out of the bourgeois class; he will paint very beautiful landscapes, but anyone who has not grown out of that same class will never be able to understand them at all, because he cannot make the transition between the much more beautiful nature that the professor can see for himself every Sunday afternoon and what has been daubed on the ham, even if it has been done with great artistic skill.

It is much more radical when it comes to adult education and folk art, when we talk about what is meant by the aspiration of the tripartite social organism. It is about something that those who always talk about it, the “radical revolution”, have not yet even dreamt of. It is about something that goes to the very root of what has been creating the gulf between people for centuries, something that goes to the very core of spiritual life. And here it is really necessary to seek out what is meant by the idea of the threefold social organism before opposing other programs to these ideas, because truly – you can at least take it from me – I have become very familiar with these programs. And the idea of threefolding is not there because I have not become acquainted with these programs, but because I have become acquainted with them. The objections that are raised from these points of view have long since been raised by me; and because I have raised them myself, that is why the idea of threefolding exists. I am quite indifferent to the “programme” of threefolding; for me, the important thing is that today the spirit really comes into humanity, which from the spiritual side can see the great historical moment in the eye. Then, for my part, I leave it to others to understand this or that differently. What matters to me is that there are as many people as possible who carry this new spirit within them. Then those who can do something to help this great historical spirit get on its feet will also be able to promote this new spirit. That is why I am absolutely indifferent to the wording of one point or another – what matters to me is the spirit; the wording may be better or worse. And if we can achieve that as many people as possible are able to place themselves at the service of the spirit, then we will have achieved what I want.

Carl Unger: There are no further requests to speak; I therefore close the meeting.

Lecture at a meeting of members of the Anthroposophical Society

My dear friends! It should be clear that we are living in a time of change, a time that we have to see as a time of transformation, and that it is our primary responsibility to find our task in this time. We will, since we are not today on the ground on which we stood in the consideration that we devoted to the general cultural council, but precisely on our ground, as members of the Anthroposophical Society, we will do well to occupy ourselves a little with our thoughts from this point of view of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement.

You see, when we talk today about a spiritual-scientific understanding of the world, about the real content of spiritual science – you were also able to learn about this in Stuttgart, where spiritual-scientific lectures have been given for many years, which, it can be said, have found an ever-larger audience. When one speaks to people today from these spiritual-scientific points of view in the concrete, one first encounters an audience that corresponds to the conditions of the present. But you have also seen that, even leaving aside the public, we have continued to develop anthroposophy. Many of you have seen how we have applied anthroposophy fruitfully in a wide variety of fields, fruitfully applied from a very specific spirit. Let us imagine how this has been attempted from a particular spirit.

We can start with anything – let's start with the public lectures. These public lectures had to introduce a new insight, a completely new characteristic of spiritual life into the world. There was never any hesitation about this, not even in public lectures, and certainly not in the lectures that were then given to advanced students within the Anthroposophical Society itself. There was never any hesitation about pointing out in a concise and forceful way what should replace this cultural life of the present day, which is in decline. For decades now, it has been made clear that this cultural life is in decline; that the life in which we are immersed is in decline. And it has been pointed out everywhere that an upward development must be fostered from a renewal of the spiritual understanding of the world. It was pointed out very clearly that we must distinguish with the utmost seriousness between what is in a downward movement and what must fulfill humanity so that it can ascend again. Was that not, my dear friends, the spirit of all the lectures given to the public or to a smaller circle? And was not, in essence, what is now being illustrated in an outward way through world-historical events and world-historical misery always contained in these lectures?

Let us look at something else in our specifically anthroposophical field: we have erected a building in Dornach. In erecting this building, we have not followed any of the traditional forms of architecture, painting or sculpture. We have tried to create something out of the consciousness that a complete renewal and regeneration of our spiritual life is necessary, something that is a beginning, but that is also something new. We have not shunned the challenge of striking at the face of all that which we have created and which, out of old conceptions, wanted to judge architecturally, pictorially, sculpturally and so on. Yes, the philistines sometimes stood head to toe in front of the Dornach building; we let them stand head to toe. And we knew: it was precisely that which we had to have, that the philistine bearers of the previous worldview should stand head to toe in front of things. We also did not let ourselves be deterred when all the unsuccessful newer attempts to arrive at some unphilistine art, with all the backgrounds from which artistic creation so often arises, with the backgrounds of hysteria or of inability but of much wanting, when they simply pronounced it 'unartistic' about that of which they, precisely because they wanted to be artistic in a new way in their sense, understood nothing. We did not let ourselves be deterred from being looked at askance and askew by the philistines and, forgive the word, over-philistines.

When we set about cultivating eurythmy, with all that this involves, a recreation of the art of recitation, I said: the sensitive souls who will be involved in performing these things must prepare themselves that once they are brought to the public, they will be thoroughly criticized; but that will be the proof that they mean something; because if they were praised, they would agree with what is happening below, and then they would certainly be of no use. This awareness, which is now being challenged, I might say with blood, by humanity, was brought forth in the anthroposophical movement out of the demands of a new spiritual life.

We have performed our mysteries in Munich, the actual content of which has so far been understood by few people. We have performed these mysteries for four years, many people have seen them; they are buried from the world; since then they have not been spoken of at all. They have been forgotten because they have passed before those to whom they were performed, like a dream that one forgets; one may enjoy it, but one forgets it. These things must be said one day, my dear friends, otherwise we will not get around to what I actually meant last Sunday.

Yes, my dear friends, it would have been nice if we had tackled all the things that have been mentioned here today in 1907. But we are living in 1919, and today we can no longer merely tackle the things that we should perhaps have tackled on the basis of our awakened anthroposophical consciousness in 1907. So what is it about? Please excuse me if, in order to keep this matter from taking too long and to make it as painless as possible, I express myself somewhat sharply: I would like to say, with reference to our anthroposophical movement, that there were two types of people from whom two things could be assumed: those people who were at public events or who could see how the Dornach building is now open to the world, who could see what we wanted simply as - well, let's say, as contemporaries. That was one kind of people. We also experienced them here, when the general anthroposophical truths were specialized for the threefold social order. We experienced them here in the Siegle House. We have experienced people for whom these things are already understandable, as far as they need to be understandable for a general audience. But I have often characterized here how the understanding of people of the present day who actually deal with these things actually is. These people of the present, they do accept some things, they also see some things, but they cannot rise to make that which they see the content of their whole being; to make it not only the content of their thinking and dreaming, or dreaming thinking, but also the content of their will. And so one can experience that perhaps a whole assembly, or the majority of people who are listening publicly, show their clear approval to a certain degree for the things that must now be spoken for the benefit of humanity. But the next day everything is as it was before; it has no other significance for them than that they have heard the things for an hour and a half or two hours; that the things are there for man to take them up into his inner being, for that present humanity has absolutely no disposition. That, my dear friends, is the one kind of people.

The other type was the anthroposophists, a completely different type of person. With the first type of person that I have just characterized, one could hope for nothing other than what I have said, because that is the bourgeoisie of the present, that is the part of humanity that one could believe would have salted meat in its head instead of a brain criss-crossed with furrows. That is what people of the present age are like. But then the Anthroposophists were there, about whom, for decades, people had been talking in terms quite different from those that could be spoken in public. It could not suffice for the Anthroposophists to take these things in; it could not suffice for them to devote themselves to the general inner habits of the present-day human being. One must indeed ask: Is the modern human being seeking a spiritual life? Yes, he seeks it, he seeks a spiritual life, because what the church gives him, what the modern school gives him, is no longer enough for him. He seeks a spiritual life, but what kind of spiritual life is he actually seeking? He basically accepts the highest truths, but accepts them in such a way that, firstly, they bother him little, that, secondly, he needs to claim his inner self as little as possible for co-activity, and that, thirdly, he moves quite well in this outer decaying world, alongside what he takes from it, just as the outer decaying world demands. That is, he finds it perfectly natural, without feeling any inner contradiction in it, that he goes about the business of his life in the sense of the decadent world, in the sense of the destruction that he had to be confronted with head-on by the world war catastrophe and what followed, and then he sometimes feels the need to be uplifted by an anthroposophical lecture or instruction, which he accepts like a Sunday afternoon sermon that offers him a change from what he otherwise absorbs quite well as life within the decaying culture. It sometimes shakes up the people of the present that the things around him, the things he has to go through, are so nonsensical; then he also turns to something like anthroposophy, but not as to something he seeks in it is an impulse for how things should be done in detail for others, but rather seeks in anthroposophy a nice sleeping pill with which he can numb himself to what he can live with after all to externally calm his inner being.

You see, that was the ongoing call to those involved in the anthroposophical movement: to understand that this must not continue in modern humanity, that anthroposophy should not be understood as a sleeping pill and as a Sunday afternoon sermon, but that modern man must absorb his anthroposophy in order to truly embody it in all the details of life, to develop it, to develop the consciousness of self-reflection within himself, that we are in a decaying cultural world.

The adaptability of modern man is enormous. But what does one adapt to? You see, we live in a threefold unnatural environment in the present. We live in the phrase. We live in a mere positive statement of all sorts of commandments and prohibitions, instead of in the original human right. We live in economic egoism instead of in the brotherhood of economic life. All this is accepted by modern man in such a way that he needs to notice it as little as possible.

Yes, you see, anthroposophy, taken seriously, does not let you simply ignore these things, but it is something that I have often said: absorbing anthroposophical truths means a certain danger for life, means that you have to live courageously, means that you have to have the inner resolve to break with many things. In almost everything that has been said, reference has been made to what Anthroposophy seeks to be. The motto given was: 'Wisdom lives only in truth'. But modern humanity lives in lies. For what has gone through the world during the catastrophe of the world wars was only lies. People everywhere said different things about things than they actually were, because in the declining culture, people have unlearned the inner connection between what they say and their inner experience. Humanity needs a strong spiritual substance in its soul to regain this connection. We should be strict with ourselves on this point. One should also understand things in detail. For example, one should understand what led to this misfortune of world war catastrophe; it is necessary to know what the inability of the leading personalities has brought about, and that this inability has been nurtured from the ground up because antipathy towards spiritual life in all areas has been nurtured. But where was it nurtured the most? It was most cultivated in the church, because what is most materialized today is the popular Christianity of all denominations. This popular Christianity of all denominations is supposed to lift man up to the spiritual world, while it only ever attempts to present the spiritual world to man in such a way that it is tangibly material. All these things have often been pointed out in detail, again and again. It is of no use today not to see these things in their true form. Above all, however, it must be realized that what is now coming into the world as the threefold social order is a result of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But one will only understand this in the right sense if, as I have just said, one looks into these things.

My dear friends, it is necessary for the human being to become a self-reliant personality through spiritual science, so that he learns to judge the outside world, including the human outside world, in the right way, precisely because he stands firmly on his own ground as a free personality. The free personality is no longer recognized in the world at all today. We have become accustomed to no longer recognizing the free personality at all. If someone says their own thoughts somewhere, their own thoughts that they have fought hard for, the foolish, stupid world today calls it a presentation. In such things, down to the last detail, it is important to see where things are rotten. This adaptation to the stupidity of the present shows how we are no longer able to stand on the ground of a free, self-creating personality. It is not pedantry to point out such things, for it is in the habitual tendrils of ordinary life that we see where things are rotten on a large scale. And if we want to recover, then this recovery must start from the large and be so strong in the large that the large can intervene in the ordinary smallest tendrils of life. At the moment when the whole world could already see externally that things were going wrong in Central Europe because of the arms race, we named our building in Dornach, which, I might add, stands directly on the border with the Entente, the Goetheanum, so that we could make it clear to the whole world what we believe to be right, never yielding in any way to what one might say: How will it affect people, what should be taken into consideration? and the like.

And in this context, I would like to point out that it would be good if the people of Central Europe in particular would remember that people like Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Herder and similar people once lived in Central Europe, that Fichte spoke there. Because these things, my dear friends, have been forgotten. It is not true that these things are still alive today. It is an enormous lie to say that Fichte is still alive. He no longer lives in people. For he does not live through the fact that his successors in the old, so-called German Reichstag in Weimar have even begun to quote him. These people, who constituted the greatness of Central Europe, became parasites on the life of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They must first be unearthed. And we will have to understand that time is a reality.

My dear friends, I want to tell you the following in a radical way: Suppose Herder or Goethe had written something; you put that down in front of you; and today, whether by karma or by chance, someone writes something without knowing that Goethe or Herder had written it; they write the same thing, using the same words. Most people of the present day would say: Well, that is exactly the same. And yet, the truth could be that what Goethe or Herder wrote would be imbued with the real spiritual, and what a person today writes with the same words would be empty phrases. But from this you may see that when someone brings a piece of paper from this or that community that comes up today with some nice program that one should do this or that socially, and compares it to what appears here as threefolding , some of it may agree word for word; but anyone who sets store by such agreement shows only that he does not really stand within the anthroposophical movement with his soul. For the great difference between us and all these things — and I have repeatedly made this absolutely clear over the decades in the most diverse contexts — the great difference lies in the fact that behind what we proclaim socially stands the world characterized by anthroposophy . That is the substance, and that makes the difference; it elevates what our sentences say beyond the character of mere phrases to real content, while most people today only speak phrases that may sound like the content of reality. What matters is reality, not the phrase. That is what one would like to be understood. If the matter is understood, my dear friends, then it is a matter of being able to grasp our time in reality from this point of view.

I would have liked someone else to have said it, but since no one else is saying it, I have to say it myself: We do have anthroposophy, we do have spiritual science; from it arises the awareness that a transformation is necessary in our cultural world. But humanity does not yet know this, it does not know it enough, it has to be told, it has to be made apparent, and it has to be made as clear as I have just shown. If someone wants to found a school, good, let them do it; if someone wants to tell fairy tales, good, let them do it; one could have done that in 1907 as well. What is at stake today is to convey to humanity the awareness that anthroposophy is here and that anthroposophy must grow. And if it does not grow, nothing will grow, because the other will perish, as is clearly evident in intellectual life. And this must be seriously presented to humanity. Of course, we cannot immediately found any schools on a large scale, but we have to say to humanity: your world is perishing, here is the truth from which you can renew it. You have to found the liberation of the School of Spiritual Science in the sense of the new spirit! It is the awakening of this consciousness that is at stake. I am therefore pleased that my appeal “To the German People and to the Cultural World” in the last issue of the “Reich” was followed by an essay containing the words:

But the forces of self-reflection should ultimately be able to lead to such a common understanding if this self-reflection were directed in the right direction, which must lead to an understanding of the foundations on which alone reconstruction is possible.

The forces of development in the new era must be included in the plan of construction. If one wanted to build without such a plan, then every well-intentioned effort would have to disintegrate due to the lack of a realistic foundation.

Anyone who takes the step towards such self-reflection will realize the significance of the view expressed in the appeal that a real mission of the German people must be inextricably linked with all that the developmental forces of modern times demand. Valid foundations for a structure cannot be created if the inexorably surging developmental forces that have been released over the last hundred years are channelled into the riverbed of old habits of thought. These developmental forces want to carve out a new riverbed. Large-scale spiritual pioneering work is to be done if the future of the German people is to be secured. But the weapons of old habits of thinking are proving too blunt to accomplish this work.

Everyone who has participated in anthroposophical work should think this way, and everyone should make this their work. For what matters today is not what we do tomorrow in detail, but that as many people as possible know what needs to be done, then there will be as many people as possible who can do it. And we must never shrink from the decision to see things as radically as possible today. To see them in such a way that we truly do not remain in the old stupid formulations of the cultural program, but that we see: here is the old culture - here is the one that is to be replaced by spiritual science. The details will follow.

It was just demanded that the children in the lowest classes should play a certain music, that everyone should learn an instrument. Such a thing can be demanded in detail. Was it not our demand from the very beginning to give every child a musical instrument? These things will come about when the work that follows from anthroposophy, the spiritual work, is undertaken on a large scale, initially for the purpose of helping people to find themselves. That is why, when I came here, my main aim was to get as many people as possible to see the things that are most important in social life today. At first people thought, because they were foolish and did not feel the reality of things: these are dreamers, things have grown on anthroposophical soil. At first they were no longer anxious. Then we had thousands and thousands of followers who sealed their allegiance by name, and we had a large, large number of votes in many resolutions. Then those to whom the masses submit have become fearful due to the present-day conditions, and since it has become apparent to them that this is not anthroposophy but realities in the minds and souls, they have denounced it as utopian because the leaders of today's proletarian masses do not think proletarian themselves, but are precisely the most dreadful bourgeois philistines. They are the ones in whom the bourgeoisie is expressed in its most characteristic form. Therefore, it is important that we now grasp our task above all. We can only grasp this task if we know how to rebuild the education system from the ground up. And we have to make it clear to the world that this education system has to be rebuilt, that it has to be built from the spirit of spiritual science. We have to make it clear today that the universities that exist now serve the downfall of humanity; that our grammar schools, our secondary modern schools, our middle schools serve the downfall of humanity; that in our primary schools, people are not educated, but state cripples. But if we allow anthroposophy to be a Sunday afternoon sermon that we let go on alongside our lives as far as possible, and then we grovel and dare not tell anyone outside that the things that other people set such great store by contain nothing but impossible stuff, then we need not be anthroposophists. We must imbue ourselves with the spirit of the truly new age, not with the catchphrases of the new age. Therefore, if we are to work as anthroposophists, our first task is to ensure that people first know what needs to be done; that they learn to know what needs to be done. I would like to test the anthroposophists who are here, they are all individual personalities. I would like to ask you: Imagine, instead of you, instead of the fact that you are sitting there and I am speaking to you, there were a bunch of Jesuits, and one of the Jesuits was encouraging the others to action. I would like to know what these Jesuits, if they were here in such numbers, would do for Jesuitism – that is what I would like to know. They would work for what they are supposed to do. They do not need to do this or that in detail, they would just limit themselves to working on a large scale to create the consciousness they want to instill in people. Basically, the only important thing is the personality that we develop, because there is nothing else, my dear friends, that will achieve anything in the present situation except by permeating as many people as possible with the truth and daring to speak that truth. We are constantly experiencing how little courage there is for the truth and how little will there is to see things through. How is a cultural pest like Johannes Müller treated in the present day? Just today I received an essay that I believe a great many people consider extraordinarily clever. The Frankfurter Zeitung, that depository for all the current nonsense and fawning of those people who also want to participate in the redesign, the Frankfurter Zeitung even prints it as a feature, an essay by Johannes Müller, in which he talks about the fact that the German people had confidence in their generals, but the generals did not have confidence in the German people, and that this is the source of the misfortune. It is pure nonsense, it is pure brass, but people today follow this brass. And one must dare to confront this brass with all one's might, because anthroposophy should not be something that is received like a Sunday afternoon sermon, but something that pours fire into our blood. What matters first of all is that we say to the world, in the most comprehensive sense, what I pointed out at the end of last Sunday's reflection: we are here as anthroposophists! If we were to found a university today, what would be the result? Well, let us assume that we get students – I will leave aside whether we would have the teachers for them – we get students; I do not think that we would get students under today's conditions, because no matter how well these students were trained, even if the socialist state system, which is praised by many, continues to exist or comes into being in a different form, it would not be recognized by the state. They would have studied for the outside world, so to speak, for their own pleasure. That is not the point, but the point is that we make the world understand: the whole spirit that prevails in our public science today must become a different one. And we have a right to demand that everyone do it – that is what matters.

Do you see why I am saying these things? Yes, I am saying them for the following reason: We have been working on this for decades; much of what I have discussed from this platform only came before my mind's eye in these last decades; I know what some of them were a harrowing experience; I know how I have to look at them; but I also know how little willpower has been developed to see things as they really are in terms of their spiritual content.

The new issue of Reich contains a very interesting essay by Hermann Haase, a contribution to a phenomenology of consciousness. This interesting essay shows something very curious. The author points to an investigation by a psychiatrist, a pathologist, who examined schizothymia and its connection with dementia praecox, a certain form of mental deficiency. Through the examination of an imbecile, the psychiatrist in question came to the conclusion that there are four types of layers of consciousness in man: the superconscious (called sup.), the experiencing subconscious (called exp. sub.), the ordering subconscious (ord. sub.) and the deepest subconscious (d. sub.). There we find the modern researcher, who has emerged from the modern university. He establishes four levels of consciousness in individuals with mental deficiencies, in which this is reflected in a negative mirror image, and it is not realized that this matter has been proclaimed to the world in a healthy way by telling it: the ordinary object consciousness, the imaginative consciousness, the inspired consciousness, the intuitive consciousness. If something is said today in the light of sound spiritual work, it is not accepted. If a psychiatrist comes along and takes something out of the morbid states of morbid individuals, the world falls in line to receive the thing in a caricature. That is what we have come to. Such an abyss exists between what can and must be proclaimed today out of the spirit and what the world is willing to accept. We must make an effort to recognize this mission of ours in the present day and not give in to the thought: “Yes, but it can't be that bad after all, people want the best.” No, we have to recognize that the world is in decline and that it needs to be rebuilt. That is what we have to make it aware of first. If we do not make it clear, then nothing we put into the world will be of any use, and the world would not understand it at all if it were not first pointed out that it is necessary to replace contemporary state science with something else. This is how the world must experience it. And if we do not rise to this challenge, then we as anthroposophists are not working to transform modern culture. Anything else is wishy-washy. We must therefore seek the forms in which we can communicate this to the world, in which we are really always talking about spiritual science. We do not need to concern ourselves today at this important historical moment with whether or not we have fairy tales to tell; that may be a nice task, but today it is about how we present the spiritual wealth of spiritual science to the world. We must not always protect and patronize what is different, but really stand on the ground of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. We have to represent spiritual science. That is what I meant last Sunday. And we should courageously represent this spiritual science wherever we can, in whatever profession we are active. This spiritual science can send its reforming and revolutionary power into every profession. We must not be deterred when something is possible, such as a first-class university of the old declining times producing an individual like Max Dessoir, who lies, lies scientifically. We must have the courage to present these things in their truth. But now we must be alert to the fact that slimy figures are creeping out everywhere, attacking what should have come from here. The things these slimy figures come up with! In addition to everything else that has been slime, a new slime has emerged that has added a slur on Dessoir and that produces the slimey lie that Dessoir has justified himself in the new edition of his book. We must be alert to the slime in today's culture, as it emerges particularly in the public press. If we do not aspire to clarity, all our confused thoughts will not help us. For that we need both courage and the humility to limit ourselves in our abilities and in our powers to do what we can do. You see, I just wanted to tell you these things to make you understand what I actually meant last Sunday. I did not mean that one should think one should now do what one should have done in 1907; then it would have developed in some way by 1919; but I meant that one should now seize the great historical moment and make it clear to the world that there is an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. It does not know that. It does not know that at all, because people are not listening to these things, because they are not being transformed into deeds. I could give you countless examples of how things are not being transformed into deeds, how things mean nothing more than a passing sensation. That is not what anthroposophy is meant to be. Anthroposophy is meant in such a way that action can arise from each of its words, even if this action can initially only consist of words. But these words must not be empty phrases, they must not be formulated in an unctuous way, like the unctuous speech of ancient or contemporary Christianity; these speeches must be grainy. We must make it clear today that those who come out of our universities are stupid, and we must not tire of showing that this is a cultural-historical phenomenon, that all four faculties (or however many are newly established) are institutions of stultification in the sense of real human development. If we do not take a stand and speak out, then anthroposophy will have to work for a long time before it can fulfill its true calling. Then you see, do you believe that what I told you the other day, that for example what is described in our anatomy and physiology as “human” is actually not a human being but Lucifer, described by Ahriman, which is expressed by the fact that today's physiology distinguishes between two types of nerves, sensitive and motor nerves; do you think that it is easy to find? If it is found, it is a truth today that should not be taken as a sensation, as idle gossip, but that it could unhinge an entire system of science, as well as many other systems of science that are taught today at our universities by the boards of trustees, and how this spiritual science could unhinge many other things. But as long as we are not aware that anthroposophy is everything, that the other things cannot exist alongside it, that it is wrong of us to let ourselves be beaten down as soon as we are out of this door, then of course we cannot achieve what I spoke of last Sunday. We as anthroposophists should make it clear to the world that we are here. That is what matters. Above all, we must grasp that. The world must know that anthroposophy can advocate for its cause. Think about it: if there were only Jesuits sitting here and they were admonished to work, how they would work, then you would get a yardstick for what people who want to advocate for their cause do for their cause. But one must be able to look at things this way, not as a Sunday afternoon sermon. I believe that this is the most practical thing at the present time, and we would like to agree on this: how we can really bring the anthroposophical spiritual heritage into the world today, when the time is right for it, when it is high time for it. We have begun by saying that we were always embarrassed at the beginning, when this movement began here in Europe; we were always embarrassed; we wrung ourselves out, how we say this or that, but just not where it comes from, just not on what soil it grew; we have considered that as our task. We should think back to this time, and when we think back, we should learn the right lessons from it. Then we could, above all, be a community of people who practice the right, but now productive criticism of the unculture of the present. And this productive criticism, this emphasis on the fact that what is there must be replaced by something else, that the whole of the present school system is not worth a shot of powder, this productive criticism, that is what we have to do first. Then everyone can add what they can add from their own particular knowledge, and in doing so they can make fruitful use of what they are as individuals. But wanting to make all kinds of things fruitful without putting them at the service of the greater good will achieve nothing today, because today humanity is not facing small, but great reckonings, and this must always be said again.

Address to an Assembly of the Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism Protocol Record

[Emil Molt first gives an introduction about the state of the work of establishing works councils, which is not making much progress. Ernst Uehli presents the new weekly newspaper “Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus” (Threefolding of the Social Organism).]

Rudolf Steiner: If the threefolding of the social organism is to become what it must become, then it must work as a whole. It will not be possible, for example, to take any part, any link out of the whole structure of the threefold social order. It would not be possible, for example, to realize the economic part of this impulse at some time or other - in about the way it is contained in the so-called “program” - and to introduce it into the world in itself. That would not be possible. It is imperative to strive simultaneously for the three parts of the social organism to develop side by side. Just as in a natural organism one could never speak of creating the head or the chest first and then waiting for the other part to arise from the other limbs, so too can no part of the three-part social organism be tackled on its own. Therefore, just as the seed - which you have heard today has not yet borne very hopeful fruit - had emerged, but as the seed of the economic program through the idea of the works councils had emerged, it had to be borne in mind that the work should not be done only in the economic field in our sense, but that the universality should be taken into account. Therefore, while working for the works councils, the leadership of the Federation for the Tripartite Structure of the Social Organism decided, on the one hand, to gather around them personalities who were believed to be interested in creating and preparing for another link in the social organism: the spiritual link, the cultural link. And we tried to start by setting up a kind of cultural council – or whatever you want to call it. You will find a detailed account of what is actually being sought with this establishment of a cultural council in the call to establish a cultural council, as it has now been provisionally published and as it will probably be in your hands. So I will have little more to say to you about the matter today.

It was really possible to organize a kind of collaboration, a collaboration between a larger number of people. Those interested in the most diverse areas of intellectual life were repeatedly here together, and the ideas of such a cultural council were discussed. But then they also went into the individual work. Everyone tried to contribute, to gather the thoughts that had occurred to them in these smaller meetings – the thoughts that had occurred to the individual about reforms, about the transformation of intellectual life. And from this collaboration, like a final editorial board, the first version of this appeal for the establishment of a cultural council emerged.

The next step was to win over a larger group of people who, out of a sense of the needs of contemporary culture, would have joined in the call: Something must be done in the field of intellectual life in our very difficult times. - We then tried to approach this or that representative of intellectual life. It would be a very sad, indeed a very depressing chapter if one were to describe the details of the negotiations that took place in connection with the first figure of this call. Now, in these difficult times, it should be recognized that, above all, a renewal, a reorganization of intellectual life is necessary in the deepest sense, that is, insofar as it belongs to the social organism. This must be recognized, on the one hand, by the fundamental character that the intellectual life of cultured humanity has gradually taken on. It must be recognized, secondly, by how this intellectual life is administered today. That this intellectual life is the basis of what is actually happening today, which is presenting itself as confusion in the chaos of our culture and our entire civilization – this should actually be recognized.

We should recognize what fruits it has borne that for three to four centuries our intellectual life, especially in the form of schooling and education, has been repeatedly and repeatedly absorbed by the state organization. We should recognize that today we have hardly any sense of the innermost needs of intellectual life, which can only exist in the urge for a free shaping of this life. No feeling has been aroused by the fact that the absorption of spiritual life by the state was a decisive factor not only for the filling of posts and for external administration, but also for the content of this spiritual life itself. This could not be shown as clearly in the past as it is today, at the great turning points in the development of humanity that we are currently facing. Over the past three to four centuries, as important branches of our intellectual life have gradually been absorbed into state life, a form of our intellectual life has developed that is no longer capable of producing ideas that would have been a match for the facts, which are asserting themselves more and more powerfully, more and more extensively.

Thus it has come about that, wherever they were locked out of these or those foundations of intellectual life, thoughts were too short to control the facts, that these facts went their own way, came into their own momentum, and in the end it was the thoughtless facts into which man was no longer able to send thoughts, have brought about our terrible world catastrophe, in which we are still very much involved, and with regard to which we are only now entering decisive points, decisive stages.

Nothing shows the decline of our intellectual life more than the state of the proletariat, which is so significant for the movement of today's people. The leading circles, who have been leading up to now, feel with horror what revelations, what programs, what party maxims are emerging from the proletariat. In my book 'The Key Points of the Social Question', I wanted to point out the crucial point. I wanted to point out that the state of mind of the leading members of the proletariat today is nothing other than the legacy of the intellectual life of the bourgeoisie, of the leading, guiding circles.

Recently, two members of the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism who belong to workers' circles gave a lecture at a public meeting. This was followed by a discussion in which prominent figures of the proletariat, who were far to the left, intervened. I then spoke a few words, which amounted to saying that, in my opinion, these personalities, who were far to the left and belonged to communist circles, had nothing but the worst offshoots of the intellectual heritage of the leading and governing circles – which they were until now – in their speeches. I would like to say that one has never heard such bourgeois talk as was the case with these independent and communist personalities. They have learned this from their bourgeois ancestors. They had to learn it. And anyone who can look more deeply into the official development of our intellectual life, into the administration of our intellectual life, knows that this intellectual life has finally led to the complete withering away of intellectual production and that, where intellectual matters are concerned, nothing is left but empty phrases. We live in a world of empty phrases. There are still people who do not want to see these things. There are still people in Central Europe – it is hard to believe – who do not want to see these things, who still want to indulge in the illusions that have allowed them to numb themselves for so long, about rushing into self-inflicted destruction. Self-inflicted because they do not want to face what is without prejudice, because they only want to hold on to old habits of thinking and feeling.

The aim of a cultural council as it is conceived today must be a complete reorganization of the entire education and teaching system. I would like to say that something like this can be tackled on a small scale. It is to be tackled by setting up the so-called 'Waldorf School' here. This Waldorf School is to be brought into being by our friend Mr. Molt, initially for the children of the workers at Waldorf-Astoria. This school should be set up in such a way that the children between the ages of six and fifteen are taught not in the way that teaching has been conducted at this school level so far - out of the mere needs of the template state - but in a way that is appropriate to human nature between the ages of seven and fifteen, according to a thorough understanding of that human nature. What people have in mind as a so-called unified school that is not born out of anything other than human nature, which is a unity for all people, especially in these years, should underlie the entire structure of the Waldorf school. The whole structure of the Waldorf school should be based on this knowledge of what should grow with the human being in the world, and on this knowledge of how teaching should be structured. Teachers should work seriously to receive a pedagogy that is based on real anthropology, on a comprehensive anthropology. The task of these teachers is to educate the human being to develop the powers that lie within the human being, which must be cultivated during childhood, so that something can be avoided in the future that every observer of human nature, who has a knowledge of psychology, can see so clearly today.

Indeed, what is the most important and essential characteristic in the life of our time? What is it that weighs so heavily on our minds today as a major cultural concern? If we look at what prevails among people today, we find that most people today are what I would call “bent natures”: those people whose will and feeling and thinking are “bent” by the vicissitudes of life. Why are they “bent”? The reason is that our school education for children is such that the most important powers of the soul are not strengthened to such an extent that they can no longer be “bent” later on, that the human being is able to cope with life. This should be the concern when setting up a Waldorf school: to prepare the human being for life in such a way that the soul and emotional forces that can only be developed in childhood are developed so that the human being can cope with life. Everything that is to be taught in so-called subjects is only secondary. Everything that figures as a so-called subject will always be asked: How does it contribute to the development of the powers of the human soul? When is this and this, at what age should this or that be introduced to the child? Lessons should be taught from a comprehensive understanding of the human being. Then the people who come out of such a school will be able to stand strong in life. Not less, but more effort will be needed by the human being in the age that hopes for social organization - in contrast to the divisions into class differences and the like that existed before. Of course, what is today the middle school, grammar school, secondary school and so on would also have to be reorganized, and what should be completely different for the future if one wants to have people who are good for life; it would have to be raised to a higher level than the lower level of elementary school, and the reorganization would have to extend up to the highest levels of teaching, at least to the college level. You can find more details on how this is to be achieved in the appeal to found a cultural council.

As I said, you can do something on a small scale, like the Waldorf School, with someone who really has such a deep understanding, like our friend Mr. Molt, for what needs to be done in terms of threefolding. The individual can have a beneficial effect by doing such a foundation. But with such an individual foundation today, the necessary is not yet done. Today it is a matter of awakening the consciousness in people in the widest possible circle: that which can be intended for such a particular thing should become the common property of humanity if we do not want to sail into the downfall of European culture. Today it always looks as if one is merely putting some kind of fantasy before the world when one says: we are faced with the “either/or”. Either we must decide on great things, or we must familiarize ourselves with the thought that European civilization is sailing towards its destruction. Anyone who still does not believe in this “either/or” today simply does not understand the times. Today's call is not for our timidity, but for our courageous will. And here I must say: in view of everything that has been said about the transformation of spiritual life in the sense of threefolding, it is truly one of the most serious disappointments that now, after weeks of efforts, nothing more is available than the attempt at such an appeal, which has indeed found a number of signatures, but of course not nearly enough. Because what is to be done today must be well-founded in the broadest sense of the mass judgment. Only in this way can we move forward.

The negotiations have shown time and again that the old problem is also occurring in this matter: one person wants this, the other that; one person did not like a sentence, another did not like the stylization; one person finds it necessary to spend weeks discussing a matter. Yes, it must be said: the concerns that have been expressed, especially by this or that personality on whom we had counted in this cultural appeal, were of such a nature that they really proved how necessary the transformation of our intellectual life is. – There is nothing that shows the poor state of our intellectual life more than the intellectual life that has produced such objections as those that have been raised against us. That is why this cultural appeal must be discussed today.

You see, when we talk about what concerns humanity as a whole, what is so clearly shown by the whole configuration of our time that it concerns all of humanity, what do we learn? These days, I read in various Stuttgart newspapers a description of what the Waldorf School wants. This description was also contained in the local Social Democratic paper of the USPD, the “Sozialdemokrat”. The “Sozialdemokrat” could not help but make the following comment on this description, which was [objective]: The matter would be all very well, but it comes from factory owners, and we will not put up with that.

This is the state of mind of contemporary humanity. But this state of mind of contemporary humanity is particularly evident in what has been encountered in so-called “bourgeois” economics, namely the most enlightened economists at our university, the leading economists at our university.

I ask you to buy this issue, which is entitled “Das gelbe Blatt” (The Yellow Sheet) – the current issue. You will find an article by Professor Lujo Brentano about the entrepreneur. Of course, today the newspapers are everywhere reporting on Professor Brentano's article about the entrepreneur, as they are accustomed to doing based on their belief in authority. For our time, which according to its illusion is not one of blind faith in authority – it is more blindly faith in authority than Catholics ever were in relation to their church leaders in earlier times. But try to read this article by Professor Brentano on entrepreneurship with your common sense, emancipated from all this blind faith in authority. It is to be hoped that as many people as possible today will apply common sense to such things.

First of all, there is a definition of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is characterized in three points. And a concept of the entrepreneur is created, a concept that the luminary of economic science, Professor Brentano, ultimately uses to such an extent that the concept of the entrepreneur also includes the ordinary proletarian worker; because, according to Professor Brentano, the ordinary proletarian worker is the entrepreneur of his own labor, which he brings to market at his own risk and expense. Today our intellectual life is such that pure nonsense enjoys the greatest fame. Until we can fully grasp the full weight of this fact, we will not develop a sense of what is necessary. And until we develop this sense, we will not understand how much inner courage is required for this transformation of our intellectual life; how much is demanded by a truly fundamental renewal of our intellectual life, especially of our education and teaching.

Oh, I would give anything to have the gift of very different words and word coinages to make today's humanity aware of what one really had to achieve through a bloody struggle for life. Do you think it is easy to say such things as I had to say against a so-called luminary of today's science? If you say such a thing, everyone sees you as an angry rabble-rouser, as a person who must be silenced. And only the most sacred sense of duty can lead one to tell the truth about these things today. And this truth is serious, very serious. For what have we already achieved in the details?

I would like to recall the lecture I gave in Heilbronn on the threefold social organism, which Mr. Molt has already mentioned today. In the review of the “Heilbronner Zeitung” that Mr. Molt reported on, there are many things that do not interest me, because I am highly indifferent to what a line-pushing writer writes about what is spoken out of today's seriousness of life. But if this wordiness becomes a symptom of what lives in today's hearts and minds, then it needs to be considered a little. There it has yet such a wordy windbag managed to say that I have resorted to “the three old hits Freedom, Equality, Fraternity”. Well, this is how far this generation has come, that today one can freely say that these three great goods of humanity – freedom, equality, fraternity – are “hits”, that one can mock what is most sacred to people. One is reminded of the words of Hamlet: “Writing tablets, writing tablets, that one may write down, that one may smile and always smile and yet be a villain.” And one would like to say: writing tablets, so that one can be considered an educated person in the face of contemporary humanity and even be allowed to write in newspapers and still be allowed to mock the highest ideals of humanity in the most stupid way!

These things are rooted in our present-day culture; that they be seen, that what everyone who takes today's world seriously longs for, and that out of this longing develops that which in turn can result in a recovery of our social organism!

We are really on the verge of the catastrophe that is looming in the most diverse areas of life. What we need is to find the strength to draw upon our inner resources. We need to do everything we can, especially in view of the impending danger to Central Europe, to draw upon our innermost human powers. We need to let the danger to Central Europe become the impetus to do everything we can from our innermost being. Much will be taken from this Central Europe, it will be made very, very poor. And truly, one is repeatedly reminded of what one has already had to let sink in again and again from life, very, very bitterly: It was always a painful sight for me to see a young child here and there in more intimate circles during these war years, because then one had to feel: The old have at least something behind them, have a memory of something; but those who are now children are growing up in terrible times. And today, this feeling does not only come to mind through the general world situation; today it also comes to mind when one has to notice how sleepy humanity is in the face of what can be observed today. It must be observed how we are absolutely sailing into destruction if we do not start from such points of view, which I have been able to characterize here today, albeit very imperfectly, in just a few words.

Let me say it once again: Much will be taken from this Central Europe; it will be made very poor. It can only be saved if it draws on something that cannot be taken away: the innermost powers of the soul. And it is precisely the folk forces of this Central Europe that are capable of cultivating this innermost power of the soul. We have not cultivated it in Central Europe in recent decades – that is our great fault. Let us learn from necessity to cultivate it.

This is what comes to mind today when one wants to speak about something like the founding of a cultural council. It is from such serious foundations that this appeal for the founding of a cultural council is written. May its individual sentences be found good or bad; I do not care what these individual sentences are called - it is the spirit behind them that matters! And one would like to see this spirit recognized; to see how it cannot be grasped merely in the mind, but how it must be grasped as a stimulus to real action for a renewal, a transformation, a new creation of our spiritual life.