The Rudolf Steiner Archive

After the points of business, Rudolf Steiner took the floor:

On the whole, it can be said that many of the outcomes of our goals actually constitute a single phenomenon within a larger framework of facts. Please allow me to make a few comments on this, and especially on the experience we have gathered since founding the Waldorf School.

As you know, we founded the Waldorf School as one part of the effects that were intended to proceed from a spiritual movement that is over two decades old. The Waldorf School would be inconceivable without this spiritual movement. In its particulars, the plan to found the school came from our dear friend Emil Molt at a time when there was a certain interest in great humanitarian questions because it was a time of such great need. Counting on this interest, we began to work in many different directions to try to influence aspects of public life from anthroposophical points of view. We may well say that since that time we have been able to acquire very extensive experience along certain lines.

To begin with, we encountered a certain interest that promised to encompass broader circles. In 1919 humanity had a great interest in working in one or the other direction to enable forces of ascent to replace the forces of decline that were so evident. And today we still see a universal interest in educational issues, not only in Central Europe but all over the world. It is a remarkable fact that this year’s Shakespeare festival in Stratford actually took place under the auspices of educational issues. You know that I myself had to give lectures at this festival, and that the event stood fully under the sign of educational issues. In fact, a committee on new ideals in education organized this event. This summer we will have another opportunity to have a conference, this time at Oxford, where nine out of twelve lectures will deal with educational issues in a narrower sense.¹ This shows that at any rate an interest in educational issues is still present today.

This interest is to be found everywhere. In the widest possible circles today, we definitely find that educational issues are thought to be the most important issues of all. We find numerous people who believe, and rightly so, that any talk of social issues does not rest on firm ground if it does not take educational issues as its starting point. We have come to realize that the chaos that humanity has fallen into and will continue to fall into has essentially been brought about by our failure to place the right value on the spiritual issues of humankind’s evolution.

However, this interest is “thought interest,” if I may put it like that. The way in which this interest manifests clearly shows that we are dealing with some kind of thought interest. People organize conferences on education just as they organize other conferences today. They get together and talk about educational issues, and it cannot be denied that extraordinarily clever things are talked about at these gatherings. People nowadays talk with extraordinary cleverness. A large portion of humanity today is smart, and it is also the case that the majority of these very smart people like to hear themselves talk. This creates the best circumstances imaginable for holding conferences to discuss how to find ways out of these chaotic conditions.

If it depended only on conferences of this sort, we would be well on the way. Ladies and gentlemen, this is something we should consider very carefully. I have often stated that I am convinced that if twelve people or some other number of people would get together to undertake to establish an agenda for educating children in the best way, something extremely clever would come out of it. I say this in complete seriousness. When it comes to establishing an agenda for assembling the best pedagogical principles for dealing with children, the literature available today is excellent. What people are saying today in these conferences is literature. However, it all depends on accomplishing the work that is to be done on the basis of real life. People who establish agendas are never dealing with real life. In real life you deal with a certain number of students and a certain number of teachers; you deal with people. These people will do what needs doing; they will do whatever they can do.

However, in order to actually accomplish what is theoretically possible, we depend on having our hands free to do our work on a humanitarian basis. This brings us to the fact that nowadays the presence of a “thought interest” in great existential issues is much less important than the presence of the will to actually bring about the conditions that make a system of education such as this one possible. The remarkable thing about this is that while there is the broadest possible interest in the thought or the feeling that such and such ought to be, this is not accompanied by any real will interest. That no real will interest accompanies it is the reason why I call what it is our conferences deal with, “literature.” Literature is what it actually is; it is not something that will be transformed into action.

One of the most important facts about the background of the Waldorf School is that we were in a position to make the anthroposophical movement a relatively large movement. The anthroposophical movement has become a large one. This is evident from the fact that difficult anthroposophical books go through many editions.”² Interest springs up everywhere. This is a “thought interest,” or even goes beyond thought interest to the extent that the people who come together in the anthroposophical movement also have a feeling interest in it, an interest of the heart. In all of our modern movements people are coming together with a mere “thought interest” that is transformed into a talking interest in those who are somewhat active. The anthroposophical movement gathers together those people who have an intense human need, a soul need, to make headway with regard to the essence of the human being. This is what things look like when we consider an interest in knowledge, a feeling interest, more theoretically. There are very many people today who realize that there is something here that can satisfy their spiritual interests. That is how it stands today, and I hope that its growth is guaranteed in spite of the scandalous opposition to it.

But what we are lacking are people who are not merely interested in the anthroposophical movement becoming as large as possible and bringing forth as much spiritual content as possible, but who are also interested in making this anthroposophical movement happen, in being co-workers in its coming about. There are extraordinarily few of them. We have many people who listen, many who want something for themselves, but we have extraordinarily few people who are co-workers in the fullest sense of the word.

You know, when our conference in Vienna was being organized, which was not a conference in the same sense as other conferences—the point of our conferences is for people to get together to receive something they can take home, while in other conferences everyone wants to get rid of what they bring from home—in any case, when this conference was being organized, there had to be workers there to get ready for it and bring it about, and there had to be speakers there. There are always a small number of friends who nearly have to run their legs off, work their fingers to the bone writing letters, and empty out their wallets. There are only a small number of them, the Waldorf teachers and a small number of others, and they are thoroughly overworked almost every month of the year because of their involvement. Actually, they are always terribly overworked.

But at the end of a conference such as this, even if it is as successful as the one in Vienna, we experience once again that although all the conditions are in place for our Waldorf system of education to expand, or something of that sort, the way these conditions come about means that the small number of active people get in over their heads. Again and again we have to be on the lookout for new coworkers. Perhaps not all of you will agree with me, but I would like to state my experience quite openly. As things stand today, I believe there would be a possibility of gaining plenty of members. I got the impression in Vienna that it would be possible to attract enough people who would become coworkers in the best sense of the word.

But—and here our general concern coincides with our concern for the Waldorf School—at this point we bump up against the fact that it is not possible to expand our circle of coworkers for the simple reason that we have no money. People everywhere have the means of supporting their coworkers, but this is only possible for us to a very inadequate extent. The main question is always how to offer people the means to exist when we disconnect them from their previous means. That is the fact of the matter. Today, if we want to move forward, we need a large number of coworkers. Those we have are simply not enough. Thus, what needs to be taken care of can be done only by exhausting the strength of the forces we have, and what can be done in this way is at most a tenth of what could be accomplished under conditions at present if we could count on a full complement of coworkers. After the Vienna conference in particular, we could watch the experience I have just described welling up.

Naturally this is not a question of an ordinary appeal to the wallets of those who are already members. That is not the issue. The issue, to put it very strongly for once, is that in recent times whenever we have appealed to the will, the matter in question failed.

In the end, the Waldorf School movement is connected to the threefold movement. The Waldorf School movement is conceivable only within a free spiritual life. The “thought interest” we met with at first has not led to a will interest. When the attempt was made to accomplish the deed of founding the World School Association as our only means of expanding beyond Central Europe, this attempt failed.³ It was to have encompassed the entire civilized world. The attempt to rouse whatever belief people had that the educational system must change, which was what was being attempted in the World School Association, was a miserable fiasco. There is such a terrible feeling of being rebuffed when you appeal to the will. I do not say that I am appealing for money in this case. We are lacking in money, but we are lacking in will to a much greater extent. The interest that exists does not go very deep, otherwise it would extend to the right areas.

We were able to found the Waldorf School. Herr Stockmeyer⁴ read the ruling,⁵ the gist of which was that as of Easter of 1925 we will lose our first grade, and eventually the four lowest classes. We would hardly have been able to open the school at all anywhere else. In founding the Waldorf School, we took advantage of the right moment in which it was possible to do such a thing.

Whenever the educational system is at the mercy of universal schematization, we can point to strongly working forces of decline. We encounter them everywhere. We can point them out wherever what is laid down in the regulations for primary schools is taken to the last stage. In Lunatsharsky’s school system in Soviet Russia, it has been carried through to its conclusion. People there are thinking the way we will think here when this is carried through to its conclusion and the full consequences have been felt. The current misery in Eastern Europe is what comes of it when this way of thinking about non-independent schools finds its way into practice.

I am trying to speak today in a way that awakens enthusiasm, so that people feel the spiritual blood trickling in their souls and a large number of people who realize this will commit themselves, so that public opinion is aroused. Actually, I must say that at any point in the last twenty years when I tried to speak a language that appealed to people’s hearts not only in a theoretical sense, but to the heart as an organ of will, what I felt, first in the Anthroposophical Society and later in other groups, always made me wonder, “Dont people have ears?” It seemed that people could not hear things that were supposed to move from words to action. The experience of the fiasco of the World School Association was enough to drive one to despair.

How do we think when we hear something such as this ruling that was read aloud? We think that perhaps ways and means will be found to push through the lower classes for a few years, after all. Even in more intimate circles, not much more comes of it than thinking, “Well, maybe the possibility will be there for a few more years.” The point, however, is for all of us to stand behind it now. Education must evolve independently, as has been emphasized ever since 1919. There is no other way for this to become a reality than through general acceptance of what is offered by the members of our various associations, who are in full agreement that something like this should exist, and through them being joined by more and more people who will become active members. The will has to develop first!

I would like to tell you how my calculation goes: If numbers speak, we can say that we have no money. Having said that, we then collect money and fill the gap by the skin of our teeth.

However, we will also not get very far by this means. We will get further only by the means I intended in speaking of the World School Association. We must have an active faith that what is being done will really become a factor in public opinion. In order to maintain the Waldorf School and establish additional schools, we need a growing public conviction that continuing in the sense of the old school system will lead only to forces of decline within humanity. This conviction is what we need. We will move forward only when instead of merely establishing schools here and there for the sake of practicing some kind of educational quackery, we can make the breakthrough to deciding to take our educational principles to the public in a way that will make them a matter of inner conviction for parents and non-parents alike.

Please excuse me, but in a certain respect I really cannot avoid saying that I know many people will recognize the truth in what I have just said, but you only really acknowledge the truth of something by doing something about it! By doing something about it! This is why, above all, we must make sure that we do not found schools simply to an extent that lies within our existing means, which come from our branches and from wallets that are already empty. We must try to work for ideas and ideals so that an ever growing number of people is imbued with them.

In this respect our actual experience is just the opposite. The current issue of the newspaper for threefolding has just announced that in future it will be a magazine for anthroposophy. Why? Because the promising beginnings in understanding threefolding have petered out. Because, fundamentally, we must go back to the style we had prior to the threefolding movement. In spite of the fact that a lot has been said about threefolding, this is another case of being driven to despair when you talk with people. We need something to come of this; we need it to enter public opinion. That is what we need above all else if we want to make progress with the Waldorf School.

I must admit that I have been saying this for a long time. But just about anything else strikes a chord more readily than what I have said today. I would like to say that if I see what lives in people’s will as mere faith—well, no one believes that mere faith, the mere faith that humanity can only be helped by having an independent system of education, will accomplish anything. But it would lead people who are still able to do so to support us financially, so that we would not continually be left empty-handed in comparison to other movements.

The anthroposophical movement is the basis of the Waldorf School movement. Even if it is set back by scandalous things such as are happening now,⁶ it has within it the necessary prerequisites for life. A lot of associations are founded that have adequate monetary means but no inherent prerequisites for life. Associations are constantly being founded, and people have money for them, and yet they fail. If all the money that people spend today on unnecessary associations could be directed into our channels, then the reports would look different. Herr Leinhas⁷ would have to report that our reserve fund is so large that we will have to try to invest it fruitfully.

I do not believe at all that the main thing for us today is our lack of money. What we are lacking is the will to assert ourselves in real life, to insist that the portion of spiritual life that we acknowledge as true be given its due in the world. What use would it be if I had claimed that our effectiveness in the past year was satisfactory in some way? But here, in a members’ meeting, it is necessary to speak from this point of view. I am fully convinced that our Waldorf School can get as good as it can, but if we do not find the possibility of imbuing public opinion with our educational impulses, then all of our fancy arithmetic will not help us at all.

The will to convince everyone must be present in an everincreasing number of people. In addition, the conviction must become widespread that for the salvation of humanity, it is necessary for something such as is present in embryonic form in the Waldorf School to keep on growing.

That is what I wanted to have said to that percentage of hearts in which the impulse of will is present. We can get very far if we only think about what it depends on: It depends on us using our will to really get public opinion to where it ought to be. That is what I needed to say.

From the discussion

I must add that a great number of parents have expressed the request that something be done by the Waldorf School to manage the relationship of the faculty to the parent body—what can the parents themselves do for the children? I would like to say that we will very soon be giving careful thought to how we can work in this direction. At parents’ evenings, I myself will try to offer something along the lines indicated by these many signatures.⁷

We will try to do everything possible along these lines in the very near future.

Expanding our circle of coworkers can be achieved only if the circumstances of which I spoke become a reality. Something must first be done to shape public opinion so that more extensive work can be undertaken. Then it will be possible to do many things. But as long as what is growing on our grounds remains the secret of the members, we will not be able to move on.

A question is asked, among others, regarding the official ruling mentioned in the speech.

Dr. Steiner: It would not help us to file a complaint with the authorities. As many people as possible must be won over to the idea that such a school should exist. The authorities are doing the right thing if that is the law. It is a question of opinjons gaining a foothold, becoming an effective force. There is something much deeper at stake. We must decide to interpret things ambitiously, to realize that what we think to be right must become the opinion of the public. The point is to get this idea into as many heads as possible. That must be accomplished so that as many people as possible change their view.

Dr. Steiner (in response to a suggestion). That does not come into question at all. Influencing public opinion is the only possible means of bringing the other methods up for discussion. To win over public opinion is the only practical way for us to go. We have not done so because there are far too few of us who believe in such a thing. I imagined that the World School Association would be promulgated in a certain way. If the monthly contribution could be one franc per member, we would be able to achieve what would have to be achieved by such an association. It would only be a question of individuals working in such a way that enthusiasm is present in their will.

Without doing that, we will get no further; we will simply manage to use up our last reserves. Even if we still find a lot of well-meaning members, it would be impractical to carry out. Even if something like that were to become a reality, we would only use up our last reserves. Our experience has shown most recently that it is necessary to attract the circles that are interested in what we are doing but are being kept away by the fact that the majority of the current membership feels the urge to keep the membership small.

May I still say that although we have established a certain level of contribution for membership, it is very good not to exclude anyone who is simply not in a position to pay the whole amount. Alongside the paragraph in the bylaws, let us remember among ourselves that people can also pay less.

• 1. This international congress on “Spiritual Values in Education and Social Life” at which Rudolf Steiner was invited to speak took place under the patronage of the English Minister of Education and others active in public life in England. From August 16-25, 1922, Steiner spoke on “The Basic Forces of Soul and Spirit in the Art of Education” [Die geistig-seelischen Grundkréfte der Erziehungskunst], 12 lectures, Oxford, 1922, GA 305, 1978], see The Spiritual Ground of Education, Garber Publications, Blauvelt, NY, nd.
• 2. For example, if paperback editions are included, in 1980 7heosophywas in its 30th German edition (164,000), Occult Science in its 29th edition (108,000), How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds in its 21st edition (150,000), The Philosophy of Freedomy/Spiritual Activity in its 14th edition (156,000) and Riddles of Philosophy in its eighth edition (31,000).
• 3. See note p. 119.
• 4. A teacher at the Independent Waldorf School in Stuttgart.
• 5. See note p. 95.
• 6. The opposition to Rudolf Steiner and the Goetheanum.
• 7. Chief accountant of the Independent Waldorf School Association.
• 7. The thrust of this request can be gathered from Rudolf Steiner’s presentation on “Issues of School and Home” at the parents’ evening on June 22, 1923. See pp. 190-202 of this volume.

Dr. Steiner: I would first like to ask if anyone has something to say now that we have had time to think about things.

A teacher would like to know more about the financial situation of the school.

Dr. Steiner: I would ask Mr. Molt to answer that question, since he is better informed.

Emil Molt reports about the financial situation of the school.

A teacher asks if they could ask the audience at tonight’s public lecture to help.

A statement written by Dr. von Heydebrand and Dr. Hahn is read.

Dr. Steiner: That statement is excellent and will certainly have an effect. In my opinion, though, that will happen only if we also say that we can continue to work only if the public provides the necessary financial means.

A teacher: I would like to wait before turning back the new enrollments.

Dr. Steiner: Why shouldn’t we tell people now that we must reject the newly enrolled children if we do not receive the funds? Through just that, our appeal will be effective. We need to turn away the children because we cannot employ new teachers. I think it is necessary in order to be effective.

These requests have their difficulties. First, the public thinks the school is a Waldorf-Astoria school, and many people call it that. People think the Waldorf-Astoria Company supports the school financially, and they are surprised that this is not the case. Well, that is one thing. We must find some means of counteracting that kind of public surprise. We must clearly say that public support is necessary. That is one thing.

The second thing is that it is difficult to obtain money outside [Stuttgart for] the Waldorf School Association we are founding in Stuttgart. It is not the same as with the other central organizations in Stuttgart. Clearly The Coming Day and the Threefold are headquartered in Stuttgart. That is something for the world. Before people want to give money to the Waldorf School, they will want to send their children here. They ask us why we cannot raise the money here in the Stuttgart area, where most of the children come from. You can require people who bring their children from further away to pay so much to have their children here. We could demand a high tuition. If we expect people from outside to give money for a school association that is, in principle, for the Waldorf School, we must make it clear that we want to carry the Waldorf School we have begun in Stuttgart to the entire world. Of course, everyone asks why we don’t raise the money here in Stuttgart and vicinity. Those are difficulties we can counter by saying that we cannot extend the school beyond its present size. We will have to turn the children away if we do not receive financial help. I do not think we have reason for much optimism about that. Those two problems play an important role.

A teacher: Could we transform the Waldorf School Association into a world association if we could agree upon it?

Dr. Steiner: We formed the Waldorf School Association as a local group, to an extent under the assumption that the stockholders of the Waldorf-Astoria Company would be impressed and would provide some money. For that reason, I imagined we would have to create the World School Association separately.

A teacher: Dr. Steiner, you said we could take up the World School Association when we had moved forward.

Dr. Steiner: I meant that we would need to form the foundation from which it could grow, that we could clearly see the difficulties that exist in creating interest for the World School Association.

A teacher asks whether it would be possible to interest the Swiss members.

Dr. Steiner: The Swiss members are having so many difficulties because of the exchange rate that they can hardly do anything. In a brochure we recently sent out, we had to remove some words indicating that members in Middle Europe could do almost nothing because of the exchange problems. I am not terribly happy about pressuring the Swiss members anyway, since they do not easily open their wallets. We need to form a World School Association that does not include the Stuttgart school in its program, but has as its purpose the formation of schools according to our principles. The first responsibility of that association will be to undertake to support the Waldorf School.

Marie Steiner: I think we should first complete the Goetheanum, since otherwise the earlier projects would suffer because of the later projects. Members in Middle Europe can do much for the school. The people in Sweden and Norway are open to giving money. If we tap foreigners too much for the school, we will never complete the Goetheanum.

Dr. Steiner: It is certainly true that if we form a World School Association, then it would also be important that it could freely determine how to use the money, and that it could support the Free University in Dornach with that money. My idea was to centralize the entire financial organization. We want a central financial organization so that all money donated for anthroposophical use will go to one central organization. That was what we wanted to do in those days when we worked toward forming The Coming Day and The Future. Then things became confused because the Waldorf-Astoria Company could no longer help, and we had to form the Waldorf School Association. We also had to found a number of things in Dornach, but all of them are only formalities. We could also include the Association for Goetheanism when necessary. We need to create everything we need so that in the end, everything leads to a central organization.

That was also our intention when we founded The Coming Day. It cannot accept yearly membership fees. An organization like the World School Association does not represent any kind of decentralization. It is not so that The Coming Day would be the central administration; it is only an organization that would participate. What I am thinking of as a central administration would be much broader. I did not say you should consider The Coming Day a central administration. The intention was to have all the money we receive go into a unified central fund, and then be distributed according to what is needed. If we founded a World School Association, it could administer its own money, but we would have to found it so that it could be a part of that central organization, just as the Association for Goetheanism in Dornach could be when we have someone to administer it. Purely objective principles must prevail here. We can found the World School Association in the same way. All we need is that its bylaws state that the money it receives can go to an elementary school as well as to the Free University.

Marie Steiner: Otherwise, everything would be at the expense of the Goetheanum.

A teacher: The way things are, I do not think the name “Waldorf School Association” is correct. We could use it for the lower eight grades, but for what is beyond, we need an “Association for the Founding of Rudolf Steiner Schools.”

Dr. Steiner: Under no circumstances can we do that.

Dr. Steiner: We need to find a much more modern name. Much of the opposition we encounter is due to the emphasis of the name. You will notice that people often say it with much emphasis. I can tell you that publishers accepted essays I wrote anonymously at one time or another, but when I included my name with them, the situation reversed. We could have another company name, but we will improve nothing by giving it a personal name. Marie Steiner: Could we perhaps talk about what name would be desirable?

Dr. Steiner: It would certainly be quite good if we did that, then we would settle things. Perhaps the Goetheanism School, or the School of The Coming Day. It needs something like that, something that looks toward the future. We also need to think of something that indicates it is not a state school. The name needs to express the independence from the state, the foundation of the school without the state. We can achieve that only through a neutral designation. We did that in the Waldorf School by using “Independent.” The designation “Independent Waldorf School” was good for the beginning, and had things continued as they had been, and had we not needed to form the Waldorf School Association, there would be little to say against that name. However, things have not gone on as they were. We need to express somehow the principle of independence from the state. We need something to indicate a school system created out of the independent cultural life. The question is whether we will be able to form the World School Association.

A teacher: Could we use “Anthroposophy” in the name?

Dr. Steiner: No, we need to leave that out.

A teacher: We should retain the name “Waldorf School” until the school reaches a certain size, so that interest does not wane. Dr. Steiner: Leaving the ninth grade aside, it is already so that we can no longer work with the eight classes as before. Without subsidies, we cannot continue the eight grades as we want. We will have to turn away new children for the eight grades unless we receive a subsidy. We can keep only the current level of activity. Then, there is the question of space. We cannot increase the number of students without increasing our space. With the fourth grade at fifty-three and the second grade at fifty-six children, there is also the question of additional teachers. In my opinion, if the classroom was large enough, a teacher could handle even a hundred children. Simply because we do not have the space, because our classrooms are too small, we will need more teachers. That will especially affect the future fourth and second grades that we will have to divide. In any event, we need to divide the first and fifth grades. The space problem is quite acute. There is still the problem of the eurythmy and gymnastics hall.

A teacher: Cultural School.

A teacher: I had thought of Independent Cultural School.

Marie Steiner: Perhaps someone else will think of something.

Dr. Steiner: It is not important to go into changing the name now. What is important is whether or not we receive the two million marks. We have this problem because we have accepted every child. The Waldorf-Astoria Company has done nothing wrong.

A teacher: It would be important to differentiate between the Waldorf School Association and the Waldorf School. We could leave the Waldorf School as the “Waldorf School.”

Dr. Steiner: The financial association does not need to carry that name. That would not hurt the Waldorf-Astoria Company. The Waldorf School is a historical fact that should remain. On the other hand, though, we do not need to expect that we should extend into other areas of Germany and Austria under the name of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. I think that for the purely practical reason that people will not give any money for it. We should limit announcements for the association to Stuttgart and Württemberg. On the other hand, though, it seems clear to me that we should do things so we can have an international outreach.

A teacher: Are we deciding to drop the association?

Dr. Steiner: I am convinced that continuing the first eight grades is a salary problem. How much do we have in the School Association account? We need to know, otherwise we will never come out of this murky situation. We will be clear about our situation only when the School Association exists, and the Waldorf-Astoria Company increases the amount of its contribution. Then we would have money in the Association’s account. We need to be able to say exactly how much the Waldorf-Astoria Company will need to provide, either as a certain donation per child or a particular amount we can count upon. Right now, that is all unclear.

I have the feeling that the financial basis of the school depends upon the Waldorf-Astoria Company and, to a large extent, upon the private wealth of Mr. Molt. We need to differentiate those two things. My feeling is that Mr. Molt has financially supported the Waldorf School himself. In addition to what he personally gave, the Waldorf-Astoria Company also provided support. Perhaps it is not appropriate to say so now, but Mr. Molt’s private resources are strongly involved.

Emil Molt: It is difficult to discuss this. The school is registered as my private property. I paid for the construction. The school pays no rent, and I also paid other amounts for the other school buildings.

Dr. Steiner: It is good that we know this. The problem we have is that the Waldorf-Astoria Company has come out a little too good in the picture of the Waldorf School. I do not find it responsible to give all the credit for the existence of this school to the Waldorf- Astoria Company when they were really not so enthusiastic about becoming the patron of the school, whereas, Mr. Molt actually did most of it. We could at best say that the Waldorf-Astoria Company is a member of the School Association.

It is certainly not right when people from out of town pay only what it costs for their child. They should also pay a part of the other costs, like the desks, and so on. However, this completely justifiable situation should be compensated for by not making the school purely a concern of Stuttgart. People need to understand that they will not have to pay so much when the school becomes an international organization.

A teacher: The tuition would be a thousand marks, since each child costs us about that much.

Dr. Steiner: If we knew the Waldorf-Astoria Company would pay that amount for the children of its employees, that would not help much, since we would not be able to accept other children without donations. We must maintain our principle of accepting children who cannot pay the tuition. The school suffers from the fact that, aside from the children of the Waldorf-Astoria Company, it is a capitalistic school. We can say these things publicly. In Switzerland, I was always in favor of saying that if every citizen gave a few marks, we could easily finish the Goetheanum. If we were to put that to people strongly, they would realize that what we are doing is for the general good, namely, that we accept poor children, for whom wealthier people pay the tuition. What I wanted to say before was that we cannot set the tuition for outside children according to what we are lacking. Therefore, we must continue to try to obtain public donations. We can reach this goal only when a wealthier person pays the tuition for a poor child.

Have we included patronages in the Waldorf School Association?

A teacher: I had thought that the membership would be a thousand marks for patrons. There are not many patrons yet.

A teacher: People could give bricks to the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: We can certainly do that. Collecting is good work. Of course, when we tell people they can give a small amount, then they will give a small amount. The members should go out and collect.

The main question is the formation of the World School Association. We must connect everything else with it. I still have not heard how much the Waldorf School Association has in its account. I would like to know that.

A teacher: Sixty to eighty thousand marks.

Dr. Steiner: So that is approximately what we have.

A teacher: The Waldorf factory pays 170,000 marks per year.

Dr. Steiner: Can we count on such donations in the coming years?

Emil Molt: If the economic situation does not break down, the amount will be raised to 200,000.

Dr. Steiner: And if that does not happen?

Emil Molt: That is why I am at the head of the company, in order to influence things enough.

Dr. Steiner: So, that would be the costs to the Waldorf-Astoria Company. We have so many wealthy parents who could afford to pay an appropriate amount, and who cannot demand that the company gives large donations. We need to approach those people who have an interest in the school if it does not fade as soon as we ask them to open their wallets. Otherwise, it is better the children do not come. We are not here to enroll children simply because the school is close. We will see what happens in the next week. If nothing happens, we will have to go back on the enrollments. There will be a parting of the ways if people say a unified school is one where no one pays anything, where everybody is equal, and they have nothing against that. We do not need to consider it an honor that the children of high government officials attend, but that in the future the children of wealthy people will sit next to those of poorer people.

Perhaps we can still gain some clarity about the question of the World School Association. In all these things we may not forget that we have great difficulty in obtaining money for the building in Dornach. We will have fewer difficulties in funding a school, particularly in America. We would have the least number of difficulties if we would create a sanitorium. People understand that we need a sanitorium, but they have less understanding that we need schools. However, they have no understanding for the building in Dornach.

A teacher: Then we will have to connect a sanitorium with the school.

Dr. Steiner: Our schools are built differently, but we have no way to express that. Otherwise, we could form a World Association for Young Invalids. A “School for Health.” That would be effective. However, that wouldn’t work. We will have to connect things in our circulars so that we have a common fund that will pay for sanitoriums and schools. If we want to start schools, we would have to give the Association the right to use the money for Dornach, also. Otherwise, the Association would be counterproductive in regard to Dornach and would suck up all the donations. If we transform eurythmy into curative eurythmy, we would soon have a sanitorium. I will try to do something in a very limited way to show what can be done. I have been asked if we can use eurythmy curatively. I will try to do that, and you will see that people will come.

We must emphasize that the school as such is independent of the state, and that it is created out of an independent cultural life.

A teacher: We should try to make specific proposals concerning the World School Association. Before we approach the public, we should do that and then wait to see the effect. We should not give the impression we cannot continue.

Dr. Steiner: We have so many applications that we can accept them only if we receive more donations. Do you think our appeal gives the impression that we feel we are failing? I wanted the faculty to emphasize what we have achieved with the school that would interest the public enough that they make some donations. The number of applications was emphasized. It appeared to me important that we wait with the numbers. There are already a hundred we cannot accept unless we receive financial support. I propose we write in a circular that the children are pouring in. I would also suggest that a teacher say that, because it makes more of an impression. Now we need only find a way of saying that so that people don’t say to us, “Well, if the children are pouring in, then their parents should pay.” It is one of our principles that we do not require every child to pay tuition. That is the reason for our difficulties, namely, that we accept children who cannot pay tuition.

A teacher proposes that Dr. von Heydebrand and Mr. Hahn prepare a statement to be read this evening.

Dr. Steiner: I have nothing against that since it is not actually a meeting. We could do that. I think, though, we should state it more clearly so that people become more concretely aware. I don’t think such a public statement would act against private activities. Perhaps it would be good to say this publicly.

There is a proposal that we continue this discussion again, and that you come ready to fire from both barrels. Is there anything against that? If you want to call another meeting today, you should do that. I cannot be here this afternoon.

A teacher asks about the curriculum of the ninth grade and about building a dormitory. Some people have offered to take children as a means of making a living or simply as a secondary income. There was also a question about the Abitur.

Dr. Steiner: Concerning the ninth grade curriculum, a primarily pedagogical question, we will take care of that at the beginning of the next school year. I will present that as a course of five to seven new lectures, which I still need to prepare. I will give them to the faculty at the beginning of the school year. Planning the curriculum for the ninth grade is something that will take five or six days, and to that extent we should put it off until the beginning of the next school year. Now we need only decide who will take the individual classes.

We also have the problem of the Abitur. That is a not so simple a question. If we were working toward official recognition of our middle school, we would have to be untrue to our principles. We would then be dependent upon the state and could no longer speak of an independent school. We can remain true to our principles only if we tell the children that they will have to take the state examination if that they want a position with the state, or that they will need to take the examination that gives them the right to attend a university. As soon as we begin to negotiate with the state, we will become dependent upon it. The state will probably demand that some state inspector be at our graduation examination. We may not allow that kind of substantial modification of our instruction. If they want to look at the school, they should do it, but we cannot allow ourselves to enter into any real negotiations. We will not be untrue to our principles if the state examines those children who want the security of civil service.

Forming a ninth grade really makes sense only if we intend to form a completely independent college. It makes sense only if we intend to form an independent college at the same time, and then it will not matter whether we have an Abitur or not. Then we will have to look only at the question of who may attend the college, but that is a question we can put off. By then, the situation will have changed enough that [the state] can ignore the accreditation of such a college.

A dormitory would be desirable. That is something connected with accepting children from far away. It would be quite nice. A lot of people talk about wanting to send their children here. We would immediately have the two X boys from Dornach. At present, they are only circling overhead, but soon they will land on the nose of the housemother. That is certainly an enticing prospect.

There is a question about what color to paint the desks.

Dr. Steiner: We could certainly paint the desks. Perhaps lilac, light bluish. We can do that with normal paint. The paints used in Dornach are too expensive to use here.

I brought some drawings from a few of the children in Dornach that Mr. B. has brought along quite well. These are drawings by the children who were given a theme, and we see the result for each of the children. When we have some time, I would like to go through these drawings and discuss them with you. They are important if you are thinking about publishing something. When I mentioned to little G.W. that we would display her drawings in the Waldorf School, she said she was making clay models, also. In this way, the children’s individual personalities are wonderfully expressed. I have no thought whatsoever of making a rule in that regard. Someone else might do it differently, but you can learn much from that. Mr. B. tells the children one thing or another, then, after giving them a little instruction, allows them simply to bring their ideas into some form. The children discuss it among themselves.

In the afternoon, there was a discussion with an extended group, but without Dr. Steiner, about how to raise money and about the formation of a World School Association. In the evening, Dr. Steiner gave the lecture “The Decline of the West” [July 29, 1920, contained in GA 335, not published in German or English].

Dr. Steiner: Unfortunately, I could not visit the classes, but you could tell me about them. I have not finished the curriculum for the ancient languages yet.

A teacher asks whether there will be levels of grammar in the foreignlanguages classes like those in German.

Dr. Steiner: Well, this is the situation. What I gave was according to the needs of the respective ages of the children. What they need is that you give them the nuances of the state of their souls at their age. Children learn how to enliven such nuances most easily through their mother tongue. It is best to make a connection with other languages after they have learned things in their mother tongue, for instance, to show how differently other languages express the same mood of soul. You can certainly make comparisons like that.

You should not begin teaching them grammar before the age of nine or ten. Develop your language teaching during the earlier stages purely from speaking and from the feeling for what is spoken, so that the child learns to speak from feeling. At that age, which is, of course, not completely fixed but lies between the age of nine and ten, you should begin with grammar. Working with the grammar of a language is connected with the development of the I. Of course, it is not as though you should somehow ask how you can develop the I through grammar. Grammar will do that by itself. It is not necessary to have specific teaching examples in that regard. You should not begin grammar earlier, but instead, attempt to develop grammar out of the substance of the language.

A teacher: You said that in eighth grade we should begin to give them the basics of meter and poetics, and then in the eleventh grade, the aesthetics of the language. What did you mean?

Dr. Steiner: Metrics is the theory of the structure of verses, the theory of how a verse is constructed. Poetics is the various forms of poetry, the types of lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry. That is what metrics and poetics are. You can then go on to metaphor and figures of speech. Always give the children some examples.

The children have a rather large vocabulary, German, French, and English, which you can use as a basis for comparing the different languages. Teaching the aesthetics of a language means that you draw their attention to such things as whether a language is rich in the o and u vowels or in the i and e vowels. You can then try to give them the feeling of how much more musical is a language that has many o and u sounds than one that has e and i sounds. You can try to give them a feeling for how the aesthetic beauty of a language decreases when the possibility of inwardly transforming words in various cases is lost and when endings disappear. Thus, the structure of the language is part of its aesthetics, whether it is flexible or more lyrical and musical, whether it can express complicated interjections, and so forth. That is different from actual metrics and poetics. The aesthetics of a language is concerned with the actual beauty of the language.

Sanskrit is very rich in a’s. U and o make a language musical. E and i make it discordant. The German language is discordant. Sanskrit is somewhat monotonic due to the predominance of a, but lies between the musical and flexible. It has a strong tendency to be musically flexible, that is, not to be unmusical in its plastic forms. That is how a works. It stands in the middle. It is particularly characteristic to find a vowel next to an a in Sanskrit. It is very characteristic, for example, to hear an Indian say, “Peace, peace, peace,” since an a comes first and then there is a soft hint, almost a shameful hint, of the I. That is because they say, “Shanti, shanti.” I is the most egotistical vowel. It is as though the Indian immediately becomes red in the face from shame when he says i.

A teacher: The Finnish language also has many a’s.

Dr. Steiner: That is true, but you should also consider how long a language has been at the stage of this particular peculiarity. There is something hardened in the a of the Finnish language, which, of course, relates to its tendency toward consonants. It is a kind of hardening that begins to become sympathetic. All these things are based upon a subtle aesthetic feeling for the language, but such subtle feelings are no longer natural for people today. If an Englishman spoke the ending syllable of English words the way a German- or a French-speaking person does, that would be a hardening for the English person. English-speaking people have begun to drop the end syllables because they are moving out of the language. What is a hardening for one can be something quite natural for the other.

A teacher asks another question about metaphors and figures of speech.

Dr. Steiner: Metaphors correspond to the imagination, figures of speech, to inspiration. First you have what is absolutely unpoetic and characterizes the greatest portion, 99 percent, of all poetry. You then have one percent remaining. Of that one percent, there are poets who, when they want to go beyond the physical plane, need to strew pictures and figures of speech over the inadequacies of normal prose. How could you express, “Oh, water lily, you blooming swan; Oh swan, you swimming lily!” That is a metaphor. What is expressed is neither a water lily, nor a swan; it floats between them. It cannot be expressed in prose, and the same holds for figures of speech. However, it is possible to adequately express the supersensible without using a picture or a figure of speech, as Goethe was sometimes able to do. In such cases, he did not use a picture, and there you find the intuitive. You stand directly in the thing. That is so with Goethe and also sometimes with Martin Greif. They actually achieve what we could objectively call lyric. Shakespeare also achieves it sometimes with the lyric poetry he mixed into his drama.

In the pedagogical course given by Dr. Steiner in Ilkley in August 1923, he characterized four languages in the eleventh lecture without naming them. A teacher asks which languages he meant.

Dr. Steiner: The first language is English, which people speak as though the listener were listening from a distance, from a ship floating on the waves of the sea, struggling against the wind, struggling against the movement and spray of the sea, that is. The second language, which has a purely musical effect when heard, is Italian. The third, which affects the intellect, which comes through reasoning and is expressed through its logical forms, is French. The fourth, which sculpts its words, is German.

A teacher: What is the basis of French meter?

Dr. Steiner: As hard as this may be to believe, the basis of French meter is a sense of systematic division, of mathematics in language. That is unconscious. In French meter, everything is counted according to reason, just as everything in French thinking in general is done according to reason. That is, of course, somewhat veiled since it is not emphasized. Here, reason becomes rhetoric, not intellect. Rhetoric is audible reasoning.

A teacher asks which texts they should use for foreign languages.

Dr. Steiner: We have already spoken a great deal about the twelfth grade, and I gave you some suggestions, for example, MacKenzie. In the preceding grades, it would depend a little upon what the teacher has already read and what the teacher likes, and for that reason, I gave only the qualities. For the tenth grade, you should certainly consider older and more recent lyric poetry.

A teacher says that he began with lyrics from Milton’s time.

Dr. Steiner: You should do it in the following way. In the tenth grade, read the lyric poetry from Shakespeare’s time and then give a short review in the twelfth grade. We cannot completely ignore lyric poetry from Shakespeare’s time because it gives a curiously deep indication of the period of European development when the Germanic languages were much more similar to one another than they are only a few centuries later. English lyric poetry is still unbelievably German. If you read Shakespeare’s lyrics, you will see they are not at all un-German. We can show that in the twelfth grade, so that a feeling will arise that is very important for humanity in general.

Thus, for the tenth grade, Robert Burns, some things out of the period of Thomas Percy. Some things from the Sea School, for example, Coleridge, and then Shelley and Keats. You will, of course, need to be selective, but do what you prefer, since you will then do it better. You could also present some particular points of view. There is, however, one thing in these lyrics that you will find throughout almost all English lyric poetry, namely, that where it is good it has a sentimental element. Sometimes that is very beautiful, but there is certainly a sentimental element throughout.

Something else is that when the English way of thinking becomes poetic, it is not at all appropriate for representing humor. English then becomes trivial and has no humor in a higher sense. There is not even a word for it. How could you say “humor” in English? The way Falstaff is handled would not represent humor today. We would, of course, say there is much humor in it, but we would not refer to the way the whole thing is presented as humor itself. What is apparent to us is how precise the characterizations are. We perceive what is human, but in Shakespeare’s time it was not perceived in that way. The well-roundedness and exactness of characterizations was unimportant for people in earlier times. What was important then was that the humors be good for presentation on the stage. People thought much more as actors at that time.

Today, we can no longer call Falstaff humorous. By the word humor, we mean someone who dissolves in a kind of fog, that is, someone not so well defined in regard to his temperament. Humor is the kind of temperament someone has. The four temperaments are humors. Today, you can no longer say that someone has a melancholic humor. Thus, someone whom you cannot really quite grasp, who dissolves in the fog of their temperaments, has humor.

In drama, you should show that the development of the English people resulted in the height of English drama being reached by Shakespeare, and that since then nothing else has reached the same height. It is, of course, interesting, but you should draw the students’ attention to how development proceeds only in the twelfth grade. You can mention how in Middle Europe, the German Reformation kept its basic religious character through the great importance of church lyric. In France, the Reformation does not have a religious character; it has a social character, and this can be shown in the poetry. In England, it has a political/moral character, something we can see in Shakespeare. That is connected with the fact that for a long time the English did not have an idealistic philosophy, so they lived it out in poetry. That gives their poetry a sentimental tendency. That is what made the rise of Darwinism possible.

A teacher: We still need to group the three fifth-grade classes for Latin and Greek.

Dr. Steiner: The question is whether Mr. X. will take over that instruction.

A teacher asks about religious instruction in the Waldorf School and in the Christian Community.

Dr. Steiner: One thing we need to consider is that the Christian Community also gives religious instruction to the children. There are continuing questions. First, how is the independent religious instruction in the Waldorf School connected with the religious instruction of the Christian Community, and, second, how are the school’s Sunday services related to the Christian Community Sunday services? I would like to hear your feelings about these things. I would also like to say beforehand that we cannot object in principle to the children participating in both the Waldorf School religious instruction and the Christian Community instruction and also attending both services. Our only possible objection might be that it might be too much. You should speak about it, though, as we should not decide something dogmatically.

The situation is this: We have seen how the Christian Community has grown out of the anthroposophical movement. There cannot be any discrepancy within the content of the two. The question concerning religious instruction is that if the Christian Community were to request to instruct the children who belonged to the Christian Community, we would have to give them the same rights as other confessions. The children who do not belong to the Christian Community will, in the majority, have the independent religious instruction. Thus, we will have just one more religion class. But why should we allow an extra religion class for the Christian Community other than the independent religious instruction? I do not actually see how we can decide this question in principle, since we cannot put ourselves in the position of advising someone not to participate in our religious instruction. To do that would be incorrect.

Take, for instance, the situation of a Catholic father saying that he wants to send his boy to the Catholic religious instruction as well as to the independent religious instruction. We could certainly not say anything against that if it was possible to schedule things that way. We cannot decide it, the Christian Community must decide it for themselves.

[,em>There is a break in the transcript here, and the following is not completely clear.]

It should not be possible for a child to make comparisons and conclude that the religious instruction given by the Waldorf teacher is not as good. The school exists within the framework of anthroposophy, so if a child makes such a comparison of which teacher is better, it should be obvious that due to the nature of the subject, the Waldorf teacher is better.

A teacher asks about the selection of a new religion teacher.

Dr. Steiner: This situation could someday cause us very large problems, greater than all previous ones. As you know, it was very difficult to find religion teachers. The teachers here are more concerned with their own specific subjects, and there is a certain prerequisite for teaching religion. It might occur that we will need to find a religion teacher for the school within the Christian Community. I would try to avoid that as long as possible, but it may someday be necessary. I do not see why we should be so exclusive. We can leave it up to the parents and children whether they want to participate here and there; however, I think it would be good if they participated in both, so that there would be a harmonious discussion of the material by the religion teacher here and the religion teacher there.

You should also not forget that the priests of the Christian Community are also anthroposophists, and they have made great strides in a very short time. The priests are not the same as they were, they have made enormous progress in their inner development. They have undergone an exemplary development in the life of their souls during the short time the Christian Community has existed. Not everyone, of course, but it is true in general, and they are a great blessing in all areas. There was a youth group meeting in Breslau, and two theologians worked with them. That had a very good effect. Young Wistinghausen is a blessing for the youth there.

A teacher: What should we do with the newly enrolled students? They have already been confirmed by the Christian Community. Should they immediately go to the Youth Service?

Dr. Steiner: That would not be good, as they would not begin the Youth Services with an Easter service. It is extremely important that they begin the Youth Services at Easter. You should make it clear to them that they should attend the Youth Services somewhat later. You could allow them to attend as observers, but not for a whole year. Those children should attend the Youth Services beginning at Easter when they have completed the eighth grade. The Youth Service has its entire orientation toward Easter.

A teacher: What should we do with those who have gone through the Protestant confirmation or Catholic First Communion?

Dr. Steiner: The main problem is that these children have been confirmed or have taken First Communion, and now they are taking independent religious instruction. By doing that, they lose the entire meaning of confirmation or First Communion; they negate it and strike it out of their lives. Once they have been confirmed or have taken First Communion, they cannot simply take independent religious instruction. Being confirmed means to be an active member of a Protestant church, so they cannot participate in the independent religious instruction because that negates the confirmation. That is even more true with First Communion. Our task is to indicate to the children in a kind way that they need to first live into their new life, so that it will not be so bad if they do not participate in the Youth Service until next Easter. You need to prepare them for renouncing their faith and direct them to something quite different. These are things we should take quite seriously. At worst, these seven will have participated too early, but not too late if they come only at Easter. We should perhaps consider this if a dissident is there.

A teacher asks a question.

Dr. Steiner: I do not understand at all why someone who was confirmed by Priest K. should not go through the Sunday services for a year, since he had not been confirmed before. In his case, our only question is whether he should go to the Sunday services for a year.

If you look at the inner meaning of our Youth Service and that of the Christian Community, you will see they are compatible. The inner meaning of our Youth Service is to place a person into the human community, not into a specific religious community, whereas the Christian Community’s is to place the person into a specific religious community. It is, therefore, completely compatible for someone to attend the Christian Community Youth Service after attending our youth services; that is not a contradiction. The other way around, for someone who is confirmed before attending our Youth Service, is not compatible. However, the first way is compatible. Parents from the Christian Community have asked me about this. First, the children should go to the youth services here, and then go through confirmation in the Christian Community. If a child attends the Christian Community youth services, we should not object. It is compatible because we do not place the children into the Christian Community. I did not say they must be confirmed into the Christian Community, rather, they may. Our Youth Service does not replace that of the Christian Community because it does not lead to membership in the Christian Community. If children have been confirmed in the Christian Community, they will need to wait here until next Easter.

A religion teacher says the older students do not like to go to the services for the younger ones. They think they are too old for that.

Dr. Steiner: They completely misunderstand the service. They have a Protestant understanding of ritual, which means a rejection of it. It is possible to attend the service throughout your entire life. Their understanding is based upon the perspective that these teachings are preparations, not a ritual. We need to overcome that Protestant understanding.

A teacher asks how to handle students who only audit the classes.

Dr. Steiner: That is a question we can decide quite objectively, but then there can be no differing opinions. The instruction we give in the Waldorf School assumes a certain methodology. We present the material according to that methodology, and we cannot take other circumstances into account. Those who audit the Waldorf School need to assume that they will be treated according to that methodology. We cannot answer this question with a subjective opinion. You cannot modify the methodology by saying you will ask one student and not another, since you would no longer treat the students according to the Waldorf methodology. As long as he is in the class, you have to treat him like the others.

I do not understand why his report is not different from the others. If someone attends all the classes, I do not see why he is an auditor. His report should clearly state that he took only some classes. That should be summarized somewhere. At the end of the report, you should state that the student did not receive remarks about all subjects because, as an auditor, he did not attend all classes. The reports are uniformly written, and it should, therefore, be evident that the student was an auditor unless we have cause to view him differently. We spoke about this when we discussed how the reports were becoming more bland and that we should stop that. If you do not write them with enough care, they no longer have any real meaning. I do not see why that should be any different now. If we give an auditor a report—to the extent that we can give such a report—we should do it according to the principles of the Waldorf School or not at all. That is really self-evident.

The only question could be whether he should automatically receive a report, or only if he requests it. That is not a major question and has no further consequences. Certainly, you could give him a report regardless of whether he asks for it or not, and he might tear it up, or you could ask him and if he does not want it you simply save yourself the work of writing the report; that is really not so important. If he is to audit, then he must be an auditor in the Waldorf School. To treat him differently would not correspond to teaching in the Waldorf School. His extended leaves from school are a different question.

There is further discussion about S.T. Some letters to his mother are read aloud.

Dr. Steiner: I recently discussed this whole matter very clearly and said that when he was enrolled I assumed he would be treated according to his very specific nature. I continue to assume that, otherwise I would have advised him not to come to the Waldorf School. At that time, I said it was absolutely necessary for him to live with one of the Waldorf School teachers. I also said he does not tend to progress in individual subjects in a straightforward fashion, but we have not gotten past that problem. We appear to have characterized him, but that is really not much more than just giving grades. He has not been treated as I intended he should be treated. In a certain sense, the way T. has been treated is a kind of rejection of me by the faculty. That is something that is actually not possible to correct. These letters are simply a justification of his report. I do not agree with the report nor with your justification of it. You have not taken his particular situation into account. He is difficult to handle, but you also have no real desire to work with him as an individual. I need to say that in an extreme way as otherwise you will not understand me clearly. You could have said everything in his report differently. Now there is nothing to do other than to send this letter. What else can we do? I think, however, that we can learn a great deal from this report because most of what is in it is said in a devious way. He is also now living in R.’s boarding house. You have done nothing I wanted. Some of the students are living with teachers.

I do not think we can achieve more by rewriting the letters. What we should have achieved should have been done throughout the year. What is important is to be more careful in carrying out the intentions. Otherwise, we should not have accepted him.

A teacher: Should we advise an eleventh-grade student who wants to study music to no longer attend school?

Dr. Steiner: As a school, we can really not say anything when a student no longer wants to attend. We do not have compulsory attendance. However, as the Waldorf School, we can certainly not advise such a young student that he should no longer attend. That is something we cannot do. We need to take the viewpoint that he should continue and finish. That is the advice we can give. If it is necessary for the boy not to complete the Waldorf School in order to become a musician, then we will lose him, and his mother will not be able to keep him, either. If he is to become a good musician, we cannot advise him not to continue in school.

A teacher asks about a child in the third grade who has difficulties concentrating and cannot make the connections necessary to write short essays.

Dr. Steiner: Have the child repeat a series of experiences forward and then backward. For instance, a tree: root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, fruit. And now backward: fruit, flower, leaf, branch, trunk, root. Or you could also do a person: head, chest, stomach, leg, foot. Then, foot, leg, stomach, chest, head. Try to give him some reminders also.

A teacher: How often should we have parent evenings?

Dr. Steiner: When possible, parent meetings should be monthly.

Speaking about occultism and the occult development of the human being, one must first and foremost clarify how the cultivation of occult development relates to actual theosophical work in the world. The latter has, since its inception, performed its task precisely by making a certain number of occult truths accessible to mankind. These truths about the super-sensible worlds, which can be learned from the theosophical literature and lectures, are essentially ancient. However, until the last third of the 19th century, it was neither usual nor necessary to share these truths publicly with the world in the form in which they exist today as theosophical truths. The cultivation of these truths was a matter of the so-called secret schools and secret societies.

One who wanted to learn some of the ancient truths about the inner world, had to be, so to speak, an accepted student, a student of the great teachers of mankind. That someone would have travelled around, as we do nowadays, to share certain elemental truths with the world, wasn't done back then. One who was admitted had to provide certain proofs of his character, his intellectual and other abilities, and within the school, there was a very strict division by degree. It was impossible, for example, to reveal to someone who had just been accepted, secrets of higher degrees. In short, everything was strictly ordered, and the world outside did not know anything about the existence of such a secret science, although this is the only true occultism.

Who were those who found their calling there? Usually, they were not known. One was a smith, one a shoemaker, a privy councillor, a carpenter. What was known was only what he represented in the world. One did not know that these people were wise ones, able to deeply look into the spiritual and super-sensible world. This changed in the last third of the 19th century. Today it is necessary that at least the elementary parts of the secret sciences reflected in theosophical texts, lectures and other writings, be made public. That this is possible and why this is so, we will see right away.

First, we must take a look at this past age, which really basically lasted into the 14th century, and also partly into the last third of the 19th century. What is happening now, the publication of certain elemental teachings of occultism had been prepared by the occult movement. This movement was founded in the 14th and 15th centuries by a high-ranking individual who became known to the world under the name of Christian Rosenkreutz.¹ What ‘Christian Rosenkreutz’ is, or who hides behind it, only the initiates know. One thing only is certain, he belongs to the most developed individuals of the modern era, who had to shape the occult knowledge of the Middle Ages in such a way, that it would fit into modern life.

In the last third of the 19th century, some were meant to go out to announce to humanity, what it needs to know today. Theosophy is nothing else but the elementary doctrine of occultism.

If we now look back at those distant times when occultism was practised in secret, there were three avenues by which a human being could come into contact with the super-sensible worlds: First as an initiate, second as a clairvoyant, third as an adept. In the old days, these three methods were kept strictly apart, and if we really want to understand what the occult development of man is all about, then we must clearly understand these three terms.

It is actually known what is meant by a clairvoyant. I specifically note that the more important one is the clairvoyant because he, after all, possesses higher senses. It is very easy to explain what a clairvoyant is. In every human soul, hidden abilities lie dormant. These can be developed, enabling the human being to look into the world hidden from the ordinary senses. There are such secret scientific methods. If a human being practises these himself, then he will no longer be as unconscious during sleep as an ordinary human being. Practising these methods make it possible that his astral body, when it pushes itself out with the Ego, perceives the spiritual world in his surroundings. Initially perceived like flooding light, like light- and colour-phenomena, he then begins to hear during the night.

This is a real experience the human being has of himself: that he, for the time being in a transitional state, is surrounded by a spiritual world as well as by a physical one. This is the beginning of actual clairvoyance.

One who really wants to achieve the state of clairvoyance, must be able to carry across into his day-consciousness what he now sees at night, because it would only be a half-measure if one could only look at night into the astral world. Once he is able to really tune in, so that he sees not only what exists for the physical senses in humans, animals and so on, but also perceives as shining aura that which the human being and the animal feels and experiences, then the state of modern clairvoyance is reached. Therefore, a clairvoyant is someone who can really see into the spiritual world and speak about it.

Let’s assume, there was an area where people have never seen a railroad and someone from there moves to an area where there were railroads. Then he would learn about it through his own experience. He would be able to talk about it at home based on his own experience, just as the clairvoyant can testify about the spiritual world.

But someone who is such a clairvoyant, is not yet what could be called an adept, nor could he be called an initiate. If a man who, according to the example above, has become familiar with a railway by personal experience, now returns home, he would not be entrusted with the task of building a railway. The same applies to the clairvoyant. He is not able to do what someone else can do who has gained practical and scientific knowledge in the super-sensible world. This is how the clairvoyant, who has only seen what exists in the higher worlds, is in comparison to the adept.

Still different is the Initiate. Here is another comparison: Imagine a human being who can see all colours and lights, and another one who is quite short-sighted. The first one doesn’t know anything about the laws of the world of light, the other one, who can’t see far, but as a trained physicist and scientist knows all the laws well. There are people, who are initiated to a high degree, despite them not being clairvoyant; at least this is applicable to all the old schools, but not to the same degree nowadays. In the old days it was possible to work like this, because don’t forget that to teach clairvoyance or train initiates is a lengthy process. Some require many incarnations to achieve this.

Such cooperation of clairvoyants and initiates is now no longer entirely possible; for this reason the Rosicrucian School no longer keeps these things strictly separate. The selflessness, that used to operate in the secret schools, can hardly be comprehended by people today. Especially, in the Egyptian secret schools individuals worked together in this way. Today, the requisite trust no longer exists, and modern man cannot imagine this anymore. This is why initiates and clairvoyants in the Rosicrucian schools were only developed to a certain degree. In contrast, one has to deal very carefully with adeptship as one could only harm the world. Because people are very disinclined to believe that spiritual powers influence everything. A storm would be unleashed and the consequence of this would be that the preparatory understanding would be jeopardised. First, it is necessary for clairvoyants and initiates to teach the occult knowledge, and only then adepts will gradually appear.

What is an adept? They exist in all areas. Observe man himself. Man consists by his nature of a physical, an etheric, and an astral body and an ego. The various limbs of human nature develop quite differently at certain ages. This is a very important consideration. Because, for the occultist a human being is born repeatedly, first physically out of the physical mother. There the physical body is enclosed by the mother’s physical body; different blood circles and juices are moving from mother to child. Once it is physically born, the mother’s physical body is detached from the child completely. This is the first birth. At this point in time the etheric body has not been born. The second birth only happens after the second dentition begins in the seventh year of life. Until then the etheric body is enclosed by the etheric shell, which does not really belong to the specific etheric body of the child. Only in the seventh year of life will the etheric body really be born. The shell will be pushed back, and the outer expression of this process is the appearance of the adult teeth, which the human being will keep. The clairvoyant sees, how, to the extent in which the teeth appear, the etheric body is being born out of his mother’s shell. Until sexual maturity, the human being is still enclosed by its astral mother, who is there from the beginning and will remain also after the seventh year of life. Then the astral mother will be pushed aside, and only now the astral body will be born, like earlier the physical and the etheric body were born. The reaching of sexual maturity means for man, the birth of the astral body. From age twenty-one to twenty-eight only, the ego will be fully born.

Once people realise how this development proceeds, it will become clear what kind of impact this will have on education. I have given a description of this in my paper The education of the child from the perspective of the science of the spirit.² This brochure contains all the rules that need to be taken into consideration in this context. Now, you see, a teacher, who has mastered this system, would be an adept in the area of education.

This practical work appearing from the spiritual worlds is adeptship. Until age seven a kind of hardening (solidification) of forms is happening inside the human being. All forms of the brain, and the bone structures (skeleton) will be created by the seventh year of life. They will continue to grow, but what doesn’t develop by age seven is irretrievable. So something irretrievable can be neglected by education. From then onwards the etheric body becomes free. Now it becomes obvious how the teeth that a human being gets are an expression of proper solidification and formation processes of the etheric body, which is just being born, and show whether they are in correct proportion to each other. These two things are related, the emergence of the teeth and the emergence of the etheric body. Everything that is concerned with growth and reproduction is connected with it. If one of these is not correct, then the other one will not be correct either. This illustrates how the science of the spirit explains how the teeth and the etheric body are connected. For example, women who have bad teeth, are more likely to have been affected by childbed fever.

Something of the principle of solidification and something of the principle of softening must exist—these hardening and softening principles need to exist in balance. Rickits, for example, occurs when the softening principle is stronger. Let us assume that the hardening principle is predominant, then the germs are laid for tuberculosis, for arteriosclerosis.

The moment in which the human being, by applying super-sensible principles, is able to guide the development of the etheric and physical body, he will be an adept in the area of child education, just like Paracelsus,³ who is no longer understood, was an adept, as he could perceive in any moment the invisible principles. Now you can imagine the kind of storm that would break out if you would approach a university with such teachings. Humankind must be prepared step by step, and then it will come to a point where it will demand that spiritual leaders back up their teachings with works from the spiritual world. The reason for the existence of initiates is, that the spiritual world can be researched and found according to its prevailing laws by means of clairvoyance. However, when one has found it and talks about it, then all things that a clairvoyant says can be understood by common sense, and if someone maintains that he cannot understand these, then the reason is not that he isn’t clairvoyant, but that he does not want to use his common sense enough.

Thus, one can be an initiate, without being clairvoyant, but then one has to rely on the clairvoyant. In a certain respect, the theosophical movement aims to help by requiring that all their public teachings are based on clairvoyants’ experience. What do you then want an audience for? In a way, one wants to turn them into Initiates, who comprehend without being clairvoyant themselves.

This is the mission of the theosophical movement. It is also the correct relationship between the teachings that are being given and the way these are made available to the wider audience. Now, this in-depth penetration of the super-sensible world is based on very particular methods. Here, I have already once mentioned specifically the Rosicrucian method,⁴ therefore I will only add a bit.

To raise a human being up into the higher worlds, to turn him into a clairvoyant, requires him to first develop strengths which are already in him: thinking, feeling and willpower. This already includes a lot of the difficulties experienced in the first elementary grades, which are talked about if one intends to alert of dangers. Clairvoyance is for certain people a far too beautiful thing, and those who hear something about Theosophy are keen to achieve clairvoyance. They are not very thrilled when they are told it is necessary to learn something before one gets results.

The first thing one must do is to develop one’s thinking, thoroughly develop it, and certainly prior to becoming a clairvoyant. It is extraordinarily difficult nowadays, to explain what is meant by ‘develop the thinking”. If you can see into the higher world through the opening of the higher senses, you will see that these worlds look very, very different from what you have imagined here. Normally, someone who cannot yet look into them can hardly imagine what one can experience, what kind of impressions there are, and even less so in relation to the world of clairaudience, the harmony of the spheres. One thing, however, remains constant through all worlds: logical thinking. If you have learnt this here, then it is a safe guide in the astral and spiritual worlds. The impressions are totally different, but logic remains the same. This only begins to change in the highest worlds.

What is offered in the theosophical works and books is sensory-free thinking. If one doesn’t learn to do that, then one exposes oneself to a certain danger. One can enable someone else to look into the astral world, but it should not be forgotten, that, if one is not completely standing on the solid ground of healthy thinking, it is extraordinarily difficult there to tell truth from illusion. One who can’t differentiate is simply deranged, he is not spiritually or mentally healthy and thus exposes himself to the danger of losing his balance when the astral world overwhelms him.

One learns to grasp the astral world gradually, by working on one’s feelings, and this happens through imagination. I will show you how this approaches the human being, teaches him, and introduces him to the astral world. This is facilitated by way of converting all ideas a human has, which are normally expressed as dogmas and abstract concepts, into pictures which appear visually. What we are thinking and talking and learning are abstract concepts, thus initially there is speculation. This will lead no one into the higher worlds. Only when the concepts are transformed into pictures does the human being gradually gain access to the higher worlds.

How is this transformation of thoughts into pictures achieved? In the Rosicrucian school, a teacher would say to the student: Look at this plant. With its roots it strives into the ground, its stem rises up straight, on the top is the bloom and the fruit. And now compare the plant with the human being. Superficially thinking one could be tempted to compare the bloom with the human head, and what is down below in the plant with the feet of the human being. In reality, the head of the plant is the root, and what the plant holds chastely up towards the light are its fertility organs. This is exactly the opposite of what is the case with humans.

The bloom has turned these organs towards the light. Imagine this whole thing exactly—if you wouldn’t turn the plant’s fertility organs up towards the light, but down towards the centre of the earth, then they would be penetrated by desire and passion. Thus, we find in a human being a reversed plant, at once pervaded by desires and passions. Thus, the human body is flesh whilst the plant body, the chaste one, is a body that has not yet developed into flesh.

And now look at an animal: It stands between plant and human. Plant, animal and the human being upwards form the cross that extends throughout the whole of nature. Now the student is told: Look at the plant, how it turns its calyx upwards, is kissed by the sun, by the beam of light called the holy lance of love. The human being had to exchange the plant body with the one of flesh pervaded by desire, but he has a high ideal in front of his eyes.

Here we must observe the human heart and the larynx. There are two types of organs in a human body, those, which are on the path to imperfection, and which will incrementally fall away, and others that are only in the stage of formation. All the lower organs, the sexual organs will fall away. Heart and larynx, on the other hand, are organs which will only be perfected in the future, and will only then be developed.

I am speaking to you. My thoughts are within me. I put these into words that originate from my larynx, and create sound vibrations, and in this way, my thoughts communicate with your soul. The voice box is the apparatus to produce airwaves and bring out that which is in the soul. If someone would invent a device through which these waves could be solidified, then you would be able to pick up my thoughts, and my words. In the future, the larynx will not only produce words, but one day it will become the creative, reproductive organ, and will create future beings similar to humans.

During certain times the plant-like nature of the human was not yet penetrated by the lusting passionate nature of the flesh. Those specific organs, which were the latest to develop out of the animal nature, will first disappear again. These are the reproductive organs. These remained for a long time as plant organs after the human being had already appeared in flesh. For this reason, there exist pictorial collections where pictures of hermaphrodites⁵ with plant organs are on display. When the Bible tells about Eve’s fig leaf, in reality, this is a symbol of the fact that these organs were the last to develop in the flesh. In this way, the religious texts must be interpreted. The sexual organs are declining organs, whilst the larynx is in a process of complete transformation, and once the human being has become chaste again, the larynx will turn itself again towards the spiritual sun. The calyx of the plant developed into the form of the flesh filled with passionate desires, and then the larynx will once again become a chaste, pure calyx, fertilised by Spirit, which will be raised up towards the holy lance of love. This is also the symbol of the Holy Grail, its high ideal.

Compare this, try to feel and re-experience all the shivers those images aroused; then you will have only one of those images which are given to a Rosicrucian student. And while you are wandering through these, then you will realise bit by bit that your feelings become facts for you. You will perceive that these feelings radiate light. It always radiates, but the lower human being doesn’t see it. One who experiences this mystical part of imagination learns to see his feelings. This is the beginning.

Not magic, but an intimate process of imagination happens at the beginning of the rise to clairvoyance. But here one thing needs to become clear because from that moment onwards you will see everything emanating from yourself. When one actually starts to transform the inner life into light, one has to be able to bear what is then seen. This requires a strength of character which hardly anyone can imagine. For example, if you, not being clairvoyant, tell a lie this is bad enough. But if you are clairvoyant and tell a lie, and you then see how the lie becomes visible and what it means on the astral plane, then you will understand why it is said that there a lie is murder. And this is so. Just assume you have seen an event happening, and have formed an idea about it, and then tell something that is incorrect, i.e., something that is a lie. Then from the object emanates the correct and from you the false stream and these two will collide and cause a terrible explosion; and each time you do this, you attach a hideous creature to your karma that you can't get rid of until you have made good what you have lied about.

Everyone who wants to become clairvoyant needs to develop three virtues, which are crucial for him. First, self-confidence is needed to be sure of oneself. Second, self-awareness is needed so one is never allowed to shy away from recognising one’s mistakes. And third, presence of mind is needed since one will encounter many things on the astral plane that, while present around us all the time, are something else to see. For this reason these characteristics must be developed first and foremost, and it is really nonsense that some sort of schools or societies train people to become clairvoyants without guiding them in this way.

If now in a different way, a student will be taught namely through occult texts, he will be guided upwards into the spiritual Devachan world to hearing. There one must immerse oneself into those pictures which exist for the development of the human being. I will place one such picture as an example in front of your soul.

Think of the ancient times, when the human being had just come into existence in his current form. In those days Earth was a warm, glowing fireball, and all metals and minerals were melted in the glowing Earth. The physicist would say human beings could not exist there. In those days the human being climbed down from the Godhead and formed himself in the glowing matter. This transformation was a lengthy process. If you were able to see what the clairvoyant can perceive, you would see that he had wrapped himself into a body of fire.

Where has the fire that was burning on the Earth now gone? Where is it? It is in your blood. All the warmth that has been inside the human beings and the animals was and is the fire glow of the Earth. And once you will be able to transform your blood again, so that it shines—and this will be the case when the human larynx will be transformed into the Holy Grail—then the human beings will once again send out an abundance of light. If someone now immerses himself into a picture like this one, then he can achieve clairvoyance, clairaudience. I wish to point to the introduction to the Apocalypse of John which states: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, that God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.” These are pictures that have been used for development in Rosicrucian schools. The clairvoyant must learn to decipher such pictures. The development of the Earth will be the Word, and the Word will be with man, and man will create human beings through the Word.

• 1. Christian Rosenkreutz: Not recognised by public history as a real historic figure of the 14th/15th century, Christian Rosenkreutz became legendarily known from two anonymous Rosicrucian texts Fama Fraternitatis, ot the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Highly Laudable Order of R.C., Kassel 1614, and Confessio Fraternitatis or Confession of the laudable Brotherhood of the highly honourable Rose Cross, Kassel 1615. According to this, he was a German of noble birth who lived from 1378 to 1484. The name appears for the first time in a text handwritten and as such distributed in 1604, and in 1616 anonymously published in the text The Chymical Wedding of Christiani Rosencreutz, Anno 1459. Rudolf Steiner presented the author of this text, Johann Valentin Andreae, as the carrier of inspiration of Christian Rosenkreutz. Refer to Rudolf Steiner, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in Philosophy and Anthroposophy. Collected Essays 1904-1923, GA 35. The essay is also contained in the translation of The Chymical Weddinginto New High German by Walter Weber, Basel 1978., According to Rudolf Steiner, Christian Rosenkreutz was a real historical personality. Compare also, The Esoteric Christendom and the Spiritual Leadership of Humanity, GA 130.
• 2. The Education of the Child from the perspective of Spiritual Science, first published in 1907.
• 3. Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, 1493-1541, doctor and philosopher.
• 4. Refer to note 1(Chapter 1) above. Obviously, the deliberations of Rudolf Steiner at this point have been only fragmentarily captured by the note taker. For better comprehension it is referred to the presentation in the lecture dated 15 September 1909; Lecture 1 in The Luke Gospel cycle, GA 114.
• 5. Beings who have male and female gender characteristics.

If anyone who has a background of Spiritual Science, and has absorbed something of its teaching about the evolution of the world, then goes on to study those tremendous opening words of our Bible, an entirely new world should dawn upon him.

There is probably no account of human evolution so open to misinterpretation as this record known as Genesis, the description of the creation of the world in six or seven days. When the man of today calls to life in his soul, in any language familiar to him, the words In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, they convey to him scarcely a faint reflection of what lived in the soul of an ancient Hebrew who allowed the words to work upon him. It is not in the least a question of being able to replace the old words by modern ones; it is much more important that we should have been prepared by Anthroposophy to feel at least something of the mood which lived in the heart and mind of the Hebrew pupil of old when he brought to life within himself the words: B'reschit tiara elohim et haschamayim w'et ha'arets. A whole world lived while such words were vibrating through his soul.

What was it like—this inner world which lived in the soul of the pupil? We can only compare it with what can take place in the soul of a man to whom a seer has described the pictures he experienced on looking into the spiritual world. For what in the last resort is Spiritual Science but the outcome of seership, of the living intuitions which the seer receives when, having freed himself from the conditions of sense-perception and of the intellect bound up with the physical body, he looks with spiritual organs into the spiritual worlds? If he wishes to translate what he sees there into the language of the physical world, he can only do so in pictures, but if his descriptive powers suffice, he will do it in pictures which are able to awaken in his hearers a mental image corresponding with what he himself sees in the spiritual worlds. Thereby something comes into existence which must not be mistaken for a description of things and events in the physical sense-world; something comes into existence which we must never forget belongs to an entirely different world—a world which does indeed underlie and maintain the ordinary sense-world of our ideas, impressions and perceptions, yet in no way coincides with that world.

If we want to portray the origin of this our sense-world, including the origin of man himself, our ideas cannot be confined to that world itself. No science equipped only with ideas borrowed from the world of the senses can reach the origin of sense-existence. For sense-existence is rooted in the super-sensible, and although we can go a long way back historically, or geologically, we must realise that, if we are to reach to actual origins, there is a certain point in the far distant past at which we must leave the field of the sense-perceptible and penetrate into regions that can only be grasped supersensibly. What we call Genesis does not begin with the description of anything perceptible by the senses, anything which the eye could see in the physical world. In the course of these lectures we shall become thoroughly convinced that it would be quite wrong to take the opening words of Genesis as referring to events which can be seen with the outward eye. So long as one connects the words “heaven and earth” with any residue of the sensuously visible one has not reached the stage to which the first part of the Genesis account points us back. Today there is practically no way of obtaining light upon the world it describes except through Spiritual Science. Through Spiritual Science we may indeed hope to approach the mystery of the archetypal words with which the Bible opens, and to get some inkling of their content.

Wherein lies their peculiar secret? It lies in the fact that they are written in the Hebrew tongue, a language which works upon the soul quite differently from any modern language. Although the Hebrew of these early chapters may not perhaps have the same effect today, at one time it did work in such a way that when a letter was sounded it called up in the soul a picture. Pictures arose in the soul of anyone who entered with lively sympathy into the words, and allowed them to work upon him—pictures harmoniously arranged, organic pictures, pictures which may be compared with what the seer can still see today when he rises from the sensible to the super-sensible. The Hebrew language, or, better said, the language of the first chapters of the Bible, enabled the soul to call up imaginal pictures which were not wholly unlike those that are presented to the seer when, freed from his body, he is able to look into super-sensible regions of existence.

In order to realise in some measure the power of these archetypal words we must disregard the pale and shadowy impressions which any modern language makes upon the soul, and try to get some idea of the creative power inherent in sound-sequences in this ancient tongue. It is of immense importance that in the course of these lectures we too should seek to place before our souls the very pictures which arose in the Hebrew pupil of old when these sounds worked creatively in him. In fact we must find a method of penetrating the primeval record entirely different from those used by modern research.

I have now given you an indication of our line of approach. We shall only slowly and gradually learn to comprehend what lived in the ancient Hebrew sage when he allowed those most powerful words to work upon him, words which we do at least still possess. So our next task will be to free ourselves as far as possible from the familiar, and from the ideas and images of “heaven and earth,” of “Gods,” of “creation,” of “in the beginning,” which we have hitherto held. The more thoroughly we can do this the better we shall be able to penetrate into the spirit of a document which arose out of psychic conditions quite different from those of today.

First of all we must be quite clear as to the point of time in evolution we are speaking of, when we deal with the opening words of the Bible. You know of course that contemporary clairvoyant investigation makes it possible to describe to some extent the origin and development of our earth and of human existence. In my book Occult Science, I tried to describe the gradual growth of our earth as the planetary scene of human existence, through the three preliminary stages of Saturn, Sun and Moon.¹ Today you will have in mind, at least in broad outline, what I described there. At what point then in the spiritual scientific account should we place what draws near to our souls in the mighty word B'reschit? Where does it belong?

If we look back for a moment to ancient Saturn, we picture it as a cosmic body having as yet nothing of the material existence to which we are accustomed. Of all that we find in our own environment it has nothing but heat. No air or water or solid earth is as yet to be found upon ancient Saturn; even where it is densest, there is only fire—living, weaving warmth. Then, to this living, weaving warmth, a kind of air or gaseous element is added; and we have a true picture of the Sun existence if we think of it as an interweaving, an interpenetration, of a gaseous, airy element and a warmth element. Then comes the third condition, which we call the Moon evolution. There the watery element is added to the warmth and the air. There is as yet nothing of what in our present earth we call solid. But the old Moon evolution has a peculiar characteristic. It divides into two parts. If we look back upon old Saturn, we see it as a single whole of weaving warmth; and the old Sun we still see as a mingling of gaseous and warmth elements. During the Moon existence there takes place this separation into a part which is Sun and a part which retains the Moon nature. It is only when we come to the fourth stage of our planetary evolution that the earth element is added to the earlier warmth, gaseous and watery elements. In order that this solid element could come into existence, the division which had taken place previously during the Moon evolution had first to repeat itself. Once again the sun had to withdraw. Thus there is a certain moment in the evolution of our planet when, out of the universal complication of fire and air and water, the denser, more earthy element separates from the finer, gaseous element of the sun; and it is only in this earthy element that what we today call solid is able to form.

Let us concentrate on this moment, when the sun withdraws from its former state of union with the rest of the planet and begins to send its forces to the earth from without. Let us bear in mind that this was what made it possible, within the earth, for the solid element—what we today call matter—to begin to condense. If we fix this moment firmly in our minds we have the point of time at which Genesis, the creation story, begins. This is what it is describing. We should not associate with the opening words of Genesis the abstract, shadowy idea we get when we say “In the beginning,” which is something unspeakably poverty-stricken compared with what the ancient Hebrew sage felt. If we would bring the sound B'reschit before our souls in the right way, there must arise before us—in the only way it can do so, in mental images—all that happened through the severance of sun and earth, all that was to be found at the actual moment when the separation into two had just taken place. Furthermore we must be aware that throughout the whole of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, spiritual Beings were its leaders and its bearers; and that warmth, air, water are only the outer expressions, the outer garments of spiritual Beings who are the reality. Thus when we contemplate the condition which obtained at the moment of separation of sun and earth, and picture it to ourselves in thoughts full of material images, we must also be conscious that the elementary “water,” “air,” “fire,” which we have in our mind's eye, is still only the means of expression for moving, weaving spirit which, during the course of the preceding Saturn, Sun and Moon stages has advanced, has progressed, and at the time now being described has reached a certain stage in its evolution.

Let us place before us the picture of an immense cosmic globe, composed of weaving elements of water, air or gas and fire, a globe which splits apart into a solar and a telluric element; but let us conceive too that this elementary substance is only the expression of a spiritual. Let us imagine that from this substantial habitation, woven of the elements of water, air and heat, the countenances of spiritual Beings, weaving within it, look out upon us, spiritual Beings who reveal themselves in this element which we have had to represent to ourselves through material images. Let us imagine that we have before us spiritual Beings, turning their countenances towards us, as it were, using their own soul-spiritual forces to organise cosmic bodies with the help of warmth, air and water. Let us try to imagine this!

There we have a picture of an elementary sheath, which, to give a very rough sensuous image of it, we may perhaps liken to a snail-shell, but a shell woven not of solid matter, like the snail's, but from the forest elements of water, air and fire. Let us think of spirit, in the form of countenances, within this sheath, gazing upon us, using this sheath as a means of manifestation, a force of very revelation which, as it were, pricks outward into manifestation from what lies hidden in the super-sensible.

Call up before your souls this picture which I have just tried to paint for you, this image of the living weaving of spirit in a kind of matter; imagine too the inner soul-force which causes it to happen; concentrate for a moment on this to the exclusion of all else, and you will then have something approximating to what lived in an ancient Hebrew sage when the sounds B'reschit penetrated his soul. Bet^*, the first letter, called forth the weaving of the habitation in substance; Resch^†, the second sound, summoned up the countenances of the spiritual Beings who wove within this dwelling, and Schin^‡, the third sound, the prickly, stinging force which worked its way out from within to manifestation.

Now the underlying principle behind such a description is dawning upon us. And when we have grasped that, we are able to appreciate something of the spirit of this language; it had a creativeness of which the modern man with his abstract speech has no inkling.

Now let us place ourselves at the moment immediately preceding the physical coagulation, the physical densification of our earth. Let us imagine it as vividly as possible. We shall have to admit that in describing what was taking place at that moment we cannot make use of any of the ideas which we use today to describe processes in the external sense-world. Hence you will see that it is utterly inadequate to associate any external deed with the second word we meet in Genesis—bara—however closely that deed might resemble what we understand today as creation. We do not thus get near to the meaning of that word. Where can we turn for help? The word implies something which lies very near the boundary where the sensible passes over directly into the super-sensible, into pure spirit. And anyone who wishes to grasp the meaning of the word bara, which is usually translated “created” (In the beginning God created ...), must in no wise associate it with any productive activity which can be seen with physical eyes.

Take a look into your own inner being! Imagine yourselves as having been asleep for a while, then waking up, and, without opening your eyes to things around you, calling up in your souls by inner activity certain images. Bring home vividly to yourselves this inner activity, this productive meditation, this cogitation, which calls forth a soul-content from the depths of the soul as if by magic. If you like you can use the word “excogitate” for this conjuring up of a soul-content out of the depths into the field of consciousness; think of this activity, which man can only perform with his mental images, but think of it now as a real, cosmic, creative activity. Instead of your own meditation, your own inward experience in thinking, try to imagine cosmic thinking-then you have the content of the second word of Genesis, bara. However spiritually you may think it, you can only liken it to the thought-life you are able to bring before yourselves in your own musing, you cannot get nearer to it than that!

And now imagine that during your musing two kinds of images come before your souls. Suppose there is a man to whom on awakening two different kinds of thought occur, a man who muses about two different kinds of thing. Suppose that one kind of thought is the picture either of some activity, or of some external thing or of some being; it does not come about through external sight, through perception, but through reflection, through the creative activity of his soul in the field of his consciousness. Suppose that the second complex of ideas which arises in this awakening man is a desire, something which the man's whole disposition and constitution of soul can prompt him to will. We have elements both of thought and of desire coming up in our souls through inner reflection. Now imagine, instead of the human soul, the Beings called in Genesis the Elohim, reflecting within themselves. Instead of one human soul, think of a multiplicity of reflecting spiritual Beings, who, however, in a similar way—save that their musing is cosmic—call forth by reflection from within themselves two complexes which might be compared with what I have just been describing—a pure thought-element and an element of desire. Thus instead of thinking of the musing' human soul, we think of a group of cosmic Beings who awaken in themselves two complexes; one of the nature of thought or ideation, that is, one which manifests something, expresses itself outwardly, phenomenally; and another of the nature of desire, which lives in inner movement, inner stimulation, which is permeated with inner activity. Let us think of these cosmic Beings, who are called in Genesis the Elohim, musing in this way. The word bara, “created,” brings their musing home to us. Then let us think that through this creative musing two complexes arise, one tending towards external revelation, external manifestation, and another consisting of an inward stimulus, an inward life; then we have the two complexes which arose in the soul of the ancient Hebrew sage when the words haschamayim and ha'arets—represented for the modern man by “heaven” and “earth”—sounded through his soul. Let us try to forget the modern man's conception of “heaven and earth.” Let us try to bring the two complexes before the soul, the one which tends more to disclose itself, tends to outward manifestation, is disposed to call forth some outside effect; and the other complex, the complex of inner stimulation, of something which would experience itself inwardly, something which quickens itself inwardly; then we have what expresses the meaning of the two words haschamayim and ha'arets.

As for the Elohim themselves, what kind of Beings are they? In the course of these lectures we shall learn to know them better, and to describe them in terms of Spiritual Science; but for the present let us try to reach in some measure the meaning of this archetypal word “Elohim.” Whoever wishes to get an idea of what lived in the soul of the ancient Hebrew sage when he used this word should clearly understand that in those days there was a lively comprehension of the fact that our earth evolution had a definite meaning and a definite goal. What was this meaning and this goal?

Our earth evolution can only have a meaning, if during its course something arises which was not there before. A perpetual repetition of what was already there would be a meaningless existence, and unless the Hebrew sage of old had known that our earth, after having passed through its preliminary stages, had to bring something new into existence, he would have regarded its genesis as meaningless. Through the coming into existence of the earth something new became possible, it became possible for man to become man as we know him. In none of the earlier stages of evolution was man present as the being he is today, the being that he will more and more become in the future; that was not possible in earlier stages. And those spiritual Beings who directed the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions were of a different nature from man—for the moment we will not enter into the question whether they were higher or lower. Those Beings who wove in the fiery, gaseous and watery stages of elementary existence, who wove a Saturn, Sun and Moon existence, who at the beginning of earth existence were weaving its fabric—how best do we come to know them? ... How can we draw near to them?

We should have to go into very many things to get anywhere near an understanding of these Beings. To begin with, however, we can come to know one aspect of them, and that will suffice to bring us at least one step nearer to the potent meaning of the ancient Bible words. Let us consider those Beings for a moment—the Beings who stood nearest to man at the time when he was created from what had developed out of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions. Let us ask those Beings what they really wanted. Let us ask them what was their will, their purpose. Then we shall be able to get at least some idea of their nature. They had great ability; in the course of their evolution they had acquired capacities in various directions. One of them could do this, another that. But we understand the nature of these Beings best if we realise that at the time we are now considering they were working as a group towards a common goal; they were moved by a common aim. Although at a higher level, it is as if a group of men, each with his own special skill, were to co-operate today. Each of them can do something, and now they say to each other: “You can do this, I can do that, the third among us can do something else. We will unite our activities to produce a work in common in which each of our capacities can be used.” Let us then imagine such a group of men, a group each of whom practises a different craft, but which is united by a common aim. What they intend to bring into existence is not yet there. The unit at which they are working lives to begin with only as an aim. What is there is a multiplicity. The unit lives, to begin with, only as an ideal. Now think of a group of spiritual Beings who have passed through the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and Moon, each one of whom has a specific ability, and who all at the moment I have indicated make the decision: “We will combine our activities for a common end, we will all work in the same direction.” And the picture of this goal arose before each of them. What was this goal? It was man, earthly man!

Thus earthly man lived as the ultimate goal in a group of spiritual Beings who had resolved to combine their several skills in order to arrive at something which they themselves did not possess at all, something which did not belong to them, but which they were able to achieve by combined effort. If you accept all that I have described to you—the elementary sheath, the cosmic, meditative spiritual Beings working within it, the two complexes, one of desire quickening inwardly, and another manifesting outwardly—and then ascribe the common purpose I have just mentioned to those spiritual Beings whose countenances gaze out of the elementary sheath, then you have what lived in the heart of the Hebrew sage of old in the word Elohim.

Now we have brought before us in picture form what lives in these all-powerful archetypal words. Then let us forget all that a man of today can think and feel when he utters the words: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Bearing in mind all that I have told you today, try to put this picture before you. There is the sphere in which fiery, gaseous and watery elements weave. Within this active, weaving elementary sphere a group of pondering spiritual Beings live. They are engaged in productive pondering, their pondering is penetrated through and through by their intention to direct their whole operation towards the form of man. And the first-fruits of their musing is the idea of something manifesting itself outwardly, announcing itself, and something else inwardly active, inwardly animated.

“In the elementary sheath the primeval Spirits pondered the outwardly manifesting and the inwardly mobile.” Try to bring before yourselves in these terms what is said in the first lines of the Bible, then you will have a foundation for all that is to come before our souls in the next few days as the true meaning of those all-powerful archetypal words which contain such a sublime revelation for mankind—the revelation of its own origin.

• 1. To avoid any ambiguity, capital letters will be used throughout this book for the words Sun and Moon, when they refer to the planetary evolutions preceding that of our earth.

For anyone who has a background of Spiritual Science, and has absorbed something of its teaching about the evolution of the world, then goes on to study those tremendous opening words of our Bible, an entirely new world should dawn upon him.

There is probably no account of human evolution so open to misinterpretation as this record known as Genesis, the description of the creation of the world in six or seven days. When the man of today calls to life in his soul, in any language familiar to him, the words In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, they convey to him scarcely a faint reflection of what lived in the soul of an ancient Hebrew who allowed the words to work upon him. It is not in the least a question of being able to replace the old words by modern ones; it is much more important that we should have been prepared by Anthroposophy to feel at least something of the mood which lived in the heart and mind of the Hebrew pupil of old when he brought to life within himself the words: B'reschit tiara elohim et haschamayim w'et ha'arets.¹ A whole world lived while such words were vibrating through his soul.

What was it like—this inner world which lived in the soul of the pupil? We can only compare it with what can take place in the soul of a man to whom a seer has described the pictures he experienced on looking into the spiritual world. For what in the last resort is Spiritual Science but the outcome of seership, of the living intuitions which the seer receives when, having freed himself from the conditions of sense-perception and of the intellect bound up with the physical body, he looks with spiritual organs into the spiritual worlds? If he wishes to translate what he sees there into the language of the physical world, he can only do so in pictures, but if his descriptive powers suffice, he will do it in pictures which are able to awaken in his hearers a mental image corresponding with what he himself sees in the spiritual worlds. Thereby something comes into existence which must not be mistaken for a description of things and events in the physical sense-world; something comes into existence which we must never forget belongs to an entirely different world—a world which does indeed underlie and maintain the ordinary sense-world of our ideas, impressions and perceptions, yet in no way coincides with that world.

If we want to portray the origin of this our sense-world, including the origin of man himself, our ideas cannot be confined to that world itself. No science equipped only with ideas borrowed from the world of the senses can reach the origin of sense-existence. For sense-existence is rooted in the supersensible, and although we can go a long way back historically, or geologically, we must realise that, if we are to reach to actual origins, there is a certain point in the far distant past at which we must leave the field of the sense-perceptible and penetrate into regions that can only be grasped supersensibly. What we call Genesis does not begin with the description of anything perceptible by the senses, anything which the eye could see in the physical world. In the course of these lectures we shall become thoroughly convinced that it would be quite wrong to take the opening words of Genesis as referring to events which can be seen with the outward eye. So long as one connects the words “heaven and earth” with any residue of the sensuously visible one has not reached the stage to which the first part of the Genesis account points us back. Today there is practically no way of obtaining light upon the world it describes except through Spiritual Science. Through Spiritual Science we may indeed hope to approach the mystery of the archetypal words with which the Bible opens, and to get some inkling of their content.

Wherein lies their peculiar secret? It lies in the fact that they are written in the Hebrew tongue, a language which works upon the soul quite differently from any modern language. Although the Hebrew of these early chapters may not perhaps have the same effect today, at one time it did work in such a way that when a letter was sounded it called up in the soul a picture. Pictures arose in the soul of anyone who entered with lively sympathy into the words, and allowed them to work upon him—pictures harmoniously arranged, organic pictures, pictures which may be compared with what the seer can still see today when he rises from the sensible to the supersensible. The Hebrew language, or, better said, the language of the first chapters of the Bible, enabled the soul to call up imaginal pictures which were not wholly unlike those that are presented to the seer when, freed from his body, he is able to look into supersensible regions of existence.

In order to realise in some measure the power of these archetypal words we must disregard the pale and shadowy impressions which any modern language makes upon the soul, and try to get some idea of the creative power inherent in sound-sequences in this ancient tongue. It is of immense importance that in the course of these lectures we too should seek to place before our souls the very pictures which arose in the Hebrew pupil of old when these sounds worked creatively in him. In fact we must find a method of penetrating the primeval record entirely different from those used by modern research.

I have now given you an indication of our line of approach. We shall only slowly and gradually learn to comprehend what lived in the ancient Hebrew sage when he allowed those most powerful words to work upon him, words which we do at least still possess. So our next task will be to free ourselves as far as possible from the familiar, and from the ideas and images of “heaven and earth,” of “Gods,” of “creation,” of “in the beginning,” which we have hitherto held. The more thoroughly we can do this the better we shall be able to penetrate into the spirit of a document which arose out of psychic conditions quite different from those of today.

First of all we must be quite clear as to the point of time in evolution we are speaking of, when we deal with the opening words of the Bible. You know of course that contemporary clairvoyant investigation makes it possible to describe to some extent the origin and development of our earth and of human existence. In my book Occult Science I tried to describe the gradual growth of our earth as the planetary scene of human existence, through the three preliminary stages of Saturn, Sun and Moon.² Today you will have in mind, at least in broad outline, what I described there. At what point then in the spiritual scientific account should we place what draws near to our souls in the mighty word B'reschit? Where does it belong?

If we look back for a moment to ancient Saturn, we picture it as a cosmic body having as yet nothing of the material existence to which we are accustomed. Of all that we find in our own environment it has nothing but heat. No air or water or solid earth is as yet to be found upon ancient Saturn; even where it is densest, there is only fire—living, weaving warmth. Then, to this living, weaving warmth, a kind of air or gaseous element is added; and we have a true picture of the Sun existence if we think of it as an interweaving, an interpenetration, of a gaseous, airy element and a warmth element. Then comes the third condition, which we call the Moon evolution. There the watery element is added to the warmth and the air. There is as yet nothing of what in our present earth we call solid. But the old Moon evolution has a peculiar characteristic. It divides into two parts. If we look back upon old Saturn, we see it as a single whole of weaving warmth; and the old Sun we still see as a mingling of gaseous and warmth elements. During the Moon existence there takes place this separation into a part which is Sun and a part which retains the Moon nature. It is only when we come to the fourth stage of our planetary evolution that the earth element is added to the earlier warmth, gaseous and watery elements. In order that this solid element could come into existence, the division which had taken place previously during the Moon evolution had first to repeat itself. Once again the sun had to withdraw. Thus there is a certain moment in the evolution of our planet when, out of the universal complication of fire and air and water, the denser, more earthy element separates from the finer, gaseous element of the sun; and it is only in this earthy element that what we today call solid is able to form.

Let us concentrate on this moment, when the sun withdraws from its former state of union with the rest of the planet and begins to send its forces to the earth from without. Let us bear in mind that this was what made it possible, within the earth, for the solid element—what we today call matter—to begin to condense. If we fix this moment firmly in our minds we have the point of time at which Genesis, the creation story, begins. This is what it is describing. We should not associate with the opening words of Genesis the abstract, shadowy idea we get when we say “In the beginning,” which is something unspeakably poverty-stricken compared with what the ancient Hebrew sage felt. If we would bring the sound B'reschit before our souls in the right way, there must arise before us—in the only way it can do so, in mental images—all that happened through the severance of sun and earth, all that was to be found at the actual moment when the separation into two had just taken place. Furthermore we must be aware that throughout the whole of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, spiritual Beings were its leaders and its bearers; and that warmth, air, water are only the outer expressions, the outer garments of spiritual Beings who are the reality. Thus when we contemplate the condition which obtained at the moment of separation of sun and earth, and picture it to ourselves in thoughts full of material images, we must also be conscious that the elementary “water,” “air,” “fire,” which we have in our mind's eye, is still only the means of expression for moving, weaving spirit which, during the course of the preceding Saturn, Sun and Moon stages has advanced, has progressed, and at the time now being described has reached a certain stage in its evolution.

Let us place before us the picture of an immense cosmic globe, composed of weaving elements of water, air or gas and fire, a globe which splits apart into a solar and a telluric element; but let us conceive too that this elementary substance is only the expression of a spiritual. Let us imagine that from this substantial habitation, woven of the elements of water, air and heat, the countenances of spiritual Beings, weaving within it, look out upon us, spiritual Beings who reveal themselves in this element which we have had to represent to ourselves through material images. Let us imagine that we have before us spiritual Beings, turning their countenances towards us, as it were, using their own soul-spiritual forces to organise cosmic bodies with the help of warmth, air and water. Let us try to imagine this!

There we have a picture of an elementary sheath, which, to give a very rough sensuous image of it, we may perhaps liken to a snail-shell, but a shell woven not of solid matter, like the snail's, but from the forest elements of water, air and fire. Let us think of spirit, in the form of countenances, within this sheath, gazing upon us, using this sheath as a means of manifestation, a force of very revelation which, as it were, pricks outward into manifestation from what lies hidden in the supersensible.

Call up before your souls this picture which I have just tried to paint for you, this image of the living weaving of spirit in a kind of matter; imagine too the inner soul-force which causes it to happen; concentrate for a moment on this to the exclusion of all else, and you will then have something approximating to what lived in an ancient Hebrew sage when the sounds B'reschit penetrated his soul. Bet the first letter, called forth the weaving of the habitation in substance; Resch the second sound, summoned up the countenances of the spiritual Beings who wove within this dwelling, and Schin the third sound, the prickly, stinging force which worked its way out from within to manifestation.

Now the underlying principle behind such a description is dawning upon us. And when we have grasped that, we are able to appreciate something of the spirit of this language; it had a creativeness of which the modern man with his abstract speech has no inkling.

Now let us place ourselves at the moment immediately preceding the physical coagulation, the physical densification of our earth. Let us imagine it as vividly as possible. We shall have to admit that in describing what was taking place at that moment we cannot make use of any of the ideas which we use today to describe processes in the external sense-world. Hence you will see that it is utterly inadequate to associate any external deed with the second word we meet in Genesis—bara—however closely that deed might resemble what we understand today as creation. We do not thus get near to the meaning of that word. Where can we turn for help? The word implies something which lies very near the boundary where the sensible passes over directly into the supersensible, into pure spirit. And anyone who wishes to grasp the meaning of the word bara, which is usually translated “created” (In the beginning God created ...), must in no wise associate it with any productive activity which can be seen with physical eyes.

Take a look into your own inner being! Imagine yourselves as having been asleep for a while, then waking up, and, without opening your eyes to things around you, calling up in your souls by inner activity certain images. Bring home vividly to yourselves this inner activity, this productive meditation, this cogitation, which calls forth a soul-content from the depths of the soul as if by magic. If you like you can use the word “excogitate” for this conjuring up of a soul-content out of the depths into the field of consciousness; think of this activity, which man can only perform with his mental images, but think of it now as a real, cosmic, creative activity. Instead of your own meditation, your own inward experience in thinking, try to imagine cosmic thinking-then you have the content of the second word of Genesis, bara. However spiritually you may think it, you can only liken it to the thought-life you are able to bring before yourselves in your own musing, you cannot get nearer to it than that!

And now imagine that during your musing two kinds of images come before your souls. Suppose there is a man to whom on awakening two different kinds of thought occur, a man who muses about two different kinds of thing. Suppose that one kind of thought is the picture either of some activity, or of some external thing or of some being; it does not come about through external sight, through perception, but through reflection, through the creative activity of his soul in the field of his consciousness. Suppose that the second complex of ideas which arises in this awakening man is a desire, something which the man's whole disposition and constitution of soul can prompt him to will. We have elements both of thought and of desire coming up in our souls through inner reflection. Now imagine, instead of the human soul, the Beings called in Genesis the Elohim, reflecting within themselves. Instead of one human soul, think of a multiplicity of reflecting spiritual Beings, who, however, in a similar way—save that their musing is cosmic—call forth by reflection from within themselves two complexes which might be compared with what I have just been describing—a pure thought-element and an element of desire. Thus instead of thinking of the musing' human soul, we think of a group of cosmic Beings who awaken in themselves two complexes; one of the nature of thought or ideation, that is, one which manifests something, expresses itself outwardly, phenomenally; and another of the nature of desire, which lives in inner movement, inner stimulation, which is permeated with inner activity. Let us think of these cosmic Beings, who are called in Genesis the Elohim, musing in this way. The word bara, “created,” brings their musing home to us. Then let us think that through this creative musing two complexes arise, one tending towards external revelation, external manifestation, and another consisting of an inward stimulus, an inward life; then we have the two complexes which arose in the soul of the ancient Hebrew sage when the words haschamayim and ha'arets—represented for the modern man by “heaven” and “earth”—sounded through his soul. Let us try to forget the modern man's conception of “heaven and earth.” Let us try to bring the two complexes before the soul, the one which tends more to disclose itself, tends to outward manifestation, is disposed to call forth some outside effect; and the other complex, the complex of inner stimulation, of something which would experience itself inwardly, something which quickens itself inwardly; then we have what expresses the meaning of the two words haschamayim and ha'arets.

As for the Elohim themselves, what kind of Beings are they?

In the course of these lectures we shall learn to know them better, and to describe them in terms of Spiritual Science; but for the present let us try to reach in some measure the meaning of this archetypal word “Elohim.” Whoever wishes to get an idea of what lived in the soul of the ancient Hebrew sage when he used this word should clearly understand that in those days there was a lively comprehension of the fact that our earth evolution had a definite meaning and a definite goal. What was this meaning and this goal?

Our earth evolution can only have a meaning, if during its course something arises which was not there before. A perpetual repetition of what was already there would be a meaningless existence, and unless the Hebrew sage of old had known that our earth, after having passed through its preliminary stages, had to bring something new into existence, he would have regarded its genesis as meaningless. Through the coming into existence of the earth something new became possible, it became possible for man to become man as we know him. In none of the earlier stages of evolution was man present as the being he is today, the being that he will more and more become in the future; that was not possible in earlier stages. And those spiritual Beings who directed the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions were of a different nature from man—for the moment we will not enter into the question whether they were higher or lower. Those Beings who wove in the fiery, gaseous and watery stages of elementary existence, who wove a Saturn, Sun and Moon existence, who at the beginning of earth existence were weaving its fabric—how best do we come to know them? ... How can we draw near to them?

We should have to go into very many things to get anywhere near an understanding of these Beings. To begin with, however, we can come to know one aspect of them, and that will suffice to bring us at least one step nearer to the potent meaning of the ancient Bible words. Let us consider those Beings for a moment—the Beings who stood nearest to man at the time when he was created from what had developed out of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions. Let us ask those Beings what they really wanted. Let us ask them what was their will, their purpose. Then we shall be able to get at least some idea of their nature. They had great ability; in the course of their evolution they had acquired capacities in various directions. One of them could do this, another that. But we understand the nature of these Beings best if we realise that at the time we are now considering they were working as a group towards a common goal; they were moved by a common aim. Although at a higher level, it is as if a group of men, each with his own special skill, were to co-operate today. Each of them can do something, and now they say to each other: “You can do this, I can do that, the third among us can do something else. We will unite our activities to produce a work in common in which each of our capacities can be used.” Let us then imagine such p. group of men, a group each of whom practises a different craft, but which is united by a common aim. What they intend to bring into existence is not yet there. The unit at which they are working lives to begin with only as an aim. What is there is a multiplicity. The unit lives, to begin with, only as an ideal. Now think of a group of spiritual Beings who have passed through the evolutions of Saturn, Sun and Moon, each one of whom has a specific ability, and who all at the moment I have indicated make the decision: “We will combine our activities for a common end, we will all work in the same direction.” And the picture of this goal arose before each of them. What was this goal? It was man, earthly man!

Thus earthly man lived as the ultimate goal in a group of spiritual Beings who had resolved to combine their several skills in order to arrive at something which they themselves did not possess at all, something which did not belong to them, but which they were able to achieve by combined effort. If you accept all that I have described to you—the elementary sheath, the cosmic, meditative spiritual Beings working within it, the two complexes, one of desire quickening inwardly, and another manifesting outwardly—and then ascribe the common purpose I have just mentioned to those spiritual Beings whose countenances gaze out of the elementary sheath, then you have what lived in the heart of the Hebrew sage of old in the word Elohim.

Now we have brought before us in picture form what lives in these all-powerful archetypal words. Then let us forget all that a man of today can think and feel when he utters the words: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Bearing in mind all that I have told you today, try to put this picture before you. There is the sphere in which fiery, gaseous and watery elements weave. Within this active, weaving elementary sphere a group of pondering spiritual Beings live. They are engaged in productive pondering, their pondering is penetrated through and through by their intention to direct their whole operation towards the form of man. And the first-fruits of their musing is the idea of something manifesting itself outwardly, announcing itself, and something else inwardly active, inwardly animated.

“In the elementary sheath the primeval Spirits pondered the outwardly manifesting and the inwardly mobile.” Try to bring before yourselves in these terms what is said in the first lines of the Bible, then you will have a foundation for all that is to come before our souls in the next few days as the true meaning of those all-powerful archetypal words which contain such a sublime revelation for mankind—the revelation of its own origin.

• 1. See Figure 1, below.
• 2. To avoid any ambiguity, capital letters will be used throughout this book for the words Sun and Moon, when they refer to the planetary evolutions preceding that of our earth.

If in this whole lecture course we are to concentrate our efforts on gaining a deeper understanding of the words “Father and Mother of Jesus,” and consequently of the essence of Christianity in general according to the Gospel of St. John, we must first acquire the material for an understanding of the concept, Mother and Father, in its spiritual sense, as it is intended in this Gospel and at the same time in its actual meaning. For it is not a question of an allegorical or a symbolic explanation.

We must first understand what it means to unite oneself with the higher spiritual worlds, to prepare oneself to receive the higher worlds. We must at the same time consider the nature of initiation, especially in regard to the Gospel of St. John. Let us ask: What is an initiate?

In all ages of the post-Atlantean human evolution, an initiate has been a person who could lift himself above the outer physical sense-world and have his own personal experiences in the spiritual worlds, a person who could experience the spiritual worlds just as the ordinary human being experiences the physical sense-world through the outer senses, eyes, ears, etc. Such an initiate becomes then a witness of those worlds and their truths. That is one aspect. But there is also something else very essential which every initiate acquires as a very special characteristic during his initiation, that is, he lifts himself above the feelings and sensations which are not only justified but also very necessary within the physical world, but which cannot, however, exist in the same way in the spiritual world.

Do not misunderstand what is said here and imagine that anyone who is able, as an initiate, to experience the spiritual world as well as the physical world must give up all other human feelings and sensations which are of value here in the physical world and exchange them for those of the higher worlds. This is not so. He does not exchange one for the other, but he acquires one in addition to the other. If, on the one hand, he has to spiritualize his feelings, he must, on the other, strengthen much more those feelings which are of use for working in the physical world. In this way we must interpret those words used in connection with an initiate, namely, that he must, in a certain sense, become a homeless person. It is not meant that in any sense he must become estranged from his home and his family as long as he lives in the physical world, but these words have at least this much significance, that by acquiring the corresponding feelings in the spiritual world, the feelings for the physical world will experience a finer, more beautiful development. What does it mean to be homeless? It means that one without this designation cannot, in the true sense of the word, attain initiation. To be a homeless man, means that he must develop no special sympathies in the spiritual world similar to those he possesses here in the physical world for special regions or relationships. The individual human being in the physical world belongs to some particular folk or to some particular family, to this or that community of the state. That is all quite proper. He does not need to lose this; he needs it here. If, however, he wished to employ these feelings in the spiritual world, he would bring a very bad dowry to that world. There, it is not a question of developing sympathy for anything, but of allowing everything to work upon him objectively, according to its inherent worth. It could also be said, were this generally understood, that an initiate must be, in the fullest sense of the word, an objective human being.

It is just through its evolution upon the earth that humanity has emerged out of a former homeless state connected with the ancient dreamy, clairvoyant consciousness. We have seen how mankind has descended out of the spiritual spheres into the physical world. In the primal spiritual spheres, patriotism and such things did not exist. When humanity descended from the spiritual spheres, one part peopled the earth in one region and another part in another region, and thus the individual groups of human beings of different regions became stereotype copies of those regions. Do not imagine that the negro became black solely from inner reasons; he became black also through adapting himself to the region of the earth in which he lived. And so it was also with the white people. Just as the great differences of colour and race came into existence because human beings have acquired something through their connection with their environment, so is it also true in respect of the smaller differences in folk individuality. But this has again to do with the specialization of love upon the earth. Because men became dissimilar, love was at first established in small communities. Only gradually will humanity be able to evolve out of the small communities into a large community of love which will develop concretely through the very implanting of the Spirit-Self. The initiate had to anticipate whither human evolution is tending in order to overcome and bridge over all barriers and bring about great peace, great harmony and brotherhood. In his homelessness, he must always, at the very beginning, receive the same rudiments of great brotherly love. This was symbolically expressed in ancient times in the descriptions of the wanderings experienced by the initiate, such as those, for example, of Pythagoras. Why was this described? In order that the initiate might become objective toward every thing in the feelings he had developed within the heart of the community. It is the task of Christianity to bring to the whole of humanity the Impulse of this Brotherhood which the initiate always possessed as an individual impulse.

Let us hold clearly in mind that most profound idea of Christianity, that the Christ is the Spirit of the earth and that the earth is His body or vesture. And let us take it literally, for we have said that we must weigh in the balance each separate word of such a document as the Gospel of St. John. What do we learn with respect to the “vesture of the earth” when we make a survey of evolution? We learn, first of all, the fact that the vesture of the earth—that is, the solid parts of it—was divided. One person took possession of this part, another of that part. This part belonged to one person, that part to another. Possession, i.e. the extension of the personality through the acquisition of property, is in a certain sense that into which the garment worn by the Christ, the Spirit of the earth, has, in the course of time, been divided. One thing alone could not be divided, but belonged to all; this was the airy envelope surrounding the earth. And from this airy covering, the breath of life was breathed into the human being, as we are shown in the myths of Paradise. Here we have the first rudiments of the ego in the physical body. The air cannot be divided. Let us try to find out whether the one who described Christianity most profoundly in the Gospel of St. John has anywhere indicated this:

And they parted His garments; but His coat they did not divide.

Here you have the words which give you an explanation of how the earth as a whole, together with its airy envelope, is the body or garment, and the coat of the Christ. The garments of the Christ were divided into continents and regions; but not the coat. The air has not been divided; it remains a common possession of all. It is the external, material symbol for the love which is hovering about the earthly globe, which will later be realized.

And in many other connections, Christianity must bring mankind to an acceptance of some of the ancient principles of initiation. If we wish to understand this, we must now characterize initiation. It will suffice, if we consider especially the three main types of initiation; the ancient Yoga, the really specific Christian initiation, and that initiation which is entirely appropriate for men of the present day, the Christian-Rosicrucian initiation. We intend now to describe what course initiation, in general, takes in all three of these forms; what it is and what it represents.

How does a human being become capable of perception in spiritual worlds? First, let me ask, how have you become capable of observing in the physical world? The physical body has sense-organs that make this possible. If you trace human evolution very far back, you will find that in primeval times, the human creature did not yet possess eyes for seeing and ears for hearing in the physical world, but that, as Goethe says, all organs were still undifferentiated. As proof of this, just recall how certain lower animals today still have these undifferentiated organs. Certain lower animals have points through which they can distinguish only light and darkness, and out of these undifferentiated organs, eyes and ears have been moulded and formed. They have been worked into the plastic substance of the physical body. Because your eye has been moulded, there exists for you a world of colour, and because your ear has been sculptured, a world of tone is audible to you. No one has the right to say that a world does not really exist; he may only say, “I do not perceive it.” For to see the world in the true sense of the word, means that I have the organs with which to perceive it. One may say: “I know only this or that world,” but one may not say: “I do not admit of the existence of a world that someone else perceives.” A person who speaks in this manner demands that others too should perceive only just what he himself perceives, but nothing else; he claims authoritatively that only what he perceives is true. When at present someone appears and says: That is all Anthroposophical imagining, what Anthroposophists declare exists, does not exist,” he only proves that he and those like him do not perceive these worlds. We take the positive standpoint. Whoever grants only the existence of what he himself perceives, demands not only that we acknowledge what he knows, but he wishes to make an authoritative decision about something of which he knows nothing. There is no greater intolerance than that shown by official science toward Spiritual Science, and it will become even worse than it has ever been before! It appears in the most varied forms. People are not at all conscious of saying something which they should not allow themselves to say. In many gatherings of very good Christians, one can hear it said: "Anthroposophists talk of some kind of an esoteric Christian teaching, but Christianity needs no esoteric teaching; for only that can be true which a simple, unpretentious mind can perceive and understand," which means, of course, only what the speaker can perceive and understand. He therefore requires that no one should perceive and understand anything different from what he himself perceives and understands. The infallibility of the Pope is quite properly not acknowledged in such Christian assemblies, but the infallibility of the individual is claimed today in the widest circles even by the Christians. Anthroposophy is attacked as a result of this papal standpoint in consequence of which each individual sets himself up as a kind of little pope.

If we consider that the physical sense-world exists for us because the individual organs have been carved into the physical body, it will no longer seem extraordinary when it is said that perception in a higher world rests upon the fact that higher organs have been formed in the higher members of the human organism, in the ether and astral bodies. The physical body is, in this way, already provided with its sense-organs, but the ether and astral bodies are not yet so provided; these have still to be carved into them. When this has been done, there exists what is called perception in the higher worlds.

We shall now speak of the way in which these organs are built into the ether and astral bodies. We have said that in anyone who aspires to initiation and has attained it, higher organs have been developed. How is this accomplished? It is a matter of understanding the human astral body in the state in which it exists in its purity. During the day this astral body is immersed in the physical body. There the forces of the physical body act upon it; it is not then free. It carries out the demands of the physical body; hence it is impossible to begin the development of these higher organs during the day. It can be begun when the astral body is out of the physical body, in sleep; only then can the astral body be moulded. The human astral body can only have its higher sense organs developed when they are carved into it during sleep, while outside the physical body. But we cannot manipulate a sleeping human being; that would not be possible for the modern man, if he wishes to perceive what is happening to him in sleep. If you have him in an unconscious condition, then he cannot observe this. Here there seems to be a contradiction, for the astral body is not conscious of its connection with the physical body during sleep. But indirectly it is possible that during the day the physical body is acted upon and the impressions which it then receives remain within the astral body when this is withdrawn at night. Just as the impressions which the astral body receives from the surrounding physical world have been impressed upon it, so in like manner we must do something quite specific with the physical body, in order that this something be imprinted upon the astral body and then be formed in it in the proper manner. This happens when the human being ceases to live in his customary way during the day, allowing random impressions to enter his consciousness, and takes his inner life in hand by means of a methodical schooling in the manner described. This is called Meditation, Concentration or Contemplation. These are exercises which are as strictly prescribed in the schools for the purpose, as microscopy is prescribed in the laboratories. If a person carries out these exercises, they act so intensely upon him that the astral body is plastically re-shaped when it withdraws during sleep. Just as this sponge adapts itself to the form of my hand as long as I hold it there, but forms itself again according to the forces inherent in it as soon as I release it, so in like manner is it with the astral body; when in sleep it withdraws from the corporality, it follows the astral forces invested in it. Thus it is during the day that we must undertake those spiritual activities by means of which the astral body, during the night, is plastically formed so that organs of higher perception are developed in it.

Meditation can be regulated in a threefold manner. 1. There can be more consideration given to the thought-matter, to the so-called elements of Wisdom, the pure element of thought. This is the Yoga training which deals especially with the element of thought, Contemplation. 2. One can work more upon the feeling through its special cultivation. This is the specifically Christian course. 3. Again one can work through a combination of feeling and will. This is the Christian-Rosicrucian method. To consider the Yoga practice would carry us too far, and it would also have no relationship to the Gospel of St. John. We shall consider the specifically Christian initiation and explain its basis. You must think of this form of initiation as one which a person belonging to the present social order could hardly undergo. It demands a temporary isolation. The Rosicrucian method, however, is the method by which we can work ourselves into the higher worlds without interfering with our duties. What, however, is applicable in principle, we can also fully explain by means of Christian initiation.

This method of initiation has to do exclusively with the feelings, and I shall now have to enumerate seven experiences of the feeling-life; seven stages of feeling, through the experiencing of which the astral body is actually so affected that it develops its organs during the night. Let us describe how the Christian neophyte must live in order that he may pass through these stages. The first stage is what is called “Washing the Feet.” Here the teacher says to the pupil: “Observe the plants. They have their roots in the ground; the mineral earth is a lower being than the plant. If the plant were able to contemplate its own nature, it would have to say to the earth; it is true I am a higher being, but if thou wert not there, I could not exist; for from thee, O earth, I draw most of my sustenance. If the plant were able to translate this into feeling, it would then bow itself down to the stone and say:—I bow myself before thee, O stone, thou humbler being, for I am indebted to thee for my very existence! Then if we ascend to the animal, it would have to behave in a similar manner toward the plant and say: Indeed it is true, I am higher than the plant, but to the lower kingdoms I owe my existence! If in this manner we mount higher and reach the human being, then each individual who stands somewhat higher in the social scale must incline himself to the lower and say: To those on the lower social level I owe my existence! This continues on up to Christ-Jesus. The Twelve who are about Him are at a level lower than Christ-Jesus; but as the plant develops out of the stone, so does the Christ grow out of the Twelve. He bows down to the Twelve and says: I owe you My existence.”

When the teacher had explained this to the pupil, he then said to him: "For weeks must thou surrender thyself to this cosmic feeling of how the superior should incline to the inferior and when thou hast thoroughly developed this feeling within thee, then wilt thou experience an inner and an outer symptom!" These are not the essential things, they only indicate that the pupil has practiced sufficiently. When the physical body was sufficiently influenced by the soul, this was indicated to him by an external symptom in which he feels as though water were lapping over his feet. That is a very real feeling! And he has another very real feeling in which the “Washing of the Feet” appears to him as in a mighty vision in the astral, the inclining of the Higher Self to the lower. Thus the occult student experiences in the astral world what is found depicted in the Gospel of St. John as an historical fact.

At the second stage, the pupil is told: "Thou must develop within thyself yet another feeling. Thou must picture how it would be were all the suffering and sorrow possible in the world to come upon thee; thou must feel how it would be wert thou exposed to the piling up of all possible hindrances, and thou must enter into the feeling that thou must stand erect even though all the adversity of the world were to bear down upon thee!" Then when the pupil has practised this exercise for a sufficient length of time, there are again two symptoms; in the first he has the feeling of being beaten from all sides, and in the second he has an astral vision of the “Scourging.” I am relating what hundreds of people have experienced whereby they have acquired the ability to mount into the higher worlds.

In the third exercise, the pupil had to imagine that the holiest thing that he possesses, which he defends with his whole ego-being, is subjected to jeers and gibes. He must say to himself:—“Come what may, I must hold myself erect and defend what is holy to me.” When he had accustomed himself to this, he felt something like pricking upon his head, and he experienced the “Crown of Thorns” as an astral vision. Again it must be said that the important thing is not the symptoms; they appear as a result of the exercises. Care was also taken that there was no question of suggestion and auto-suggestion.

In the fourth exercise, the pupil's body must become as foreign to his feelings as any external object—a stick of wood for example—and he must not say “I” to his body. This experience must become so much a part of his feelings that he says: “I carry my body about with me as I do my coat.” He connects his ego no longer with his body. Then something occurs which is called the Stigmata. What in many cases might be a condition of sickness is in this case a result of Meditation, because all sickness must be eliminated. On the feet and hands and on the right side of the breast appear the so-called Stigmata; and as an inner symptom, he beholds the “Crucifixion” in an astral vision.

The fifth, sixth and seventh grades of feeling, we can only briefly describe. The fifth grade consists of what is called “The Mystical Death.” Through feelings which the pupil is permitted to experience at this stage, he feels as though, in an instant, a black curtain were drawn before the whole physical, visible world and as though everything had disappeared. This moment is important because of something else that must be experienced, if one wishes to push on into Christian initiation, in the true sense of the word. The pupil then feels that he can plunge into the primal causes of evil, pain, affliction and sorrow. And he can suffer all the evil that exists in the depths of the human soul, when he descends into Hell. That is the “Descent into Hell.” When this has been experienced, it is as though the black curtain had been rent asunder and he looks into the spiritual world.

The sixth step is what is called the “Interment and Resurrection.” This is the stage at which the pupil feels himself one with the entire earth-body. He feels as though he were laid within and belonged to the whole earth planet. His life has been extended into a planetary existence.

The seventh experience cannot be described in words; only one could describe it who is able to think without the physical brain instrument—and for that there is no language, because our language has only designations for the physical plane. Therefore, only a reference can be made to this stage. It surpasses anything that the human being can possibly conceive. This is called the “Ascension” or the complete absorption into the spiritual world.

This completes the gamut of feelings into which the pupil, during waking day-consciousness, must place himself with complete inner equanimity. When the pupil has surrendered himself to these experiences, they act so strongly upon the astral body that, in the night, inner sense-organs are developed, are plastically formed. These seven steps of feeling are not practiced in the Rosicrucian initiation, but the result is the same as that of which we have just spoken.

Thus you see that the important thing in initiation is to influence the astral body in such a way by the indirect means of the day-experiences, that it may, when it is wholly free during the night, take on a new plastic form. When the human being in this manner, as an astral being, has given himself a plastic form, the astral body has become actually a new member of the human organism. He is then wholly permeated by Manas or Spirit-Self.

When the astral body is thus divided, that part which has in this way been plastically formed is brought over into the ether body. And just as you press the seal upon the sealing-wax, and the name on the seal appears not only on the seal, but on the wax as well, so too must the astral body dip down into the ether body and impress upon it whatever it may now possess. The inner process, the working over of the astral body, is the same in all methods of initiation. Only in the method of transmission into the ether body do the individual methods differ. We shall speak tomorrow of these differences and show how the three methods of initiation, which have proved to be the most profound evolutionary impulses in the course of the post-Atlantean age, differ from each other and what significance initiation, in general, has for human evolution. Then these parts of the Gospel of St. John upon which we have not yet been able to touch will also become clear.

It is my intention today to continue with the subject we began here last Sunday, and I should like first to go back to the few words I then said concerning the Anti-Modernist Oath. I described its nature by saying that since the time of its inauguration anyone who holds a teaching office in the Roman Catholic Church, whether as theologian or preacher, has to take this oath which forbids anyone engaged in Catholic teaching to deviate from what is recognized as dogmatic truth by the Roman Catholic Church; which means, in fact, what is recognized as dogma by the Roman Curia.

Now in face of such a fact the important question to ask oneself is: “What is there actually new about this Anti-Modernist Oath?”

There is nothing new in the adherence of a Catholic preacher or theologian to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church; please be clear about that. What is new is that the person concerned has to take an oath as to what is the doctrine of the Church. I want you to be clear about this first, and then to see it in relation to the fact that there has been a prodigious piling up of historical deeds in the Roman Catholic Church during the last half century. It began with the definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception; then came a further extraordinary, subtle, and clever step in the Encyclical and Syllabus of the sixties, in which Pope Pius IX in his eighty Articles declared all modern thinking to be heretical. Then on top of that came the definition of the Dogma of Infallibility, again a very important and extraordinarily clever and subtle advance. The next extremely logical step was the Encyclical “Acterni Patris,” which declared the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas to be the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. The crowning of this whole structure for the time being is this oath against Modernism, which in effect is nothing else than the carrying over of something which was always present intellectually into the sphere of human emotion, the sphere of will and feeling. That which always had to be acknowledged has, since the year 1907, had also to be sworn on oath.

Anyone who understands this grandiose dramatic development will certainly not underestimate its importance, for it demonstrates the only wakeful consciousness within our sleeping civilization. I should be interested to know how many people felt as if stung by a viper when they read a certain sentence in the last number of the “Basler Vorwarts,” which illuminates as by a flash of lightning the whole situation at the present time. I should really like to know how many people, when reading this, felt as if stung by a viper! The sentence runs: “Religion, which represents a fantastic reflex in the minds of human beings concerning their relations one to another and to nature, is doomed to natural decay through the victorious growth of the scientific, clear and naturalistic grasp of reality which is bound to develop parallel with the establishment of a planned society.” This sentence is to be found in an article which has not yet appeared in its entirety, but has yet to be concluded. It is to be found in an article on the measures taken by Lenin and Trotsky against the Russian Catholic Church and the Russian religious communities in general. This article is at the same time an indication of what is regarded as the programme for the future in these quarters.

One knows for a certainty that the number of Lenin’s opponents who feel as if stung by a viper on reading such a sentence is very small. I want to emphasize this as not being without significance, because it brings out to what an extent modern humanity passes lightly over things, usually asleep—how it passes over the weightiest facts, facts which are decisive for the life of mankind on this earth. It is, of course, not a question of any one such sentence; the point is that in certain quarters they will see to it that the content of what is there expressed will be made known throughout the world, that among the widest circles of the European population an outlook will come about which can be thus expressed: “Religion which represents a fantastic reflex in the minds of human beings concerning their relations to one another and to nature, is doomed to natural decay.” The so-called ‘enlightened’ humanity of today is still soundly asleep to the fact that such a view is coming. But the Roman Catholic Church is awake; she alone in fact is awake and is working systematically against the approaching storm. She works against it in her own way. And it is very important that we should understand that way, for I have had much to say about the attacks from that quarter that are being forged against what we have to stand for. Meanwhile the clouds are gathering. The latest is that the bill posters had to notify us that the man who this morning was to have posted up in Reinach the announcement of Saturday’s lecture had the posters taken from him and burnt. You see, these things are getting worse, even here they are getting systematically worse.

What was written by a man who frequently hides behind the bushes and calls himself ‘Spectator’—a pack of sheer lies, I told you last time about the most egregious of them—now goes through the whole Roman Catholic press, and this burning of our posters really takes one back out of modern times altogether.

Now, my dear friends, I have already raised the important question as to why the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church today must take an oath in support of what they were already pledged to maintain. No one will deny that the enforcement of such an oath strengthens the external grasp of the matter. Nor will anyone deny that if it is felt necessary to make people take this oath, the assumption is that without such an oath they would no longer go so firmly forward. But, my dear friends, there is, of course, still a third point, which it would be well for you to ponder. For verily things enter in here which must not yet be called by their right names; yet the question may nevertheless be thrown out as an aside. Must not confidence in a thing be already to a certain extent shattered if it has to be sworn on oath? Is it a possibility to administer an oath for the truth? Can there be such a possibility? Is it not necessary to assume that the truth of its own inherent force is its own guarantee in the human soul? Perhaps it is not so important to ask whether an oath is moral or good or useful; perhaps it is far more important historically to ask whether it has become necessary, and if so, why?

In face of this oath something else is now necessary. It is necessary that a certain number of human beings should feel how without spiritual science there must inevitably come over Europe the consequence of the frame of mind expressed in the words “Religion, which represents a fantastic reflex in the minds of human beings concerning their relations to one another and to nature, is doomed to natural decay through the victorious growth of the scientific, clear and naturalistic grasp of reality, which is bound to develop parallel with the establishment of a planned society.”

What is it that is to bring about the decay of the old religions one and all? It is all that has arisen during the last three to four centuries as modern science, enlightened science—all that is taught as objective science in the educational institutions of civilized humanity. Bourgeois teaching and bourgeois methods of administration have been adopted by the proletariat. What the teachers of the universities and high schools right down to the elementary schools have put into the souls of men, comes out through Lenin and Trotsky. They bring out nothing but what is already taught in the institutions of civilized humanity.

My dear friends, today there exists an antithesis which one should contemplate without prejudice. It is this. What is to be done to prevent the influence of Lenin and Trotsky from spreading over the entire civilized world? The primary necessity is no longer to allow our children and our youth to be taught what has been taught right up to the Twentieth Century in our universities and in our secondary and elementary schools. To grasp this seeming contradiction demands courage, and because men do not want to have this courage, they go to sleep. That is why one has to say that whoever reads a declaration such as the one I have just quoted, even if it only appears in a few lines of an article, should feel as if stung by a viper; for it is as if the whole situation of present-day civilization were illumined by a flash of lightning.

Face to face with this situation, what would spiritual science with all its detailed concreteness have? What spiritual science would have, I would characterize somewhat as follows. The Roman Catholic Church, as a mighty corporation, represents the last withered remains of the civilization of the fourth post-Atlantean Epoch. It can be well authenticated in all detail that the Roman Catholic Church represents the last remnant of what was the right civilization for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, what was justified right up to the middle of the Fifteenth Century, but what has now become a shadow. Of course products of a later evolution often herald their arrival in an earlier period, and its earlier products linger on into a later epoch; but in essentials the Roman Catholic Church represents what was justifiable for Europe and its colonies up to the middle of the Fifteenth Century.

Spiritual science, however, as we understand it, has to further the needs of the fifth post-Atlantean civilization. The Roman Catholic Church represents in a number of dogmas, as a self-contained structure which is dead, but which still exists as a corpse, something which hangs together inwardly through a well-constructed logic, a logic of reality. In this structure there is spirit, the spirit of a past epoch, but it is spirit. The way in which spirit is contained within it I have, I think, shown in the lectures I held here on St. Thomas Aquinas. There was spirit in these teachings, in these dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, a spirit which had been perceived by those great ones whose last stragglers we find in Plotinus, and others, and with which St. Augustine had yet in an interesting way to wrestle.

Since the middle of the Fifteenth Century, what has appeared as philosophy, science, public opinion, world conception, apart from the Roman Catholic Church, is, for the most part, void of spirit. For the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean age begins only to emerge with such principles as those of Lessing and Goethe. And it wants to enter into what the natural-scientific trend inaugurated by Copernicus, Galilee and Kepler was able to yield without spirit, and out of which Darwin, Huxley, and so on have blown the last remnant of Spirit. It wants to enter into that and fill it with Spirit. And spiritual science wishes to make manifest the Spirit which has to be the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean age.

An institution permeated by a certain spirit as its own soul, if it is to maintain itself as an institution, can only fight for the past. To demand of the Catholic Church that it should fight for the future would be folly, for an institution which carried the spirit of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch cannot possibly carry that of the fifth. What the Catholic Church has become, what has spread over the civilized world as the configuration of the Catholic Church, and has its other aspect in Roman law and the abstractness of the whole Latin culture, all that belongs to the fourth cultural epoch. And the Catholic Church configuration has permeated the entire of civilization far more than men think. The monarchies, even if they were Protestant ones, were in their structure at bottom Latin Catholic institutions. For the fourth epoch it was necessary that men should be organized according to abstract principles, and that certain hierarchical ordinances should form the basis of organization. But what is to come as the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean age, which we seek to cultivate through spiritual science, does not require such a firm structure, does not need a structure organized according to abstract principles, but requires such a relation of one human being to another as is characterized in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity as ethical individualism. What that book has to say on the subject of ethics stands in the same contrast to the social structure fostered by the Roman Catholic Church as in the last resort spiritual science stands to Roman Catholic theology.

Spiritual Science was verily never meant to appear in the role of belligerent; spiritual science was only meant to state what it saw to be the truth. Anyone who examines our activities here will have to admit that never, never have I taken an aggressive stance. Of course, one has had constantly to defend oneself against attacks which came from outside, and that is the essential thing. But it is simply a demand of the age that what spiritual science has to give should be stated quite concretely. One has to remember that modern civilization is asleep, and that Rome is awake. That Rome is awake is revealed by the mighty drama unrolled in the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; in the publication of the Encyclical of 1864, with its Syllabus condemning eighty modern truths; in the declaration of the Infallibility of the Pope; in the naming of Thomas Aquinas as the official philosopher of the Catholic priesthood; and finally in the anti-Modernist Oath for the teaching clergy.

In face of the rising tide of Darwinism, in face of the rising tide of naturalism in the fifties, something was done which, although it can only be understood out of the spiritual demands of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch nevertheless throws down the gauntlet before all this rising materialism. The rest of the world lets it come, or at best counters it with foolish arguments such as those of Eucken. Rome, however, sets up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which states clearly: “Naturally, no one can accept the Immaculate Conception and at the same time ascribe to Darwinism; thus we establish the incompatibility of the two things.” Not more than a decade later, the whole structure of the modern world conception, void of spirit, is condemned by the Syllabus. The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was already a departure from all the earlier traditional development of the Catholic Church. In what then in former times consisted definition by an Ecumenical Council? Within the Catholic Church a fundamental condition for the definition of any dogma—I am simply relating, not criticizing—was that the Fathers gathered together in the Council in which the dogma was to be defined should be illumined by the Holy Spirit; so that in reality the originator of the dogma is the Holy Spirit. It is really a question of recognizing whether the Holy Ghost is really the inspirer of the dogma to be defined. How does one know, how did they know that? Because what was about to be defined as a dogma by an Ecumenical Council was already the opinion of the whole Catholic Church. Now that was not the case with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; consequently, one of the fundamental principles of the Catholic Church was broken, the principle which required that a doctrine shall only be made into a dogma if the faithful have previously signified an inclination towards it. Of course, as regards these modern definitions of dogma, one was already living in the events of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch; and it was no longer so easy as in the Middle Ages so to prepare the faithful that a common opinion prevailed among them which could then be defined. But you see, the ground had been well prepared—preparations had really been going on all through the last three or four centuries for these latest revelations; that is to say, these last revelations so far. Even then the Roman Catholic Church was already awake; and if you remember when the Jesuit Order was founded, you will easily draw the inference that the foundation of that Order is essentially connected with the fact that some means had to be found to overcome the difficulties of working on the faithful in modern times and generally to take these difficulties into account. One ought to pay attention to the course things have taken. I am only relating, I am not criticizing. 1574 was the year in which the citizens of Lucerne themselves expressed a desire for Jesuitism. Let me repeat that it was Canisius, the immediate disciple of Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuit College in Freiburg in 1580 which later established its colony in Solothurn. I should like too, to say that after the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Clement XIV, the Jesuits had, of course, to disappear from Switzerland, and they then continued their activities only in the countries of Frederick II of Prussia and of Catherine of Russia, to whom the Jesuit Order really owes its continued existence.

But in this extraordinary interregnum between the suppression of the Jesuit Order in 1773 by Clement XIV and its reinstatement by Pius VII in 1814, strange things nevertheless happened. For you see, during this interval, in Sion, for example, the institution which had been conducted by the Jesuits naturally remained; and as a matter of fact for the most part, too, the same teachers remained in it; only up to 1773 these teachers were Jesuits, and from that date onward they were no longer Jesuits, but one spoke of the Fathers of the Faith as teaching in such institutions. Therefore, it is not surprising that after Pius VII had in 1814 withdrawn the decree of Clement XIV, these Jesuit colonies were again reinstated—in Brigue the same year, in Freiberg in 1818, in Schwiez in 1836.

It is not my task to criticize these things, but I want you to know about them, and I should further like to say this. From my explanations you will have seen that from the 21st of July, 1773, when Clement XIV issued the Bull “Dominus ac Redemptor Noster” until Pius VII caused his Bull “Solicitude omnium Ecclesiarum” to appear, the Jesuit Order was officially suppressed. Now comes something extraordinary. There exist memoirs written by a man who was called Cordara, a Jesuit, one who had gone through all the grades of the Jesuit Order. From his memoirs it is evident that he was not an ignoramus like Count Hoensbruch, whose speeches and writings are unimportant, for, of course, the Jesuits are clever and Hoensbruch is very foolish. It is a question of not being asleep over these things today, but of knowing how to distinguish the important from the unimportant. I should like to mention one point in Cordara’s memoirs, where he remarks that it was strange that the Jesuit Order should have been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV, who had a great liking for the Jesuits and was at the same time an extremely tolerant man and no fool. Thus Cordara gives Pope Clement an excellent character, almost lauds him to the skies, in spite of the fact that he suppressed the Jesuits. Therefore, Cordara naturally asks how it was that they had to be suppressed by this kindly Pope. “One must ask,” says Cordara, “What were the intentions of Divine Wisdom in the suppression of the Jesuits and why it was permitted?” Now, of course, Cordara was a Jesuit, but a man who had even been taught by them to think logically, and therefore, he does not ask abstract questions but very concrete ones. He said, “We have to look for what was blameworthy in the Order,” and he goes on to say, “I find that as regards morality, the Jesuit Order has gone admirably to work; as to unchastity or the like, we are very strict, nobody can deny it. But we are very lenient towards everything of the nature of slander, calumny, and abuse.” Cordara actually says that God probably allowed the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV because there had gradually crept into the Order a certain tendency to slander, calumny, and abuse. Now I am not criticizing this, I am only relating facts. I should only like to add that the Jesuit Cordara further says: “One of our chief faults is pride, which causes us to regard all other Orders as of no account and worthless, and all secular clergy as worthless.”

Now, if one puts together everything in these memoirs which is said, not as a reproach to the Jesuit Order but simply as a kind of mea culpa, as an examination of conscience by a Jesuit, one finds in the first place striving for political power; second—pride, arrogance; third—contempt of other Orders and secular priests; fourth—accumulation of wealth. But if one gradually comes to know what it means to maintain dead, withered truths by means of power, one cannot do better than to use such an Order to provide for their maintenance. The Roman Catholic Church in Pius VII well knew what it was doing. It discharged its debt of gratitude to world history, history made by Frederick II, King of Prussia, and by Catherine of Russia, both now dead, when it reinstated the Jesuit Order. And among the first ‘foreign’ Jesuits to teach here in Switzerland again were many of those who had been protected by Catherine, many who came back from Russia. You can read all this in the relevant historical documents.

You can see, therefore, that Rome was wide awake and made in advance her necessary preparations. Wide awake preparation was made. Now comes the next step, the condemnation of all that mounting tide of science—ripe for condemnation since after four centuries of effort to drive out the spirit, it remained void of spirit and mankind remained asleep. The next step was the Encyclical of 1864 with its Syllabus. If the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had already been a break with all earlier custom of the Roman Catholic Church, undoubtedly what was promulgated in the doctrine of Infallibility constituted a far greater break. For all the acumen of the practiced logic of the Catholic Church was needed to justify the contention that the Pope is infallible after Pope Clement XIV in 1773 had suppressed the Jesuit Order, and his successor Pope Pius VII in 1814 had reinstated it. A goodly number of such things could be adduced. But the logic which had been so well cultivated was not applied to produce sharply defined concepts. What was needed was a well-formed concept which could justify infallibility. Not what the Pope expresses as his private opinion is regarded as infallible, only what he says ‘ex cathedra’. Then it was not necessary to decide whether Clement XIV or Pius VII was infallible, but whether Clement XIV or Pius VII had spoken ‘ex cathedra’ or privately. Clement XIV must have spoken privately when he suppressed the Jesuit Order, and Pius VII ‘ex cathedra’ when he reinstated it! But, you see, the trouble is that the Pope never states whether he is speaking ‘ex cathedra’ or privately. That he has never yet said! One must admit that it is difficult to distinguish in the individual instance whether it is subject to the dogma of infallibility, but the dogma is there, and with it a good blow was struck at what can arise as the elemental culture of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. It then became necessary to draw the consequences and that was well done by Pope Leo XIII, a man full of insight and of very great intelligence. Pope Leo XIII sought to adopt the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas as it was in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The Church needed that philosophy which is so great but great for the last culture epoch, for, of course, objectively everything in the way of philosophy which has subsequently arisen is small compared to what blossomed as Philosophy in Scholasticism. But what is small is still a beginning, whereas what was in Scholasticism was an end, a climax.

Now we must remember that mankind is nevertheless trying to progress and therefore it happened that, both in the sphere of natural-scientific research and in historical research, strange vagaries cropped up among the Catholic clergy. Very well then, it now became necessary to adopt strong measures in support of the Catholic doctrine derived from St. Augustine. Hence the Oath against Modernism.

Now of course, my dear friends, nothing can be said against all that, if it is pursued by any community out of a free impulse, but when in 1867 the Jesuits were again allowed into Munich, a Jesuit priest in his first sermon then said that the Rules of the Order forbade Jesuits to meddle in politics, that a Jesuit never has taken any part in politics; then it appears to me that modern men are not likely to believe that. And it soon becomes otherwise. Up to that time it had not in fact been possible to find a really adequate measure.

My dear friends, what I am really trying to bring home to you is that all those who seriously want knowledge, progress and the good of humanity will have to recognize the threefold nature of the social organism. For how little political measures avail against the Roman Catholic Church has shown itself in the course of the German ‘Kultur’ campaign. But what I am primarily trying to bring home to you is how slow people are to see what, as the necessary consequence of spiritual-scientific endeavor, must come into the world as the impulse for the threefold order of society. That is what we need, a wide awake understanding for the phenomena of the time.

Now, my dear friends, I have plunged into a theme into which I would certainly not have entered had it not been for recent events here, of which we shall see further developments. You know that on Saturday I am to give a public lecture on “The Truth about Anthroposophy and its Defense against Untruth.” But in any case I must contrive next Sunday to continue the comments which I cannot complete today. So next Sunday at half-past seven we will meet here once more, although we have to start on a journey on Monday. In these troubled times one cannot do otherwise, and so on Saturday, despite the burning of our posters, the public lecture also will take place here.

The lecture yesterday will have shown you that if we are to acquire insight into the nature and evolution of man, we must be constantly mindful of the power and influence of Lucifer, of Christ, and of Ahriman.

These influences were, of course, already at work in earlier stages of cosmic evolution, but in spheres where it was unnecessary for man to have clear consciousness of their effects. On the other hand, the very purpose of our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that man should become increasingly conscious of what takes effect through him in earthly existence. The unveiling of many more of the secrets of human life would be desirable at the present time if only there were greater willingness to face things frankly and objectively. For without the knowledge of certain facts of the kind indicated yesterday, it will not be possible for humanity to make progress either in the inner life or in the sphere of social life. Think only of something that is connected with the social problems we have recently been studying. It has been our aim to demonstrate the necessity for separating the spiritual life, and also the political life or life of rights, from the economic life. Our greatest concern is to create conditions throughout the world, or at least—for we cannot do more at present—to convince men of the necessity for conditions which would provide the foundation for a free spiritual life no longer dependent upon the other spheres of social life or as deeply entangled as it is to-day in the economic life on the one side and in the political life of the State on the other. Civilised mankind must either establish the independence of the spiritual life or face collapse—with the inevitable result of an Asiatic influence taking effect in the future.

Those who still do not recognise the gravity of the present situation in the world are also, in a certain respect, helping to prepare for Ahriman's incarnation. Many things in external life to-day bear witness to this. The Ahrimanic incarnation will be greatly furthered if men fail to establish a free and independent spiritual life and allow it to remain entangled in the economic or political life. For the Ahrimanic power has everything to gain by the spiritual life being even more closely intermingled with these other spheres. To the Ahrimanic power a free spiritual life would denote a kind of darkness, and men's interest in it, a burning, raging fire. The establishment of this free spiritual life is essential in order that the right attitude, the right relationship, may be adopted to Ahriman's incarnation in the future.

But there is still a strong tendency to-day to conceal the facts of which we spoke yesterday. The vast majority of people cast a veil over these things; they refuse to see them as they really are and allow themselves to be deceived by words which have no connection with reality. And very often, endeavours to shirk reality are described as “honest” and “well-meaning”.

Take, for example, the recently published letter of Romain Rolland, in which he says that men should not allow themselves to be deluded by erstwhile proclamations of the victorious powers concerning justice and the upholding of political rights. The treatment which Russia is receiving from the Entente has led him to speak in these terms. He says: No matter whether it be on the part of monarchies or republics—what has been said about rights and justice is so much phrase-mongering; the issue at bottom is one of power, and of power alone.

Now even this apparent approach to reality still betrays willingness to be deluded, for Romain Rolland is just as deluded as ever; the delusion is not one whit less. It could only be so if such men were to discard phrases and recognise that all these things for which they aspire are meaningless as long as they fail to realise that if the old unified State as such—whether a democracy, a republic or a monarchy—does not become threefold, this is simply a way of helping Ahriman's incarnation. Hence all these things, including this recent letter addressed to the world by Romain Rolland, amount to nothing more than rhetorical harangues. People do not grasp the reality, for reality can be grasped only when the necessity for spiritual knowledge and deep penetration into the nature of things is thoroughly understood.

You are all familiar with the much quoted verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.” Do men really take these lines in earnest? They utter them, but so often as mere phrases! No particular emphasis is laid on the tense: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.” “ Word” here must obviously have the meaning it bore in ancient Greece. It is not “word” as understood to-day—word as mere sound—but it is the inner, spiritual reality. In either case, however, it is the imperfect tense that is employed. The implication therefore is: “In the beginning the Word was; but it is no longer.” Otherwise the sentence would run: “Now is the Word; and the Word is not with God; it was with God, and a God was the Word but is so no longer.” This, moreover, is what stands in the Gospel of St. John; otherwise what would be the meaning of the words immediately following: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This indicates a further evolution of the Word. “Word” also means anything that man can acquire in the way of intellectual wisdom through his efforts and through his intelligence. But it must be quite clear to us that what “word” denotes here is not really the goal for which man must strive at the present time or in the immediate future. To express what is now the goal, we should have to say: “Let man seek for the Spirit that reveals itself in the Word; for the Spirit is with God, and the Spirit is a God.” Mankind must press on from the word to the spirit, to perception and knowledge of the spirit.

When I remind you of these first verses of the Gospel of St. John, you will realise what little inclination there is to-day to take such things in earnest and to surmount the arbitrary interpretations so often accepted in matters of the greatest moment. Human intelligence itself must be quickened and illumined by what is revealed in spiritual vision.—Not that actual seership is essential; what matters is that the fruits of spiritual vision shall be understood. I have repeatedly emphasised that to-day it is not the seer alone who can apprehend the truth of clairvoyant experience; this apprehension is within the power of everyone at the present time, because the spiritual capacities of men are sufficiently mature if they will but resolve to exercise them and are not too indolent to do so. But if the level befitting humanity is to be achieved, such things as were mentioned in the lecture yesterday must be taken in deep earnestness ! I used a trivial example to show you how easy it is to be deluded by figures and numbers. Is there not a great deal of superstition where numbers are concerned? What can in some way be counted is accepted in science. Natural science loves to weigh, to compute, and social science loves statistics—again a matter of computation and reckoning. It will be difficult indeed for men to bring themselves to admit that all knowledge of the external world acquired through measure and number is so much delusion.

To measure—what does it mean, in reality? It means to compare something with a given dimension, be it length or volume. I can measure a line if I compare it with a line twice, three times, four times, etc. smaller:

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In such measurements, no matter whether of lengths or surfaces or weights, the qualitative element is entirely lacking. The number 3 always remains the same, whether one is counting sheep, human beings or politicians ! It is not a matter of the qualitative, but only of the quantum, the quantitative. The essential principle of volume and number is that the qualitative is left out of account. But for that very reason, all knowledge derived from the principles of volume and measure is illusion; and the fact which must be taken in all seriousness is that the moment we enter the world that can be weighed and measured, the world of space and time, we enter a world of illusion, a world that is nothing but a Fata Morgana as long as we take it to be reality. It is the ideal of present-day thinking to experience in connection with all the things of the external world of space and time, their spatial and temporal significance; whereas, in truth, what things signify in space and time is their external aspect only, and we must transcend space and time, penetrating to much deeper levels, if we are to reach the innermost truth, the innermost being of things. And so a future must come when men will be able to say: “Yes, with my intelligence I can apprehend the external world in the way that is the ideal of natural science. But the vista thus presented to me is wholly Ahrimanic.”—This does not mean that natural science is to be ignored or put aside; it is a matter of realising that this natural science leads only to the Ahrimanic illusion. Why, then, must man have natural science, in spite of the fact that it leads only to illusion? It is because in his earth-existence he is already on the descending curve of evolution. Of the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, the Greco-Latin epoch, it may be said that in respect of knowledge, man was relatively speaking at the zenith. But now, in the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, he is on the path of decline, he is a being growing physically weaker, and to perceive the world in the way the Greek perceived it would be too much for his strength.

That is something we are not told in history! Just imagine what modern historians would have to say about it—those worthy historians who describe Greece as if they were describing some region of their own time because they do not know that the Greeks looked out into nature with different eyes, listened with different ears from those of modern men. These historians do not tell us that modern human beings would suffer from constant headache or migraine if they were to see and hear in the outer world all that the Greeks saw and heard. The Greeks lived with infinitely greater intensity in the world of the senses. Our own apprehension of this world has already weakened. To be able to bear it, a Fata Morgana has to be and is presented to us. And not only what we perceive with the senses but on account of our scientific conceptions we “dream” about the external world—that, most emphatically of all, is a Fata Morgana. The greatest dreamers where the external world is concerned are precisely those who pride themselves on being realistic in their thinking. Darwin and John Stuart Mill are fundamentally dreamers. The dreamers are the very men who claim to be thorough-going realists.

But neither must we give ourselves up entirely to our own inner life and impulses. From the way things have developed in the movement represented by the “Theosophical Society”, many of you will have realised that cultivation of the inner life alone, as attempted by numbers of people to-day, does not lead to the goal befitting man in the present age. For the all too prevalent tendency is to make no free resolve of his own to transcend ordinary life and attain higher vision but rather to bring into prominence that in him which is not free. All kinds of hallucinatory tendencies, all kinds of faculties fraught with illusion come into play.

It should be realised that just as external science becomes Ahrimanic, the higher development of a man's inner nature becomes Luciferic if he gives himself up to mystical experiences. The Luciferic tendency wakens and becomes especially powerful in everyone who, without the self-training described in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, sets about any mystical deepening of the impulses already inherent in his nature. The Luciferic tendency shows itself in everyone who begins to brood over experiences of his inner life, and it is extremely powerful in present-day humanity. It takes effect in egoism of which most people are entirely unaware. One comes across so many to-day who are quite satisfied when they can say of something they have done, that they have no cause for self-reproach, that they did it to the best of their knowledge and according to their conscience. That is an entirely Luciferic attitude. For in what we do in life the point is not whether or not we have cause to reproach ourselves; what really matters is that we shall take things objectively, with complete detachment, and in accordance with the course of objective facts. And the majority of people to-day make no effort to achieve this objective understanding or to acquire knowledge of what is necessary for world-evolution.

Therefore spiritual science must emphasise the following:—That Ahriman is actually preparing for his incarnation; where we can recognise how he is preparing for it; and with what attitude it must be confronted.—In such questions the point is not to say: We do this or that in order that we may have no cause for self-reproach—but to learn to recognise the objective facts. We must come to know what is at work in the world, and act accordingly—for the world's sake.

It all amounts to this, that modern man only speaks truly of himself when he says that he hovers perpetually between two extremes: between the Ahrimanic on the one side, where he is presented with an outer delusion, a Fata Morgana, and, on the other, the Luciferic element within him which induces the tendency to illusions, hallucinations and the like. The Ahrimanic tendencies in man to-day live themselves out in science, the Luciferic tendencies, in religion, while in art he swings between the one extreme and the other. In recent times the tendencies of some artists have been more Luciferic—they are the expressionists; the tendencies of the others have been more Ahrimanic—they are the impressionists. And then, vacillating between all this, there are the people who want to be neither the one nor the other, who do not rightly assess either the Luciferic or the Ahrimanic but want to avoid both.—“Ahriman—no!—that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the Ahrimanic; that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the Luciferic!” They want to be virtuous, avoiding both the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic.

But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise.

And how can we train ourselves to do this?—By permeating what takes Ahrimanic form within us with a strongly Luciferic element. What is it that arises in modern man in an Ahrimanic form? It is his knowledge of the outer world. There is nothing more Ahrimanic than this knowledge of the material world, for it is sheer illusion. Nevertheless if the Fata Morgana that arises out of chemistry, out of physics, out of astronomy and the like can fill us with fiery enthusiasm and interest, then through our interest—which is itself Luciferic—we can wrest from Ahriman what is his own.

That, however, is just what human beings have no desire to do; they find it irksome. And many people who flee from external, materialistic knowledge are misconceiving their task and preparing the best possible incarnation for Ahriman in earth-existence. Again, what wells up in man's inmost being to-day is very strongly Luciferic. How can we train ourselves rightly in this direction?—By diving into it with our Ahrimanic nature, that is to say, by trying to avoid all illusions about our own inner life and impulses and observing ourselves just as we observe the outer world. Modern man must realise how urgent it is to educate himself in this way. Anyone who has an observant eye in these matters will often come across circumstances of which the following is an example.

A man tells him how indignant he is with countless human beings. He describes minutely how this or that in a, in b, in c, and so on, angers him. He has not an inkling that he is simply talking about his own characteristics. This peculiarity in human beings was never so widespread as it is to-day. And those who believe they are free of it, are the greatest culprits. The essential is that man should approach his own inner nature with Ahrimanic cold-bloodedness and dispassion. His inner nature is still fiery enough even when cooled down in this way! There is no need to fear that it will be over-cooled.

If the right stand is to be taken to Ahriman's future incarnation, men must become more objective where their own impulses are concerned, and far, far more subjective where the external world is concerned—not by introducing pictures of phantasy but by bringing interest, alert attention and devotion to the things of immediate life.

When men find one thing or another in outer life tedious, possibly because of the education they have received or because of other circumstances, the path which Ahriman wants to take for the benefit of his incarnation is greatly smoothed. Tedium is so widespread nowadays! I have known numbers of people who find it irksome to acquaint themselves for example with banking procedure, or the Stock Exchange, or single or double entry in book-keeping. But that is never the right attitude. It simply means that the point has not been discovered where a thing burns with interest. Once this point is reached, even a dry cash-book can become just as interesting as Schiller's Maid of Orleans, or Shakespeare's Hamlet, or anything else—even Raphael's Sistine Madonna. It is only a question of finding the point at which every single thing in life becomes interesting.

What I have just said may make you think that all these matters are very paradoxical. But in reality they are not. It is man who is paradoxical in his relationship to truth. What he must realise—and this is a dire necessity to-day—is that he, not the world, is at fault. Nothing does more to prepare the path for Ahriman's incarnation than to find this or that tedious, to consider oneself superior to one thing or another and refuse to enter into it. Again it is the same question of finding the point where everything is of interest. It is never a matter of a subjective rejection or acceptance of things, but of an objective recognition of the extent to which things are either Luciferic or Ahrimanic, with the result that the scales are over-weighted on the one side or the other.

To be interested in something does not mean that one considers it justifiable. It means simply that one develops an inner energy to get to grips with it and steer it into the right channel.

As some of you may know—it is a long time ago now—a number of friends bought themselves books on mathematics. A kind of “sporting spirit” had crept into them! They bought the works of Lübsen¹ but it was not long before most of the volumes found their way to library shelves and the mathematical knowledge was not much in evidence! This, of course, is not meant as a hint to tackle the matter again—I am making no such suggestion. But to come to grips with something in which, to begin with, one is not interested at all, in order that a new understanding of world-existence may arise—that is of untold significance. For such things as I want to bring home to you in these lectures—how Lucifer and Ahriman intervene in the evolution of mankind side by side with the Christ Impulse—these things must be taken in all earnestness and their consequences rightly assessed.

Had there been no Luciferic wisdom, no understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired through the Gnosis in the early centuries of Christendom. Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha diminished with the fading of the Luciferic wisdom. And where is there any evidence to-day of such understanding ? The fact that understanding cannot be found through external, Ahrimanic science is perceived by those who to some extent recognise its characteristics. Take, for example, a man like Cardinal Newman—a very significant figure in the sphere of religion during the second half of the nineteenth century. At his investiture as Cardinal in Rome, he declared that he could see no salvation for the religious development of mankind other than a new revelation!² But there it remained. He himself showed no special inclination to receive anything of the new spiritual life that can now stream into humanity out of the spiritual worlds. What he said remained in the sphere of abstraction.

In very truth humanity needs a new revelation. Of this there is evidence on all sides. There have been discussions recently about the deterioration in morals and in the general attitude to morality during the last four or five years. The conclusion reached is that denominational religious instruction must be introduced more intensively into the schools. But it cannot be emphasised often enough that this instruction was already being given and the times are supposed to have come under its influence. If the old denominational instruction is again to be introduced we shall simply be beginning the whole process over again. In a short time we shall be back where we were in 1914. It is in the highest degree important to realise that in the subconsciousness of human beings there are longings quite different in character from what comes to expression on the surface.

When we founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart earlier this year, we were obliged to arrange for the religious instruction to be divided among the various clergy. A particular hour is devoted to religious instruction, which is given by a Catholic priest for the Catholic children and by an Evangelical pastor for the Evangelicals. I shall not speak of the difficulties that came from the side of the priests—that is a chapter by itself. What I do want to say, however, is that an immediate desire was expressed for religious teaching apart from any denomination. At first I thought that the attendance would be insignificant in comparison with the numbers attending the denominational instruction. But in spite of the fact that soon there will not be a single pulpit in Stuttgart from which invectives are not poured on Anthroposophy, a large number of children—five times as many as we expected—have asked for a kind of anthroposophical instruction in religion, and the class has had to be divided into two. Subjectively this may not be altogether welcome, for it may prove to be a rod for our own backs. But of that I do not want to speak. I want only to show that there is a longing for progress in human beings but that they are asleep and do not perceive that forces are keeping these longings in subjection. And moreover the courage to bring these longings to the surface is very largely lacking.

Just think what the effect could be of knowledge such as that of the future incarnation of Ahriman, who is preparing for it by means I have been describing both yesterday and to-day. It is essential to inform ourselves objectively about these things in order that we may take the right stand towards what is going on around us in the way of preparation for the Ahriman-incarnation. Only if you apply deep and mature reflection to what has been said in these lectures about the Ahrimanic currents, will you be able to apprehend the gravity of the present situation.

• 1. Heinrich Borchert Lübsen (1801–64).
• 2. See his speech in Rome, May 12th, 1879, when he had been raised to the rank of Cardinal. “... Hitherto the civil power has been Christian. Even in countries separated from the Church, as in my own, the dictum was in force, when I was young, that ‘Christianity was the law of the land’. Now, everywhere that goodly framework of society, which is the creation of Christianity, is throwing off Christianity. The dictum to which I have referred, with a hundred others which followed upon it, is gone, or is going everywhere; and by the end of the century, unless the Almighty interferes, it will be forgotten.” (The Life of John Henry Newman, by Wilfrid Ward. Vol. 2, p. 460.)

The lecture yesterday will have shown you that if we are to acquire insight into the nature and evolution of humanity, we must be constantly mindful of the power and influence of Lucifer, of Christ, and of Ahriman.

These influences were, of course, already at work in earlier stages of cosmic evolution, but in spheres where it was unnecessary for people to have clear consciousness of their effects. On the other hand, the very purpose of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch is that human beings should become increasingly conscious of what takes effect through them in earthly existence. The unveiling of many more of the secrets of human life would be desirable at the present time if only there were greater willingness to face things frankly and objectively. For without the knowledge of certain facts of the kind indicated yesterday, it will not be possible for humanity to make progress either in the inner life or in the sphere of social life. Think only of something that is connected with the social problems we have recently been studying. It has been our aim to demonstrate the necessity for separating the spiritual life, and also the political life or life of rights, from the economic life. Our greatest concern is to create conditions throughout the world, or at least—for we cannot do more at present—to convince people of the necessity for conditions which would provide the foundation for a free spiritual life no longer dependent upon the other spheres of social life or as deeply entangled as it is today in the economic life on the one side and in the political life of the state on the other. Civilized humankind must either establish the independence of the spiritual life or face collapse—with the inevitable result of an Asiatic influence taking effect in the future.

Those who still do not recognize the gravity of the present situation in the world are also, in a certain respect, helping to prepare for Ahriman's incarnation. Many things in external life today bear witness to this. The ahrimanic incarnation will be greatly furthered if people fail to establish a free and independent spiritual life and allow it to remain entangled in the economic or political life. For the ahrimanic power has everything to gain by the spiritual life being even more closely intermingled with these other spheres. To the ahrimanic power a free spiritual life would denote a kind of darkness, and people's interest in it, a burning, raging fire. The establishment of this free spiritual life is essential in order that the right attitude, the right relationship, may be adopted to Ahriman's incarnation in the future.

But there is still a strong tendency today to conceal the facts of which we spoke yesterday. The vast majority of people cast a veil over these things; they refuse to see them as they really are and allow themselves to be deceived by words which have no connection with reality. And very often, endeavors to shirk reality are described as “honest” and “well-meaning.”

Take, for example, the recently published letter of Romain Rolland, in which he says that people should not allow themselves to be deluded by erstwhile proclamations of the victorious powers concerning justice and the upholding of political rights. The treatment which Russia is receiving from the Entente has led him to speak in these terms. He says: No matter whether it be on the part of monarchies or republics—what has been said about rights and justice is so much phrase mongering; the issue at bottom is one of power, and of power alone.

Now even the apparent approach to reality still betrays willingness to be deluded, for Romain Rolland is just as deluded as ever; the delusion is not one whit less. It could only be so if such people were to discard phrases and recognize that all these things for which they aspire are meaningless as long as they fail to realize that if the old unified state as such—whether a democracy, a republic or a monarchy—does not become threefold, this is simply a way of helping Ahriman's incarnation. Hence all these things, including this recent letter addressed to the world by Romain Rolland, amount to nothing more than rhetorical harangues. People do not grasp the reality, for reality can be grasped only when the necessity for spiritual knowledge and deep penetration into the nature of things is thoroughly understood.

You are all familiar with the much quoted verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.” Do people really take these lines in earnest? They utter them, but so often as mere phrases! No particular emphasis is laid on the tense: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Word” here must obviously have the meaning it bore in ancient Greece. It is not “word” as understood today—word as mere sound—but it is the inner, spiritual reality. In either case, however, it is the imperfect tense that is employed. The implication therefore is: “In the beginning the Word was; but it is no longer.” Otherwise the sentence would run: “Now is the Word; and the Word is not with God; it was with God, and a God was the Word but is so no longer.” This, moreover, is what stands in the Gospel of St. John; otherwise what would be the meaning of the words immediately following: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This indicates a further evolution of the Word. “Word” also means anything that human beings can acquire in the way of intellectual wisdom through their efforts and through their intelligence. But it must be quite clear to us that what “word” denotes here is not really the goal for which humanity must strive at the present time or in the immediate future. To express what is now the goal, we should have to say: “Let human beings seek for the Spirit that reveals itself in the Word; for the Spirit is with God, and the Spirit is a God.” Humankind must press on from the word to the spirit, to perception and knowledge of the spirit.

When I remind you of these first verses of the Gospel of St. John, you will realize what little inclination there is today to take such things in earnest and to surmount the arbitrary interpretations so often accepted in matters of the greatest moment. Human intelligence itself must be quickened and illumined by what is revealed in spiritual vision—not that actual seership is essential; what matters is that the fruits of spiritual vision shall be understood. I have repeatedly emphasized that today it is not the seer alone who can apprehend the truth of clairvoyant experience; this apprehension is within the power of everyone at the present time, because the spiritual capacities of human beings are sufficiently mature if they will but resolve to exercise them and are not too indolent to do so. But if the level befitting humanity is to be achieved, such things as were mentioned in the lecture yesterday must be taken in deep earnestness! I used a trivial example to show you how easy it is to be deluded by figures and numbers. Is there not a great deal of superstition where numbers are concerned? What can in some way be counted is accepted in science. Natural science loves to weigh, to compute, and social science loves statistics—again a matter of computation and reckoning. It will be difficult indeed for people to bring themselves to admit that all knowledge of the external world acquired through measure and number is so much delusion.

To measure—what does it mean, in reality? It means to compare something with a given dimension, be it length or volume. I can measure a line if I compare it with a line twice, three times, four times, etc., smaller:

In such measurements, no matter whether of lengths or surfaces or weights, the qualitative element is entirely lacking. The number three always remains the same, whether one is counting sheep, human beings, or politicians.

It is not a matter of the qualitative, but only of the quantum, the quantitative. The essential principle of volume and number is that the qualitative is left out of account. But for that very reason, all knowledge derived from the principles of volume and measure is illusion; and the fact which must be taken in all seriousness is that the moment we enter the world that can be weighed and measured, the world of space and time, we enter a world of illusion, a world that is nothing but a fata morgana as long as we take it to be reality. It is the ideal of present-day thinking to experience in connection with all the things of the external world of space and time, their spatial and temporal significance; whereas, in truth, what things signify in space and time is their external aspect only, and we must transcend space and time, penetrating to much deeper levels, if we are to reach the innermost truth, the innermost being of things. And so a future must come when people will be able to say: “Yes, with my intelligence I can apprehend the external world in the way that is the ideal of natural science. But the vista thus presented to me is wholly ahrimanic.” This does not mean that natural science is to be ignored or put aside; it is a matter of realizing that this natural science leads only to the ahrimanic illusion. Why, then, must people have natural science, in spite of the fact that it leads only to illusion? It is because in earth existence they are already on the descending curve of evolution. Of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Greco-Latin epoch, it may be said that with respect to knowledge, humanity was, relatively speaking, at the zenith. But now, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, human beings are on the path of decline, they are a being growing physically weaker, and to perceive the world in the way the Greeks perceived it would be too much for their strength.

That is something we are not told in history! Just imagine what modern historians would have to say about it—those worthy historians who describe Greece as if they were describing some region of their own time because they do not know that the Greeks looked out into nature with different eyes, listened with different ears from those of modern people. These historians do not tell us that modern human beings would suffer from constant headache or migraine if they were to see and hear in the outer world all that the Greeks saw and heard. The Greeks lived with infinitely greater intensity in the world of the senses. Our own apprehension of this world has already weakened. To be able to bear it, a fata morgana has to be and is presented to us. And not only what we perceive with the senses but on account of our scientific conceptions we “dream” about the external world—that, most emphatically of all, is a fata morgana. The greatest dreamers where the external world is concerned are precisely those who pride themselves on being realistic in their thinking. Darwin and John Stuart Mill are fundamentally dreamers. The dreamers are the very people who claim to be thoroughgoing realists.

But neither must we give ourselves up entirely to our own inner life and impulses. From the way things have developed in the movement represented by the “Theosophical Society,” many of you will have realized that cultivation of the inner life alone, as attempted by numbers of people today, does not lead to the goal befitting humanity in the present age. For the all too prevalent tendency is to make no free resolve to transcend ordinary life and attain higher vision but rather to bring into prominence that in us which is not free. All kinds of hallucinatory tendencies, all kinds of faculties fraught with illusion come into play.

It should be realized that just as external science becomes ahrimanic, the higher development of our inner nature becomes luciferic if we give ourselves up to mystical experiences. The luciferic tendency wakens and becomes especially powerful in everyone who, without the self-training described in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, sets about any mystical deepening of the impulses already inherent in their nature. The luciferic tendency shows itself in everyone who begins to brood over experiences of their inner life, and it is extremely powerful in present-day humanity. It takes effect in egoism of which most people are entirely unaware. One comes across so many today who are quite satisfied when they can say of something they have done that they have no cause for self-reproach, that they did it to the best of their knowledge and according to their conscience. That is an entirely luciferic attitude. For in what we do in life the point is not whether or not we have cause to reproach ourselves; what really matters is that we shall take things objectively, with complete detachment, and in accordance with the course of objective facts. And the majority of people today make no effort to achieve this objective understanding or to acquire knowledge of what is necessary for world evolution.

Therefore spiritual science must emphasize the following: That Ahriman is actually preparing for his incarnation; where we can recognize how he is preparing for it; and with what attitude it must be confronted. In such questions the point is not to say: We do this or that in order that we may have no cause for self-reproach—but to learn to recognize the objective facts. We must come to know what is at work in the world, and act accordingly—for the world's sake.

It all amounts to this, that modern people only speak truly of themselves when they say that they hover perpetually between two extremes: between the ahrimanic on the one side, where they are presented with an outer delusion, a fata morgana, and, on the other, the luciferic element within them which induces the tendency to illusions, hallucinations and the like. The ahrimanic tendencies in people today live themselves out in science, the luciferic tendencies, in religion, while in art they swing between the one extreme and the other. In recent times the tendencies of some artists have been more luciferic—they are the expressionists; the tendencies of the others have been more ahrimanic—they are the impressionists. And then, vacillating between all this, there are the people who want to be neither the one nor the other, who do not rightly assess either the luciferic or the ahrimanic but want to avoid both. “Ahriman—no!—that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the ahrimanic; that I must not, will not do, for it would take me into the realm of the luciferic!” They want to be virtuous, avoiding both the ahrimanic and the luciferic.

But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise.

And how can we train ourselves to do this? By permeating what takes ahrimanic form within us with a strongly luciferic element. What is it that arises in modern people in an Ahrimanic form? It is his knowledge of the outer world. There is nothing more ahrimanic than this knowledge of the material world, for it is sheer illusion. Nevertheless if the fata morgana that arises out of chemistry, out of physics, out of astronomy and the like can fill us with fiery enthusiasm and interest, then through our interest—which is itself luciferic—we can wrest from Ahriman what is his own.

That, however, is just what human beings have no desire to do; they find it irksome. And many people who flee from external, materialistic knowledge are misconceiving their task and preparing the best possible incarnation for Ahriman in earth existence. Again, what wells up in our inmost being today is very strongly luciferic. How can we train ourselves rightly in this direction? By diving into it with our ahrimanic nature, that is to say, by trying to avoid all illusions about our own inner life and impulses and observing ourselves just as we observe the outer world. Modern people must realize how urgent it is to educate themselves in this way. Anyone who has an observant eye in these matters will often come across circumstances of which the following is an example.

A man tells someone how indignant he is with countless human beings. He describes minutely how this or that in a, in b, in c, and so on, angers him. He has not an inkling that he is simply talking about his own characteristics. This peculiarity in human beings was never so widespread as it is today. And those who believe they are free of it, are the greatest culprits. The essential is that people should approach their own inner nature with ahrimanic cold-bloodedness and dispassion. Their inner nature is still fiery enough even when cooled down in this way! There is no need to fear that it will be overcooled.

If the right stand is to be taken to Ahriman's future incarnation, people must become more objective where their own impulses are concerned, and far, far more subjective where the external world is concerned—not by introducing pictures of fantasy but by bringing interest, alert attention, and devotion to the things of immediate life.

When people find one thing or another in outer life tedious, possibly because of the education they have received or because of other circumstances, the path which Ahriman wants to take for the benefit of his incarnation is greatly smoothed. Tedium is so widespread nowadays! I have known numbers of people who find it irksome to acquaint themselves for example with banking procedure, or the stock exchange, or single or double entry bookkeeping. But that is never the right attitude. It simply means that the point has not been discovered where a thing burns with interest. Once this point is reached, even a dry cashbook can become just as interesting as Schiller's Maid of Orleans, or Shakespeare's Hamlet, or anything else—even Raphael's Sistine Madonna. It is only a question of finding the point at which every single thing in life becomes interesting.

What I have just said may make you think that all these matters are very paradoxical. But in reality they are not. It is we who are paradoxical in our relationship to truth. What we must realize—and this is a dire necessity today—is that we, not the world, are at fault. Nothing does more to prepare the path for Ahriman's incarnation than to find this or that tedious, to consider oneself superior to one thing or another and refuse to enter into it. Again it is the same question of finding the point where everything is of interest. It is never a matter of a subjective rejection or acceptance of things, but of an objective recognition of the extent to which things are either luciferic or ahrimanic, with the result that the scales are overweighted on the one side or the other.

To be interested in something does not mean that one considers it justifiable. It means simply that one develops an inner energy to get to grips with it and steer it into the right channel.

As some of you may know—it is a long time ago now—a number of friends bought themselves books on mathematics. A kind of “sporting spirit” had crept into them! They bought the works of Lubsen [Heinrich Borchert Lubsen (1801-64).] but it was not long before most of the volumes found their way to library shelves and the mathematical knowledge was not much in evidence! This, of course, is not meant as a hint to tackle the matter again—I am making no such suggestion. But to come to grips with something in which; to begin with, one is not interested at all, in order that .a new understanding of world existence may arise—that is of untold significance. For such things as I want to bring home to you in these lectures—how Lucifer and Ahriman intervene in the evolution of humankind side by side with the Christ impulse—these things must be taken in all earnestness and their consequences rightly assessed.

Had there been no luciferic wisdom, no understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired through the gnosis in the early centuries of Christendom. Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha diminished with the fading of the luciferic wisdom. And where is there any evidence today of such understanding? The fact that understanding cannot be found through external, ahrimanic science is perceived by those who to some extent recognize its characteristics. Take, for example, a man like Cardinal Newman—a very significant figure in the sphere of religion during the second half of the nineteenth century. At his investiture as Cardinal in Rome, he declared that he could see no salvation for the religious development of humankind other than a new revelation! [See his speech in Rome, May 12, 1879, when he had been raised to the rank of Cardinal. “... Hitherto the civil power has been Christian. Even in countries separated from the Church, as in my own, the dictum was in force, when I was young, that ‘Christianity was the law of the land.’ Now, everywhere that goodly framework of society, which is the creation of Christianity, is throwing off Christianity. The dictum to which I have referred, with a hundred others which followed upon it, is gone, or is going everywhere; and by the end of the century, unless the Almighty interferes, it will be forgotten.” (The Life of John Henry Newman, by Wilfrid Ward, Vol. 2, p. 460.)] But there it remained. He himself showed no special inclination to receive anything of the new spiritual life that can now stream into humanity out of the spiritual worlds. What he said remained in the sphere of abstraction.

In very truth humanity needs a new revelation. Of this there is evidence on all sides. There have been discussions recently about the deterioration in morals and in the general attitude toward morality during the last four or five years. The conclusion reached is that denominational religious instruction must be introduced more intensively into the schools. But it cannot be emphasized often enough that this instruction was already being given and the times are supposed to have come under its influence. If the old denominational instruction is again to be introduced we shall simply be beginning the whole process over again. In a short time we shall be back where we were in 1914. It is in the highest degree important to realize that in the subconsciousness of human beings there are longings quite different in character from what comes to expression on the surface.

When we founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart earlier this year, we were obliged to arrange for the religious instruction to be divided among the various clergy. A particular hour is devoted to religious instruction, which is given by a Catholic priest for the Catholic children and by an Evangelical pastor for the Evangelicals. I shall not speak of the difficulties that came from the side of the priests—that is a chapter by itself. What I do want to say, however, is that an immediate desire was expressed for religious teaching apart from any denomination. At first I thought that the attendance would be insignificant in comparison with the numbers attending the denominational instruction. But in spite of the fact that soon there will not be a single pulpit in Stuttgart from which invectives are not poured on Anthroposophy, a large number of children—five times as many as we expected—have asked for a kind of anthroposophical instruction in religion, and the class has had to be divided into two. Subjectively this may not be altogether welcome, for it may prove to be a rod for our own backs. But of that I do not want to speak. I want only to show that there is a longing for progress in human beings but that they are asleep and do not perceive that forces are keeping these longings in subjection. And moreover the courage to bring these longings to the surface is very largely lacking.

Just think what the effect could be of knowledge such as that of the future incarnation of Ahriman, who is preparing for it by means I have been describing both yesterday and today. It is essential to inform ourselves objectively about these things in order that we may take the right stand toward what is going on around us in the way of preparation for the Ahriman incarnation. Only if you apply deep and mature reflection to what has been said in these lectures about the ahrimanic currents will you be able to apprehend the gravity of the present situation.