The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The course of the negotiations [of the assembly of delegates] is discussed. Schwebsch's proposal with the six points is mentioned again.

Dr. Unger: The formation of the committee must be described and the replacement of the central committee by this committee.

Dr. Steiner: This point is very important. Actually, everything depends on this point. First of all, Dr. Schwebsch has very well described the tendency of the matter and that the matter is known in Stuttgart. It would just have to be characterized a little more specifically. It would have to be said what is meant by it; furthermore, how to characterize the wrong position of the tax - you can't just always complain - and how to characterize the reversal of the tax. That would have to be presented by the person who is thinking of giving the presentation. A great deal depends on this being presented in the right way.

The matter requires a thorough study.

Theodor Lauer and Jose del Monte ask Dr. Kolisko to give this report.

Dr. Unger: It should be done together with a member of the old Central Executive Board & 5.

Dr. Schwebsch speaks.

Dr. Kolisko: It should be done by Mr. Leinhas.

Dr. Steiner: If it is done by a member of the old Central Committee, it sounds too much like the Theosophical Society. It should be done by someone who speaks from the outside, as an observer from the outside, and at most the old Central Committee should comment on it afterwards. He does not have to offer any justification, otherwise it sounds too much like the Theosophical Society. How can the old central council give this report impartially? I would like to know that!

Emil Leinhas: It would be more impressive if someone who was in opposition to the leadership did it.

Dr. Steiner: In the last few weeks, everyone has been well aware of the content of such a lecture. It should be possible to prepare a respectable lecture with the appropriate study and organization of thoughts. Many people knew exactly what the sins were.

Emil Leinhas and others suggested Dr. Kolisko for the lecture.

Dr. Kolisko: The failings could be explained as being due to a lack of awareness.

Dr. Steiner: It is a great pity that this first lecture cannot be given by someone who is linked to the life of the Anthroposophical Movement through having founded a branch. For many reasons, the life of the anthroposophical movement has dwindled to the same extent that personalities who were not connected with the founding of branches have entered leading positions. Everywhere the branches will die under the successors, because the successors do not muster the same enthusiasm as the founders. You may judge the quality of having founded a branch or of having established it, but that means something quite different from having entered a position that had already been created. In a sense, it would be true of Werbeck that he could have been well informed about what was lacking in the founding of a branch because there was no central leadership. Someone like that would know, from the former branch leaders.

If you take Mrs. Wolfram or anyone who has set up a branch, you will find that they know how it is to work with a central administration. Certain branch leaders have lacked this. Werbeck will not have any complaints in this regard. Tell him, Mr. Leinhas, to account for all his friendship for you, and then ask him for his opinion. Of course, he will only bring up the negative things; but that is useful if it is presented in such a way that one can see what positive things will come out of it.

Emil Leinhas answers.

Dr. Steiner: It would be necessary to study from this point of view what someone who should lead a branch has missed due to the lack of central leadership.

Dr. Krüger speaks to this. Jose del Monte: Dr. Kolisko should give the report.

Dr. Steiner: It seems to me that the main reason for this is that no one else can be found. This task should not be underestimated. You have to bear in mind that the person who gives this lecture is, in a sense, in the position of someone who has been at the forefront of the opposition so far, and who actually has the sympathy of this opposition. He must be able to inspire people just by the way he presents himself. He must represent the counter-complex of what was, namely, what should become. It is the most difficult task imaginable that anyone could undertake with regard to the Anthroposophical Society.

Emil Leinhas: So we can entrust Dr. Kolisko with this task?

Dr. Steiner: He will have to do it. The difficulty lies only in the fact that as a member of the Anthroposophical Society he is only nine years old, for his membership dates from 1914; so he is a child of the Society. Well, war years count double; Austrian noses are always more amiable than others, even when you throw your head back.³

Dr. Unger: Whether [he] should reel off the whole opposition?

Dr. Steiner: With sufficient cooperation, it would be possible. Of course, in the bosom of the community that is sitting here, it will be very easy to find everything that needs to be presented.

Emil Leinhas: Surely it will be possible to treat it so that we have to present a joint confession of guilt?

Dr. Steiner: Nevertheless, it doesn't have to be.

Emil Leinhas and several others talk about the inner history of the Society (and the history of its institutions).

Dr. Kolisko: These include: the Religious Renewal Movement, the League for Free Spiritual Life and the Waldorf School.

Dr. Steiner: It is a very difficult story. Care must be taken to ensure that the matter is dealt with objectively, very objectively. Up to now, discussion of this point has been emotionally unobjective. It should be dealt with objectively. The point of “inner history” is in itself suitable for raising the whole thing to a very serious level. It must be shown how individual institutions have arisen from a universal of anthroposophy, and how they therefore also have the inner conditions for flourishing. And then one must show how these institutions can flourish, how, for example, the Waldorf school can attract a Japanese professor to look at it, that the English come and so on. The thing is that from what is healthy in the institutions, and from what is sick, the repercussions on society show up. Care must be taken that such institutions, which are already established in the outer world, do not suffer damage. The Waldorf School and the “Kommenden Tag” must not be harmed, they must be used. One must not blindly rush into it. On the other hand, it must also be emphasized that the other institutions must emulate those that are flourishing.

Dr. Kolisko: The difficult question of religious renewal must also be dealt with.

Dr. Hahn speaks to this question.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps someone could at least hint at how something like religious renewal should be treated; at least the direction of it. Otherwise there is no certainty. There must be an awareness of how to treat something like this, from which points of view. Especially when the living conditions of society come into consideration, one must be clear about the points of view from which religious renewal must be treated.

Emil Leinhas: Surely Dr. Rittelmeyer is not supposed to present the fundamentals?

Dr. Steiner: It will be necessary for the Anthroposophical Society to bring the right point of view to the discussion.

Dr. Unger and Stockmeyer speak to this.

Marie Steiner: If we go back to the starting points and take as our first point the lack of interest in the path of knowledge, and make point 3 into point 1, because that shows the starting point of the religious movement, that would be good. The starting point was that theologians came to Dr. Steiner and said: Religion can no longer give us what we need to satisfy people's spiritual needs. But the fact is that the Anthroposophical Society puts some people off. Could we give them what their souls need in a more religiously attuned form? In any case, the theologians are the ones who asked for it and who knew that all knowledge could be given through anthroposophy and through Dr. Steiner. I had a conversation with Prof. Beckh, who said, “We have made a big mistake. We have done it in such a way that we do not convey the knowledge, the Anthroposophy, to the community, so that we talk about Anthroposophical knowledge among ourselves, but not in the community. — The starting point was that the Anthroposophical Society should not become involved with the religious renewal movement, which does not primarily pass on knowledge but rather provides pastoral care. What has happened is that the content of anthroposophical knowledge has been taken and the material basis of the Anthroposophical Society has been used, and now it is being claimed that all the knowledge comes from theology. But it was not anthroposophy that needed religious renewal, but the others, the theologians.

Dr. Steiner: Why should the main thing not be asserted as such, that with full recognition of the content of the religious movement (note from Dr. Heyer: “Unger obviously knows it too little”), the fact that the anthroposophical movement is the creator of the religious renewal movement is placed in the foreground? Why should this point, which is the main point, not be emphasized? If one describes it conscientiously, it was the case that younger theologians emerged who said: We are at the end, we are finished. No more pastoral care can be gained from theology. Theology has no understanding of true Christianity. Now we need anthroposophy, which gives us that again. — That has happened. A cult has really emerged.

Now, that this is a necessity in the present within civilization, that simply follows from the fact that this longing has already emerged strongly precisely within the Theosophical Society. When Olcott was still president of the Theosophical Society, some people converted to Catholicism. Olcott said: If all Theosophists convert to Catholicism, then we can close the Theosophical Society. This was already an acute problem within the Theosophical Society. Then the whole calamity occurred with the Leadbeater crisis in the Theosophical Society, and all with the most repulsive degenerations. Leadbeater converted to an Old Catholic Church. What was completely missing was the creative element. There was a convulsive return to the old cult. Outwardly, it was connected with the theory, which in the theory of descent went back to the original ape. I don't know if people know the things better?

But here in the Anthroposophical Society, something new has emerged creatively. Of course, every cult will include the old elements; but here the necessary creative element has emerged anew. Why not point out that the Anthroposophical Society has been able to create what the religious movement needs? There is no need to emphasize the petty mutual rancor. The point is to emphasize the fact that the Anthroposophical Society was able to create this religious movement. The point is to regulate the mutual relationship, and to do so in a very clear way. Now the devil's advocate would have to come and say that the Anthroposophical Society has not had the right instinct. That is what should come, that one develops an awareness of everything that is going on in the Anthroposophical Society. But the Anthroposophical Society has slept through all the facts.

There is much talk in the world about the Waldorf school. But the people in the anthroposophical movement had to be made aware of the Waldorf school. Little has come from the Anthroposophical Society that has put the Waldorf school movement in the appropriate anthroposophical light. It is precisely from the anthroposophical side that the moment could be emphasized that it is only the anthroposophical movement that has succeeded in founding a school that is universally human. Anthroposophy sets out not to found an anthroposophical school of thought, but a school for all humanity. The fact that something can be anthroposophical without necessarily being “anthroposophical” is something that must come out on this occasion, with striking examples. There was no article in “Anthroposophie” about the religious movement. I know that the magazine “Anthroposophie” is not very well known in this circle here. The most important event in anthroposophical history is missing from the work of the Anthroposophical Society.³ She just trots on. When I come to the Waldorf School, I see the numbers of “Anthroposophie” lying there; they are picked up quite late. But I think what I said belongs to the history of the religious movement. When we return to this starting point, everything will be said.

Emil Leinhas: Within the religious renewal movement, the origin from anthroposophy is not discussed.

Marie Steiner: I could see from what the gentleman said [the name was not recorded] that this point of view is strictly adhered to. I cannot imagine Dr. Rittelmeyer doing such a thing. But what others have done seems more questionable.

Several people talk about keeping quiet about the anthroposophical origin of the religious renewal movement: Dr. Streicher, Dr. Heyer, etc.

Dr. Steiner: The point is to avoid the opponents adding new antagonism to the old antagonism. By pointing the finger of accusation at the fact that things have been given in Dornach and here in Stuttgart, one only makes new enemies. It is not necessary to present this to people on a plate. The point of this discussion is that something like this can be avoided quite well, because that would only be grist to the opponents' mill. You don't have to deny such a fact, but you don't have to present it either.

I didn't say that you should point out how it happened. There is no need to present the outer story. That the religious movement is a child of anthroposophy can be deduced from the nature of things. It is not necessary for anyone to present the outer history now. It is not a matter of pointing the finger at things that will give the opponents ammunition. It was agreed that one should not present the things of the world in an unclear and vague way, but should present the matter clearly from its essence. What I have outlined above can be put forward without anyone from the religious movement being able to object to it. It only leads to quarrels when they are accused of denying their origin. They can say what they themselves believe to be the truth.

Emil Leinhas speaks to this.

Dr. Steiner: When it is said that they do not talk about anthroposophy, that is nonsense: they only talk about anthroposophy. What is the significance of approaching these people in such a way? If they introduce other people to spiritual life, what does it matter if they do not immediately label it as nonsense by using the word “anthroposophy”? They have every reason to avoid the word “anthroposophy”.

Marie Steiner: I had the impression that you present it as if all of this could be derived from theology.

Dr. Steiner: This is a dispute about ownership. This is about something other than the dispute over ownership. It is about characterizing the anthroposophical movement itself. Turn the question around: Would there be a religious renewal if there were no anthroposophy? But that already answers the question. One could just as well ask Emil Bock whether his essays represent anthroposophy. It is up to the Anthroposophical Society to take care of the matter of anthroposophy. I do not notice any tactics in this regard among people. The tactic was collecting money.

There are various things to be considered. You have to bear in mind that here in Stuttgart, the task of dealing with such matters is different from that of any other branch. Here, the right balance should have been established.

Imagine any branch that is led by someone very well-behaved. One of the best-behaved branches is in Elberfeld. Let us assume that one of the personalities who is now within the renewal movement also appears in Elberfeld. Now it is natural that these people - even if they are the youngest - have a range of concepts that the others do not even suspect; one is then differently prepared for the spiritual questions.

It is spoken about this.

Dr. Steiner: These are special questions that cannot be treated in this way. Here in Stuttgart, the task would be to gradually develop the right relationship. This would consist of what happens at Landhausstrasse 70 becoming so important for the theologians themselves that they would always appear in person. Then the community members will also be present. The point is that the Anthroposophical Society is not just the mother, but also remains the mother. For this to happen, there must be real life in the Anthroposophical Society. That must be there. Now it is no longer possible for the Anthroposophical Society to simply go on trotting along; it must grow with these things. It is necessary that a center of this growth be formed in Stuttgart.

You can say anything, but you have to say it with the awareness that the tradition of ritual to the religious renewal gave this religious movement the backbone. If you simply have my lecture of December 30, 1922 [in CW 219] interpreted in such a way that you are merely told negatively that anthroposophy does not need a cult, then people lose this backbone. It is never a matter of putting forward the negative assertions alone, but of also putting forward the other thing that I have radically emphasized: For present-day civilization it is necessary that there should be a separate Anthroposophical Society to nourish this other movement. If this is presented in the right way, the Anthroposophical Society can only gain from it, and there is no need to go into the question of ranks. The Anthroposophical Society is independent of the daughter movements, but the daughter movements are not independent of the Anthroposophical Society.

There are a few comments.

Dr. Steiner: Most of the people working outside don't really know very much about the way the financial side of things is handled.⁴For us, however, it is a matter of showing the fertility of the anthroposophical movement at the delegates' meeting.

Marie Steiner: I have read letters from representatives of religious renewal that did not give this impression of restraint. There is a terribly strong competition that seems authoritative.

It is suggested that a speaker for the question of religious renewal must be found. Dr. Hahn is suggested. Leinhas and Dr. Hahn are discussing this.

Dr. Steiner: We have a textbook example here again. Just think how easy it would be for a representative of the religious renewal movement to speak from his point of view about the matter. But the Anthroposophical Society has neglected to inform itself about the matter. I am convinced that this information will be missing if it is not followed by a thorough study. It must be discussed in a proper and professional manner.

Marie Steiner: They will not report on what happened during the courses.

Dr. Steiner: One should not talk about these things at all in terms of believing that one has to communicate the content of the external story, but rather the essence and significance of the matter for the anthroposophical movement.

Ernst Uehli comments on this.

Dr. Steiner: You don't need to say anything about the religious movement. You can get to know it. So you don't need to characterize it to people. But the anthroposophical point of view, which has not been asserted so far, must be taken into account. This anthroposophical point of view is terribly easy to find if you are only interested in it. Steffen is now publishing my lectures on scholasticism in the “Goetheanum”. In them you have all the points of view you need. Of course you have to familiarize yourself with the material. If you just inform yourself a little, then you have everything you need. Leo XIH revived Thomism for the Catholic Church, but in a dead way. In this dead way, all of Christianity persists. But the religious renewal movement demands a living way. You have everything in this lecture series on scholasticism. The elements have been given everywhere.

There must be a center somewhere that is interested in anthroposophical questions, and that should be Stuttgart. These things should be present! The Goetheanum is also coming to Stuttgart. I see it lying upstairs in the Waldorf School. But in any case, what is in it can be processed. The points of view are everywhere, the points of view are really there.

Dr. Hahn: On this positive basis, I would be happy to give the presentation.

The Waldorf School will be discussed.

Dr. Steiner: That can be done. But I don't see why this should be the main point. The main thing is that there is a Waldorf School. There are enough things about this. The person who wants to give a presentation should comment on this. So Dr. von Heydebrand wants to talk about the Waldorf School. Hopefully she will then stop being a Waldorf teacher and be an anthroposophist.

The Hamburg school is being discussed.

Dr. Steiner: From here, no position can be taken on other schools. The financial question will decide the matter by itself. You can't let both schools exist and thereby perish, while you could maintain one. That should be terribly easy to arrange. Werbeck himself and his entire entourage are not in favor of this school being established in Hamburg. The Werbeck branch is very large. It will be very difficult to found a second branch based on Pohlmann's and Kändler's authority.

Blumenthal once said that you can fake everything at the theater: criticism, applause – but you can't fake the box office. The members who are only fictitious will pay nothing for the Goetheanum.

Emil Leinhas: They are not only turning outside. Pohlmann has threatened that he also wants to turn to the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Steiner: The letters to me will not prove much. The whole school came about because Pohlmann wanted to pay. I do not yet know about this other intention of his, that he wants to turn to the Society. But that proves nothing at all. It seems that an understanding is not possible. Then it must be left without an understanding. I do not believe that Werbeck wants an understanding. I do not believe that it can lead to anything other than Werbeck speaking out against it. So all our things are private matters. The old question arises as to whether the whole Anthroposophical Society can be used as a school. The only thing we can talk about is whether we should do something to have Kändler there.

Emil Leinhas: Perhaps we can come to an agreement to the effect that there is a division of interest in Hamburg.

Dr. Steiner: Pohlmann is the founder. Kändler fits in quite well with Pohlmann. Why can't we take this point of view: “Mr. Pohlmann, you are the founder of the school; do what you want. We cannot support it because we have no money. We must first let the Waldorf School in Stuttgart exist as a model school.

Dr. Heyer will speak at the delegates' meeting about the Hochschulbund and the threefold social order. Dr. Unger will speak on this.

Dr. Steiner: The Hochschulbund should show how not to do it.

Dr. Stein and Dr. Kolisko want to take on the question of science and university courses. The question arises about the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Association for a Free Intellectual Life). Ernst Uehli knows nothing about it. Dr. Unger comments on this question.

Dr. Steiner: More than twelve personalities have signed this paper [“Federation for a Free Intellectual Life”]. They were former members of the committee. All those named are prime examples of the curule chairs.

Would it not perhaps be better not to talk about the “Federation for a Free Intellectual Life” since it is not an offshoot of the Anthroposophical Society? It has been buried enough already. (Note from Dr. Heyer: “The Bund could still become something today.”) It is strange that no one has thought of reviving the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Association for a Free Spiritual Life).

Dr. Kolisko and Dr. Krüger comment on this.

Dr. Steiner: We recently added up our researchers. Of these eleven researchers, not a single one seems to have been interested in the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Association for a Free Intellectual Life), although it is precisely this free intellectual life that should be the foundation on which these researchers stand.

Dr. Streicher will say something about this.

Dr. Steiner: (Note from Dr. Heyer: The “Bund für freies Geistesleben” was intended to win over people who are only just searching for a standpoint.) There are many people who are searching for a standpoint. If the Anthroposophical Society itself had been founded in the same way as this one, with only 12 signatures on the paper and then nothing more (Dr. Heyer's note: “Kurulische Stühle” [curule chairs]), then the Anthroposophical Society would not exist at all. The “Association for a Free Spiritual Life” could be a good advance troop for the Anthroposophical Society, in that people who do not initially want to become members of the Anthroposophical Society but who want to participate in a real spiritual life that is building itself up independently would join. So far nothing has been done about this, just as our researchers have done nothing at all. It should also be possible for someone to get behind this idea and be a kind of vanguard for the Society. Why should these things not be possible? Why should something like this not be done?

You yourself are a symptom of this whole complex of problems. Your calling was only brought about, only made sense, because the threefolding movement was understood as a “federation for free spiritual life”. Now, from the time you were called until the time you came, they had forgotten what they had called you for.

Dr. Kolisko: Many people would be interested in the scientific work.

Dr. Steiner: Try to get the heavy mass of the Research Institute on its feet so that it will stand behind you as one block at the delegates' meeting.

The question is discussed as to who will take over a presentation about the institutes.

Dr. Steiner: The only question is whether someone who is inside or someone who is outside should speak.

It is decided that Strakosch and Maier will speak about the scientific research institute. Dr. Palmer should speak about the clinical-therapeutic institute, Emil Leinhas should take over the co-presentation.

Dr. Steiner: You were mistaken about the comparison of the horse. It started with the most primitive means. The matter only started to stop when the horse was to be brought to a trot with the right bridle.

Dr. Kolisko and Emil Leinhas discuss the question of propagation.

Dr. Steiner: At the delegates' meeting, some kind of human trust should be inaugurated. At the very least, we should take advantage of the fact that we have a number of representatives of the Society here who are working to spread the means. From the way people speak, it should be clear that the Anthroposophical Society would become a kind of collaborator in spreading the word. On the part of the physicians, someone should appear who explains the full significance of the medical stream, who speaks the preface to the Vademecum. In the medical field it is terribly easy to present a matter that strikes like a bomb. Such things, which must ultimately be decided by the experts, cannot be decided at a meeting of delegates. It would only lead to idle talk. We should approach it in such a way that we use the opportunity to get the Society to work with us on this. We only have to consider how easily people take an interest in two areas: religion and medicine, because people are afraid for their souls after death and for their physical bodies before death. These two areas are the easiest to work with.

Dr. Palmer speaks on this matter.

Dr. Steiner: Regarding specific things, I would think it desirable to point out the centrifuge. It is like when two spouses quarrel. Neither is to blame; the blame lies in the middle.

The branch work is being discussed.

Dr. Steiner: At most, the results of the branch work can be discussed. You cannot give directives there. You can only have a discussion about the experiences that have been achieved. But in any case, interference in the freedom of the branches must be avoided.

Jürgen von Grone: I am in favor of not talking about the youth movement.

Dr. Steiner: The point is to find someone who will speak about the youth movement from an anthroposophical point of view. It can only be a question of how far one has to intervene in a supportive way in order to have the next generation among young people. It is a delicate question. The fact that the connection between the generations has been completely broken means that it is easy to make young people obstinate when you approach them in a fatherly, motherly or auntly way. You must not flatter them, be unjust to them or flatter them.

Emil Leinhas talks about it.

Dr. Röschl wants to help Dr. Hahn prepare the presentation on the youth movement. Dr. Wachsmuth speaks about it. The question of opponents is discussed. Dr. Rittelmeyer should speak about it, as he has extensive experience. Dr. Stein comments on it.

Dr. Kolisko: One should characterize the opponents, for example Seiling and Goesch.

Kolisko wants to take on the Seiling case, Dr. Unger the Goesch case.

Marie Steiner: Fräulein von Heydebrand should treat the Schmettau case.

Dr. Steiner: Why should we treat the Schmettau case as such?

The Schmettau case is not a case that comes into consideration.

Marie Steiner: But the opponents use this case - ——

Dr. Steiner: But now it is so that I have only seen her a few times.

The opponents, as for what happened in the case of Schmettau – Fräulein von Schmettau – [here is a larger gap in the notes] – things are simple. There is no need to discuss the psychological case of Ruth von Schmettau. On the other hand, Goesch needs psychiatric treatment because of the many indicatives and conjunctions. It must be shown that some people are ordinary liars. With Goesch, one must not shy away from showing that the whole gang takes a madman seriously. The things must be grasped from the characteristic side. You can't just dish up all the gossip. I don't think it's hard to do.

Dr. Kolisko and others talk about the trust organization and the management of the Society, Leinhas about the publications and the publishing house, the magazines “Dreigliederung” and “Anthroposophie”.

Dr. Steiner: The last issue of “Anthroposophie” was unsatisfactory. There will have to be a change.

Dr. Kolisko: We must take up the fight against the opponents of “Anthroposophy”. Articles about Seiling, Goesch and Leisegang must appear in it. I am thinking of writing an article about Seiling, one of the doctors about Goesch. The number of subscribers is much too small.

Dr. Steiner: “Anthroposophy” must be placed on the cultural basis to which it belongs. “Anthroposophy” must become the expression of the movement.

One should not talk theoretically, one should indicate how things can be carried through the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Heyer speaks to this.

Marie Steiner: There will be another presentation for the students. Call for and invitation to the delegates'

• 3. A typical gesture of Dr. Kolisko.
• 3. This sentence reads in Karl Schubert's notes: “The most important event in anthroposophical history is missing from the work of the Anthroposophical Movement.” The word “movement” was replaced by Marie Steiner in her publication with the word “society”. Dr. Heyer noted instead of this sentence: “The most important events are missing in the ‘Anthroposophy’.”
  Obviously, the remarks of Rudolf Steiner could only be insufficiently recorded. It may have been said that not only was the most recent important event in the anthroposophical movement not reported in the journal Anthroposophie, but that the most important events are missing altogether.
• 4. This last sentence was edited by Marie Steiner. In Karl Schubert's notes it originally reads: “Most of the people working outside don't really know that much about the way in which the matter financially (?)” — above that stands three-fold (?) — “is utilized.”

My dear friends!

Before I begin my lecture, I have to report that our dear friend Nelly Lichtenberg has left the physical plane. The younger friends may know her from her participation in our events, but the older participants know her very well and have certainly taken her deep into their hearts – as has her mother, who is left in mourning.

Nelly Lichtenberg, who had recently sought recovery in Stuttgart, left the physical plane there a few days ago. She and her mother, who was there for her care, have been part of our anthroposophical movement since its inception. And if I want to express in a few words what, in my opinion, best characterizes the deceased, who has left the physical plane, and her mother, I would say: their souls were made of pure loyalty and pure, deep devotion to the cause of anthroposophy. We all appreciated, when our movement here in Berlin was still extremely small, the heartfelt loyalty and deep understanding with which they both clung to the movement and participated in its development. Baroness Nelly Lichtenberg carried this loyal soul in a body that caused extraordinary difficulties for her outer life. But this soul actually came to terms with everything in a wonderful spirit of endurance, a spirit of endurance that combined with a certain inner, inspired joy in absorbing the spiritual. And this spirit of endurance, combined with this inner joyfulness, warmed by a confidence in the life of the soul, on whatever plane in the future this soul life may unfold, all this was also found in the now deceased at her last sickbed in Stuttgart, where I found her in this state of mind and soul during my last visits. It is clear to you all that anyone who can in any way contribute to a person's recovery must do everything in their power to bring about that recovery; but you also all know how karma works and how it is sometimes simply impossible to achieve such a recovery. It was indeed painful to see only the future when one had the suffering woman before one in the last weeks. But her soul, which was also extraordinarily hopeful for the spiritual world, led her and those who had to do with her even in the last days beyond all that. And so we may say that in this soul, which left the physical plane with her, there lived here on earth one who had taken up anthroposophy in the true sense of the word – had taken it up in such a way that this anthroposophy was not just a theoretical world view, a satisfaction of the intellect or even a light satisfaction of the feelings, but was the whole content of her life, the certainty of her existence. And it was with this content of her life and with this certainty of her soul's existence that she left this physical plane. It is for us, especially for those of us who have gone through so many of the hours here in physical existence with her in the same spiritual striving, to turn our thoughts to her soul's existence. And that is what we want to do faithfully! She shall often find our thoughts united with her thoughts in the continuation of her existence in another realm, and she will always be a faithful companion of our spiritual striving, even in her further soul existence. We can be certain of that. And that we promise her this, that we want to powerfully direct our thoughts to her, as a sign of honor, we want to rise from our seats.

My dear friends!

In the first part of my lecture today, which I am very pleased to be able to give to you again during my journey, I would like to raise some points that may perhaps need to be discussed at some point. These points concern the change within our anthroposophical movement that is felt by many of you – and indeed more or less approvingly, but also negatively by some.

I am talking about such a change and I think that most of us feel this change. I will only briefly characterize some of this change, because I do not want to talk about it at length.

The older of our dear members look back to the times when Anthroposophy was cultivated in small groups — at least in smaller groups than it is now — merely, I would like to say, in the way that is appropriate for small groups that combine a certain need for knowledge with a religious need to strive for certain views about the spiritual world today. We have, and it is now a good two decades since in Berlin, repeatedly and repeatedly tried to esoterically deepen that which can be gained from today's conditions of the higher worlds of knowledge of spiritual life, based on the initial foundations that could be given years ago. And it is in the direction of this esoteric deepening that very many of our dear older members have found their deep satisfaction. It is fair to say that a kind of esotericism has gradually come to permeate everything, even the more public lectures. Regarding this esotericism that we have brought about, we can say, when we look at our branch life, that it has not been lost on us. This esotericism forms the basis of all branch life and has been cultivated in the branches as best as possible.

It seems to me that it would be unjustified for older members to feel dissatisfied with the progress and transformation of the anthroposophical movement because something else has been added to the original esoteric movement of the past – to what was distinctly esoteric in character. It has only been added, it has not been replaced. We may say that esotericism has not died out, but a further, different element has naturally entered into anthroposophical life. In order to gain a correct attitude towards this further, different element - regardless of whether we see in it something that we more or less accept or reject - we must say: we did not seek it, it more or less sought us. We must be clear about that. And just as we look with heartfelt, self-evident love at our esoteric element in the anthroposophical movement, so when it comes to relating this other element to our esotericism, we must not close our minds to the clear insight into what has very much entered the anthroposophical movement in recent times and taken its place alongside the esoteric. Do you not remember, I am addressing the older members among us, the small circles from which we started everywhere. At the beginning, the spread of our anthroposophical movement was also characterized by an esoteric element. It can be said that when anthroposophy was spread through the paths that were initially there for the wider public through the magazine “Lucifer - Gnosis”, this spread was also tainted with an esoteric character. Esoteric truths reached those who wanted to take note of them. Of course, one has to feel what was in the esoteric will of the time. But something gradually broke away from esotericism, which at first was basically not within our own control. At first, one might say, the matter went its own way, and within our ranks esotericism was further developed, which then took shape in the public lectures that were given. What was then there in a more or less - we may say - “finished state” developed and wanted something from us. It was not yet there in the time that preceded the war catastrophe; at that time it was only present in the very first traces in the very first beginnings. But it was already very strongly present when the catastrophe of the war entered into that stage which was present in about 1918. There was, so to speak, something present that had arisen without our direct participation, and it confronted us as something finished. And even if I can only characterize it with the degree of precision that is appropriate for a brief, sketchy description, I have to say that anthroposophy had penetrated into the most diverse circles of the world, especially into scientific circles. It had become known and had been judged, and people demanded “scientific justification” from anthroposophy. With this phenomenon, that something was simply there through the anthroposophical literature, which made demands that had to be met, something else was there at the same time: there were a number of younger scientists, and some older ones, who seriously examined anthroposophy from their scientific point of view and, from a wide variety of angles, gave certain parts of their world knowledge an anthroposophical character. Therefore, one can say: One is not at all in a position to answer the question: Is it now sympathetic or unsympathetic that the older, esoteric kind was joined by the newer one, which some perceive as perhaps “too” scientific, and that precisely this current, especially through the challenge of its opponents, has assumed an ever broader, public character. We cannot look at what has really come to us from outside with sympathies and antipathies, because it did not depend on us at all that it once stood there more or less ready. We can only say: the necessity arose to simply place anthroposophy in the scientific life of the present, which can be placed there without reservation, and which can fertilize and lead forward the highest scientific life of the present everywhere – leading it forward to those goals to which it must be led further.

It is from such a background that some older members, who were accustomed to attending the branch every week, may have heard something more or less esoteric there, as it then passed into our cycles, and they heard it in a language that is not yet permeated by science everywhere – even though it is a more durable language than the scientific language, I want to add this here in parenthesis -, some of the older members, who were accustomed to hearing in public lectures something different from what they heard in the branches, but still in a language that was extraordinarily familiar to their hearts and souls, because what was given there was only was only a kind of more exoteric continuation of what was done in the branches, it seemed to some of these older members when they came here or there, even if lectures on anthroposophy and perhaps even congresses or courses were held there, that anthroposophy no longer sounded the way it did years ago. For whereas in the past the spiritual substance lived more in what was expressed through the word, that spiritual substance that sinks directly into the soul through its spiritual power, something has now emerged that seeks to scientifically 'prove' and , which at every step maintains the thread of a strictly organized logic, which at every step also presents what the scientific achievements of the present give us as indications of what is sought through anthroposophy in the scientific sense. But all this was of no interest to those who in earlier years had expressed their longing for words shaped more substantially in a spiritual sense. So it came about that some of the older members had the feeling: Yes, what we are hearing now is not really what we are looking for. What we heard often in the past went straight to our souls. Now everything is being given a thousand different reasons, now everything is being presented in a way that suits the learned, the academic people – and not us!

In a sense, this is unjustified, because the branch life continued, and the esoteric lived alongside what appeared in such scientific aprons. And not everyone saw that it is simply a matter of time, that we simply cannot do otherwise than to anchor anthroposophy scientifically, that it has now been taken up by scientists and is also demanded by scientists. This is how the situation we are in today arose, which is actually more in the soul feelings of our dear membership than in the fact that it is always clearly presented to the soul from the outside. But anyone who takes a good look at the anthroposophical movement, which has grown considerably in recent times, will find that what I have just said is expressed everywhere in the moods, feelings and perceptions: many people think that we do not need all this evidence at all.

I do not want to talk today about the rather unpleasant character that the opposition has taken on in the present, but I do want to say that we are obliged to place anthroposophy on a firm basis in relation to those opponents who at least mean it to some extent honestly. This is also far too little considered within the anthroposophical movement. But let us take a somewhat objective view of the situation. Then, however, we are confronted with something today that we must be mindful of, and that can already be taken up as an impulse in our work. And that is actually why I am having this whole discussion today.

On the one hand, we have today what is available as our anthroposophical esoteric stream, as it is laid down in the cycles, as most of you carry it in your hearts, having absorbed it over the years. We have this anthroposophical spiritual movement with its inner life, with its inner strength, with its inner warmth – with everything that makes it a source of soul and life. And on the other hand, when we step out of the narrower circle of our branch of life, we have the representation of our anthroposophical movement, which, as I said, gives anthroposophy a scientific character everywhere, which does present anthroposophy to the world, but uses the thought forms and thought connections that are common in scientific life today. Thought forms and thought connections that are not right for a large number of our members because these members are of the opinion that they do not need all of this. I am not talking about the practical forms of anthroposophy, such as the medical-therapeutic efforts, but rather about what appears more or less as a teaching within the anthroposophical movement.

If we look at the matter objectively, on the one hand we have today everything that is more or less permeated by esotericism, and we find this expressed in the cycles; but it can also be found if those lectures that I am still allowed to give within smaller circles – since I also have to devote myself to the external life of the anthroposophical movement, as is my duty – are examined in this regard. We find it, for example, in the discussions of the Swiss assemblies, and those of our dear friends who have been to Dornach on one occasion or another will find that, in terms of inner esoteric development, what is usually presented there is not something that would not be the right continuation of the old branch and cycle life. This on the one hand.

On the other hand, something quite different, and it must be admitted that it is something quite different: you see how anthroposophy is formed from the concepts of modern physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, as they are science, or as they have emerged from history, pedagogy and so on, anthroposophy is formed in such a way that it can, as it were, present itself as a science alongside the other sciences that are taught at universities. In terms of the nature of the investiture, however, these two currents are very different from one another. Of course, what is spoken out of the spirit, which has been the sole ruling spirit until the last four to five years, is very different from what has now been placed alongside it, not instead of it. And only because — one would like to say, thank God! — our dear members also feel the duty to take part in everything anthroposophical — while, on the other hand, many are quite indifferent to chemistry and physics and all the other beautiful things that present-day science has — only because these other friends also go to these achievements, which are based on this ground, do those members then find that a character is emerging in the anthroposophical movement of which they believe they have no need, and which they believe is something that scholars can work out among themselves, but which does not belong in the whole breadth of the anthroposophical movement.

One could say that it might have been better – but this is not said in a conclusive sense – if one could have found a way out of the old esotericism into a wider dissemination in the same kind of language; for it is simply the case that anthroposophy must be accepted by today's world, by today's people, if the world is not to descend into decline. And so one could say: Oh, if only Anthroposophy had spread in a straight line from its esoteric beginnings!

Well, it was not like that. It was the case that in the course of this spread, one came up against what was brought to it scientifically and what was formed “underhand”, so to speak. So today we have these two currents side by side, they have them so side by side that one could say - even if this is a little radically expressed -: If someone who simply wanted to find out about anthroposophy was present at the [last] course here in Berlin, informed themselves there and perhaps observed some of what was presented quite critically within themselves, they might have the objection: What is being said may not be correct in their view, but it is said 'scientifically'. But if someone who was just listening from the outside to what was being said in the scientific sense could somehow come to a branch meeting where what is said in the cycles is presented, they would find a different world, a world that is quite different from what is found in the courses and congresses designed for the public. He could say: Out there, it seemed to me as if people might be going astray, but in there they have already gone completely mad!

If we want to look at the matter seriously, we must realize that there is still a deep gulf between what our esoteric work is in the branches and what we have to present to the world externally in many respects. It is the same inwardly, but there is a gulf between the two; and the fact that this gulf is really gaping is due to the fact that the matter was as I have described it: We initiated the spiritual anthroposophical movement out of the most heartfelt and sincere needs, and developed it in this way, but then something came from outside that now stands as a second current and has a scientific character.

The latter is not a direct continuation of the former, not even in the case of those who have come from their scientific studies to work on anthroposophy scientifically. For many of them, it has been the case that they have simply undergone scientific studies and, out of certain needs of the heart, have felt towards their other studies: There is something wrong in science. Then they came to anthroposophy and through it they changed their science. These are completely different paths from those that originally formed the anthroposophical branch. But these things are developing today in such a way that, when they go side by side and there are only a few really active co-workers, it is very easy for such a gulf to form. We simply have not yet had the opportunity to bridge this gulf.

My dear friends, there is a direct path from what is presented externally in a scientific form to the deepest esoteric! And if time and opportunity were given, it could, so to speak, begin with the external, even more scientific character of the one movement, and it could be continued down to the deepest depths of the esoteric life. But so far we have not been offered the time or opportunity to do so. Therefore, those who often approach our movement with the utmost seriousness find this inconsistent character: on the one hand, what is more set down in public literature; then they desire the cycles – and find something quite different. And as much as this bridge exists between the two in essence, it has not yet been created in fact today. Our active co-workers have simply had an enormous amount to do and work on in one movement or another, and so what should have been in between could not be put in the necessary way. This will have to be something that our work will have to take up again one day: This link between what no longer sounds like anthroposophy to many older members and what is outwardly alive in the congresses and courses today, and between what was there in the old branch work and the cycles.

And then there is this, which, in line with a pressing demand of the present, must be brought into the public sphere with the cycle work, so that – I would say – the two things can be placed directly next to each other. You have them standing side by side in the journal 'Die Drei', with which you are familiar, where one of my esoteric cycles has been printed over the course of many issues, sometimes alongside very scientifically written treatises; so that, for those who looked more deeply, the connection was there everywhere, but for those who looked at the different ways of speaking, things were juxtaposed that were fundamentally and deeply different from each other. To some extent, this does appear as something disharmonious in our anthroposophical movement today. We have no reason to relate to this disharmony other than to simply present it clearly to our souls — as clarity in all areas must be what is specifically intended for anthroposophical life. But one of the difficulties we face when we want to present anthroposophy to the world today — and it must be presented to the world because the world demands it — is that we have to present a kind of Janus face, so to speak. We encounter these difficulties everywhere. On the one hand, people read our philosophical and scientific treatises, on the other hand they read the more esoteric works, and thirdly they often read a more or less good combination of the two, and we simply have to be clear about the fact that much of what makes the work in the anthroposophical movement difficult comes from this. And it must also be part of our work to provide those with information when we believe that such information is appropriate: that it is connected with the historical development, that it is as I have characterized it. And in this regard, I would also appeal to the older members not to make things too difficult by acting in opposition to what they may not care about but which cannot be dispensed with in view of the demands that are being made on the anthroposophical movement today. One could even say: if one has gained an inner vision from the laws of the soul's development, which are quite justified and present, for example, from some historical phenomenon, and if one then hears how today our dear younger members – not on the paths by which some older members have gained an inner vision, I might say, as if 'flying' to the point of convincing power, but start with things that are of little interest to many older members: with the elements of physics or even with the elements of mathematics, and then move from these elements through strictly drawn logical conclusions to things that are again of little interest to those who already have the matter, and then do it again and again - and in this way, to a more or less expressed form of what the other person already knows through his quick intuitive way, then many feel as if they are where the deepest secrets of existence have been grasped at a certain level, and now someone comes along, climbs a ladder, then past the things and then back down. Many older members certainly feel these logical climbing skills. But the fact is that these older members should show understanding for the demands of the times and know that this cannot be otherwise, and that we are simply faced with an ironclad necessity.

That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to put before you today, to express to you that there is no will — not in the slightest — to leave the old esoteric paths in the old anthroposophical movement. There is no question of that. The only thing that can be said is that we have been confronted with demands of our time, and so, as much as possible, the esoteric foundations of our anthroposophical movement must of course continue to be cultivated, for there must be a number of personalities today who are so strongly connected with spiritual life that they can achieve what otherwise could only be achieved by mental crocheting — not Haeckel, the naturalist, is meant by this — with a simple beating of the thread. Of course, it can be quite uncomfortable to do this mental crocheting, but it has to be done because, according to their general view, our time has arrived at this mental crocheting. But some people, who have been directly involved in weaving threads from their hearts and their innermost spiritual understanding, must know that the time has come when a wave of spiritual life is breaking into this earthly life from the spiritual world and must be grasped by people as a wave of spiritual life.

I have mentioned before that the period up to the last third of the nineteenth century was actually the time when the intellect of civilized humanity grew stronger. Great intellectual achievements based on the results of natural science were built up in the last few centuries. But with the twentieth century, only the legacy of this intellectual civilization remains, and there is no prospect at all that humanity will progress from the twentieth century into the following centuries by intellectual means, just as it progressed from the preceding centuries into the twentieth century. The intellect continues as it was, but it can no longer be the continuing force in the overall development of human thought. The continuing force is the spiritual life, which has broken into our earthly life as if through special gates.

Now perhaps some will say: Yes, you are talking about the intellect only continuing to live at the level at which it was already, and that the spiritual has broken into earthly existence; but we do not see this spiritual life, the intellect is certainly cultivated, but one sees nothing of the spiritual. I would like to say: So much the worse!

The spiritual is there nevertheless, although people do not see it; it can be found everywhere if one wants to find it. And that is the bad thing: that people do not want to find it, that they close their eyes to it, that they do not open their hearts to it! That is the terrible thing, that must be overcome: that today is already the time when the spiritual life can be grasped just as the intellectual was grasped from the Copernican-Galilean time on, but that people turn away from this spiritual life! But anyone who can turn their spiritual gaze to the spiritual life will see it flowing into our human life everywhere. However, this spiritual life is not yet being taken up, and so we have a desolate, merely inherited intellect. For in reality, the intellect has not advanced further; it is only being carried on in its old form.

While this is the outward appearance of the case, an event of the greatest importance is actually taking place within. I have described some aspects of this event again and again in our branch lectures. Today, I would like to summarize and present some additional information.

If we now consider ourselves as physical human beings, we live here on earth within the forms of existence that older people called “elements”: earth, water, air, fire. Today we speak of the solid material, the liquid material, the gaseous material and the warm etheric. Our organism is woven from this fourfold materiality, as is everything that our organism moves towards between birth and death. Today's man looks at this materiality, forms his world view through his lawful perception of this materiality, which is essentially an external scientific one, even if ancient religious traditions play into today's concepts. But this materiality is based on spiritual beings. The earthly solid is based on spiritual entities from the sphere of the elementary spirits, older intuitive clairvoyance called them “gnomes” and the like. Today's intellectualism regards this as fantasy. What we call them is unimportant, but underlying all that is solid on earth lies a world of spiritual elemental beings who, I might say, in their physicality, invisible to human senses, have a greater degree of intellect, of pure rationality, than we humans have ourselves and who are extremely clever compared to us humans, clever to the point of cunning, clever to the point of speculation, clever to the point of the shrewd foreknowledge of that which always gets in the way of man in the work he does based on his lesser intellectuality. Underlying all earthly solid matter is a world of elemental beings that are truly extraordinarily clever, and whose cleverness is the fundamental character of their being.

And underlying everything that is liquid, watery, is a world of elemental beings that have developed to a particularly strong degree what we humans – on the one hand somewhat more robustly, on the other hand somewhat more neutrally – spiritual elementary beings, which have a sensitive feeling, a feeling that lives into the finest nuances of sensation, that everywhere relives that which people only feel externally. For example, we look at the trees in the forest with our eyes; at most, we feel when we approach the forest or are inside it, how the wind, shaking something, rushes through us, but otherwise we only see the trees moved by the wind; on the other hand, we see, for example, the sun's rays shining. Our perception is relatively coarse compared to that of all beings that belong to the watery liquid element and permeate and flow through it, that go along with all the movements that the tree branches perform in the wind, that move with the clouds, that experience the condensation of water droplets in the clouds, experience the dissolution of water droplets as they evaporate, solidify in the solidifying ice, lose themselves in the vastness as the evaporating water does – and emotionally participate in all of this. This is a second kind of elemental being that populates our earth just as we ourselves and plants and animals populate the earth.

We then have a third kind of elemental being in the airy element, these are the beings that have developed to an intense degree that which lives in our will, which have developed this will to such a strength that this will lives in them as 'will', then becomes outwardly visible as a natural force. We finally have a fourth kind of elemental being, the warmth or fire beings, which have developed that which we carry within us as the power of our self-awareness, as the power of our ego; at the same time, they are the beings that live in all that has a destructive effect within nature. And when we see, for example, how in spring the elemental beings mentioned first look out of the natural phenomena everywhere, with a real clairvoyance based on exact foundations, we see how the fire beings are active in all the destruction of autumn, yes, are most active when what they accomplish is expressed outwardly in cold snow and ice, as in its opposite.

The elemental spirits live in the elements, we are surrounded by them, they are just as present in earthly existence as we ourselves are. These elemental spirits want something. These elemental spirits are not as unfeeling, as stubborn, as closed to the incoming spiritual wave in our age as people often are. People only want to persist in observing the sensual and in thinking about the intellectual aspects of this spiritual world, which underlies the natural elements. These elemental spirits do not close their eyes to the spiritual waves breaking into the earthly, which are everywhere today, to the spirituality that wants to come in. And when I said, for example, that the elemental spirits of the earthly firmament are preferably shrewd and even intellectual, it is only natural that they have no sympathy for a spiritual wave entering the present day. But even if they have no particular sympathy, they do pay attention! They notice that this spirituality is breaking in today and that it carries on its waves a truly deepened knowledge of Christ, a truly deepened knowledge of the mystery of Golgotha. Even the clever beings of the earthly kingdom can see that. But they decide: if people remain stubborn towards the incoming spiritual world, then we will do our part, which would have been futile so far. For in the period from the fifteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, when people mainly developed their intellect, the gnome-like intellectual spirits of the solid, earthly realm could not do anything special, so to speak! They could use their cunning to peek into the earthly world here and there; and those who have perceptions of this peeking know this. But now that humanity is to meet the spirituality that wants to enter, the time has come when the intellect, having fallen into corruption, is only passed down as an inheritance and no longer has any fruitful suggestions - for the intellect decays over time, and if you look at it impartially, you can see it everywhere; if you compare today's scientific work with that of forty years ago in terms of the intellect that prevails in science, one can already speak of the decline of the intellect. Now the time has come when the other beings, who are there just as we humans are, by becoming aware of the incoming spiritual wave, say to themselves:

Now is our time, now we will do something! And they will decide, if people do not do their part, to put all their cleverness and intellectuality at the disposal of the Ahrimanic powers, so that Ahriman will become powerful over an enormous host of elemental beings that inhabit the earth. And these beings, who thus have intellect at their disposal, will be joined by other elemental beings, because man, in turn, will be influenced by the elemental beings, so that the danger of humanity becoming ahrimanized is present. This is a somewhat radical statement, but it is nevertheless a truth.

Forty years ago, if you looked at a person in terms of how they used their intellect intellectually, the person who made the training of the intellect his profession was active in his intellectual training. The human being was there. There were really great minds there, minds that were active; in the schools, minds were there that one could rejoice at the activity of the intellect. Today it is not so, and people seem as if the mind had moved a little deeper, and as if they were producing the mind as a mechanism. One feels how people speak in intellectual terms, but as if the mind were not even involved. There are some very simple phrases that you come across. The further west you go, the worse it is, but it is already taking hold in Germany. If someone writes a sentence and doesn't put the predicate where it is supposed to be for whatever reason, it is stylistically incorrect; and if you go to France, everything is already stylistically incorrect because the language has already become stereotyped. In Germany, you can still turn your sentences around to get different possibilities of expression, but in France people are gradually getting out of the habit of doing that. In the East – Bolshevism wanted to get rid of it, but it will make itself felt again – there is still a certain flexibility in the language. But in general, this flexibility decreases with civilization. It is especially the case with younger people that they talk like mechanisms. They start – forty years ago it would have been interesting to pay attention to how they would continue to talk – but today we already know it, we are no longer interested; they talk like clockwork. There has been – we can see it today, but we want to close our eyes to it – a certain calcification of people, even literally, so that the intellect has indeed slipped down. But Ahriman takes him in. He cannot work through the nervous-sensory system as humans do, but he works through the elemental spirits. What the brains and etheric bodies are for us, the elemental spirits are for Ahriman; he waits until they place themselves at his disposal. But he has them as his brain and as his heart, which has become a leather bag. It is the case that the elemental spirits place themselves at the disposal of the Ahrimanic powers. That is one side of it.

But if we look at the world externally, spatially and temporally, then we have, in addition to these elemental spirits, another world: the etheric world. We must preferably look down at the solid earth, at what surrounds and storms around this solid earth, flows around and flows around it as the water sphere, as the air sphere, which permeates and permeates it as warmth. We must preferably look down and straight ahead if we want to look at these kinds of elemental beings. But we must preferably look into the distance, that is, upwards. After all, warmth still belongs to the earthly, but above the warmth ether lie the light ether and the chemical ether. We must look into the distance if we want to look at the etheric. And when we look at the liquid and the elemental spirits on which it is based, we find a teeming population of individuals that clearly appear to us as single beings; there the number dominates. It is, so to speak, the world of the elemental realms populated by immeasurable elemental beings. But when we look at the ethereal world, there is more than one unit of spirituality living there. In the light ether, we can no longer distinguish the individual elemental spirits from one another, as we can in the air or water element or even in the earthly element. In the earthly element, it is the case that you go out into certain forests, track down some gnome's nest, and - you might say - thousands and thousands of elemental beings can be enclosed in a small globe, and then you are standing in front of a multitude. You have only a small ball in your hand and it is teeming with what it counts. There is the number, there is the teeming, that which forces us to count and which makes us admit that we cannot count at all because it is immeasurable and because every number is immediately exceeded. And of the one who has a spiritual vision, you can not say that he “miscalculates”. You can not distinguish what is there sooner or later; You think you have counted five, and see that you actually had to count eleven. But the six were not added, they were already there. The teeming of the number prevails. But in the etheric everything converges to a unity. Even in the light ether, the elementary beings form a unity. This is even more the case in the chemical ether, and it is completely the case in the life ether. And it was from this feeling that the idea contained in the idea of Yahweh was once formed, the idea of the one God Jehovah. This is the being that is unspokenly connected and composed of the many individual beings and that animates the ether, just as the many elementary beings animate the ether.

But just as when man disregards the irruption of spirituality into our time, then the world of the lower elementary beings connects with the Ahrimanic beings that are hostile to human development, so the luciferic If the forces of Lucifer, which can take hold of everything that is human will and feeling, combine with the ahrimanic beings that are hostile to human development, then these forces of Lucifer will snatch this element from the air and water beings and, as beings of Lucifer, will carry it into the ether.

Only with the help of human beings can the power of the unified God-being, which once designated a past time with the name Jehovah, be preserved in the ether. If people do not pick up the spiritual wave, then the being that appeared as Jehovah as the cohesive spiritual being will have to retreat from the onslaught of Lucifer, who rips the light beings, the chemical beings and the life beings out of the power of Jehovah. And from what I have described, a combined rule over the earthly of Ahriman and Lucifer would arise.

The only way to escape this is for people to gain a new understanding of Christ, a new understanding of the mystery of Golgotha, through the incoming spiritual wave. For the intellect would not die as a result; it would not develop further as intellect, but it would be enlivened by spirituality. It would come out of dead abstraction to a certain inner life. On the other hand, that which lives in human emotions and human instincts would not be taken up by an abstract unity in the etheric realm; it could not become Luciferic. We need a new understanding of Christ, a new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And we will also come to the right realization of how we need this if we properly consider what is threatening to occur as another grouping in the universe, as another grouping of elemental and etheric beings. Yes, one can really already perceive how, on the one hand, the intellect wants to descend to the Ahrimanic, to the lower elemental beings. On the other hand, it is clearly perceptible how today there is a certain tendency to move away from the actual Christ-being and to immerse oneself in that etheric unity, so that through this immersion, precisely through the denial of the Christ principle, something Luciferic is absorbed.

This, my dear friends, can be clearly seen, and I have actually spoken of this perception here several times. We see how an actual conception of Christ is fading, especially in newer theology. We see how, according to the view of the modern theologian - one need only recall Harnack's 'Essence of Christianity', for example - for many modern theologians Christ is actually denied. “The Son does not belong in the Gospel,” says Harnack, ‘only the Father.’ It could therefore be said that there is no longer any real concept of Christ, only of the one God. There is no longer any awareness of how the Son differs from the Father. It is like a return to the Old Testament and an obliteration of the New Testament. But this is the way to penetrate to the ethereal unity without warming it with the Christ impulse. In short, one sees everywhere how people often unsuspectingly expose themselves to the forces that draw their powers from the ethereal spirits on the one hand and from the elemental spirits on the other.

If, however, people not only find the same ego, the same self-awareness that they have carried up into the spiritual world through the centuries and millennia, but if they are able to gain a stronger hold within themselves through which they can absorb the Christ impulse, and if this stronger self were to develop only as such, it would degenerate into boundless egoism. It is precisely this self, as it grows stronger, that must develop the sense of what Paul meant by the words, “Not I, but the Christ in me!” When the Christ is in this self that has become strong, then humanity will find ways to prevent this regrouping and allow the earth to develop in the right way. Today, if I may express myself so, one must look behind the scenes of existence, where that takes place that remains unconscious to man, if one wants to see how man depends on holding on to the spiritual wave that brings him what he needs to can continue the God- and Christ-intended earthly nature; while if he does not accept this spiritual wave, something else would be formed out of the earth through the intervention of the ahrimanic and elemental beings together with the etheric beings, other than what should come of it. And man would be diverted from his path, for his cosmic destiny and the cosmic destiny of the earth are necessarily connected with each other.

Today, outer scientific life, outer science, is not enough. It can certainly be translated into the anthroposophical, indeed, it will only attain its true thoughts by being translated into the anthroposophical. And much can be achieved by speaking anthroposophically, and not in the external, hypothetical, materializing sense, for example, of the composition of hydrogen and oxygen to form water and of the other physical and other phenomena. But however necessary this may be to correct our increasingly false and erroneous views of the external world, it is all the more necessary, on the other hand, not only to talk about “solid quartz” on earth , of the “solid calcite” and other solids or of various watery substances and of the airy substances, but that we talk about the spiritual beings that we have with the substances and in the substances everywhere. We need not only a physics or a chemistry, but we need a doctrine of the social life of the elemental spirits, of the social life of the ethereal spirits; we need a view of the spiritual life of the world, which is indeed concrete.

But as long as there is a doctrine that only wants to prove that there is no spiritual world at all, an insurmountable barrier has been erected between the world where man is on one side and the Luciferic and Ahrimanic on the other, and that world where man can only form the real tasks of humanity today out of knowledge, including elementary and etheric beings. We must look beyond the exoteric for esoteric wisdom. We must not only ask ourselves about the attractions and repulsions of matter, we must ask ourselves about the cleverness of the elementary spirits of the earthy, about the fine sensitivity of the elementary spirits of the watery, about the will impulses of the elementary spirits of the airy, about the elementary spirits of fire or warmth that permeate everything with egoity; we must penetrate ourselves with the peculiar qualities of the spirits of light and warmth, which in their turn relate partly helpfully and partly antagonistically to the elemental spirits of air, and thus create a balance between them, where we can see an interaction between the spirits of light that have become more air-like and the air spirits that have become more light-like. Here we have the possibility of looking into the evolution of a cosmic body, which I was able to describe in my 'Occult Science' as 'Jupiter'. We must look into the spiritual evolution of the world, in a way quite different from the way in which physical science looks into the evolution of the world today. Here we enter, indeed, a sphere in which the conceptions that men have today about the spiritual must be essentially broadened. This view of the spirit must become familiar to people, as familiar as what they know today of the physical-sensual world. Humanity must learn to think about the relationship of the elemental and etheric spirits to humanity and about the coming of the spiritual wave, which can bring the relationship of the two into the right and necessary relationship for people. We can only speak correctly about the relationship of these beings, about the part they have in an earth that is suitable for people, as well as about the part they would have if the earth were to perish with humanity, if we show understanding for the spiritual wave that is about to break into human civilization and cultural development.

To have ears for what is bursting in, to have eyes, eyes of the soul, to see what is shining in and streaming in and radiating in from supersensible worlds into the sensory worlds for the perception of those beings who, in the world of sense, can see the supersensible if they want to – like human beings – to have an appreciation of these facts, that is what esoteric anthroposophy would like to inspire in those who come together for it.

That, my dear friends, is what I was allowed to present to your souls today, and in doing so I wanted to encourage you again in your souls to study the spiritual world as it may be proclaimed today. Depending on your karma, when the time is right, you will also find a living connection to this spiritual world more and more.

and more, if you do not shy away from taking on board, with confidence – but with a confidence that is based on knowledge, not on authority – what can be extracted from the spiritual world in terms of the highest truths,

Our lecture to-day shall be devoted to subjects interesting to Anthroposophists in the widest sense, subjects intended to throw light on certain points which may have puzzled those who have attended our Group-Meetings for a considerable time. It is well, now and then, to recollect that the point of importance in Anthroposophy is not so much the learning of certain things as theory or doctrine, but that we should continually enter in greater detail into the questions and enigmas of life.—Some people may perhaps say: All that is necessary to know of Anthroposophy for use in life could be comfortably contained in a small pamphlet of sixty pages or so; everyone could possess a copy and would then be convinced as to the nature of man, reincarnation and karma, and the evolution of humanity on the earth,—and could go through life needing nothing further. A person who would like to have that carried out might perhaps suggest: ‘Why does not the Anthroposophical Movement distribute as many copies as possible of a booklet containing these principal points of view, so that everyone might acquire a copy and be able to convince himself? Why does the Anthroposophical Society adopt the curious method of holding meetings week after week, assembling all those interested or likely to become interested for the purpose of constantly recapitulating what might comfortably be reduced to a sixty-page pamphlet? What can these Anthroposophists possibly have to say to their followers, week after week?’

There may be certain orders of mind of our day who would like to have a small outline of Anthroposophy which they could keep in their waistcoat pockets, and thus study what it is most important to know. We must, however, over and over again, bring to mind the fact that nothing can be done in this way with Anthroposophy. There can be no ‘tabloid-knowledge!’ Although Anthroposophy does depend both on knowledge and perception, it does not consist of mere ‘phrases,’ but of very definite knowledge. But it is not enough merely to acquire this knowledge as a general conviction according to present-day methods, and then rest satisfied. For the point in question is not merely that one should acquire the conviction and know that man lives many lives and that there are causal conditions which pass over from one life into another, that there is such a thing as reincarnation, as karma. The beneficial effects of Anthroposophy do not lie in the spreading of this knowledge, but are felt in the constant and repeated study of all the details connected with it, and in allowing the teaching to work upon one's soul. It does one no good simply to believe that man lives more than once and that there is such a law as that of reincarnation, karma, and so on. The mere belief in this will not carry one far. As regards the real depths of life there is not much difference between the soul of a man who knows of reincarnation and karma and one who knows nothing of it. In an anthroposophical sense our soul is only changed if we constantly study, not only the generalities, but the deeper things that Spiritual Science can teach us. That is why it is a good thing that we should over and over again consider how the various details of life appear in the light of the Anthroposophical conception. It is by no means sufficient merely to know that there is a great law of destiny establishing a connection between the past deeds, feelings and thoughts of a man and his present and future experiences. Anthroposophy will only become a life-factor when we can apply this general doctrine to the different experiences of life, when we become able to put our whole soul into such a position, that we obtain an entirely new outlook on life. That is why we will to-day give a little time to studying the law of karma, the great law of destiny, with reference to the details of life. Things will be spoken of to-day which are familiar to all; but they will be considered from the standpoint of karma.

Karma says in a general sense that there is a connection in the spiritual world between what takes place to-day and what has taken place in the past. It is not really a good thing to call karma the law of causality, and then to compare it with the law of cause and effect in the external world. If we wish to find a comparison for this great law of destiny, we must take care that the comparison is valid, that it really does represent this law.

Let us take the following as an example. Suppose we have two vessels containing water—and two metal balls of the normal temperature of the living-room. We throw one ball into one of the vessels; and the water remains as it was. We now take the other ball and having heated it, we throw it into the other vessel. The water in that gets warm.—Why has the water in the second vessel grown warm and not in the first? Because the ball itself underwent a change before it was thrown into the vessel; and having itself been made hot it brings about the warming of the water. An event occurred which was the result of another event, the result of the ball having been heated.—The experiences and activities of a former time are connected with the experiences and phenomena of the present or future.

When we grasp the law of the spiritual connections between past, present and future in this way, we shall be able to find it confirmed in ordinary life, in the everyday life around us,—though we ourselves may be very far from having as yet developed any clairvoyant faculties. For we must always establish as a golden rule the fact that while a law of the spiritual world can only be proved by the spiritual investigator through clairvoyant observation, it can always be corroborated by the experiences of the external world.—People will, however, have to accustom themselves to observe external life a little more carefully than usual, if they wish to find confirmation of the law of karma. As a rule they do not see, figuratively speaking, beyond the end of their noses. What lies beyond that, they do not observe. Anyone who observes more profoundly will, however, find plenty of confirmation between birth and death of the existence of a law of karma. We will keep as far as possible to the concrete, and take the following example. A young lad, fifteen years of age, has been torn away by unforeseen circumstances from the life he had been accustomed to lead. Till then the position of his parents had permitted him to study; now at the age of fifteen, in consequence, perhaps, of his father having lost his fortune, he had to go into trade, and was thus pitchforked from one calling to another. Of course the point here is not that the one calling was in any way better than the other, but that his life was altered by the change. Now people who contemplate life in the ordinary materialistic sense would probably not expect anything worthy of note to be brought about by the influence of such an event in a man's life, and they would find nothing. But a closer observer would discover that a young man who goes into trade in that way, will at first feel pleasure in the change, will like his calling,—that his interest in it grows with his own growth, as one might say. After a while, however, something remarkable will become evident, The soul-experiences, the sympathies and antipathies he feels in his work, may, as he reaches the age of eighteen or nineteen, assume a different form. He may cease to take pleasure in it; his attitude towards trade may alter. Those who had never heard of Anthroposophy would feel at a loss to account for what takes place in the young man's soul.

What then has actually occurred?—When the young man was fifteen and was put into the new trade, he took a great interest in it. At first the interest he felt drove out the feelings and sentiments that had formed within him when he was following a different line of activity. Those feelings were pushed into the background. The time, however, comes when these break through again with all the more strength. It is just as though one compressed an elastic object; it can be compressed for a while but it springs back with all the more rapidity, and the result in the case of the lad may be that the interests which have been thrust aside for a time, now burst forth with greater zest. When he is eighteen or nineteen the feelings and sentiments that penetrated his soul, three years before the change of calling, now come forth anew,—that is, those he felt at eleven or twelve.—Life can only be explained in such a case by saying: When this lad was fifteen a turning-point occurred in his life. After that, things happened whose external effects are felt the same number of years after the turning-point as the cause of them originated before that time.

Just think how one would be able to help a person as regards his soul-moods and the difficulties of life, if we were able to ask ourselves:—When did such a turning-point occur?—It may have been connected with something quite private and intimate; but, if one can place it, we can then reckon back; and it will be found that the spiritual effects reveal themselves just as long after the turning-point, as the cause of them was before that time. This gives one an insight into karma. Such knowledge is a help in life, and we may say:—Causes and effects of this nature are connected with definite periods of time and they are determined by a definite period in life, so that if we count backwards and forwards from that point of time, we can find the connection between cause and effect.

Now this might, of course, be concealed by the intervention of other events. Someone might say: ‘The example you have just given us is no use; I have just met a young man to whom it does not apply:’—Well,—I have known a case of two men having a game of billiards, when a passing waiter bumped into the one who was just about to play, thus driving his ball in quite a different direction from what was intended! The law of cause and effect was not at fault, but other circumstances intervened. We must reflect that we shall never learn to know that law if we do not make an exception of the things that upset it. After the age of fifteen other circumstances may arise which interfere with the law. We do not become acquainted with laws simply by observing life, but by acquiring the right method of summing up its phenomena. For in life things are being constantly disturbed and the laws cannot so easily be seen; we can only regulate our life by knowing how these laws are to be found. When we know the particulars, we can say in the case of the young man whose life has been so smashed up, that it is the task of those who have his education in hand to look out for the result. In this way karma becomes a law of life; and if we have knowledge of the law, we can make use of our knowledge when such a case occurs. If we find that we can no longer give the lad what he had before, we can at any rate become his adviser. But we can only give the right advice if we know of the existence of such connections as those I have spoken of,—if we know what is the matter with him and intervene with help just where and when his particular lack is making itself felt. If we are ignorant of this law we cannot help him with advice.—When we regard the law of karma as a law of life it may become an influence in life, we can learn to become counselors.

The above-mentioned case does not of course exhaust all the combinations that are possible; there is another way in which the law of karma is experienced between birth and death. There is a remarkable connection between the experiences a man has in the first half of his life and the second,—but this is not as a rule observed. One often makes acquaintance with a man in his youth and loses sight of him before he reaches maturity, or else one only meets a man when he is already old and one knows nothing of his youth; or even if one did know him in youth, one may have forgotten what has happened to him since. Were we to study and compare the beginning and end of people's lives when it is possible so to do, we should find the finest confirmation of the law of karma even in the life between birth and death.

Perhaps you may remember in this connection what I have said in public lectures about the ‘noble’ anger which appears in youth. I have explained that a young person is not able fully to judge of an injustice that may be going on in his vicinity; he is not yet mature enough. Yet the wise rulership of the world has so ordained things that our feelings will help us to judge truly before our reason is mature enough to do so. A noble nature will, even in childhood, be moved to a righteous anger by anything like injustice, although it may be only in his feeling that his soul can sense the injustice. He may perhaps not yet be ripe to judge of it through his intellect. When this noble sense of indignation is to be found in the character of a child we ought to take particular note of it, for the feeling aroused by the injustice remains in the soul. This noble anger in early youth permeates the soul and, as life goes on, it becomes transformed. In the second half of life it reappears in a different form; it appears as the quality of loving kindness and goodness. We shall not often find that loving, bounteous goodness in the latter part of a man's life—if other things are equal and nothing has occurred to distort the sequence—without finding that it was expressed in his early years by a noble anger aroused at the stupidity or the ugly things of life. In ordinary life we find a karmic connection which we may clothe in the form of a picture and say: The hand that never clenched its fist in noble anger in the first half of life, will not easily be stretched forth in blessing in the latter half.—Such things will of course only be observed by one who can see a little further than ‘the end of his nose,’ which is just what most people do not do. I might give a simple example to show how little people are inclined to notice such things in life.

I have often mentioned how helpful it is to one who wishes to become intimately acquainted with life in order to study more deeply the occult conditions of the soul, to have been a teacher at some time. One learns more of the soul in that way than can be learnt from the ordinary text-books on Psychology, which, as a rule, are quite valueless. A knowledge of the soul is acquired when we do not merely observe and study but have to take the responsibility of guiding and directing the life of others. One learns a closer observation. During the long years of my tutorship I not only observed the children of whom I had charge, but I had many opportunities when other families came to visit them, of studying other children of all ages, even from the time they came into the world.

That is now some twenty-five to thirty years ago. You may have noticed how every five years or thereabouts the doctors have a different opinion as to what is ‘good’ for people. Well,—at that time they were strongly of opinion that it was very strengthening for delicate children three, four or five years old, to drink a glass of red wine every day.—I knew certain children who had their glass of wine and others who did not, and was able to make my own observations. For of course at that time, the doctor's opinion was considered infallible. It would have been of no use to attempt to go against it. I was thus able to await results. The children who were then from two to five years old and who were given the glass of wine to strengthen them, are now young men and women of twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age. I particularly noticed that only then the results of this treatment show themselves. All the children who had the wine have become ‘Fidgety Phils’; their astral bodies are fidgety, they have not much control of them; they do not know how to control the involuntary movements of their soul-life. On the other hand, those children who,—unfortunately, as was then said,—could not have their glass of red wine, have now become stable natures, less ‘wobbly’ in their astral bodies, or, as materialists would say, in their nervous systems.

This is an example of the connections that exist in life. It is rather a trivial one and not particularly illustrative of karma; but it serves to show that we should not only look as far as the end of our noses but should survey longer periods of time, and that it is not sufficient merely to affirm that a remedy will have such and such an effect, for what is actually brought about can only be observed by the true observer many years after. Nothing but the great connections and all that leads us to find them can in reality give us the true explanations of the relation between cause and effect in the life of man. Thus we must try to connect the qualities of the soul with those phenomena of life which lie apparently very far apart; and we shall then be able to trace the law of karma even between birth and death, and shall frequently find that the events of later life are connected with the experiences of the earlier.

You may remember what I said of the mission of Devotion, of the importance of looking up in feeling to some being or some phenomenon which we do not yet understand, but which we revere for the very reason that we have not yet grown up to the level of being able to understand it. I always like to remind you of how fortunate it is when a man can say: ‘As a child I heard of a member of our family who was very greatly respected and honoured. I had not yet seen him but I had a profound reverence for him. Then one day the opportunity came, and I was taken to see him. A feeling of profound and holy awe came over me as I laid my hand on the handle of the door of the room where this wonderful person was to be seen.’

In later life a man will have good reason to be grateful for that feeling of reverent devotion; we owe much gratitude to anyone who aroused a feeling of reverence in us in our early life. That feeling is of great and special value in any life. I have known men who exclaim, when such a feeling of reverent devotion to the Spiritual and Divine is alluded to: ‘I am an Atheist! I cannot revere anything spiritual!’—We can reply: ‘Look at the starry heavens! Could you create those? Look at that wisdom-filled structure and reflect: there it is surely possible to have a feeling of real, true reverence.’ There are many things in the world which our understanding has not yet grown up to, but to which we can look up in reverence. Especially is this the case in youth, when there is so much we can look up to and venerate, without being able to understand it.

A feeling of devotion in early youth is transformed into a very special quality in the second half of life. We have all heard of persons who just by being themselves, are, as it were, a blessing to those around them. There is no need for them to say anything particular, their presence is enough. It seems as though by the very nature of their being, something invisible flows forth from them to the souls around them. Through their very nature they radiate a healing and beneficent influence on their environment. To what do these people owe their power of blessing? They owe it to the circumstance that in their youth they lived a life in which reverence played a part. Reverence in the early part of their life was transformed in later years into a force which works invisibly, pouring forth blessing and help. Here again is a karmic connection which, if we look for it, is clearly and distinctly to be observed. It was really a true feeling for karma which led Goethe to choose as the motto for one of his works, these beautiful words: ‘What we desire in our youth is fulfilled in old age!’ If one only observes the connections to be found within short periods of time, it may certainly seem as though one could speak of unfulfilled wishes,—but taking longer spans of time, this cannot well be said. All these things can pass over into and become part of life's daily round; and as a matter of fact, only one who studies in this anthroposophical way is qualified to educate children, for he will be able to provide them in their early years with that which, as he knows, they will be able to use in the latter part of their life. The responsibility that a man assumes when he instills one thing or another into a child is not realised to-day. It has become the custom to look down on these things to-day—to speak of them from the high horse of materialistic thinking. I should like to illustrate this by an experience we ourselves once had here in Berlin.

A theosophical visitor once came here,—one of those who think if at some time in their lives they have attended one or two meetings, they are well able to form an opinion on the whole subject. Such persons desire to learn about a spiritual Movement like Anthroposophy so as to be able to write objectively about it. Those who wish to provide the world with newspaper articles, believe that they can judge of a movement by going to one or two lectures!—This visitor also went away and wrote. It was curious to read later on in an American paper what was said of one of our anthroposophical meetings. Of course the description given was remarkably correct!—As I have said, if anyone really wishes to grasp Anthroposophy it cannot be done in that way; it is only possible to penetrate into the life of Anthroposophy if one has the distinct will really to enter into it in detail and experience. I am only saying all this to characterise the opinion formed by this visitor, which he did not hide under a bushel! He said he did not like the way in which Anthroposophy splits up everything,—dividing the world into physical world, astral world, devachanic world, and so on. Why should everything be so split up?—This was after one or two visits. What a terrible effect it would have had on him if he had heard of the other divisions! He was of the opinion that it was unnecessary to consider things in this way, but that one should speak of the spiritual world in general terms.—Why should it be divided into classes?

That is the way people talk to-day about Education and all other departments of life; Science itself talks in the same way. The world talks from an arbitrary observation of life, not from an objective investigation of the separate phenomena. That is why the impressions which all such reforms and programmes must make on one who is able really to observe the world is so dreadful; they arouse a feeling that may be compared to physical pain. Take any ordinary book on Science to-day; no matter how conscientiously the conclusions are drawn, it is terrible to see how they are put forward, for there is no conception of the way the phenomena ought to be observed. In the same way many a man is admired to-day, who blazons forth his opinion, based simply on his own predilections or antipathies.

It is of immense importance that Anthroposophy should become aware of the fact that life must be observed, down to its very smallest details, according to the methods which the knowledge of karma and other laws put into our hands. That is why we can only hope for a blessing on the future evolution of humanity—even as regards the question of Education—if the anthroposophical views penetrate to the fundamental principles of Education. Karma provides a firm support for all questions connected with that.

For instance, it is extremely important that we should know the karmic connections of a certain phenomenon in Education expressed in the view: ‘If a child is properly brought up, he must be this or that—that is what I admire!’ It seems as though the child were supposed to be a sack, into which one can stuff whatever is thought to be right! People wish to stamp their own nature, with its personal sympathies or antipathies, upon the child. If they knew the karmic consequences of this, they would take a different view. They would see that what is stuffed in that way into a child, as into a sack, will work out karmically by making the grown man or woman a hard, dry nature, prematurely old, for the very core of their being is killed. If we wish to educate a child, and to imbue it with any particular quality, we must set to work in a roundabout way. We must not try to force it upon the child, rather ought we to arouse a longing for that particular quality, so that the child itself will desire to acquire it. We must even go a step further. If we know that a particular food is good for a child we must not force him to eat it, but should try so to cultivate his taste, that he will ask for it of his own accord. That is a very different method to that of forcing everything into him as into a sack, saying:—‘in with you!’—If we begin to regulate the child's requirements, we reach the very life-germ of his being and we shall see the effects of this working out karmically in the second half of his life, in his joy in life, in his life-force. In his later years, instead of being arid and dry, he will remain alive in the centre of his being.

If we consider the law of karma in this way we shall say: ‘It does not suffice merely to write a little book entitled ‘There is a law of karma, a connection between the earlier and the later,’ but we must study life itself in the light of that law.’ Anthroposophy is only present in its true form when we enter into all the details of life; but we must also determine to do this work without cessation. We must find time to study all the phenomena of life from the standpoint of Anthroposophy.

The above are a few of the things that indicate the connections to be found in life between birth and death. Now we can follow out the law of karma beyond this limit and connect one life with other lives or with one other. We must connect what we experience to-day, in the present life between birth and death, with things we experienced formerly, or that we shall experience later, in subsequent lives. I will to-day confine myself to throwing light on one important question, from the standpoint of karma in so far as it extends from one life into another. That is, the question of health and sickness, more especially the latter.

Many people when they are stricken with some malady believe that according to karma they would be right in supposing they have brought it upon themselves, that it is their fate; but that alone does not always characterise karma aright. Where there is a malady we must first of all be quite clear as to the nature of the trouble in a spiritual sense. It will be well to begin with the nature of pain, and then pass on to the spiritual understanding of the nature of illness.

What is the nature of pain? We will now consider external pain, such, for instance, as we feel when we cut our finger. Why does that hurt?—We shall never be able to explain the nature of pain from the spiritual standpoint if we do not realise that the physical finger is permeated by an etheric and an astral finger. The outward appearance of the physical finger, its shape, the way in which the blood circulates in it and the position of the nerves within it,—all these things are determined by the etheric finger. It is the builder; and still takes care that the nerves are in their proper place and that the blood flows in the right way. The way in which the etheric body carries out these functions is regulated by the astral body, which permeates the whole. We will now explain by an external example why it hurts when we cut a finger.

Perhaps it may be a favourite occupation of yours to water the flowers in your garden once a day; that gives you a feeling of satisfaction. One morning, however, you find that your watering-pot is spoilt or perhaps stolen, and you are not able to water your garden. You are distressed; what you feel is not physical pain, yet the fact that you are prevented from carrying out your favourite occupation may somewhat resemble that; you cannot carry out an activity because you lack the necessary instrument. The external lack felt in this instance, which can only call forth a moral pain, may become a physical pain in the way that will now be described.

The etheric and astral bodies are organised for the purpose of maintaining the finger as it now is. I can never cut the etheric finger nor the astral finger. If I cut my finger in two, the etheric finger can no longer carry out its proper duty. It is accustomed to have the fingers in their right connection. Now this connection is interrupted:—just as your activity was interrupted, when you wanted to water your garden. Thus the astral and etheric bodies are not able to intervene, and the prevention from exercising the usual activity is felt in the astral body as pain. But the moment these bodies are interrupted, they make an extra effort,—just as you, wishing to water your garden, would make extra efforts to find the watering-pot or the like. In the same way our astral and etheric bodies must now call forth greater activity in order to repair the injury. It is the extra activity thus called forth which is the actual healing force. Whatever calls forth great activity in the spiritual bodies of man, produces healing. Now the cause of all illness is, that through some disorder in the physical or even in the etheric body of man, the spiritual principles are prevented from intervening in the proper way, they are hindered, as it were; and the healing consists in the calling forth of a stronger resistance to the disorder.—An illness may either be healed, or we may die of it.—Let us consider both these possibilities from the karmic standpoint.

If the illness takes such a course that we recover from it, it means that in those members that we have brought with us from former incarnation, we had stored up such strong life-force that it is able to intervene and heal us. When we look back at those incarnations we can say:—Not only were we able at the time to provide for what we normally have in life, but we brought with us a reserve fund, which we may call up from the spiritual members of our life.

Now, suppose we die. How does the case stand then?—We must then say: When the effort to heal was made, we called upon the strongest forces within us—but they did not suffice. Yet whenever we call up these forces, demanding extra strength from them, it is not without avail, for in so doing we have had to make stronger efforts. Although we may not be able in this life to restore order to any one part of our organism, yet it has, none the less, grown stronger. We desired to resist the malady, but our powers did not suffice. Yet although they did not succeed, the forces we called up in making the effort, are not lost. They pass over into the next incarnation and the injured organ will then be stronger than if we had not had the disturbance. We are then able to build up the particular organ that brought us a premature death and to impart to it special strength and regularity. This will be all the more successfully accomplished if we treat the illness in the right way and yet are not able to cure it. In such a case we must look upon the illness, karmically, as something which will in a future life prove to have been fortunate. We shall then have gained a special strength through having fought the malady though we were unable to cure it.—One ought not, however, on that account, to say: ‘Perhaps it might be as well to let an illness take its course, for then if we do not interfere and try to curb it, the forces within us will be stronger and our karma will have a better fulfilment.’—That would be nonsense. The point is this: the healing must be carried out in such a way that the equalising forces are able to intervene in as favourable a manner as possible; in other words, we must do all in our power to bring about a cure, regardless of whether it be successful or not. Karma is always a friend, never an enemy to life!

By this example it is proved that the law of karma, which extends from one life to another, works for the strengthening of life. We can, therefore, say that if any one organ is particularly strong, this points to a preceding life in which that organ was once ailing and we were not able to heal it. The forces for so doing were called up and they have caused it to grow particularly strong now. Thus we see the events and facts stretching across from one life into another. If we become conscious in the right way of how it can be strengthened, our life-kernel will become stronger and stronger. In this way we can attain a more and more living comprehension of our spiritual life-kernel through the law of karma.

We now come to an answer to the question: ‘Why do we meet together so often?’ We do so, because not only do we enrich our knowledge when we take in anthroposophical teaching, but also because, if it be given in the right way, it is able to make our life-kernel more and more strong and forceful. We pour a spiritual life-sap into all we do, by meeting together and occupying ourselves with Anthroposophy. Thus Anthroposophy is not a theory, it is a life-giving draught, an elixir of life which ever anew pours itself into our souls and of which we know that it will make them grow stronger and stronger. When Anthroposophy emerges from the position which now, through lack of comprehension, it occupies in the outer world, when it really intervenes in our whole spiritual life, people will then see how the salvation, even of the physical life, of the purely external life, will depend on the strengthening which can be acquired through the study of Anthroposophy. The time will come when anthroposophical gatherings will be the most important sources of strength to man, from which they will go forth, saying: we are most grateful to these meetings, for we owe to them our health and strength and the fact that we are constantly able to strengthen anew our own life-kernel, the core of our being. People will only realise what the mission of Anthroposophy is, when they feel that it furnishes us with the means of working forcefully on the physical body and making it sound and healthy. Those who are occupying themselves with Anthroposophy to-day, should regard themselves as pioneers for Anthroposophy as a means of strengthening life. Then only will it become what it ought to be, the right point of attack against something which in many cases is weakening life to-day.

In conclusion I will draw your attention to one thing more. There is no phrase more frequently mentioned than ‘inherited tendency.’ No man is considered an educated man to-day who does not mention it at least two or three times a week! An educated man must at least make himself acquainted with what the learned. medical profession has ascertained as to ‘inherited tendencies.’ When a person does not know what to make of himself, most people say at once: ‘he is suffering from an inherited tendency.’ Anyone not saying that is regarded as badly educated, perhaps among other things an Anthroposophist!—Here Science begins not only to go astray in theory, but also to be injurious to life. This is the boundary where theory encroaches on morality—where it is immoral to hold a wrong theory. Here life's strength and security really depend on correct knowledge. What will a man be able to do who, through the right spiritual conception in his soul, strengthens, fortifies himself by taking in the elixir of life? No matter what he may have inherited, these inheritances are only in the physical body or at most in the etheric body. Through his right conception of the world he will be able to make his own vital centre stronger and stronger, and will be able to conquer his inherited tendencies; for the spiritual, if present in the right way, is able to equalise the body. If, however, a man does not strengthen the spiritual core of his being, merely asserting that the spiritual is the fruit of the physical, he will have a weak inner nature, he will be the victim of his inherited tendencies; they will work harmfully in him. No wonder then, that so-called inherited tendencies have such dreadful results; for people are first of all talked into belief of the powers of such tendencies and are deprived of what counteracts them. The belief in inherited tendencies is cultivated, and the spiritual conception of the world—the best weapon with which to fight them,—is taken away. First the power of the inherited tendencies is discovered, and by this means they become active. Not only is this a wrong insight, which arouses a life-destroying activity and takes the weapons of defence out of the hands of the sufferer, but it is the beginning of a theory based absolutely on a materialistic conception. Here a materialistic conception of the world begins to play a part which is in effect not only theoretically incorrect but immoral.—This cannot be got over, simply by saying that those who assert such things are mistaken. We need not be too severe in judging those who put forth these theories. We are not attacking individual scientists here; it is quite comprehensible that they are involved in a line of thought which must lead to such errors—we must admit this in all fairness. The one, perhaps, may not be able to free himself from scientific tradition; another perhaps considers it excusable, for, having a wife and children he would be in an awkward position if he were to break away from the ruling opinions. But the whole thing must be considered as a phenomenon of the times, for Science is beginning not only to spread abroad false theories, but to take away the life-promoting remedies, the spiritual conception of life, which is able to fortify and which is alone able to stand up against the physical,—the power which must otherwise overwhelm man. The physical can only possess overwhelming power as long as a man does not build up strength in his spiritual nature. If he does this, a warrior will grow up within him, a warrior who will defend him against the physical.

We cannot hope that this should come about from one day to the next. But those who have the right understanding of things will gradually learn the anthroposophical view of phenomena in face of which man at first seems powerless. What is not equalised in one life is made good in the long run. If we contemplate a single life, as well as life from incarnation to incarnation, we shall see that rightly understood, karma is a law that no longer depresses us, but rather one which brings us comfort and force whereby to make ourselves stronger. The law of karma is a law of life, and we must understand it as such. The point is, not that we should know a few single abstract thoughts, but that we should study the life-truths of Anthroposophy in the details of life, and never weary of anthroposophical work, while we permeate ourselves with its different truths.

If you hold this as an ideal before you, you will be living an anthroposophical life in the true sense of the words. You will then know why it is that we do not satisfy ourselves with merely reading one or two books, but regard Anthroposophy as something in which our heart is concerned and which never ceases to occupy us; something to which we gladly return again and again, and of which we know that the oftener we return the more it will enrich our lives.

[ 1 ] Some time ago I said in this weekly that I have no inclination for polemics. I believe that I have amply demonstrated this by the fact that I have left unchallenged a considerable number of outrageous attacks, most of which degenerate into vicious personal insults. Above all, it seemed necessary to me to devote my time and energy to the positive development of the scientific research direction which I have been trying to present to the world through my writings for thirty-five years. What is available in these writings gives others today, as it seems to me, sufficient documentation to undertake the necessary factual-scientific defense of this line of research. Recently, this task has been undertaken by academically and artistically capable personalities. This line of research provides guidelines for the social question that has become so burning in our time. In Stuttgart, a number of personalities have come together who, convinced of the fruitfulness of these social guidelines, are working tirelessly through the Bund für Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus. In other places, they have been joined by others who strive to work scientifically and socially with understanding.

[ 2 ] The recent experiences of two of these defenders of work, Dr. Walter Joh. Stein and Dr. Eugen Kolisko, with their lectures in Göttingen, are described in the previous and this issue of this weekly journal. I myself can only be grateful, in the interest of the cause, that they have accepted their not exactly desirable role.

[ 3 ] Unfortunately, one must conduct a defense even in matters that are brought to light in such a way as the allegations of Professor Dr. Fuchs in Göttingen. All my writings speak with absolute self-evidence against such absurdities as that my anthroposophy spiritually transports us back to the Middle Ages, for anyone who wants to read. For anyone who follows how my anthroposophy follows on in a straight line from what I already wrote in the 1980s, it is simply ridiculous to say that I am feeding my readers and listeners with oriental teachings borrowed in particular from northern Buddhism.

[ 4 ] Evidence for or against the scientific nature of anthroposophy must be presented from completely different angles than those that seem to be available to Professor Dr. Fuchs after his previous, merely invective-filled statements. If Professor Fuchs declares what he thinks about the natural facts known to him to be natural science, that is his private matter. Nowhere have I stated that anthroposophy agrees with what he and those spiritually like him think about nature and spirit. I have repeatedly tried to prove that the facts of nature do not demand what he and the naturalists of his ilk think, but what is demanded by anthroposophy. In this sense I speak of the harmony between natural science and anthroposophy. Anyone who, like Professor Fuchs, turns this fact into its opposite and makes insulting statements on the basis of this opposite is speaking an objective untruth.

[ 5 ] A researcher who is to be taken seriously must be required to have a sense of objective facts. Anyone who is presented with an anatomical specimen that speaks against an absurd assertion can only be taken seriously scientifically if he first looks at the specimen and considers its connection with other facts. Professor Dr. Fuchs hears that in Stuttgart my baptismal certificate has been produced against the stupid claim that I am a Jew. He says, like so many others who unscrupulously spread the lie that I am Jewish, that there are also baptized Jews. Well, my baptismal certificate contains data that speak so against my descent from Jews that they alone reveal the assertion of my Jewishness to be stupid nonsense. I need not say that I myself attach no importance to my ancestry from this point of view. For me it is merely a matter of the fact that it is a brazen lie to make me a Jew. But for me, anyone who talks about facts in this way, as Professor Fuchs does about my alleged Jewishness, even if only in passing, is not a scientist. I have a more serious view of conscientiousness in the scientific way of thinking. Whoever proves in one field that he lacks a sense of facts, I do not believe that he can have it in another field. An anatomy that seduces with its facts as Professor Fuchs did with my baptismal certificate would be devoid of any scientific character for me. For the time being, I will confine myself to these few sentences. What Professor Fuchs has said about priority and the like is something I can leave to those who really read my writings and can understand their questions.

With all my heart I reciprocate the greeting of your Chairman, and I am sure that those who have come here with me to be together with friends in Bergen will cordially join me in this. It has been a beautiful journey through mountains that were so welcoming and so majestic, and I believe that everyone will be happy during their stay in this old Hanseatic city. A marvellous handiwork of man—the railway by which we traveled—has given us an impression seldom occurring in other regions of Europe, an impression of human creative power applied to Nature in her pure, original state. When one sees rocks that had to be shattered to pieces in order to produce a work like this, and sees them lying side by side with others piled up by Nature herself, impressions pour in which make a journey to a country such as this one of the grandest that can be undertaken nowadays. In this old city, friends will spend happy days and keep them in special remembrance because of their majestic background. These days will be enshrined in the memory especially because outer, physical evidence itself shows that, in this land too, anthroposophical hearts are beating in unison with our own pursuit of the spiritual treasures of humanity. It is quite certain that the visitors to this city will feel an even closer link of affection with those who have given us such a kindly reception.

As we are together here for the first time, I want to speak in an aphoristic way of matters pertaining to the spiritual world. Such matters are better and more easily expressed by word of mouth than in writing. This is not only because the prejudices existing in the world make it difficult in many respects to commit to writing everything that one so gladly conveys to hearts devoted to Anthroposophy, but it is also difficult because spiritual truths lend themselves better to the spoken word than to writing or to print.

This applies very specially to spiritual truths of a more intimate kind. For these things to be written down and printed always goes rather against the grain, although in our day it has to be done. It is always difficult to allow the more intimate truths relating to the higher worlds themselves to be written down and printed, precisely because writing and printing cannot be read by the spiritual Beings of whom one is speaking. Books cannot be read in the spiritual world.

True, for a short period after death books can still be read through remembrance, but the Beings of the higher Hierarchies cannot read our books. And if you ask: Do these Beings then not want to learn how to read?—I must tell you that according to my experience they show no desire at present to do so because they find that the reading of what is produced on the earth is neither necessary nor useful to them.

The spiritual Beings begin to read only when human beings on the earth read books—that is to say, when what is contained in the books comes to life in the thoughts of men. Then the spiritual Beings read in these thoughts; but what is written or printed is like darkness for the Beings of the spiritual worlds. And so when something is committed to writing or to print, one has the feeling that communications are being made behind the back of the spiritual Beings. This is a feeling which a man of modern culture may not wholly share, but every true occultist will experience this feeling of distaste for writing and print.

When we penetrate into the spiritual worlds with clairvoyant vision, we see it to be of particular importance that knowledge of the spiritual world shall spread more and more widely during the immediate future, because upon this spread of Spiritual Science will depend a great deal in respect of a change that is becoming increasingly necessary in man's life of soul. If with the eyes of spirit we look back over a period measured by centuries only, we find something that may greatly astonish those who have no knowledge of these things. It is that intercourse between the living and the dead has become more and more difficult, that even a comparatively short time ago this intercourse was far more active and alive.

When a Christian of the Middle Ages, or even a Christian of more recent centuries, turned his thoughts in prayer to the dead who had been related or known to him, his prayers and feelings bore him upward to the souls of the dead with much greater power than is the case today. For the souls of the dead to feel warmed by the breath of the love streaming from those who looked upwards or sent their thoughts upward to them in prayer, was far easier in the past than it is today—that is, if we allow external culture to be our only guide.

Again, the dead are cut off from the living more drastically in the present age than they were a comparatively short time ago, and this makes it more difficult for them to perceive what is astir in the souls of those left behind, This belongs to the evolution of humanity, but evolution must also lead to a rediscovery of this connection, this real intercourse between the living and the dead.

In earlier times the human soul was still able to maintain a real connection with the dead, even if it was no longer a fully conscious one, because for long now men have ceased to be clairvoyant. In even more ancient times the living were able to look upwards with clairvoyant vision to the dead and to follow the happenings of their life. Just as it was once natural for the soul to be in living relationship with the dead, so it is possible today for the soul to re-establish this intercourse and relationship by acquiring thoughts and ideas about the spiritual worlds. And it will be one of the practical tasks of anthroposophical life to ensure that the bridge is built between the living and the dead.

In order that we may really understand one another, I want to speak first of certain aspects of the mutual relationship between the living and the dead, starting with a quite simple phenomenon which will be explained in accordance with the findings of spiritual investigations. Souls who sometimes practise a little self-contemplation will be able to observe the following (and I believe that many have done so). Let us suppose that someone has hated another person in life, or perhaps it was, or is, merely a question of antipathy or dislike. When the person towards whom hatred or antipathy was directed dies, and the other hears of his death, he will feel that the same hatred or antipathy cannot be maintained. If the hatred persists beyond the grave, sensitive souls will feel a kind of shame that it should be so. This feeling—and it is present in many souls—can be observed by clairvoyance. During self-examination the question may well be asked: Why is it that this feeling of shame at some hatred or antipathy arises in the soul, for the existence of such hatred was never at any time admitted to a second person?

When the clairvoyant investigator follows in the spiritual worlds the one who has passed through the gate of death and then looks back upon the soul who has remained on the earth, he finds that, generally speaking, the soul of the dead has a very clear perception, a very definite feeling, of the hatred in the soul of the living man. The dead sees the hatred—if I may speak figuratively. The clairvoyant investigator is able to confirm with all certainty that this is so. But he can also perceive what such hatred signifies for the dead. It signifies an obstacle to the good endeavours of the dead in his spiritual development, an obstacle comparable with hindrances standing in the way of some external goal on earth. In the spiritual world the dead finds that the hatred is an obstacle to his good endeavours. And now we understand why hatred—even if there was justification for it in life—dies in the soul of one who practises a little self-contemplation: the hatred dies because a feeling of shame arises in the soul when the one who was hated has died. True, if the man is not clairvoyant he does not know the reason for this, but implanted in the very soul there is a feeling of being observed; the man feels: the dead sees my hatred and it is an actual hindrance to his good endeavours.

Many feelings rooted deeply in the human soul are explained when we rise into the worlds of spirit and recognize the spiritual facts underlying these feelings. Just as when doing certain things on earth we prefer not to be physically observed and would refrain from doing them if we knew this was happening, so hatred does not persist after a person's death when we have the feeling that we ourselves are being observed by him. But the love or even the sympathy we extend to the dead eases his path, removes hindrances from him.

What I am now saying—that hatred creates hindrances in the spiritual world and love removes them—does not cut across karma. After all, many things happen here on earth which we shall not attribute directly to karma. If we knock our foot against a stone, this must not always be attributed to karma—not, at any rate, to moral karma. In the same way it is not a violation of karma when the dead feels eased through the love streaming to him from the earth, or when he encounters hindrances to his good endeavours.

Something else that will make an even stronger appeal in connection with intercourse between the dead and the living is the fact that in a certain sense the souls of the dead too need nourishment; not, of course, the kind of nourishment required by human beings on the earth, but of the nature of spirit-and-soul. By way of comparison, just as we on the earth must have cornfields where the grain for our physical sustenance ripens, so must the souls of the dead have cornfields from which they can gather certain sustenance which they need during the time between death and a new birth. As the eye of clairvoyance follows the souls of the dead, the souls of sleeping human beings are seen to be cornfields for the dead. For one who has this experience in the spiritual world for the first time, it is not only surprising but deeply shattering to see how the souls living between death and a new birth hasten as it were to the souls of sleeping human beings, seeking for the thoughts and ideas which are in those souls; for these thoughts are food for the souls of the dead and they need this nourishment.

When we go to sleep at night, the ideas and thoughts which have passed through our consciousness in our waking hours begin to live, to be living beings. Then the souls of the dead draw near and share in these ideas, feeling nourished as they perceive them. When clairvoyant vision is directed to the dead who night after night make their way to the sleeping human beings left behind on earth—especially blood-relations but friends as well—seeking refreshment and nourishment from the thoughts and ideas that have been carried into sleep, it is a shattering experience to see that they often find nothing. For as regards the state of sleep there is a great difference between one kind of thought and another.

If throughout the day we are engrossed in thoughts connected with material life, if our mind is directed only to what is going on in the physical world and can be achieved there, if we have given no single thought to the spiritual worlds before passing into sleep but often bring ourselves into those worlds by means quite different from thoughts, then we have no nourishment to offer to the dead. I know towns in Europe where students induce sleepiness by drinking a lot of beer! The result is that they carry over thoughts which cannot live in the spiritual world. And then when the souls of the dead approach, they find barren fields; they fare as our physical body fares when famine prevails because our fields yield no crops. Especially at the present time much famine among souls can be observed in the spiritual worlds, for materialism is already very widespread. Many people regard it as childish to occupy themselves with thoughts about the spiritual world but thereby they deprive souls after death of needed nourishment.

In order that this may be rightly understood, it must be stated that nourishment after death can be drawn only from the ideas and thoughts of those with whom there was some connection during life; nourishment cannot be drawn from those with whom there was no connection at all. When we cultivate Anthroposophy today in order that there may again be in souls a spirituality which can be nourishment for the dead, we are not working only for the living, or merely in order to provide them with some kind of theoretical satisfaction, but we try to fill our hearts and souls with thoughts of the spiritual world because we know that the dead who were connected with us on earth must draw their nourishment from these thoughts. We feel ourselves to be workers not only for living human beings, but workers too in the sense that anthroposophical activity, the spread of anthroposophical life, is also of service to the spiritual worlds. In speaking to the living for their life by day, we promote ideas which, bringing satisfaction as they do in the life by night, are fruitful nourishment for the souls whose karma it was to die before us. And so we feel the urge not only to spread Anthroposophy by the ordinary means of communication, but deep down within us there is the longing to cultivate Anthroposophy in communities, in groups, because this is of real value.

As I have said, the dead can draw nourishment only from souls with whom they were associated in life. We therefore try to bring souls together in order that the harvest-fields for the dead may become more and more extensive. Many a human being who after death finds no harvest-field because all his family are materialists, finds it among the souls of anthroposophists with whom he had had some connection. That is the deeper reason for working together in community, and why we are anxious that the dead should have been able before death to know anthroposophists who are still occupied on the earth with spiritual things; for when these people are asleep the dead can draw nourishment from them.

In ancient times, when a certain spirituality pervaded the souls of men, it was among religious communities and blood-relatives that help was sought after death. But the power of blood-relationship has diminished and must be replaced by cultivation of the spiritual life, as is our endeavour. Anthroposophy can therefore promise that a new bridge will be built between the living and the dead and that through it we can mean something real to the dead. And when with clairvoyant vision today we sometimes find human beings in the life between death and a new birth suffering because they have known, including their nearest and dearest, [those who] harbour only materialistic thoughts, we recognize how necessary it is for cultural life on earth to be permeated with spiritual thoughts.

Suppose, for example, we find in the spiritual world a man who died fairly recently, whom we knew during his life on earth and who left behind certain members of his family also known to us. The wife and children were all of them good people in the ordinary sense, with a genuine love for one another. But clairvoyant vision now reveals that the father, whose wife was the very sun of his existence when he came home after heavy and arduous work, cannot see into her soul because she has not spiritual thoughts either in her head or in her heart. And so he asks: Where is my wife? What has become of her? He can look back only to the time when he was united with her on earth, but now, when he is seeking her most urgently of all, he cannot find her. This may well happen. There are many people today who believe that as far as consciousness is concerned the dead have passed into a kind of void, who can think of the dead only with materialistic thoughts, not with any fruitful thoughts. In the life between death and rebirth a soul may be looking towards someone still on earth. someone who had loved him, but the love is not combined with belief in the soul's continued existence after death. In such a case, at the very moment after death when this desire arises to see one who was loved on earth, all vision may be extinguished. The living human being cannot be found, nor can any link be established with him, although it is known that he could indeed be contacted if spiritual thoughts were harboured in his soul.

This is a frequent and sorrowful experience for the dead. And so it may happen—this can be seen by clairvoyant vision—that many a human being after death encounters obstacles in the way of his highest aims on account of the thoughts of antipathy by which he is followed, and he finds no consolation in the living thoughts of those to whom he was dear on earth because owing to their materialism they are hidden from his sight.

The laws of the spiritual world, perceived in this way by clairvoyant vision, hold good unconditionally. That this is so is shown by an example which it has often been possible to observe. It is instructive to see how thoughts of hatred, or at least antipathy, take effect even if they are not conceived in full consciousness. There are school-teachers of the type usually known as ‘strict’, who are unable to gain the affection of their pupils; in such cases of course, the thoughts of antipathy and hatred are formed half innocently. But when such a teacher dies it can be seen how these thoughts too—for they persist—are obstacles in the way of his good endeavours in the spiritual world. After the teacher's death it is not often that a child or young person realizes that his hatred ought to cease, but he nevertheless preserves the feeling of how the teacher tormented him. From such insights a great deal can be learnt about the mutual relationships between the living and the dead.

I have been trying to lead up to something that can become a fundamentally good result of anthroposophical endeavour—namely, reading to the dead. It has been proved in our own Movement that very great service can be rendered to the souls of those who have died before us by reading to them about spiritual things. This can be done by directing your thoughts to the dead and, in order to make this easier, you can picture him as you knew him in life, standing or sitting before you. In this way you can read to more than one soul at a time. You do not read aloud, but you follow the ideas with alert attention, always keeping in mind the thought: The dead are standing before me.

That is what is meant by reading to the dead. It is not always essential to have a book, but you must not think abstractly and you must think each thought to the end. In this way you are able to read to the dead.

Although it is more difficult, this can be carried so far that if in the realm of some particular world-conception—or indeed in any domain of life—thoughts have been held in common with the soul of the dead and there has been some degree of personal relationship, one can even read to a soul with whom the connection has been no closer than this. Through the warmth of the thoughts directed to him, he gradually becomes attentive. Thus it may be of real use to read to distant associates after their death.

The reading can take place at any time. I have been asked what is the best hour of the day for such reading, but it is quite independent of time. All that matters is to think the thoughts through to the end; to skim through them is not enough. The subject-matter must be worked through word by word, as if one were reciting inwardly. Then the dead read with us. Nor is it correct to think that such reading can be useful only to those who have come into contact with Anthroposophy during their lifetime. This is by no means necessarily so.

Quite recently, perhaps not even a year ago, one of our friends, and his wife too, felt a kind of uneasiness every night. As the friend's father had died a short time previously, it struck him at once that his father was wanting something and was turning to him. And when this friend came to me for advice, it was found that the father, who during his lifetime would not listen to a word about Anthroposophy, was feeling an urgent need after his death to know something of it. Then, when the son and his wife read to the father the lecture-course on the Gospel of St. John which I once gave in Cassel, this soul felt deeply satisfied, as though lifted above many disharmonies that had been experienced shortly after death.

This case is noteworthy because the soul concerned was that of a preacher who had regularly presented the views of his religion to other men, but after death could only find satisfaction by being able to share in the reading of an anthroposophical elucidation of the Gospel of St. John. It is not essential that the one whom we wish to help after death should have been an anthroposophist in his lifetime, although in the nature of things very special service will be rendered to an anthroposophist by reading to him.

A fact such as this gives us a view of the human soul quite different from the one usually held. There are factors in the souls of men of far greater complexity than is generally believed. What takes its course consciously is actually only a small part of man's life of soul. In the unconscious depths of his soul there is a great deal going on of which he has at most a dim inkling; it hardly enters at all into his clear waking consciousness. Moreover, the very opposite of what a man believes or thinks in his upper consciousness may often be astir in his subconscious life. A very frequent case is that one member of a family comes to Anthroposophy and the brother or the husband or the wife become more and more hostile to it, often scornful and rabidly opposed. Great antipathy to Anthroposophy then develops in such a family and life becomes very difficult for many people because of the scorn and even anger of friends or relatives.

Investigation of these latter souls often reveals that in their subconscious depths an intense longing for Anthroposophy is developing. Such a soul may be longing for Anthroposophy even more intensely than someone who in his upper consciousness is an avid attender of anthroposophical meetings. But death lifts away the veils from the subconscious and balances out such things in a remarkable way. It often happens in life that a man deadens himself to what lies in the subconscious; there are people who may have an intense longing for Anthroposophy—but they deaden it. By raging against Anthroposophy they deaden this longing and delude themselves by repudiating it. But after death the longing asserts itself all the more forcibly. The most ardent longing for Anthroposophy often shows itself after death in the very people who have raged against it in life. Do not, therefore, refrain from reading to those who were hostile to Anthroposophy while they were alive, for by this reading you may often be rendering them the greatest service imaginable.

A question often raised in connection with this is: ‘How can one be sure that the soul of the dead person is able to listen?’ Admittedly, without clairvoyance it is difficult to be sure of this, although one who steeps himself in thoughts of the dead will in time be surprised by a feeling that the dead person is actually listening. This feeling will be absent only if he is inattentive and fails to notice the peculiar warmth that often arises during the reading. Such a feeling can indeed be acquired, but even if this proves not to be possible it must nevertheless be said that in our attitude to the spiritual world a certain principle always applies. The principle is that when we read to one who has died, we help him under all circumstances, if he hears us. Even if he does not hear us, we are fulfilling our duty and may eventually succeed in enabling him to hear. In any case we gain something by absorbing thoughts and ideas which will quite certainly be nourishment for the dead in the way indicated. Therefore under no circumstances is anything lost. Actual experience has shown that in fact this awareness of what is being read is extra-ordinarily widespread among the dead, and that tremendous service can be rendered to those to whom we read the spiritual wisdom that can be imparted to us today.

Thus we may hope that the wall dividing the living from the dead will become thinner and thinner as Anthroposophy spreads through the world. And it will be a beautiful and splendid result of Anthroposophy if in a future time men come to know—but as actual fact, not in theory only—that in reality it is only a matter of a transformation of experience when we ourselves have passed through so-called death and are together with the dead. We can actually enable them to share in what we ourselves experienced during physical life. A false idea of the life between death and rebirth would be indicated if the question were asked: ‘Why is it necessary to read to the dead? Do they not know through their own vision what those on earth can read to them, do they themselves not know it far better?’ This question will of course be asked only by one who is not in a position to know what can be experienced in the spiritual world. After all, we can live in the physical world without acquiring knowledge of it. If we are not in a position to form judgments about certain things, we have no real knowledge of the physical world. The animals live together with us in the physical world, but do not know it as we ourselves know it. The fact that a soul after death is living in the spiritual world does not mean that this soul has knowledge of that world, although he is able to behold it. The knowledge acquired through Anthroposophy can be acquired only on the earth; it cannot be acquired in the spiritual world. If, therefore, beings in the spiritual world are to possess knowledge, it must be learnt through those who themselves acquire it on earth. It is an important secret of the spiritual worlds that the soul can be in them and behold them, but that knowledge of them must be acquired on the earth.

At this point I must mention a common misconception about the spiritual worlds. When a human being is living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, he directs his longing to our physical world somewhat as a physical human being directs his longing to the spiritual world. A man between death and a new birth expects from men on the earth that they will show and radiate up to him knowledge that can be acquired only on the earth. The earth has not been established without purpose in spiritual world-existence; the earth has been summoned to life in order that there may come into being that which is possible nowhere else. Knowledge of the spiritual worlds—which means more than vision, more than a mere onlooking—can arise only on the earth.

I said before that the beings of the spiritual worlds cannot read our books, and I must now add that what lives in us as Anthroposophy is for the spiritual beings, and also for our own souls after death, what books here on earth are for physical man—something through which he acquires knowledge of the world. But these books which we ourselves are for the dead, are living books. Try to feel the importance of these words: we must provide reading for the dead!

In a certain sense our books are more long-suffering, for they do not allow their letters to vanish away into the paper while we are reading them, whereas by filling our minds with material thoughts which are invisible in the spiritual worlds, we men often deprive the dead of the opportunity of reading. I am obliged to say this because the question is often raised as to whether the dead themselves are not capable of knowing what we are able to give them. They cannot be, because Anthroposophy can be grounded only on the earth and must be carried up from there into the spiritual worlds.

When we ourselves penetrate into the spiritual worlds and come to know something about the life there, we encounter conditions altogether different from those prevailing in physical life on earth. That is why it is so very difficult to describe these conditions in terms of human words and human thoughts. Any attempt to speak concretely about them often seems paradoxical.

To take one example only, I am able to tell you of a human soul after death together with whom it was possible—because of his special knowledge—to make certain discoveries in the spiritual world about the great painter Leonardo da Vinci, particularly about his famous picture of the Last Supper, in Milan. When one investigates a spiritual fact in association with such a soul, this soul is able to indicate many things which ordinary clairvoyance might not otherwise have found in the Akasha Chronicle. The soul in the spiritual world is able to point them out, but can do so only if there is some understanding of what this soul is trying to convey. Something very noteworthy then comes to light.

Suppose that in company with such a soul one is investigating how Leonardo da Vinci created his famous picture. Today the picture is hardly more than a few patches of colour. But in the Akasha Chronicle one can watch Leonardo as he painted, one can see what the picture was once like—although this is not an easy thing to do. When the investigation is carried on in company with a soul who is not incarnate but has some connection with Leonardo da Vinci and his painting, one perceives that this soul is showing one certain things—for example, the faces of Christ and of Judas as they actually were in the picture. But one perceives, too, that the soul could not reveal this unless at the moment when it is being revealed there is understanding in the soul of the living investigator. This is a sine qua non. And only at the moment when the soul of the living investigator is receptive to what is being disclosed does the discarnate soul itself learn to understand what is otherwise merely vision. To speak figuratively.—After something has been experienced together with such a soul—something that can be experienced only in the way described—this soul says to one: You have brought me to the picture and I feel the urge to look at it with you. (The soul of the dead says this to the living investigator because of the latter's desire to investigate the picture.) Numerous experiences then arise. But a moment comes when the discarnate soul is either suddenly absent or says that it must depart. In the case of which I have just told you, the discarnate soul said: Up to now the soul of Leonardo da Vinci regarded with approval what was being done, but does not now desire the investigation to continue.

My object in telling you this is to describe an important feature of the spiritual life. Just as in physical life we know that we are looking at this or that object—we see a rose, or whatever it may be—so in the spiritual life we know: this or that being is seeing us, watching us. In the spiritual worlds we have the constant feeling that beings are looking at us. Whereas in the physical world we are conscious that we are observing the world, in the spiritual world the experience is that we ourselves are being observed, now from this side, now from that. We feel that eyes are upon us all the time, but eyes that also impel us to take decisions. With the knowledge that we are or are not being watched by eyes in favour of what we ought or ought not to do, we either do it or refrain. Just as we reach out to pick a flower that delights us because we have seen it, in the spiritual world we do something because a being there views it favourably, or we refrain from the action because we cannot endure the look that is directed at it. This experience must become ingrained in us. In the spiritual world we feel that we ourselves are being seen, just as here in the physical world we feel that we ourselves are seeing. In a certain sense, what is active here is passive in that other world, and what is active there is passive here.

From this it is obvious that quite different concepts must be acquired in order to understand correctly descriptions of conditions in the spiritual world. You will therefore realize how difficult it is to coin in words of ordinary human language descriptions of the spiritual world that one would so gladly give. And you will realize too how essential it is that for many things the necessary preparatory understanding shall first have been created.

There is only one other matter to which I want to call attention. The question may arise: Why does anthroposophical literature describe in such a general sense what happens directly after death, in Kamaloca and in the realm of spirits (Devachan) and why is so little said about individual examples of clairvoyant vision? For it may well be believed that to observe a particular soul after death would be easier than to describe general conditions. But it is not so. I will use a comparison to explain this.

It is easier for rightly developed clairvoyance to survey the broad, general conditions—such as the passage of the human soul through death, through Kamaloca and upwards into Devachan than to perceive some particular experience of an individual soul. In the physical world it is easier to have knowledge of phenomena that are subject to the influences of the great movements of the celestial bodies and more difficult in the case of irregular phenomena caused by those movements. Every one of you will be able to predict that the sun will rise tomorrow morning and set in the evening; but it is not so easy to know exactly what the weather will be. The same holds good for clairvoyance. The knowledge of conditions usually portrayed in the descriptions of the spiritual worlds—conditions which are first perceived in clairvoyant consciousness—is to be compared with the knowledge of the general course taken by the heavenly bodies. And one can always count upon the fact that the data of such knowledge will generally prove correct.

Particular happenings in the life between death and rebirth are like the weather conditions here on the earth—which are, of course, also subject to law, but difficult to know with certainty. At one place one cannot be sure what kind of weather there is at another. Here in Bergen it is difficult to know what the weather is in Berlin, but not the positions of the sun or the moon. A special development of the faculty of clairvoyance is required to follow the course of an individual life after death, for to do this is more difficult than to follow the general course taken by the human soul.

On the right path, knowledge of the general conditions is acquired first, and only at the very end—if the necessary development has been achieved through training—knowledge of what would seem to be the easier. A man may have been able for some time to see conditions in Kamaloca or Devachan quite correctly and yet find it extremely difficult to see what time it is on the watch on his pocket. Things in the physical world present the greatest difficulty of all to clairvoyance.

In acquiring knowledge of the higher worlds it is exactly the opposite. Errors occur here because a certain natural clairvoyance still exists; this clairvoyance is unreliable and prone to all kinds of aberrations, but it may long have been present without its possessor having clairvoyant sight of the general conditions described in Anthroposophy, which are easier for the trained clairvoyant.

This is what I wanted to say to you today about the spiritual worlds. In the lecture tomorrow we will continue and to some extent deepen these studies.

The Earthly, the Cosmic and the Present Christ

My dear friends!

Before I say anything else, please allow me to give you a brief report on the last few weeks. I will mention only a few things so that you here at the Goetheanum may be informed about what is going on in our movement.

After I had left Dornach and had dealt with other, internal matters in Stuttgart, the beginning of my public activity was on November 19 in Berlin, where I had to give the second lecture — the first is known to you - in the great hall of the Philharmonie, which was again filled to capacity. Then, after a eurythmy performance in Berlin, the Kristiania tour began. The first lectures in Copenhagen were on November 23 and 24. These two lectures were held at the request of the Pedagogical Association in Copenhagen. In them I had to discuss the principles and methods of anthroposophical education and didactics and to say something about the way the Waldorf School is run in Stuttgart. These lectures took place at the “Nobel Institute” and were very well attended. They were mainly attended by teachers; only a small number of seats had been allocated to members of our society. The second lecture — that was on Thursday, November 24th — was preceded by a lecture on the Vidar branch in Kristiania.

On the 25th, I then had to give a public lecture in Kristiania, organized by the student body, on “The Paths to Supernatural Knowledge”. It is worth mentioning that the lecture was able to be held in the largest hall in Kristiania, which holds over 2000 people, and that this hall was full to the last seat. Considering that there may not be many people in Kristiania who understand German to any great extent, one must nevertheless come to the conclusion that the anthroposophical movement is currently expanding to some extent.

On Saturday, November 26, I had to give a lecture at the student body of Kristiania itself, as part of the weekly student gatherings held on Saturdays. The public lecture on the previous Friday was arranged by the student body, but was open to the public. This lecture on Saturday had the same topic, but was of course then treated for the student body and within the framework of student associations.

On Sunday we had a eurythmy performance at 1 p.m. in the Kristiania National Theatre. Our friends were a little anxious, because it was a risk to give a eurythmy performance in the National Theatre, and besides, the house holds 2400 people when it is fully occupied, I believe. But on this day, it was filled to capacity. Taking all the circumstances into account, the audience received this eurythmy performance with great friendliness.

At 6 p.m. the second event for the “Vidar branch” took place. That was on Sunday, November 27th. And on Monday morning we were inundated with a veritable flood of sewage from all possible newspapers in Kristiania. It presented the absolute opposite of the picture that could actually be gained from the previous day. I have already experienced very bad things from these pages, but what has been done here is pretty much one of the very worst newspaper diatribes that can be mustered.

I had to remind them that a long time ago, when the intention of presenting eurythmy to the public was expressed, I gave a lecture to our eurythmists in which I pointed out that if eurythmy was brought into the public eye, it would experience the very worst of abuse. And this prophecy has rarely been fulfilled in such a magnificent way as on that Monday and Tuesday. The things lasted for a long time, because some people ranted two or three times.

On Monday evening, the first public lecture on anthroposophy organized by our friends took place in the old university auditorium. It was well attended and very warmly received, and not the slightest hint of what had happened outside in journalism was to be noticed. Then, on Tuesday at noon, I was invited by the theological association in Kristiania to speak about the Christ problem in a university auditorium, and that same evening I gave the second anthroposophy lecture organized by our friends.

On Wednesday, the lecture on economic issues, “The Cardinal Question of Economic Life,” took place at the request of the State Economic Association, also in the university auditorium. This lecture was attended by both economic theorists and economic practitioners. This was followed, not in the hall, but at a supper that had been organized, by a lively discussion of the relevant economic issues. The topics of the previous days of anthroposophical lectures were on Monday: “The Foundations of Anthroposophy”, on Tuesday: “The Human Being in the Light of Anthroposophy”.

On Wednesday we also had a very special treat. There was a very excited debate about whether a second eurythmy performance should be organized after the way things had gone. I said: perhaps it would have been possible to discuss whether a second eurythmy performance should take place in a city that is not too big after all, considering that 2400 people had already seen it – if it hadn't been for the ranting. But as it was, it was self-evident that I, for one, could not do without the second performance, so that every effort had to be made to get the National Theater for the second time, and if it could not be obtained, then another theater would have to be taken. - Now the greatest efforts were really made.

In particular, our friend Ingerö has earned the greatest merit.

On Wednesday there was a meeting of the 'Theater Association'. Among others, the father of our friend Morgenstierne, who is a professor, belongs to it. When he came to the supper of the State Economic Association that evening, he declared, “I have been slaughtered.” It had been such an agitated meeting that he felt slaughtered, and rightly so. And now, of course, we were refused the theater.

I thought that we should now definitely take on a different theater. That happened, and rehearsals were to begin on Thursday. Then there was a fire at the power station. Kristiania was plunged into darkness, and of course the theater was in darkness all day, and we had to hold the rehearsals by candlelight, but of course we did not let that stop us. Of course, we couldn't do any light experiments, because it was dark. This darkness began on Friday. On Friday evening, my second public student lecture was to be held in the large university auditorium. It was very uncertain whether anyone would come at all, because it was simply impossible to illuminate the university auditorium. It didn't seem to me to be an obstacle either, and we boldly made the attempt. I arrived in the evening. It was difficult to pass through the corridors, one had to be guided by a candle light. Then the lecture was held in the packed University auditorium with three acetylene lights. The topic was: “On the Necessity of a Renewal of Culture”. The lecture was very well received. One could not notice anything of the newspaper ranting, because they had now smelled a rat and continued their ranting throughout the whole week. It was, however, typical that in the middle of the first week, for example, an article was published that was compiled from all the criticism of the “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” that had ever been published in German newspapers. It was a very select selection that was published. In response, our friend Morgenstierne sat down and wrote a reply. Another friend went to the editor and said: “It's all lies, how can you print such a thing?” He replied: “Yes, I don't know anything about the matter myself, I haven't read anything by Dr. Steiner, I don't know anything, but the article was sent to us from a proven source, and that's why I printed it.” — “Yes, but then you also have to print a reply.” — “Yes!”

Our friend Morgenstierne then sent the retort, the publication of which had been promised. The next day there was an even bigger rant, which took up almost the entire page, and the retort was printed in very small print at the back of the page in the classifieds section.

An employee of a more decent newspaper did, after all, report quite objectively, for example, about the pedagogical lectures and the public lecture. In general, the lectures were not even treated unobjectively.

Then Saturday came. A dress rehearsal had to be done with a specially compiled program for certain reasons that I don't want to discuss here. This dress rehearsal could only be carried out by candlelight, so there was no lighting test, and I said we would just have to wait until the electric light came back on. It came back on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and then the theater declared: We have to have the first rehearsal ourselves, because we've been waiting for it all these days. So we couldn't do the light test at 4 p.m., but only at 7 p.m. The performance was scheduled for 8 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., the doors were opened and the audience was let in. The performance was received in an extraordinarily friendly manner. The hall was not full; but that is only due to the fact that very few people could have considered that a theater might be lit in that particular neighborhood. But relatively speaking, the performance was not even poorly attended and, as I said, was received extremely warmly. On the other hand, the next day a review appeared in which it was said that it had been a scandalous success.

On Sunday I held the branch meeting for our members and that was the end of the campaign in Kristiania. There was then another eurythmy performance and then a branch event on Wednesday in Berlin. So these are the events that have taken place recently.

When I arrived here about three hours ago, I opened one of many letters by chance that was very interesting. Namely, three or four weeks ago a paper was published in Germany by a publisher in Hanover by a Dr. Michel called: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph, a Philosophical Execution”. I believe that this paper has even been reviewed in the Threefolding newspaper. The letter I received today has the following content:

Darmstadt, 14.11. 21, Saurbergstr. 66

Dear Mr. Steiner,

the publisher Paul Steegemann of Hanover announced in the latest issue of the German book trade journal, Börsenblatt, a pamphlet of mine with the title: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph; a philosophical execution”. This pamphlet does not and will not exist; I have not written it and will not write it. It is true that I promised Steegemann Publishers a collection of essays, which would include my article “The Anthroposophists” that appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. It is also true that I am opposed to what is referred to as anthroposophy and what was presented here as such a few months ago. But this brochure does not exist; I would not have chosen the crude title “Execution”, quite apart from the fact that I do not know those of your achievements that are most highly regarded by your followers. I would like to add with all due respect that I don't feel the need to get to know you, but I am so unhappy about the tasteless publicity that the publisher has done without my knowledge that I would like to distance myself from it in any case. The publisher also claims that I am from Keyserling's Wisdom School, which is also a blatant lie. I am sharing all this with you for the sake of truth and to get out of the false, distorted light that this kind of advertising casts on me.

Yours very sincerely

Wilhelm Michel

So you see, you can't even rely on the authors anymore, because the authors declare that they didn't write the books!

Now, another letter stated that one can still say with a clear conscience today that anthroposophy is nevertheless making its way; but the anger is also growing ever greater, precisely because it is making its way. These things are definitely connected. So another letter brought a larger number of signatures from professors at the [Copenhagen] University, inviting me to give anthroposophical lectures there. What will come of it all, I do not know at present.

It is indeed the case that the anthroposophical movement is making its way through the world, and above all, it can be seen everywhere that there is a lively interest in the various branches that have emerged from the anthroposophical movement. On the other hand, however, the opposition is growing monstrously. Just to mention one example of this opposition: when I arrived in Berlin before the trip to Kristiania, our friend Mr. Gantenbein came to me and said: “I have just received a telephone call from Stuttgart telephone conversation that on the 24th in Munich a lecture will be given by the director of the Haeckel Archive, Professor Schmidt, on the basis of documents and letters that are in the Haeckel Archive. Now Dr. Kolisko wanted to know – because he might want to intervene in the discussion in Munich – what kind of criminal act the letters I once wrote to Haeckel could represent. I said that, of course, I could not at that moment reconstruct every single sentence that I had written to Haeckel about 25 years ago, but he should go there and see for himself what was going on. Well, he went. I then received a report about the Munich meeting.

Professor Schmidt gave a lecture in which he did not dare to say much about anthroposophy itself, as I believe he said himself. Instead, he read out some passages from letters that I had written to Haeckel. I was then sent the copies of these letters, and it was an extraordinary interest to me to read them again, for one after another begins [something like this]: “Dear Professor! I must express my most sincere thanks for the latest of your works, which you have again sent me.

The letters contain essentially nothing but expressions of gratitude for the books Haeckel had sent me about himself. But two letters that were not from me were particularly serious. I still have not seen them; but they were written to Haeckel by a friend of mine in 1901, I believe, without my knowing anything about it. Haeckel had known me for quite some time, to the extent that he had given me almost all of his works, bit by bit. Now this friend wrote to him that I was doing very badly and had no money, and that he should use his influence to get me a lectureship. I knew nothing about it, otherwise I would have pointed out the folly to him. I only learned of this fact now. And on the side of one of the letters was written, “Steiner — Theosophist,” in Haeckel's own pencil, so I heard. That seemed to be the only point of complaint, because it was used to construct: Aha! He didn't have any money back then, so he became a Theosophist to make as much money as possible. - I don't know, though, whether it would have been possible to get out of this dilemma that way, because Theosophical leadership in Germany was entirely honorless.

So that was contrived. The meeting seems to have been extraordinarily instructive, because it was held in a monist alliance. The chairman seems to have been extraordinarily amazed at this outpouring of monistic wisdom and says that he certainly cannot comprehend how it came about that this was organized; he is in favor of hearing about anthroposophy first and foremost. Dr. Kolisko was invited to speak, I believe. But that is something that perhaps should not be pointed out, otherwise it will be rescinded.

As you can see, the whole affair seems to have been a terrible embarrassment, but at least it shows you the means that are being resorted to. You have probably been able to read in the Dreigliederungszeitung what the “Bund zur Abwehr der anthroposophischen Gefahr” (Federation for the Defence against the Anthroposophical Danger), which was founded in Darmstadt, has achieved. As I said, I just wanted to give you this one example of the particular way in which such things are now being done. I could tell you a great deal about the most diverse kinds of opposition. But it is already clearly visible today that things grow with the spread of the movement.

After my return from Kristiania, I received an article from the “Kölnische Zeitung”, in which a geologist speaks out in an extraordinarily dismissive manner against the way in which I arranged the geological writings for the Weimar Goethe Edition in the 1890s; he would have arranged them quite differently, and he finds it completely ungeological the way I arranged them.

I do have my particular opinion about this kind of execution by a university geologist, however; because in the first paragraph of this newspaper article, it says that it is indeed strange when a young man writes such writings about Goethe; but he admits – the person in question – that he does not understand them. Well, I think that it is not particularly valuable to pass judgment on the fundamentally rather secondary question of whether a Goethe essay will be included in the edition sooner or later; after all, one can have the most diverse views on this, because one bases one's judgment on the principles one has formed about Goethe.

And if someone cannot understand these principles, then their judgment is not to be trusted. But I would like to give such gentlemen a piece of advice: they should dispute most vehemently any judgment of mine about linguistics. Because after going back so far in the decades, one should just go back a little further and check my school notebooks in Wiener Neustadt. I can guarantee that these school notebooks always contained a large number of grammatical errors up to the age of 14, and that punctuation in particular was extremely poor. I therefore believe that one can draw the justified conclusion from this that it is completely impossible for me to make a valid judgment about anything linguistic today! It seems to me that the investigations will soon have to be driven into this quagmire.

It occurred to me, without me wanting to draw a comparison, that the poet Robert Hamerling published his high school teaching certificate in his memoirs. This certificate, which was issued by the enlightened high school teaching examination board when Robert Hamerling was to take his high school teaching qualification, contains the following passage: The candidate is eminently qualified to teach Greek and Latin, however, one cannot help but say that with regard to the German language and style, he can hardly meet the most basic requirements of a grammar school teacher of the lower classes. Such samples could indeed be collected in many ways. Those who have experience in this field know how these things actually come about, that is, how they arise from the mind, because that is the more important thing.

That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to tell you about the progress of our movement. I must repeatedly draw your attention to the fact that you must be fully aware that the opposition is growing ever greater and greater.

Today I would like to say a few words that could be a kind of continuation of the explanations I gave you before my trip. I would like to talk about how, in a sense, what I have said on various occasions about the Christ problem can be summarized. I would like to do this because a paper has recently been published that characterizes, as it were, “newer religious movements,” and among these also discusses anthroposophy. In this paper, one might say, the tone is actually quite benevolent. You see, I have given our friends in Kristiania some consolation for the terrible things that they too have had to endure in the newspapers. I said: If the newspaper reviews had been so one-sided as to bring them extraordinary praise, then I would have had to consider what is wrong with anthroposophy and what can be improved. But now, for some time, one can be encouraged again; because it would have been very bad if things had turned out differently.

So, a publication has appeared that expresses itself in an actually benevolent intention about the religious content of anthroposophy. It is said that it would be quite nice if the religious feeling of the present were to receive support from anthroposophy. But that cannot be the case, because then the religious movement would have to watch as anthroposophy points people to the higher worlds. The higher worlds would be pointed out from a different side than that of the appointed representatives of religion, and if that were to attract followers, they would not be followers of religion, but followers of anthroposophy, from which one must therefore conclude that the life of anthroposophy means the death of religion.

This sentence is included in the first part of these discussions as something special. And there it is, as with so much, referred to the Cosmic Christ. Of course, everything that can be said about gnosticism and the like is brought up again, and then it is said: To present the Christ as an extraterrestrial, cosmic being is an insult to anyone who feels religious.

Now, since this is actually being said from a benevolent side, benevolent in relation to anthroposophy, as well as in relation to religious renewal, I must confess that I found that the matter had to be considered: How is it that people who, after all, cannot change their minds but are nonetheless well-meaning, come to the conclusion that the Christology of Anthroposophy is even offensive to a Christian, as he should be according to the opinion of such public representatives - because the person in question who wrote the book is a professor of theology. So it is a matter of considering what is actually at the root of this.

My dear friends, first of all we must consider what we have always presented regarding the twofold experience, the Father-experience, that is, the experience of God permeating the world, and the Christ-experience as such, which, for example, is not separated by people like Harnack from the general experience of God, from the Father-experience. I have presented this to you. It can be shown, and this must actually be striven for in the present, that there must be two experiences in man: one that comes from a truly correct contemplation of nature and of the physical existence of man, and the other that comes from the soul to the experience of the Son. The two experiences must occur in man in a completely separate way, so that the Christ-experience is a special experience. But this is not the case with most of the present official representatives of the Christian denominations. In his book 'The Essence of Christianity', for example, Harnack says that Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father; so it should not be about having Christ or an image of Christ in the Gospels. The Gospels are not meant by rights to speak about the Christ, but only about what the Christ says about the Father.

This is extremely characteristic, because for anyone who can think impartially, Harnack's concept of Christ is denied the ability to be a Christianity at all. For there is no difference between the old teaching of Yahweh and Christology when it is said: the Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father. For then the Christ is merely the Father's teacher, and then we really have no difference between the Christ-Jesus of these theologians and the Jesus whom, for example, an ordinary secular historian, Ranke, describes. That is just “the simple man from Nazareth,” certainly a peak of historical human development, but just the simple man from Nazareth. Actually, there is nothing of the Mystery of Golgotha in

such a so-called Christian discussion. But the individual human being can have the separate Christ-experience in the present, especially if he feels the modern sense of self in the right way. But then, I would like to say, one has the Christ who is present and walking among us spiritually, and not yet the historical Christ-Jesus who went through the Mystery of Golgotha.

Now it is a matter of also understanding this Christ-Jesus historically. This can be done in the following way. One follows the historical development of humanity up to the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. You know that this is the fourth post-Atlantean period.

Now let us assume that I have to talk to you today about the historical development of humanity without the Mystery of Golgotha having taken place in the Pauline sense; then I would not be able to talk to you about anything other than the pale skull site of Golgotha. Because what happened at this pale skull site of Golgotha would not have a supersensible significance. The Christ could not be understood as a supermundane, cosmic being.

During this period, the preliminary experience of the I first occurred. This can also be proven philologically by examining the languages. However, the actual experience of the I for Western humanity in the various branches of the life of consciousness did not occur until the first third of the 15th century, but it spread from the fourth post-Atlantic period.

The peoples who lived before the mystery of Golgotha had, as you know, an ancient wisdom in the most ancient times. This primal wisdom has indeed taken on very different forms among different peoples. But, however it may have been differentiated in the most diverse ways, in religious terms it was a wisdom of the Father-God, and anyone today who, in complete impartiality, takes in what can be established about the primal wisdom of different peoples, what can be gleaned from the records and documents of the nations, even in the Vedas, which I have often discussed, one will find that one must have the deepest reverence for what appeared in the most ancient times as primordial wisdom in the development of mankind

and has always been directed by the mysteries to the appropriate heights. But now this ancient wisdom is gradually dying out, and it is diminishing to the same extent that the instinctive old way of consciousness is diminishing. But to the same extent, self-awareness is also emerging in humanity, and with it the claim to human freedom.

Why was it that ancient pre-Christian humanity could have a wisdom of God that still instills the deepest reverence in us today when we look at it impartially? Precisely because consciousness had not yet penetrated to egoity, to the I, because what man brought forth from his being, when he considered himself in connection with the environment, gave him the Father consciousness in the most diverse forms. I have said it before: one cannot become an atheist if one is completely healthy. Atheism can be traced back to some kind of physical deficiency. But because these ancient peoples had a certain divine inheritance, this father consciousness arose from their overall feeling as human beings, from their total feeling and from the intuitive wisdom that flowed from it. As I said, this faded towards the fourth post-Atlantic period.

Everything is individual when it is really considered impartially, not in the sense of today's inadequate scientific method. In the deepest sense, it points to what has just occurred as a break in human development in this fourth post-Atlantic period, for example between Greek and Latin-Roman development. I have already mentioned many things, and I could still characterize many more. I just want to draw attention to one thing: if you still learn Greek today, you have to give the letters names: Alpha, Beta and so on, while in Roman times the names for the letters have already been absorbed; it is now just an “alphabet”, A, B, C and so on.

This happened during the transition to the abstract nature of the Roman language, the Romance language, and as a result, the understanding that something was originally given with language that had an inner connection, and that with language, humans were given a gift from the genius of language at the same time, was actually lost. These things must be researched because, as I am only able to hint at today, we cannot arrive at a thorough didactics of language teaching, as it must be in a truly serious school, such as a Waldorf school, if we do not pursue serious language studies; today's studies are not serious if we do not understand what it means that we now take the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma and so on for granted, and merely refer to the Latin letters as letters: A, B, C and so on. Something of the genius of language was given to humanity, which I have to describe to you - as you know - as a real, actual being. In all kinds of orders one speaks of the “lost word”, but nowhere does one know what it is. It was simply with what we call the alphabet, if one simply pronounced the letters in succession, a world proclamation was given. Take for example the Greek Alpha. For anyone studying languages today, this is of the utmost importance. I hope that these language studies in particular can now be pursued in detail by Waldorf teachers, whom I have encouraged to do so, because we need these things in order to be able to use them practically in our teaching. If you form the word Alpha - but you have to take it fully - you have something that means “man”; and in “Beta” you have “house”. So that the word pronounced in the first two letters means: Man in his house. And then it continues through gamma and the other letters. And when you complete the alphabet, you get a deep meaning from the simple enumeration of the respective words that the letters mean.

This was later lost, completely disappeared in humanity, when the word that consists of all the letters of the alphabet. And today one speaks in “Freemason orders” of the “lost word”, but actually does not speak of something that really exists, because hardly anything suspects this reality.

But analyze the Greek alphabet and you will trace it back to the Hebrew: Aleph, Beth and so on, the alphabet always begins with: Man in his house. And then it continues. So world wisdom is revealed with the alphabet. Now, in the fourth post-Atlantic period, that which leads more and more to self-awareness emerged. It happened in stages, and I have already hinted at the important events that took place in the fourth Christian century, for example. However, as the sense of self emerged, something else emerged to the same extent. The I, the sense of self, that which the human being experiences by coming to full self-awareness, comes only from the physical body. Study everything else today, and you will receive influences from a supersensible existence, an existence from outside of life between birth and death. The sense of self that the human being has is a creation of what is experienced in the physical body between birth and death. In the next reflection, I will explain the full significance of self-awareness to you, but for now I would just like to mention it. However, the fact that the self-awareness of earthly man initially only comes from the physical body made those who were initiated through the mysteries in the fourth post-Atlantean period feel ill. They felt the culture was mentally ill. And that was a mystery view of the fourth post-Atlantic period: culture is mentally ill and needs a healer. This was deeply ingrained, and it is interesting to see how the Greek people, who were striving for health through and through, perceived this cultural illness.

You see, long, learned treatises have been written about the word “catharsis” associated with the mysteries. This was used to describe something that lives in the development of a tragedy by Aeschylus or Sophocles for the Greek tragedy. As I said, great scholarly treatises have been written about it. You know that from Lessing to the present day, speculations have been made about it; half-truths and quarter-truths have been found, but the right one has not been found. Lessing said: Fear and compassion should be stimulated, which in turn should be overcome. The soul should, so to speak, be healed of these passions by evoking them in this way.

But the most important thing is that “catharsis” is actually a medical term, and that it indicates that in Greece there was still an essential connection, let us say, for example, between Hippocrates and Aeschylus. The healthy Greek feeling sensed the cultural disease, and in the Aeschylus drama one sensed something like a healing. Therefore, one spoke in favor of the course, for the construction of the drama of catharsis, of the crisis that is overcome. One really spoke in medical terms of this catharsis. And if you look at historical development from this point of view, you will look with a special eye at the Essenes, especially at the therapists. Why did they call themselves “therapists”? Because they wanted to work on the recovery of the culture that had become ill.

And all this was preparation for the great healer, for Christ Jesus, for the actual savior. And it is not some superficiality, but is deeply rooted in the mystery knowledge of human development that the entry of the Mystery of Golgotha signifies a therapy for the historical development of humanity, and that if one were to speak of human development today without the Mystery of Golgotha having been there, one would have to say: human development is going downhill. One could only point to the bleaching skull place of Golgotha.

With full consciousness, it must be pointed out that the Mystery of Golgotha occurred at the right time and that it could not have come from the earth, but from outside the earth. For everything that had happened on earth in the development of humanity was at the stage in which the Greeks and the people of the Near East saw it, the therapists, until the “great therapist” came.

This actually leads to a correct and inward view of history. And from such a view of history, one is simply led to the historical event of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the historical Christ-Jesus. That is the way. This will be further explained next time.

But why does theology in particular oppose this extraterrestrial, this cosmic Christ? Why does theology say: That is insulting, that the Christ should be a sun being? Well, my dear friends, the reason for this is that theology itself has become materialistic. If we go back to the ancient wisdom, which was still instinctive, we see that people did not look up into the cosmic order and say: up there is the sun, which is a glowing ball of gas, but they looked up to the spiritual beings that were in the starry heavens. Whoever speaks of the being of the sun as the Christ does not speak of the material sun, but of the spiritual essence of the cosmos. We know how it is spoken of in theology today; there, too, one sees nothing but something that is calculated like a machine. And because extraterrestrial space is merely material — according to the view of such materialistic theologians —, anthroposophy, of course, makes the Christ, by declaring him to be a solar being, a merely material being as well.

So, because contemporary theology is so deeply infected by the materialism of the present day that it is taken for granted that when one speaks of the solar being, one is only talking about something material, it says: It is insulting. Because, isn't it true that anyone who, infected by conventional science, imagines a sun being coming to earth, imagines – and I don't mean to make a slip here, but I say this out of a desire to be understood – that something flies out of the sun and onto the earth, at most thinks of a shooting star. And so the theologian, based on his materialism, basically has the opinion: yes, when anthroposophy speaks of the Christ as a being of the sun that comes from the sun to the earth, it speaks of the Christ as a shooting star, a meteor. This can only come from materialism; people can no longer think in any other way than in material terms.

You have to go back to the elements if you want to understand at all why theologians might say that it is offensive when anthroposophy associates the Christ with an extraterrestrial being. Here you can see how contemporary theology is caught up in materialism, so to speak.

Now, I have tried to make it clear to you that Christ as the savior must be understood in a real, higher, medical sense. Of course, this will offend many theologians, because the fact that I have associated the word savior with the Heliand of German poetry, “Heliand,” has, it seems, deeply hurt Pastor Kully, who finds it extremely offensive and believes that it is as hollow as his own arguments. But I would like

emphasize: the benevolent theological writing I spoke to you about is not by Pastor Kully – lest you fall into the error of thinking it is – but from a slightly different source. From this, my dear friends, you can see that the Christology of anthroposophy can and must always be further deepened, because the present time demands that the Christ be understood again, that we can again rise to a real understanding of the Christ in the Jesus.

[ 1 ] In what is to follow it will be difficult to distinguish between the story of my life and a history of the Anthroposophical Society. And yet I should wish to introduce from the history of the Society only so much as is needed for the narration of the story of my life. This will be considered even in mentioning the names of active members of the Society. I have come too close to the present time to avoid all too easy misunderstandings through the mention of names. In spite of entire good will, many a one who finds some other mentioned and not himself may experience a feeling of bitterness. I shall mention in essential matters only those who, apart from their activity in the Society, had an association with my spiritual life, and not those who have not brought such a connection with them into the Society.

[ 2 ] In Berlin and Munich there were destined to develop to a certain extent the two opposite poles of anthroposophical activity. There came into anthroposophy, indeed, persons who found neither in the scientific world-conception nor in the traditional sects that spiritual content for which their souls had to seek. In Berlin a branch of the Society and an audience for the public lectures could be formed only of such persons as were opposed to all those philosophies which had come about in opposition to the traditional creeds; for the adherents of philosophies based upon rationalism, intellectualism, etc., considered what anthroposophy had to give as something fantastic, superstitions, etc. An audience and a membership arose which took in anthroposophy without tending in feeling or ideas to anything else than this. What had been given them from other sources did not satisfy them. Consideration had to be given to this temper of mind. And, as this was done, the number of members steadily increased as well as the number of those attending the public lectures. There came about an anthroposophic life which was, to a certain extent, self-enclosed and gave little attention to what else was taking form by way of endeavours to see into the spiritual world. Their hopes rested upon the unfolding of anthroposophic information imparted to them. They expected to go further and further in knowledge of the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] It was different in Munich, where at the beginning there was effective in the anthroposophic work the artistic element. In this a world-conception like that of anthroposophy can be taken up quite otherwise than in rationalism and intellectualism. The artistic image is more spirit-like than the rationalist concept. It is also alive and does not kill the spiritual in the soul as does intellectualism. In Munich those who gave tone to the membership and audience were persons in whom artistic experience was effective in the way indicated.

[ 4 ] This condition resulted in the formation of a unified branch of the Society in Berlin from the beginning. The interests of those who sought anthroposophy were of the same kind. In Munich the artistic experiences brought about certain individual needs in different groups, and I lectured to those groups. A sort of compromise among these groups came to be the group formed about Countess Pauline von Kalckreuth and Fräulein Sophie Stinde, the latter of whom died during the war. This group also arranged for my public lectures in Munich. The ever-deepening understanding in this group brought about a very beautiful response to what I had to say. So anthroposophy unfolded within this group in a manner which can truly be designated as very satisfying. Ludwig Deinhard, the old theosophist, the friend of Hübbe-Schleiden, came very early as a very congenial member into this group, and this was worth a great deal.

[ 5 ] The centre of another group was Frau von Schewitsch. She was an interesting person, and for this reason it was well that a group formed around her also which was less concerned in going deeply into anthroposophy than in becoming acquainted with it as one of the spiritual currents among those of the period.

[ 6 ] At that time also Frau von Schewitsch had given to the public her book Wie ich mein Selbst fand.¹ It was an unique and strong confession of theosophy. This also made it possible for this woman to become the interesting central figure of the group here described.

[ 7 ] To me and also to many who formed part of this group, Helene von Schewitsch was a notable part of history. She was the lady for whom Ferdinand Lassalle came to an early end in a duel with a Rumanian. She was afterwards an actress, and on a journey to America she became a friend of H. P. Blavatsky and Olcott. She was a woman of the world whose interests at the time when I made these lectures at her home had been deeply spiritualized. The impressive experiences through which she had passed gave to her appearance and to everything she did an extraordinary weight. Through her, I might say, I could see into the work of Lassalle and his period; through her also many a characteristic of H. P. Blavatsky. What she said bore a subjective colouring, and a manifold and arbitrary form of fantasy; yet, after allowing for this, one could see the truth under many veils, and one was faced by the revelation of an unusual personality.

[ 8 ] Other groups at Munich possessed different characteristics. I recall a person whom I met in several of these groups – a Catholic cleric, Müller, who stood apart from the narrow limits of the Church. He was a discriminating student of Jean Paul. He edited a really stimulating periodical, Renaissance, through which he fostered a free Catholicism. He took from anthroposophy as much as was interesting to him from his point of view, but remained always sceptical. He raised objections, but always in such an amiable and at the same time elementary fashion that he often brought a delightful humour into the discussions which followed the lectures.

[ 9 ] In pointing out these as the opposing characteristics of the anthroposophic work in Berlin and in Munich, I have nothing to say as to the value of the one or the other; here there simply came to view differences among persons which had to be taken into account, both of equal worth – or at least it is futile to judge them from the point of view of their relative values.

[ 10 ] The form of the work at Munich brought it about that the theosophical congress of 1907, which was to be set up by the German Section, was held there. These congresses, which had previously been held in London, Amsterdam, and Paris, consisted of sessions in which theosophical problems were dealt with in lectures and discussions. They were planned on the model of the congresses of learned societies. The administrative problems of the Society were also discussed.

[ 11 ] In all this very much was changed at Munich. In the great Concert Hall where the ceremonies were to take place, we – the committee of arrangements – provided interior decorations which in form and colour should correspond artistically with the mood that dominated the oral programme. Artistic environment and spiritual activity were to constitute a harmonious unity. I attached the greatest possible value to the avoidance of abstract inartistic symbolism and to giving free expression to artistic feeling.

[ 12 ] Into the programme of the congress was introduced an artistic representation. Marie von Sievers had long before translated Schuré's reconstruction of the Eleusinian drama. I planned the speeches for a presentation of this. This play was then introduced into the programme. A connection with the nature of the ancient mysteries – even though in so feeble a form – was thus afforded; but the important thing was that the congress had now an artistic aspect, – an artistic element directed toward the purpose of not leaving the spiritual life henceforth void of art within the Society. Marie von Sievers, who had undertaken the role of Demeter, showed already in her presentation the nuances which drama was to reach in the Society. Besides, we had reached a time when the art of declamation and recitation developed by Marie von Sievers by working out from the inner force of the word had arrived at the most varied points from which further fruitful progress could be made in this field.

[ 13 ] A great portion of the old members of the Theosophical Society from England, France, and especially from Holland, were inwardly displeased by the innovations offered them at the Munich congress. What it would have been well to understand, but what was clearly grasped at that time by exceedingly few, was the fact that the anthroposophic current had given something of an entirely different bearing from that of the Theosophical Society up to that time. In this inner bearing lay the true reason why the Anthroposophical Society could no longer exist as a part of the Theosophical Society. Most persons, however, place the chief emphasis upon the absurdities which in the course of time have grown up in the Theosophical Society and have led to endless quarreling.

• 1. How I Found My Self.

For the inauguration of the Johannes Raffael School.

It is a great joy for us from the various places of our anthroposophical work to have been able to meet in this city, where some of our friends have been working together for a long time to try to develop anthroposophical life for spiritual development, sometimes under difficult circumstances. And the fruit of this work is this Johannes Raffael branch. When we come together with our friends from Erfurt and are able to dedicate this branch, we may direct our souls to the significance of anthroposophical work in the present for the development of humanity in general with a few introductory thoughts.

My dear friends, how do our anthroposophical branches come about? If you think about it, they actually arise in a wonderful way, as it were. For they flourish here and there, as it were, like spiritual natural products, and those who feel called by their enthusiasm for the cause to found such a branch stand there, for their feeling and through what stands as secret forces behind these feelings, like a spiritual power. They feel that they must do something. A branch is not founded by the external culture of our time, but from the hearts of those who feel called to do so. In our culture today, there is nothing that could approach people and suggest, so to speak, from the outside that they work with anthroposophy. For those who decide to work with anthroposophy have much more to expect from the promotion of our endeavors than comfort and recognition. There is no current or endeavor of the present time that seeks to win souls for anthroposophy, and anyone who looks at what our anthroposophical movement is will attest that it does not operate in an agitative way in the usual sense. Apart from the fact that external circumstances do not allow lecturers to go anywhere other than where they are called, we understand the essence of the movement to be that we try everything to offer people the opportunity to hear something; but they should approach anthroposophical work. When they see that propaganda is being done, they will see that it has nothing to do with the current we represent, and that is how any movement based on occultism should act. It should be left to the souls themselves to come. And then this movement sees that anthroposophical branches flourish here and there because what flows into the movement continues to work in the right karmic sequence. And as a rule it turns out that the existing movement is brought to the branches. It is important to emphasize that the branches arise despite all the prevailing prejudices. There must be enthusiastic souls who, of their own accord, take the initiative to establish such branches.

From the outset, we cannot count on a great deal of support, and those who are enthusiastic about our work should not fear ridicule and mockery. They have to be prepared for that and also for the fact that the work will initially be difficult and full of sacrifices. We have never had a different experience; disappointment upon disappointment is often experienced. Public lectures are held again and again, but we have actually only had failures where we allowed ourselves to be discouraged by initial failures. Where we calmly observed that the first lecture was attended by five people, the second remained completely empty, and yet continued the work, we have also ultimately had success to report. We should make ourselves independent of immediately visible successes, because it is easy to feel encouraged by successes, but it is difficult not to slacken. The latter presupposes that we have no external support. So it turns out that our branches have to work, often from an early age. Misunderstanding upon misunderstanding occurs, but one should educate oneself to find what is right.

Sometimes we found a different echo. I was invited to a city – I will not mention the name – two or three times to give lectures. When there was no success, the person in question said: Now it is enough, people should now come and ask us for lectures. – I told him that we would probably have to wait a long time for that – and we are still waiting for it today. I am well aware that it is appropriate here to speak of our friends with gratitude, after they have worked hard for years. Those who came here with them will feel the gratitude. The thoughts that are directed here by our friends will have a strengthening effect, and we will come further if we stay together faithfully. Supporting souls is the main thing for spiritual work; the more support they receive, the better the work will succeed. I would like to say that this Erfurt branch has expressed how deeply it feels connected to our way of working and our attitude through an external sign, and this feeling of connection will be an inner spiritual impulse for the success of the work.

In a way, it is somewhat daring to go into specific details of anthroposophical research, and in a way I may describe it as an achievement of our work that our friends' immersion in anthroposophy has led us to the realization that one cannot just develop theories, but that working leads to insights. It is precisely in these areas that the strangest discoveries are made. It is curious that people on the outside, who know nothing about anthroposophical work, are beginning to criticize the concrete research in such circles, without having any idea what spiritual work is needed to establish, for example, what is said in my book 'The Spiritual Guidance of the Human Being and Humanity'. They set about criticizing how research is conducted in this field. For example, the two Jesus children are criticized. If one adheres to general truths, it may be that people can have a say. But when it comes to the particular, there is nothing to be done but remain silent. Every person should say to themselves: It is indeed strange to me when such assertions are made, but they do not concern me.

But it is all the more valuable when our Erfurt friends feel connected to these special things. For no other things are communicated than those which can be verified by the means at our disposal. It is one of these truths that John the Baptist is the same soul as Raphael. It is therefore a beautiful spiritual deed for me to call this branch the Johannes-Raffael-Branch, in order to express the intimate perception of a spiritually researched truth. That is why this consecration is also an intimate consecration. By leaning on such an occult truth with a name, we proclaim that we stand together in loyalty with regard to things that are most intimate to us. And then the words become something profound, spoken by the bearer of the name as Novalis, which sounded at the beginning of our celebration today.

We must seek the most important thing in the feelings and emotions that unite us. They cannot arise otherwise than on the basis of our knowledge. But we must not be comfortable. Our knowledge must be kindled into a feeling of togetherness, and if it corresponds to the intentions of our friends, if I commit the consecration with a few words, then I may say calmly: to utter these words is extremely satisfying, it is a consecration that corresponds to the heart. Therefore, I may say: let what I say to you be an impulse for what we have begun. You will work under the protection of the powers and authorities, of which we know that they invisibly rule among us: the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings, when we carry out our work in love and loyalty. What ruled you when you tried to give your branch a name out of an intimate impulse, I may express at this moment: The protective powers that watch over us and give us impulses for our work, which we know are called the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings, I call upon the protectors of the work so that the branch may flourish and be a center in this city for what we long for as spiritual progress. —- And with that, the opportunity is given for you to tie in with something I said for the friends gathered in Weimar, to tie in in a certain way, without it being necessary for each of us to have heard it.

It concerns the life between death and a new birth. It has been said that after leaving the physical plane, a person can, in a sense, have difficulty in connecting with those who have remained behind on earth. It may be possible that the one who has passed through the gate of death knows of someone he has left behind, knows that I had such experiences with him until I passed through the gate of death. What is experienced together on earth lives on in the consciousness of the dead. But often such a connection cannot be made if the person left behind develops thoughts that are not spiritual in nature.

If someone is left behind on earth and only very rarely fills his soul with spiritual thoughts, then the soul is one to which the deceased soul has no access. This refers to the way in which the living can make contact with the dead.

A certain line of research gave me strange insights into communication with the dead. At first it might seem surprising that John the Baptist brought into the world the prophetic activity, which was imbued with the impulses of the will, and then appeared again in such a wonderfully unified way in the soul of Raphael, completely surrendered to a deep devotion to the world. Much in spiritual research seems surprising to us. Much of it seems dangerous to us because it is so obvious. And when we then go deeper into the matter, it has a shattering effect on the soul when we see that many things are different from what we had thought. For the one who has recognized as true such a fact as the identity of John and Raphael, as elucidated here, it is important that he maintains a sense of wonder. I can assure those who are not able to research such facts that something does not come to light when it is sought; such things come unsought. Thinking about such things a lot helps very little. What helps most is being able to wait calmly until inspiration comes. And then it is good if you can be somewhat amazed at what arises.

The straight path of the intellect is not suitable for occult research. Being amazed leads to gradually recognizing that what was amazing becomes understandable. So it showed me one day that with Raphael, who painted in an amazing way, something else was having an effect in his soul, and I was able to discover that what was having an effect there was nothing other than what came from his father. He died when Raphael was only ten years old. This father might have lived a little longer, I mean, of course, hypothetically. He could have had the strength to live longer, but he carried these powers over into the spiritual world, and from there these powers can have a powerful effect. The father was not a great painter, but he was inwardly a painter; he lived in pictorial ideas that he could not realize while he was still in the physical body. From the spiritual world he sent the forces to his son, and this young Raphael was therefore able to become such a great painter. He acquired the pictorial ability through what the father sent him from the spiritual world. This does not belittle Raphael, of course, but it should only be shown how forces from the spiritual world work down into the physical world. Lessing made a remarkable statement. He said that Raphael would have become a great painter even if he had been born without hands. The forces that were in the Baptist John were transformed into the painter Raphael.

If we can gain knowledge of the influence of the spiritual world on the physical world, then life will be greatly advanced.

For a long time I had to carry out an educational activity. It was my task to teach children who had lost their father. If you educate in a conscientious way, you have to take all circumstances into account. You have to ask what the abilities are, how the environment affects the children, and so on. I had tried to take into account everything that could be taken into account externally, but there was still a difficulty. Then I said to myself, the father has died and he had certain intentions with his children. When I then took into account the father's will, it worked. The father's willpower was present. So you can see how the dead continue to have an effect on the living.

Nevertheless, it should be maintained that the dead cannot know what their survivors are doing on earth, as stated this morning. When someone has passed through the gate of death and knows that his impulses have an effect on the physical world, it can be a pain for him that he cannot perceive anything of his survivors. The dead person can feel an inner uneasiness when he cannot know what is happening down there. But this feeling can be removed if we send him nourishment. We, the living, must ourselves bring about the opportunity for the dead to perceive us. Now consider that we can easily, so to speak, ignite spiritual life in our soul through a thought. It is an important positive thought when we know that the dead person is there, within reach for us, when he has passed through the gate of death, because that is a thought that can never be brought about by dealing with the sensual-physical world. In our soul life, we should clearly carry the conviction that the dead person lives.

You see, in the times when there was nothing to confuse the mind, it was not exactly necessary for anthroposophy to exist, but times change during the development of humanity. Not so long ago, every soul, even if it occupied itself with the sciences that were common at the time, could be convinced of the life of the deceased. Not only are those who doubt that the dead exist confused, but the other souls are also confused, and that is also the reason why anthroposophy had to come into the world. We know that the dead live. What we hold in the depths of our souls is what matters and we often have no idea about it. We are all in the midst of the mechanical age, which has given us railways, ships, telegraphs and other inventions. What does it mean, for example, to travel in an electric train, in contrast to the fact that not so long ago it was not possible to travel in an electric train? It means that one is surrounded by a purely mechanical structure. This produces an image, which may remain unconscious, but it is there and has an effect on the soul and is likely to rob us of our belief in the life of the soul after death. This life is uprooted. Belief arose in the face of the old stagecoaches, but not in the face of today's means of transport; greater and stronger forces are needed for that.

I would now like to start from something I have said before. Some people want to stop the anthroposophical movement. When the first railroad was to be built, the Medical College was asked what it thought about the project in terms of the health of travelers. The doctors expressed serious concerns about the operation of the railroad and strongly advised against it. But if the railroad was to be built anyway, then it was absolutely necessary that high wooden walls be erected along the line, otherwise the passengers would undoubtedly suffer concussions from the rapidly changing images. But this expert opinion could not stop progress, and just as little will the anthroposophical movement be stopped by the opposing efforts. I did not mean to make fun of the Medical Council, I just wanted to say that progress cannot be stopped by such an expert opinion; it takes its course despite its opponents. Indeed, the railways have made people more nervous, and humanity has changed because of them. The whole structure of the soul life has changed; people would have remained more inwardly focused without the railways. The report had indeed made a recommendation, but it had been right.

The course of evolution on Earth is such that it had to happen as it did. Anthroposophy will not want to scale back anything, but it will be clear that faith could arise against the old stagecoaches, but not against the railways.

Anthroposophy works in the subconscious and belief in the spiritual world will be an important factor in the further development of people. In the broadest circles, belief is no longer sincere. Therefore, the reasons must be presented that flow from anthroposophy. If we pay attention to this, we find that in older times people had a spiritual inclination towards the dead, they could give them sufficient strength. Today spiritual knowledge is necessary and there we see that the spiritual thought of the survival of the soul must be encouraged by knowledge. We can say: because our time has taken on a certain form, it was necessary to let Anthroposophy flow into this time and this current will make it possible again for the living to feel connected to the dead. Man need not be disconsolate because he remains behind here, for he can become a helper to the deceased.

I said earlier that the dead can show us this and that. How does that come about? I will give an example here. I have said before how it is with Raphael's painting 'The School of Athens'. Usually, the two central figures are interpreted as Plato and Aristotle. This is a false representation, and anyone who, like the Baedeckers, deals with the picture and says that the individual figures represent these or those personalities will not be able to read much into this important picture. One of the figures is Paul, who appears among the philosophers in Athens. I could understand many things if I traced back through the Akasha Chronicle to see what had led Raphael to paint this picture. Through other research I had gained the conviction that the way the Gospels came about had nothing to do with the “School of Athens”. The writers of the Gospels had occasionally established their data according to the stars, and so had practised astrology. That is a fact in itself and initially has no connection at all with the painting by Raphael. Now I had the luck or the mercy: a soul who had died relatively young drew my attention to the connection between the right and left sides of the painting and I was told that the words from the Gospel of Luke that had been in the painting had been painted over later and words from the Pythagorean school were written on them. Now one also understands the gesture that over there is pointed to astronomy with the compass, and I could determine that on the right side of Raphael should be shown stellar research. And what was recognized there was written on the other side. So from astronomy gospels were written. Now, you see, it was important to me to draw your attention to the connection between the living and the dead. The one who undertakes something like this, when he has passed through the gate of death, can face spiritual events in the same way that a child faces nature. It looks at nature but does not understand it. But nevertheless, out of intuition, it can communicate wonderful things.

What is developed with intellectual thoughts does not come to the dead. The living must be available to the dead. The dead must be able to turn to the thoughts of the living, and what he experiences must be able to be seen in the mirror of the thoughts of the living within him.

I hope we understand each other on this point. It is indeed the case that when someone comes to you from the beyond, they experience something like a longing. However, they do not know what this longing is leading to. You can work with the dead in all kinds of ways, depending on how you are led to relate to them. If you have spiritual wisdom, it is illuminated, and the dead perceive the light. But if the soul does not absorb spiritual wisdom, it remains dark and the dead cannot perceive the soul. The fact that the dead can live with us depends on what we can offer them.

This is the other side of what we discussed this morning. We bring about what gives the dead inner satisfaction, and that will indeed be the most beautiful fruit of anthroposophical life and work: not just having faith in the life of the dead, but increasingly becoming a work, a soulful work that attracts the dead. And that will become more and more necessary for the development of culture. The less a person is imbued with spiritual wisdom, the less they will remain connected to what remains of the life between death and a new birth. In the physical world, souls will become increasingly impoverished and cold if they do not turn to the spiritual life. They can only be inwardly strengthened through contact with the spiritual world.

One thought will strengthen our soul: that our work need not be concluded when we pass through the gate of death, not for the progress of civilization, but that we can work down if our work is accepted below. If the spiritual world were accessible to us without man having to do anything, he would become careless. Man must do something himself. This is precisely a proof for us of the fundamental truth that flows from anthroposophy.

The lecture given the day before yesterday on the conditions between death and a new birth shows how closely the whole being of man is connected with the universal life in the cosmos. It is really only during his earthly life that the human being is fixed to one place, occupies a small space, whereas during the period between death and a new birth he is part of the planetary system and, at a later period after death, even of the world beyond the planetary system. In his development between birth and death the human being is the expression of a microcosmic image of the macrocosm, so between death and a new birth he is macrocosmic; he is poured out into the macrocosm. He is a macrocosmic being, and he must draw forth from the macrocosm the forces he needs for his next incarnation.

During the first period after death man still bears the shells of earthly life around him. He is connected with what earthly life gave him and was able to make of him. This period is especially close to the needs and the interests of the heart. Occult vision observes someone who has left the physical plane a comparatively short time ago in the sphere of kamaloca, which extends in the macrocosmic sense to the orbit of the Moon. Man's soul and spirit expand in such a way that he dwells in the whole Moon sphere. During this period he is still entirely bound up with the earthly world. The wishes, desires, interests, sympathies, antipathies he has developed formerly draw him back to the earthly world. During the kamaloca period he is enclosed within the atmosphere of his own astral nature acquired on the earth. He still wishes to have what he wished to have on earth. He is interested in the things that interested him on earth. The reason for this kamaloca period is that he may put away these interests, and inasmuch as they are dependent on physical organs, and this is true of all sense enjoyment, they cannot be satisfied. Gradually he is weaned from them precisely because they cannot be satisfied. It will be understood that this refers to the individuality of man in the narrowest sense, to that part of the astrality of a human being that has to be extirpated, removed.

In yet another respect man bears his earthly connections with him into kamaloca, for the beings or events that he will encounter there are dependent upon the nature of his inner life, the disposition of his soul. For instance, let us consider a man who goes through the gate of death and another to whom he had a close relationship who passed somewhat earlier through the gate of death. Both are in kamaloca and they may find one another. Occult investigation shows that man is not only concerned with his own development—the process of getting rid of his desires and interests, for instance—but soon after death, following a brief embryonic period of sleep, he is reunited with those individuals to whom he was closely connected on earth. Yet, generally speaking, there is little prospect that a man finds all those who are with him in kamaloca. Space and time relationships, and especially those of space, are quite different there. It is not that one does not approach such beings. A man may come close to them but may not notice them because perception there is born out of the closeness of a connection in life. So, shortly after death in the kamaloca period, a man finds himself in the environment of those with whom he was closely related in life, and thus in the beginning hardly any other beings come into consideration. The relationships after death are still in accordance with what we formerly have developed. In kamaloca we are related to others in exactly the same way as we were on earth except that we cannot do what is still possible here, that is, change the relationship. It remains as it was on the earth. Here we can develop hatred for someone we once loved, or love for one whom we once hated. We can endeavor to transform our relationship. This is not possible in kamaloca.

Suppose we come across a person who died before us. At first we feel related to him in a way that corresponds to the last relationship we had with him on earth. Then, as you know, we live backwards in time. If formerly we had a different relationship, this cannot be produced artificially. We must live backwards quietly and reach the corresponding period of time when we can again experience the relationship we formerly had with him. This again cannot be changed. It expresses itself as it did on earth. One can readily imagine that this is an exceedingly painful experience, and this is true in a certain sense. It is just as if one wished to move, but were chained to the ground. One feels spiritually bound to a relationship that was established on earth. One literally feels in a state of coercion. Naturally, if this condition of coercion is sufficiently intense, the relationship will be painful. Now in order to understand this condition rightly and sense it from the heart, we should not merely imagine it to be painful. In many respects it is so but the dead one is not conscious only of the painful aspect. He is definitely aware that this condition is necessary, and that to avoid such pain would merely mean to create future obstacles in one's path.

What happens as a result of this process? Imagine that after death we are experiencing the relationship we had formed with another person in life. Through the fixed gaze of our perception, through the experience of the relation, forces are formed in our soul, at first in their spiritual prototypes. These are needed so that our karma might lead us rightly into the future, so that we may find ourselves together with the other person in a next incarnation in such a way that the karmic adjustment may come about. The forces necessary for this karmic adjustment are welded together technically, as it were.

To begin with, the dead one can hardly bring about any change in his environment, and yet the instinctive longing to do so does arise at times. Unfulfilled wishes acquire great significance for him but mostly those that do not always come to the surface of consciousness in life. In this connection it is exceedingly important to pay attention to the following. In our everyday life on the physical plane we are conscious of our sympathies and make mental representations of them, too, but below this lies the subconsciousness. This does not rise powerfully into our upper consciousness, into the true ego-consciousness. As a result, something incomplete rises into the consciousness of the human being. Indeed, he hardly ever lives himself out fully as a conscious being in life. Our soul life is exceedingly complex. Man is seldom truly himself. It may happen that out of prejudice, indolence or for some other reason, a man in his ordinary consciousness strongly dislikes or even hates something, while in his subconsciousness there is a powerful longing for the very thing he hates in his upper consciousness. Moreover, the soul frequently tries to delude itself about such matters.

Let us take an example. Two people are living together. One of them comes to anthroposophy and is enthusiastic about it, the other does not share this enthusiasm. In fact, the more the former becomes interested in anthroposophy, the more the latter rages against spiritual science and slanders it. Now the following is possible, for human soul life is complicated. The one who slandered anthroposophy would have become an anthroposophist himself at some time if his friend or the person related to him had not become an anthroposophist. The one who is living with him is the hindrance to his becoming an anthroposophist. This certainly can happen. The one who slanders anthroposophy, bringing forward all manner of things against it in his ego-consciousness, may have the most intense longing for it in his subconsciousness or astral consciousness. Indeed, the more he slanders spiritual science the stronger is his wish for it. It may well occur that a man slanders those things in his upper consciousness that appear all the more strongly in his subconsciousness.

Death, however, transforms untruths into truths. Thus one can observe that human beings passing through the gate of death who out of indolence or for similar reasons have slandered spiritual science, and this is applicable to many other things, experience after death a profound longing of which they were unaware during life. So it can be observed that human beings pass through the gate of death who apparently showed no wish for some particular thing, and in whom, nevertheless, after death a most intense desire for it arises. During our trials in the kamaloca period it is therefore immaterial whether our wishes, desires and passions are present in our upper ego-consciousness or whether they dwell in our astral subconsciousness. Both work as burning factors after death, but those wishes and desires we have concealed during life are even more active after death.

It should be borne in mind that by the very nature of the soul everything connected with it will, under all circumstances, make an impression on it. The following has been carefully investigated and it is good if we take an example in connection with anthroposophy. Suppose two people are living together on earth. One of them is a zealous anthroposophist, the other does not wish to hear anything about spiritual science. Now because spiritual science is in his environment, the latter does not remain uninfluenced by it in his astral body. Things of considerable significance and of which we are not aware are constantly happening to our souls. They work in a spiritual way and there are influences that transform our soul life.

So we find hardly anyone who has lived in the environment of an anthroposophist, however obstinate his opposition, who in his subconscious does not show a leaning towards spiritual science. It is precisely among the opponents of anthroposophy that one finds after death a sphere of wishes in which a passionate longing for spiritual science is manifest. This is why a practice that has become customary among us has proved to be so beneficial for the dead, that is, to read to those who during their lives were unwilling to receive much anthroposophy. This proves to be extraordinarily beneficial for the souls concerned. This should be done by vividly picturing the face of the person who has died as he was during the last period of his life on earth. Then one takes a book and quietly goes through it sentence by sentence with one's thoughts directed towards the dead person as if he were sitting in front of one. He will receive this eagerly and gain much from it.

Here we reach a point where anthroposophy enters into life in a practical way. Here materialism and spirituality do not merely confront one another as theories but as actual forces. In fact, by means of spirituality bridges of communication are created between people irrespective of whether they are living or dead. Out of an active spiritual life we can help the dead in this and many other ways of which we shall speak when the opportunity arises.

If we do not stand within the spiritual life, however, the result is not only a lack of knowledge. It also means that we dwell within a limited space of existence encompassed only by the physical world. A materialistically minded person at once loses the connection with one who has passed through the gate of death. This shows how very important it is for the one world to work into the other. If, for instance, the dead person, who has an intense longing to learn something of spiritual wisdom, must forego this wish, it will remain a burden to him. At most, it might be possible, although even in kamaloca this is hardly likely, that he would encounter another soul who has died and with whom he has had such a connection on earth that by the mere nature of the relationship he would find some limited satisfaction. In fact it hardly comes into the picture as compared with the considerable service and the acts of charity that the living can perform for the dead.

Consider the situation of the dead one. He has some intense wish. In the period after death this wish cannot be satisfied because what we bear in our soul is unchangeably rigidified, but from the earth a stream can flow into this otherwise fixed longing. That is actually the only way in which the things that play into our soul can be altered. Therefore, during the first period after death, for the experience of the dead person much depends on the kind of spiritual understanding that is unfolding by the living who were closely related to him.

By acting in accordance with what may be learned through spiritual science, relationships of quite a different kind can be formed in life, relationships that work over from the one world into the other. In this connection there has not yet been much progress, particularly in making anthroposophy into a life force. So much has to be done still in developing anthroposophy so that real powers arise. It is therefore good to make oneself familiar with the truths of spiritual science and then to direct one's whole way of life in accordance with them. If anthroposophy were understood in this deeper sense, it would pulsate like life blood and there would be less discussion and strife in the world about spiritual theories. We should remember that not only our existence on earth but the whole life of mankind is transformed through spiritual science. Once anthroposophy becomes, by way of an understanding of the ideas, more a matter of the heart, men will act and behave in the anthroposophical spirit, to use trivial words. Then such interrelationships will arise more and more often.

We must now broach a matter that is not so easily acceptable, although it can be grasped if one gives thought to it. Man's knowledge on the physical plane is extraordinarily misleading. It is really most deceptive because on the physical plane he knows no more than the facts and connections that he observes. Whereas for the ordinary scientists of the materialistically minded this is the be-all and end-all of what he terms reality, it constitutes the merest trifle of soul life.

Let me give you an apparently paradoxical example. No doubt we remember Schopenhauer's words that truth must blush because it is paradoxical. Man is aware of facts and combines them intellectually. He knows, for example that it is half past seven. He goes out of his house and crosses the street. At eight o'clock he has arrived somewhere. He knows this by means of sense perception, through intellectual combination, but in most cases he does not realize why he did not leave his house two or three minutes later than intended. Few people will bother to consider such a fact as leaving a few minutes earlier or later. Nevertheless, this may be of significance.

I will take the grotesque example, but examples of this kind in miniature are constantly happening in life, of a man being three minutes late. Had he left his house punctually he would have been run over and killed, and he was not killed because he was three minutes late. It is unlikely that events will happen in this grotesque manner, and yet they are occurring all the time in such a way more or less, but people are not aware of them. The man started out three minutes late, and just as it is true that he would be dead had he left his house punctually at eight o'clock, it is true that he is now alive. His karma saved him from death because he started three minutes late. Now this may appear unimportant, but it is not so. In fact, a person is only indifferent to such an event to the extent that he is unaware of the true reality. If he knew, he would no longer be indifferent.

If you were aware of the fact that had you left punctually you would be dead then it would not be a matter of indifference to you. It would actually make a deep impression on you and a profound influence would radiate into your soul as a result of this awareness. You need only recall the significance of such an event for our soul life when such an event actually happens. But is this not tantamount to saying we are constantly going through life with firmly closed eyes? This is in fact true.

A man knows what is occurring externally but he is not aware of what would have happened to him had things gone just a little differently. That means that knowledge of the different possibilities is withheld from his soul. The soul lives indifferently, whereas the knowledge of the various possibilities would shatter or uplift our inner consciousness. Man knows the merest trifle about existing connections. He only knows what emerges from the circumstances. As a result, the life of soul is poor, and what would otherwise be expressed fails to be so. One perhaps would not make such a seemingly paradoxical statement if it were not for the fact that one runs one's head up against it in investigating life after death. Among the many things that arise in the soul we must include what has just been described. After death many things appear vividly before the soul of which it had no inkling that at such a moment you were in danger of your life ... at such and such a time you threw away your happiness ... here you were lazy, and had you not been so easy-going you might have been able to do some good. A host of things that one has not experienced confronts one after death. What appears ludicrous actually becomes reality after death. A whole world of which one is not aware in life then comes to expression.

Are not the things of which we have been speaking really there? Let us again take the example in which we started out three minutes later than intended, and that we thereby have avoided death. We are unaware of this. To the materialist the fact of not knowing something is regarded as unimportant. An intelligent person does not attach undue importance to the fact that he knows or does not know something because he realizes that things are simply there whether he be aware of them or not. The play and opposition of forces was there and so were we. All the preparatory conditions for our death were present. Forces were working towards one another. They passed on another by, and yet they approached one another. There are many such cases in life. Something is actually there. We do not perceive it, but it is around us nevertheless.

If in our present cycle of evolution people continually acquire an understanding for the spiritual world, things that cannot exist for sense perception but are nevertheless in our environment will work upon us in a definite way. This leads us to an extraordinarily interesting fact. Suppose that events happen as they have been described, and that we avoid death because we left three minutes late. This will make no impression whatsoever on the materialist. But in the man who gradually unfolds an understanding in his heart for such connections there will be a change. Remember that the development of anthroposophy is only just beginning. If he has understood and lived in anthroposophy, not merely acquired an external understanding of it but really lived in it with his heart and mind, then his experience will be different. He may start three minutes late, thereby avoiding death, but at the moment when death would have struck had the circumstances been different, he will sense something within him that will manifest as a feeling for the various possibilities. This will be the result as anthroposophy becomes the life blood of the soul.

What will happen when we gradually unfold such feelings, when human nature directs itself according to spiritual-scientific understanding? Moments in which something might have happened to us lift us for a short time into a kind of temporary mediumistic condition during which we are able to let the spiritual world shine into our consciousness. Such moments may be exceedingly fruitful when a person is to know consciously something of the working of the dead on him. Moments when events that have not happened are experienced in the way described awaken impressions out of the spiritual world. The whole strange realm of a world of subtle sensing will unfold in those who draw near to anthroposophy.

Humanity is evolving, and only an obtuse person would maintain that the human race has always been endowed with the same soul forces.

Soul powers change, and although it is true to say that today man is primarily equipped for external perception upon which he works with his thinking, it is equally true that through experiences of the kind that have been described he will evolve into a period when soul-spiritual forces will develop. In this respect, too, we have the prospect of spiritual science becoming a real force intervening creatively in life. Earlier we considered how influences from the physical plane can be exerted on the life after death, and now we have seen where doors or windows can be created so that the experiences of the dead can be perceived here in earthly life. I also wanted to give you an idea of how opportunities arise to establish communication between the two worlds.

Among the many things that can be said about the life between death and rebirth, and we shall get to know them as time goes on, let me just mention this one today. During the life between death and a new birth we find that essentially three forces—of thinking, of feeling and of will or wish—come to expression in the soul. The forces of thinking or of the intellect express themselves in such a way that our consciousness is either clear or vague; for forces of feeling in that we are more or less compassionate or hardhearted, more or less religious or irreligious in our attitude; the forces of volition and wish in that our deeds are more or less egotistical. Thus these three kinds of forces assert themselves. These soul forces each have a different significance for the life after death.

Let us first consider the intellectual forces. How do they assist us after death? They help to render our conscious experience of the period between death and a new birth particularly clear. In fact, the more we endeavor to think clearly and truly during our physical existence, the greater our efforts to acquire a true knowledge of spiritual realities, the brighter and clearer will be our consciousness between death and a new birth. I will speak quite concretely here. A man, for example, who is untrue in his intellectual qualities, who lacks interest in acquiring real knowledge of the conditions obtaining in the spiritual world, will find that, although a consciousness develops, slowly it will become dim. Strange as it may seem, this dimming of consciousness after death causes us to pass through a certain period more rapidly. We pass the more quickly through the spiritual world the more asleep we are. If, therefore, a man is obtuse in his intellect, although he will retain his consciousness for a time, he will not be able to maintain it beyond a certain point. His obtuseness will bring about a twilight condition, and from then onward his life in the spiritual world will pass rapidly and he will return comparatively soon to a physical body.

It is different with the forces of will and wish. They help us to draw forth from the macrocosmic environment between death and rebirth strong or weak forces that are needed for building up our next earthly existence. A man who enters into these macrocosmic conditions with an immoral attitude of soul will not be able to attract the forces essential to a proper building up of the astral and etheric bodies, which will then be stultified. This produces weaklings or the like. Thus it is morality that makes us capable of drawing the forces from the higher worlds that we need for the following incarnation. Intellectuality and morality are closely connected with what the human becomes as a result of his sojourn in the super-sensible world between death and rebirth.

The forces of the heart and of feeling, the innermost forces in the human soul, come before us objectively in the corresponding period between death and a new birth. They are outside us. This is significant. One who is capable of love and compassion lives through his life between death and a new birth surrounded by pictures that promote life and happiness corresponding to the measure of his compassion. These come before the soul as his environment. Pictures of hatred appear to the one who has hated.

At a certain stage of the period between death and a new birth we behold as an outer cosmic painting what we are in our innermost being. There is no better painter than these forces, and the firmament after death is filled with what we truly are in heart and mind. We behold this innermost tableau just as here on earth we behold the firmament of the heavens. Thus we have a firmament between death and a new birth, and it remains with us. It is conditioned by whether we have received the Mystery of Golgotha into the innermost depths of our soul in the sense referred to previously as expressed in the words of St. Paul, “Not I but the Christ in me.” If we experience the Christ within us, then we have the possibility during our Sun existence to experience in the surrounding Akasha picture-world the Christ in His most wondrous form, in His manifested glory, as the element in which we live and dwell. This thought need not merely have an egotistical significance. It may also be of objective significance because in our further existence this outspread picture is again taken into the soul and is brought down into our next incarnation. As a result, we do not only make ourselves into better human beings, but also into a better force in the evolution of the earth.

So the efforts we make to transform our heart forces are intimately connected with our faculties in the next life, and we see the technique that is at work in transforming our heart forces into a great cosmic panorama, a cosmic firmament between death and a new birth that is then again incorporated into our being, giving us stronger forces than previously. Thus an all-around strengthening process is the result of the fact that we behold in the period between death and a new birth what has been experienced inwardly in life.

We have once again considered matters of considerable importance in relating to the conditions of existence between death and a new birth. They are significant because on earth we are in fact nothing else than what life between death and a new birth has made of us. Furthermore, if we ignore them, we shall be less and less able to gain a true knowledge of our own being. If we ignore the conditions of existence between death and a new birth, we shall be incapable of true action and thinking in times to come. These studies are part of wider matters that can be mentioned in relation to the life between death and a new birth. I wished to make a beginning with a content that is to become more and more the substance of spiritual science.

Yesterday I undertook to give you a sort of report on the events that took place in Stuttgart. I went on to say that I would like to convey something of the substance of the lectures I delivered there. So I will do that today, and tomorrow try to add further comment supplementing yesterday's report.

The first lecture on Tuesday was conceived as a response to a quite definite need that had developed and made itself clearly felt during the discussions of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday; they have been described to you at least from the standpoint of the mood that prevailed there. The need I refer to was for a survey of the essentials of community building. Community building by human beings working in anthroposophy has recently played an important role in the Society. Young people in particular—but other, older ones as well—entered the Society with a keen longing to meet others in it with whom they could have a type of experience that life does not afford the single individual in today's social order. To say this is to call attention to a thoroughly understandable longing felt by many people of our time.

As a result of the dawning of the age of consciousness, old social ties have lost their purely human content and their purely human strength. People always used to grow into some particular community. They did not become hermits; they grew into some quite specific community or other. They grew into the community of a family, a profession, a certain rank. Recently they have been growing into the communities we call social classes, and so on.

These various communities have always carried certain responsibilities for the individual that he could not have carried for himself.

One of the strongest bonds felt by men of modern times has been that of class. The old social groupings: those of rank, of nationality, even of race—have given way to a sense of belonging to a certain class. This has recently developed to a point where the members of a given class—the so-called higher classes or aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat—make common cause. Thus communities based on class have transcended national and even racial and other such loyalties, and a good many of the elements witnessed in modern international social life can be ascribed to these class communities.

But the age of the consciousness soul, which began early in the fifteenth century and has come increasingly to the fore, has recently been making itself felt in human souls with growing urgency and vehemence. This has made human beings feel that they can no longer find in class communities any elements that could carry them into something beyond merely individual existence. On the one hand, modern man has a strong sense of individuality and cannot tolerate any interference with his life of individual thought and feeling. He wants to be recognized as a personality. That goes back to certain primal causes. If I may again resort to the terminology I used yesterday, I would say that since the end of Kali Yuga—or, in other words, since this century began—something has been stirring in contemporary souls, no matter how unconsciously, that could be expressed in the words, “I want to be a distinct individual.” Of course, not everybody could formulate it thus. It shows itself in many kinds of discontent and psychic instability. But underlying them is the desire to be a distinct personality.

The truth is, however, that no one can get along on earth without other human beings. Historic ties and bonds like those that unite the proletariat in a sense of class belonging, for example, do not supply anything that on the one hand can satisfy the urge to be a distinct individual and on the other unite individuals with their fellowmen. Modern man wants the purely human element in himself to relate him to the purely human element in others. He does indeed want social ties, but he wants them to have an individual character like that experienced in personal friendships.

An endless amount of what goes on between human beings in contemporary life can be traced to a craving for such human communities. It was quite evident a while ago when a group of younger people came to me wanting to bring about a renewal of Christianity. It was their belief that such a renewal could be achieved only by making the Christ impulse very much alive in the sense that anthroposophy has demonstrated. This longing felt by younger theologians, some of whom were just completing their training and were therefore about to assume pastoral duties, others of whom were still studying, was the element that gave birth to the latest offshoot of our Society, the Movement for Religious Renewal.

Now quite a variety of things had to be done for this Movement for Religious Renewal. It was of first concern to bring the Christ impulse to life in a way suited to the present. To do this meant taking very seriously indeed the fact I have so often stressed: that the Christ not only spoke to human souls at the beginning of the Christian era but has carried out the promise that he made when he said, “I will be with you always, unto the very end of the earth.” This means that he can always be heard whenever a soul desires it, that a continuing Christ revelation is taking place. There had to be an ongoing evolution from the written Gospels to immediately living revelation of the Christ impulse. This was one aspect of the task of religious renewal.

The other was one that I had to characterize at once by saying that religious renewal must bring communities into being, that it must build religious communities. Once a community has equipped an individual with knowledge, he can do something with it by himself. But that direct experience of the spiritual world, which is not based on thought but rather on feeling and is religious by nature, this experience of the spiritual world as divine can only be found by forming communities. So a healthy building of community must, I said, go hand in hand with the healthy development of religious life.

The personalities who undertook the launching of this Movement for Religious Renewal were, at the outset, all Protestant theologians. Their attention could be called to the fact that it was just the Protestant denominations that had recently been tending to lay increasing emphasis on sermons, to the neglect of ritual. But preaching has an atomizing effect on communities. The sermon, which is intended to convey knowledge of the spiritual world, challenges the individual soul to form its own opinions. This fact is reflected in the particularly pronounced modern antagonism to the credo, the confession of beliefs, in an age when everyone wants to confess only to his own. This has led to an atomization, a blowing apart of the congregation, with a resultant focusing of the religious element on the individual.

This would gradually bring about the dissolution of the soul elements of the social order if there were not to be a renewed possibility of building true community. But true community building can only be the product of a cultus derived from fresh revelations of the spiritual world. So the cultus now in use in the Movement for Religious Renewal was introduced. It takes mankind's historical evolution fully into account, and thus represents in many of its single details as well as in its overall aspects a carrying forward of the historical element. But its every aspect also bears the imprint of fresh revelations, which the spiritual world can only now begin to make to man's higher consciousness.

The cultus unites those who come together at its celebration. It creates community, and Dr. Rittelmeyer said quite rightly, in the course of the Stuttgart deliberations, that in the community building power of the cultus the Movement for Religious Renewal presents a great danger—perhaps a very grave one—to the Anthroposophical Society. What was he pointing to when he said this? He was calling attention to the fact that many a person approaches the Society with the longing to find a link with others in a free community experience. Such communal life with the religious coloration that the cultus gives it can be attained, and people with such a longing for community life can satisfy it in the Movement for Religious Renewal. If the Society is not to be endangered, it must therefore also make a point of nurturing a community building element.

Now this called attention to a fact of the greatest importance in this most recent phase of the Society's development. It pointed out that anthroposophists must acquire an understanding of community building. An answer must be found to the question whether the community building that is being achieved in the Movement for Religious Renewal is the only kind there is at present, or whether there are other possibilities of attaining the same goal in the Anthroposophical Society.

This question can obviously only be answered by studying the nature of community building.

But that impulse to build community, which modern man feels and the cultus can satisfy, is not the only one that moves him, strong though it is; there is still another. Every human being of the present feels both kinds of longings, and it is most desirable that each and every one should have his need met by providing community building elements not only in the Movement for Religious Renewal but in the Anthroposophical Society as well.

When one is discussing something, one naturally has to clothe it in idea form. But what I am about to present in that form really lives at the feeling level in people of our time. Ideas are a device for making things clear. But what I want to talk about now is something that modern man experiences purely as feeling.

The first kind of community building that we encounter the moment we set out on earthly life is one that we take quite for granted and seldom think about or weigh in feeling. That is the community built by language. We learn to speak our mother-tongue as little children, and this mother-tongue provides us with an especially strong community building element because it comes into the child's experience and is absorbed by him at a time when his etheric body is still wholly integrated with the rest of his organism and as yet quite undifferentiated. This means that the mother-tongue grows completely at one with his entire being. But it is also an element that groups of human beings share in common. People feel united by a common language, and if you remember something I have often mentioned, the fact that a spiritual being is embodied in a language, that the genius of language is not the abstraction learned men consider it but a real spiritual being, you will sense how a community based on a shared language rests on the fact that its members feel the presence of a real genius of speech. They feel sheltered beneath the wings of a real spiritual being. That is the case wherever community is built.

All community building eventuates in a higher being descending from the world of the spirit to reign over and unite people who have come together in a common cause.

But there is another, individual element eminently capable of creating community that can make its appearance when a group foregathers. A common tongue unites people because what one is saying can live in those who are listening to him; they thus share a common content. But now let us imagine that a number of individuals who spent their childhood and early schooldays together find an occasion of the sort that could and indeed often does present itself to meet again some thirty years later. This little group of forty- or fifty-year-olds, every one of whom spent his childhood in the same school and the same region, begins to talk of common experiences as children and young people. Something special comes alive in them that makes for quite a different kind of community than that created by a common tongue. When members of a group speaking the same language come, in the course of meeting and talking, to feel that they understand one another, their sense of belonging together is relatively superficial compared with what one feels when one's soul-depths are stirred by entertaining common memories. Every word has a special coloring, a special flavor, because it takes one back to a shared youth and childhood. What unites people in such moments of communal experience reaches deeper levels of their soul life. One feels related in deeper layers of one's being to those with whom one comes together on this basis.

What is this basis of relationship? It consists of memories—memories of communal experiences of earlier days. One feels oneself transported to a vanished world where one once lived in company with these others with whom one is thus re-united.

This is to describe an earthly situation that aptly illustrates the nature of the cultus. For what is intended with the cultus? Whether its medium be words or actions, it projects into the physical world, in an entirely different sense than our natural surroundings do, an image of the super-sensible, the spiritual world. Every plant, every process in external nature is, of course, also an image of something spiritual, but not in the direct sense that a rightly presented verbal or ceremonial facet of the cultus is. The words and actions of the cultus convey the super-sensible world in all its immediacy. The cultus is based on speaking words in the physical world in a way that makes the super-sensible world immediately present in them, on performing actions in a way that conveys forces of the super-sensible world. A cultus ritual is one in which something happens that is not limited to what the eyes see when they look physically at ritualistic acts; the fact is rather that forces of a spiritual, super-sensible nature permeate ordinary physical forces. A super-sensible event takes place in the physical act that pictures it.

Man is thus directly united with the spiritual world by means of the physically perceptible words and actions of the cultus. Rightly presented, its words and actions bring to our experience on the physical plane a world that corresponds to the pre-earthly one from which we human beings have descended. In just the same sense in which forty- or fifty-year-olds who have met again feel themselves transported back into the world they shared in childhood does a person who joins others at the celebration of a genuine cultus feel himself transported back into a world he shared with them before they descended to the earth. He is not aware of this; it remains a subconscious experience, but it penetrates his feeling life all the more deeply for that very reason. The cultus is designed with this intent. It is designed with a view to giving man a real experience of something that is a memory, an image of his pre-earthly life, of his existence before he descended to the earth. The members of congregations based on a cultus feel especially keenly what, for purposes of illustration, I have just described as taking place when a group comes together in later life and exchanges memories of childhood: They feel transported into a world where they lived together in the super-sensible. This accounts for the binding ties created by a cultus-based community, and it has always been the reason why it did so. Where it is a matter of a religious life that does not have an atomizing effect because of its stress on preaching but instead emphasizes the cultus, the cultus will lead to the forming of a true community or congregation. No religious life can be maintained without the community building element. Thus a community based in this sense on common memories of the super-sensible is a community of sacraments as well.

But no form of sacrament- or cultus-based community that remains standing where it is today can meet the needs of modern human beings. To be sure, it may be acceptable to many people. But cultus-based congregations would not achieve their full potential or—more important still—reach their real goal if they were to remain nothing more than communities united by common memories of super-sensible experience. This has created an increasing need for introducing sermons into the cultus. The trouble is that the atomizing tendency of sermons as these are presently conceived by the Protestant denominations has become very marked, because the real needs arising from the consciousness soul development of this Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch have not been taken into account. The concept of preaching in the older confessions is still based on the needs of the Fourth Post-Atlantean period. In these older churches, sermons conform to the world view that prevailed during the period of intellectual soul development. They are no longer suited to the modern consciousness. That is why the Protestant churches have gone over to a form of presentation that makes its appeal more to human opinion, to conscious human understanding.

There is every good reason for doing this, of course. On the other hand, no really right way of doing it has yet been found. A sermon contained within the cultus is a misfit; it leads away from the cultus in a cognitive direction. But this problem has not been well recognized in the form preaching has taken in the course of man's ongoing evolution. You will see this immediately when I remind you of a certain fact. You will see how little there is left when we omit sermons of more recent times that do not take a Biblical text. In most cases, Sunday sermons as well as those delivered on special occasions take some quotation from the Bible for their text because fresh, living revelation such as is also available in the present is rejected. Historical tradition remains the only source resorted to. In other words, a more individual form of sermon is being sought, but the key to it has not been found. Thus sermons eventuate in mere opinion, personal opinion, with atomizing effect.

Now if the recently established Movement for Religious Renewal, built as it is in all essentials on an anthroposophical foundation, reckons with fresh, ongoing revelation, with a living spiritual experience of the super-sensible world, then it will be just the sermon factor that will bring it to recognize its need for something further. This something is the same thing that makes fresh, ongoing, living knowledge of the spiritual world possible, namely, anthroposophical spiritual science. I might express it by saying that sermons will always be the windows through which the Movement for Religious Renewal will have to receive what an ongoing, living Anthroposophical Society must give it. But as I said when I spoke of the Movement for Religious Renewal at the last lecture I gave over there in the still intact Goetheanum, if the Movement for Religious Renewal is to grow, the Anthroposophical Society will have to stand by it in the liveliest possible way, with all the living life of anthroposophy flowing to it from a number of human beings as the channel. The Movement for Religious Renewal would soon go dry if it were not to have at least some people standing by it in whom anthroposophical cognition is a really living element.

But as I said, many individuals are presently entering the Society, seeking anthroposophy not just in the abstract but in the community belonging that satisfies a yearning of the age of consciousness. It might be suggested that the Society too should adopt a cultus. It could do this, of course, but that would take it outside its proper sphere. I will therefore now go on to discuss the specifically anthroposophical way of building community.

Modern life definitely has other community building elements to offer besides that based on common memories of pre-natal experience of the super-sensible world. The element I have in mind is one that is needed by the present in a form especially adapted to the age of consciousness.

In this connection I must point out something that goes entirely unnoticed by most human beings of our time.

There has, to be sure, always been talk of idealism. But when idealism is mentioned nowadays, such talk amounts to little more than hollow phrases, even in the mouths of the well-meaning. For ours is a time when intellectual elements and forces have come especially strongly to the fore throughout the entire civilized world, with the result that there is no understanding for what a whole human being is. The longing for that understanding is indeed there, particularly in the case of modern youth. But the very indefiniteness of the form in which youth conceives it shows that something lives in human souls today that has not declared itself at all distinctly; it is still undifferentiated, and it will not become the less naive for being differentiated.

Now please note the following. Imagine yourselves back in times when religious streams were rising and inundating humankind. You will find that in those bygone periods of human evolution this and that proclamation from the spiritual world was being greeted by many people with enormous enthusiasm. Indeed, it would have been completely impossible for the confessions extant today to find the strength to carry people if, at the time of these proclamations, souls had not felt a much greater affinity for revelations from the spiritual world than is felt today. Observing people nowadays, one simply cannot imagine them being carried away by anything in the nature of a proclamation of religious truths such as used to take place in earlier ages. Of course, sects do form, but there is a philistine quality about them in great contrast to the fiery response of human souls to earlier proclamations. One no longer finds the same inner warmth of soul toward things of the spirit. It suffered a rapid diminution in the last third of the nineteenth century. Granted, discontent still drives people to listen to this or that, and to join one or another church. But the positive warmth that used to live in human souls and was solely responsible for enabling individuals to put their whole selves at the service of the spirit has been replaced by a certain cool or even cold attitude. This coolness is manifest in human souls today when they speak of ideals and idealism. For nowadays the matter of chief concern is something that still has a long way to go to its fulfillment, that still has a long waiting period before it, but that as expectation is already very much alive in many human souls today. I can characterize it for you in the following way.

Let us take two states of consciousness familiar to everybody, and imagine a dreaming person and someone in a state of ordinary waking consciousness.

What is the situation of the dreamer? It is the same as that of a sleeping person. For though we may speak of dreamless sleep, the fact is that sleepers are always dreaming, though their dreams may be so faint as to go unnoticed.

What, I repeat, is the dreamer's situation? He is living in his own dream-picture world. As he lives in it he frequently finds it a good deal more vivid and gripping—this much can certainly be said—than his everyday waking experience. But he is experiencing it in complete isolation. It is his purely personal experience. Two people may be sleeping in one and the same room, yet be experiencing two wholly different worlds in their dream consciousness. They cannot share each other's experience. Each has his own, and the most they can do is tell one another about it afterwards.

When a person wakes and exchanges his dream consciousness for that of everyday, he has the same sense perception of his surroundings that those about him have. They begin to share a communal scene. A person wakes to a shared world when he leaves dreams behind and enters a day-waking state of consciousness. What wakes him out of the one consciousness into the other? It is light and sound and the natural environment that rouse him to the ordinary day-waking state, and other people are in the same category for him. One wakes up from dreams by the natural aspects of one's fellowmen, by what they are saying, by the way they clothe their thoughts and feelings in the language they use. One is awakened by the way other people naturally behave. Everything in one's natural environment wakes one to normal day consciousness. In all previous ages people woke up from the dream state to day-waking consciousness. And these same surroundings provided a person with the gate through which, if he was so minded, he entered spiritual realms.

Then a new element made its appearance in human life with the awakening and development of the consciousness soul. This calls for a second kind of awakening, one for which the human race will feel a growing need: an awakening at hand of the souls and spirits of other human beings. In ordinary waking life one awakens only in meeting another's natural aspects. But a person who has become an independent, distinct individual in the age of consciousness wants to wake up in the encounter with the soul and spirit of his fellowman. He wants to awaken to his soul and spirit, to approach him in a way that startles his own soul awake in the same sense that light and sound and other such environmental elements startle one out of dreaming.

This has been felt as an absolutely basic need since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it will grow increasingly urgent. It is a need that will be apparent throughout the twentieth century, despite the time's chaotic, tumultuous nature, which will affect every phase of life and civilization. Human beings will feel this need—the need to be brought to wake up more fully in the encounter with the other person than one can wake up in regard to the merely natural surroundings. Dream life wakes up into wakeful day consciousness in the encounter with the natural environment. Wakeful day consciousness wakes up to a higher consciousness in the encounter with the soul and spirit of our fellowman. Man must become more to his fellowman than he used to be: he must become his awakener. People must come closer to one another than they used to do, each becoming an awakener of everyone he meets. Modern human beings entering life today have stored up far too much karma not to feel a destined connection with every individual they encounter. In earlier ages, souls were younger and had not formed so many karmic ties. Now it has become necessary to be awakened not just by nature but by the human beings with whom we are karmically connected and whom we want to seek.

So, in addition to the need to recall one's super-sensible home, which the cultus meets, we have the further need to be awakened to the soul-spiritual element by other human beings, and the feeling impulse that can bring this about is that of the newer idealism. When the ideal ceases to be a mere abstraction and becomes livingly reunited with man's soul and spirit, it can be expressed in the words, “I want to wake up in the encounter with my fellowman.”

This is the feeling that, vague though it is, is developing in youth today, “I want to be awakened by my fellowman,” and this is the particular form in which community can be nurtured in the Anthroposophical Society. It is the most natural development imaginable for when people come together for a communal experience of what anthroposophy can reveal of the super-sensible, the experience is quite a different one from any that the individual could have alone. The fact that one wakes up in the encounter with the soul of the other during the time spent in his company creates an atmosphere that, while it may not lead one into the super-sensible world in exactly the way described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, furthers one's understanding of the ideas that anthroposophical spiritual science brings us from super-sensible realms.

There is a different understanding of things among people who share a common idealistic life based on mutual communication of an anthroposophical content, whether by reading aloud or in some other way. Through experiencing the super-sensible together, one human soul is awakened most intensively in the encounter with another human soul. It wakes the soul to higher insight, and this frame of mind creates a situation that causes a real communal being to descend in a group of people gathered for the purpose of mutually communicating and experiencing anthroposophical ideas. Just as the genius of a language lives in that language and spreads its wings over those who speak it, so do those who experience anthroposophical ideas together in the right, idealistic frame of mind live in the shelter of the wings of a higher being.

Now what takes place as a result?

If this line (Dr. Steiner draws on the blackboard) represents the demarcation between the super-sensible and the sense world, we have, here above it, the processes and beings of the higher world experienced in the cultus; they are projected by the words and ritualistic acts of the cultus into the physical world here below the line. In the case of an anthroposophical group, experience on the physical plane is lifted by the strength of its genuine, spiritualized idealism into the spiritual world. The cultus brings the super-sensible down into the physical world with its words and actions. The anthroposophical group raises the thoughts and feelings of the assembled individuals into the super-sensible, and when an anthroposophical content is experienced in the right frame of mind by a group of human beings whose souls wake up in the encounter with each other, the soul is lifted in reality into a spirit community. It is only a question of this awareness really being present. Where it exists and groups of this kind make their appearance in the Anthroposophical Society, there we have in this reversed cultus, as I shall call it, in this polar opposite of the cultus, a most potent community building element. If I were to speak pictorially, I would put it thus: the community of the cultus seeks to draw the angels of heaven down to the place where the cultus is being celebrated, so that they may be present in the congregation, whereas the anthroposophical community seeks to lift human souls into super-sensible realms so that they may enter the company of angels. In both cases that is what creates community.

But if anthroposophy is to serve man as a real means of entering the spiritual world, it may not be mere theory and abstraction. We must do more than just talk about spiritual beings; we must look for the opportunities nearest at hand to enter their company. The work of an anthroposophical group does not consist in a number of people merely discussing anthroposophical ideas. Its members should feel so linked with one another that human soul wakes up in the encounter with human soul and all are lifted into the spiritual world, into the company of spiritual beings, though it need not be a question of beholding them. We do not have to see them to have this experience. This is the strength-giving element that can emerge from groups that have come into being within the Society through the right practice of community building. Some of the fine things that really do exist in the Society must become more common; that is what new members have been missing. They have looked for them, but have not found them. What they have encountered has instead been some such statement as, “If you want to be a real anthroposophist you must believe in reincarnation and the etheric body,” and so on.

I have often pointed out that there are two ways of reading a book like my Theosophy. One is to read, “Man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc., and lives repeated earth lives and has a karma, etc.” A reader of this kind is taking in concepts. They are, of course, rather different concepts than one finds elsewhere, but the mental process that is going on is in many respects identical with what takes place when one studies a cookbook. My point was exactly that the process is the important thing, not the absorption of ideas. It makes no difference whether you are reading, “Put butter into a frying pan, add flour, stir; add the beaten eggs, etc.,” or, “There is physical matter, etheric forces, astral forces, and they interpenetrate each other.” It is all one from the standpoint of the soul process involved whether butter, eggs and flour are being mixed at a stove or the human entelechy is conceived as a mixture of physical, etheric and astral bodies. But one can also read Theosophy in such a manner as to realize that it contains concepts that stand in the same relation to the world of ordinary physical concepts as the latter does to the dream world. They belong to a world to which one has to awaken out of the ordinary physical realm in just the way one wakes out of one's dream world into the physical. It is the attitude one has in reading that gives things the right coloring. That attitude can, of course, be brought to life in present-day human beings in a variety of ways. They are all described and there to choose from in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. But modern man also needs to go through the transitional phase—one not to be confused with actually beholding higher worlds—of waking up in the encounter with the soul-spiritual aspect of his fellowman to the point of living into the spiritual world just as he awakes from dreams into the physical world through the stimulus of light and sound, etc.

We must rise to an understanding of this matter. We have to come to understand what anthroposophy ought to be within the Anthroposophical Society. It should be a path to the spirit. When it becomes that, community building will be the outcome.

But anthroposophy must really be applied to life. That is the essential thing, my dear friends. How essential it is can be illustrated by an example close at hand. After we had had many smaller meetings with a varying number of people there in Stuttgart and had debated what should be done to consolidate the Society, I came together with the young people. I am not referring to the meeting I reported on yesterday, which was held later; this was a prior meeting, but also one held at night. These particular young people were all students. Well, first there was some talk about the best way to arrange things so that the Society would function properly, and so on. But after awhile the conversation shifted to anthroposophy itself. We got right into its very essence because these young men and women felt the need to enquire into the form studies ought to take in future, how the problem of doctoral dissertations should be handled, and other such questions. It was not possible to answer them superficially; we had to plunge right into anthroposophy. In other words, we began with philistine considerations and immediately got into questions of anthroposophy and its application, such as, “How does one go about writing a doctoral dissertation as an anthroposophist? How does one pursue a subject like chemistry?” Anthroposophy proved itself life-oriented, for deliberations such as these led over into it quite of themselves.

The point is that anthroposophy should never remain abstract learning. Matters can, of course, be so arranged that people are summoned to a meeting called for the purpose of deciding how the Society should be set up, with a conversation about anthroposophy as a further item on the agenda. This would be a superficial approach. I am not suggesting it, but rather a much more inward one that would lead over quite of itself from a consideration of everyday problems to the insight that anthroposophy should be called upon to help solve them. One sees the quickening effect it has on life in just such a case as the one cited, where people were discussing the re-shaping of the Society only to end up, quite as a matter of organic necessity, in a discussion of how the anthroposophist and the scientific philistine must conceive the development of the embryo from their respective standpoints. We must make a practice of this rather than of a system of double-entry bookkeeping that sets down such philistine entries on one page as “Anthroposophical Society,” “Union for a Free Spiritual Life,” and so on. Real life should be going on without a lot of theory and abstractions and a dragging in of supposedly anthroposophical sayings such as “In anthroposophy man must find his way to man,” and so on. Abstractions of this kind must not be allowed to play a role. Instead, a concrete anthroposophical approach should lead straight to the core of every matter of concern. When that happens, one seldom hears the phrase, “That is anthroposophical, or un-anthroposophical.” Indeed, in such cases the word “anthroposophy” is seldom spoken. We need to guard against fanatical talk.

My dear friends, this is not a superficial matter, as you will see. At the last Congress in Vienna I had to give twelve lectures on a wide range of subjects, and I set myself the task of never once mentioning the word “anthroposophy.” And I succeeded! You will not discover the word “anthroposophy” or “anthroposophical” in a single one of the twelve lectures given last June in Vienna. The experiment was a success. Surely one can make a person's acquaintance without having any special interest in whether his name is Mueller and what his title is. One just takes him as he is. If we take anthroposophy livingly, just as it is, without paying much attention to what its name is, this will be a good course for us to adopt.

We will speak further about these things tomorrow, and I will then give you something more in the way of a report.