The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Words of Introduction before the Lecture

The conference in Vienna that I have just come from went very satisfactorily. Two public lectures were held on September 26 and 29, which were very well attended: the first lecture on Anthroposophy as a contemporary challenge, the second lecture on the moral-religious significance of Anthroposophy. I was then able to give four branch lectures at the conference, in which I dealt in particular with the relationship between anthroposophy and the human soul, incorporating some of the material that has already been discussed here from a wide variety of perspectives: the significance and possible renewal of the Feast of St. Michael.

Then, on Sunday, September 30th, there was a very well-attended eurythmy performance at the Vienna New City Theater. The success of this eurythmy performance has given rise to the fact that next Sunday, the day after tomorrow, another such eurythmy performance will take place in Vienna. The eurythmy performances have also been given a further impetus by the fact that just this evening, while I am speaking to you here, one is taking place in Gmunden in the Salzkammergut. It is possible that other eurythmy performances will follow in Austria.

On Monday, October 1, a meeting of the Austrian members of the Anthroposophical Society took place. The Austrian Anthroposophical Society will now join the other national societies, so that the Austrian Anthroposophical Society will also be present among the national societies at the founding of the International Anthroposophical Society at Christmas in Dornach.

On Tuesday evening, thanks to the extremely valuable suggestion of Dr. Wegman, our medical friend Dr. Glas in Vienna was able to give a lecture and hold a very detailed discussion with a number of Viennese doctors, scientists and medical students at the home of Mr. van Leer. We can already say that just like the similar one in London at the beginning of September, went very well, so we can hope that a lot can be done for this medical-therapeutic side of anthroposophical endeavor.

Malsch, April 6, 1909

Today we are gathered for the dedication ceremony of our anthroposophical branch in Maisch. Although this “Section” of our Society has been fully at work for a while, we are able only today to officially celebrate its opening.

Many of our anthroposophical friends have come to this celebration from the most diverse regions to which our anthroposophical endeavors have spread. By coming here, they have demonstrated that they wish to unite their anthroposophical feelings and thoughts with those of serious and hardworking people in this group. One might say this group of people in Maisch has been thrown into these remote mountains, but surrounded by all the beautiful, great, and noble forces of nature, they will successfully unfold anthroposophical life. Those of you who were able to look around in the vicinity of this hospitable house in Malsch will have noticed that much has been done for its external appearance, as if the people responsible wished to say externally that the spiritual life by which all of us are inspired shall find special expression in this beautiful spot.

Let us look back at the modest beginnings of our anthroposophical life at the founding of our German Section, into which the Section in Malsch is now being incorporated. At that time we began with but a small group of people of spiritual scientific enthusiasts. Then, as we look at events such as this one today and observe the large number of souls who unite with us in spiritual scientific feelings and sentiments, we can be satisfied with the last few years of our endeavors.

The Stockmeyer family has spared no efforts to help with the unfolding of spiritual life on this beautiful piece of land although the spirits of nature have clearly aided their efforts. Also, this family must find great satisfaction in seeing how many genuine and true friends have hurried to this hospitable place, and I am sure all anthroposophical friends may be justly called genuine and true friends. This is so because anthroposophy must above all be truth in our hearts, and truth is sincerity. Anthroposophy, therefore, must be sincere; and anthroposophical friendship is expressed by your participation in such a dedication festival. Everything must be imbued with sincerity because honesty in friendship unites us with those who have worked so industriously so that here, too, there would arise a working sphere of anthroposophic activity. The hearts of those who have come here will be filled with gratitude for the efforts of the Stockmeyer family, who can be assured of our truly sincere anthroposophical appreciation.

On the other hand, the very success of such a dedication festival with so many souls present shows that Spiritual Science in our time is a powerful magnet for human striving, and on this occasion it may also be fitting to say that we can certainly look beyond the rooms that, surrounded by the spirits of beautiful nature, enclose us today and look at the rest of the world. It is possible to say that life and the endeavors of Spiritual Science today appear as phenomena whose existence results from an inner necessity. Really, it is as if many a page in the book about the life of old cultures, which sustained European and Western humanity for millennia and gave security and strength for life to it, were now beginning to wither and appear cold and lifeless to human hearts. That is why we see today a longing for spiritual scientific truths in so many areas of life. I, for one, having been permitted to speak to you here, sense something like a future force at work because of what has been taking place around me in the last few days.

We are here surrounded by green trees, the budding life of nature, and also by the magnificent sunlight that shines on us benevolently at this dedication since it animates everything and is imbued with spirit. This, then, is a perfect place to relate to you the words of our great harbingers of the new wisdom, the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings.

A few days have passed since I was permitted to speak in the same spirit in a lecture cycle in Rome, and this event symbolized to me what a magnet spiritual striving is. I was to speak to those who harbor a spiritual scientific longing in their hearts, but their longing is still fairly undefined at times. Yet the place where I was to speak looked differently, and it was on ground that actually had been entered only by cardinals in pursuit of spiritual endeavors or by others who work out of the convictions of the most positive and orthodox Catholicism. And so the air of the rooms where normally nothing but the official message from the orthodox center of Rome was proclaimed resounded with the free pronouncements of the spiritual scientific world view.

This shows us that although the free contemporary spirits of these Northern lands feel more attracted to anthroposophy, they can nevertheless look with a certain satisfaction to the souls who long to escape from an old, iron-clad orthodox tradition. It is certainly a good indication of the spirit of the times that it was possible to speak as freely and frankly about anthroposophic truths on territory heretofore reserved for cardinals, and as freely as this would be possible in the North. For what has been said before holds true everywhere: anthroposophy is sincerity; and where souls are in need of it and a call is issued, anthroposophy will follow it. But at no time will anthroposophy deviate in the least from the overall precepts that inspire its pronouncements, just because the consideration for the territory on which these pronouncements are made may make this expedient.

Wherever anthroposophical truth is proclaimed and where the spiritual element that pulsates through us is cultivated, there our message must be delivered in the light of sincerity, even when it is still surrounded by the thoughts of those who hate anthroposophy. However, in the midst of those who hate anthroposophy there are souls who, more or less consciously, long for the light of anthroposophy. And especially a strong contrast such as the one I have experienced during the past fourteen days can show us what a strong magnet anthroposophical life is.

The observation of our immediate present teaches us that this anthroposophical force is now strong enough to justify our joyful and satisfying hope that the small seedling planted today will in the future grow into a mighty tree. As theosophists, we are today in the same position humanity was in during the ancient Atlantean time. And just as life has become different since that time, so it will change again in the future, up to a time following a catastrophe. The wide perspective will now be made to appear before our souls.

Let us call to memory a similar movement in the last third of the Atlantean epoch that started small just like ours. The Atlantean soul life, which in many ways was still clairvoyant, had reached a high point during that time, but it did not yet have the consciousness of self, the strong feeling of the “I.” Instead, Atlanteans had a certain ability of clairvoyance and also certain magical powers, and this enabled them to look into the spiritual world. Those who had progressed to be leaders of this civilization were the ones best able to gaze into the spiritual world in the old ways and to bring forth the most knowledge from the astral realms. This clairvoyance disappeared little by little; in fact, mankind had to lose it completely in order to conquer for itself the consciousness of self in the physical world. But it is certain that clairvoyant knowledge in the last third of the Atlantean era had reached a special climax.

You will remember the technological achievement of the Atlanteans. They flew over the earth in small space vehicles—close to the earth because the atmosphere was saturated with thick fog formations. They propelled their small vehicles through this sea of air and water with energy derived from sprouting plants. The leading creators of this technology can be compared to today's industrial wizards who construct ingenious machines from lifeless forces. And those Atlanteans who could relate the most from the spiritual world can be compared to today's leading scholars and natural scientists.

However, within this Atlantean humanity a segment of people began to evolve who had only minor clairvoyant faculties, but possessed the ability to regard the external world with affection. The first rudimentary beginnings of arithmetic and counting could be observed in these people, but their participation in the great advances of the Atlantean industry—the construction of ever mightier vehicles for this sea of water and air—was very limited. And thus a small, insignificant group of people had developed in this last third of the Atlantean period who, in a certain sense, were despised for their comparative lack of clairvoyant power and their inability to participate in this great industry. However, this group of people prepared the way for seeing and knowing that is prevalent today, the way of seeing and knowing of which the external world today is so proud since it developed it in such a one-sided way.

Those leaders of the Atlantean civilization who had mastered everything that could be known from the vantage point of the Atlantean consciousness, including technology, conceived of a technical idea toward the end of the Atlantean era that has become fully productive in modern times. We can compare it to another measure of progress in our time that will carry over into the next catastrophe. During their golden age, the Atlanteans had vehicles that moved through air that was heavily mixed with water. Later, however, when their culture was already in a state of decline, it also became necessary to navigate the water, and this led the last cultural races of the Atlantean era first to embracing and then to realizing the idea of navigation and the conquest of the seas. This momentous idea in the Atlantean era not only of traversing the air but also of navigating the ocean water was quite a sensational idea that was put into reality by the last Atlantean races. After long experiments to navigate the waters, success came during the time when Atlantean culture was already in its decline.

Those responsible for this tremendous progress were not the ones who could be recruited for the task of transmitting the legacy of the actual spiritual life from the Atlantean era to our time. Rather, this task was reserved for the plain and simple people because they had been the first ones to be endowed with the ability to relate to the physical world. They were the ones whose clairvoyant faculties, though deteriorated the most among the several groups of people, were still adequate for those who were messengers from the spiritual world. These people, despised by the great scholars and inventors, were gathered by an eminent initiate whom we call The Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. This small group was comprised of people who had least preserved their technical abilities and who were disdained by the leaders and by the great scholars and inventors. Yet it was precisely they whom the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle led from the West to the East, through Europe and into Asia. And it is also this small group of people that made the foundation of the post-Atlantean cultures possible.

The best of what was subsequently developed by the various cultures, the mighty tree of post-Atlantean knowledge and wisdom, emanated from the descendants of the despised simple people from the Atlantean era. Above all, something else emanated from the midst of the descendants of this group of modest people. Let us place the external events side by side with the internal events of our evolution. Let us look at the great sensation of the Atlantean era when the secondary racial group, whose descendants were the Phoenicians, invented navigation. What was accomplished by this invention?

We need only to remember the great events from the beginning of modern times, such as the great voyages of discovery by Columbus and other seafarers, which would have been impossible without navigation and the invention of ships, and we shall see how this sensational invention led to the gradual conquest of the physical plane on earth. PostAtlantean peoples were confined to a small radius of activities, but through the invention of ships the circle defining the earth became rounded out so that we now have a completed configuration of the physical plane. And thus, the sensational invention of the Atlantean world reaches into our time and promotes further progress on the physical plane.

However, the greatest conquest in the Atlantean era emanated from the descendants of that group of plain people gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. And when those descendants, through their own development, had prepared the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, GraecoLatin, and our cultures, the earth became capable of yielding the material into which the Christ could be born. Therefore, the greatest spiritual event and deed of the post-Atlantean era had its beginning in the people who belonged to the most despised human beings in the eyes of the leaders of the Atlantean civilization, and this event gave rise to the immense spiritual progress that supports and maintains all spiritual life in our time—weaves through it and makes it productive.

The events in Atlantis are paralleled by those of our time. Seeing that the germinal beginnings of man's ability to do arithmetic and to count were present in Atlantis, we can recognize how these capabilities are today furthered in a marvelous conquest of the physical plane and how they brought about all kinds of technical progress. We also see how the great inventors and discoverers today have reached the culmination, in a sense, in applying those forces that first began to germinate with the small group of despised people in the Atlantean time. And what was then clairvoyant knowledge is today knowledge of nature and of the physical world. There is also a similarity between the spiritual leaders of the Atlantean civilization and today's natural scientists and scholars. On the other hand, a class of plain people exists everywhere—irrespective of positions its members might hold in the world, whose hearts are filled with the mighty magnet that attracts us to spiritual life, just as people in Atlantis were attracted to a life in which the external faculties for the physical plane could be developed.

Despite these similarities, there is also a certain difference between the modern and the ancient situation. In the old days referred to, the last remnants of clairvoyance were still present in people so that they were able to behold the Great Initiate. In a certain way, things today are more difficult for human beings when a call from the spiritual world issues to an equally small group of people, something we designate as the call of the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. But since people today are placed on the physical plane, these Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings are at first unknown to this small nucleus of human beings that has crystallized itself out of the mass of people. As we can deduce from the facts of the present time, this small group feels in its hearts that there is such a thing as a new spiritual message that is meant to have an effect on the future just as the message in former ages has had an effect on the present. These human beings who today come from all walks of life and whom we can find everywhere are the true theosophists because they carry in their hearts a longing for a spiritual life that is meant to lay the foundation for future cultures. The true theosophists in our time are emerging—just as we now encounter a sensational discovery similar to the one in the Atlantean era.

In ancient times water was conquered through the highest technological progress; the same is true today in the case of air. This conquest will, of course, extend into a later epoch. But just as ships in our times have brought about mastery of the physical plane only, so the air ship that will lead human beings into the atmosphere and beyond will empower the pilots to find only matter—material things. Granted, new realms of the physical plane will be conquered, and this will be beneficial for the external world. However, the inner spiritual life is borne in the hearts of those who feel spiritually fulfilled by the promise of being able in the future to look into the spiritual world while being conscious of self.

Look into life and you will find out there our leaders of civilization, the pillars of external culture, active as inventors and discoverers, as scholars and natural scientists. They look with scorn and contempt on a small group such as the one assembled here today that constitutes itself as a new bearer of culture and that unites its members with others in spiritual scientific associations. The events of the ancient Atlantean era repeat themselves.

However, when the spiritual life touches your hearts with such force that you can compare yourselves with dignity to those who were gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle, then you will be the bearers of spiritual life in later ages. In addition to offering humanity the external, material, and corporeal realities, such a life would also make possible a renewed immersion in the spiritual world. Although the Great Initiate gathered human beings around Himself in ancient times, today the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings fulfill a similar function and issue their call to you. If you feel your mission from a sense of history, then your hearts will become strong enough to withstand all the ridicule and disdain that the so-called pillars of civilization heap on Spiritual Science from the outside. And if you understand your mission in this spirit, then your thoughts will be strong and any doubt that may reverberate into your souls from the outside will be unable to shake you in your conviction. Your thoughts will be spiritually refined by the very force that can issue from such a knowledge of our mission. Even if we have to review thousands of years and establish far-reaching ideals, it is worth the effort because where such ideals are established, life is transmuted, and where they are absent, life is dead. Ideals transform themselves into the force of a moment even if they have been taken from vast periods of time and may seem to make the person subscribing to them appear somewhat petty and despondent. You will be strong for the most insignificant task if you are capable of extracting your ideal from the loftiest heights. This will make you stand fast when those who govern the world with their erudition talk with disdain and contempt about the little spiritual scientific associations where those people sit who “do not want to go along with contemporary culture.” Oh yes, they do want to go along, and they also know to appreciate the accomplishments of the external, physical world, but they also know that just as a body cannot be without a soul, no external culture can exist without spiritual life.

Just as the despised human beings characterized above gathered around the Great Initiate and after generations made the existence of Christ on earth possible, so the anthroposophical movement must facilitate a comprehensive understanding of Christ. Christ descended to earth in the fourth major era, and those who wish to understand Him completely will be able to do so from the anthroposophical vantage point.

Why do people who have heretofore been nourished by the positive, orthodox religions, come to Spiritual Science as if responding to an undefined longing in their consciousness? Why do they listen to the anthroposphical message when before they listened only to the Vatican? Why? Is it still permissible today to say anthroposophy exists only for those who regard the greatest spiritual fact of our age—the Christ Impulse—with indifference? What do the people coming to us need from us? They want us to tell them who Christ was and what He accomplished! They are coming to us because those who consider themselves to be the privileged bearers of the Christ-name today cannot tell them who Christ was, whereas anthroposophy can. Today's cultural leaders use the denial of Christ to oppose the external tradition emanating from various religions, but they cannot effectively challenge the moribund positive religious movements. Those who do not know what the Great Christ is, those who deny His spirituality will be no match even for the old religious movements. But only the spiritual movements that place themselves in the midst of those who claim an exclusive right to the Christ-name, the movements who know how to express the true essence of the Christ even to those who wish to hear the opposite, only those spiritual movements will attract human beings to their cause who carry the future in their hearts. The ancient religious trends will prove to be stronger than all religious nihilism.

We do not conceive of anthroposophical life in a petty, dogmatic sense, nor do we want to comprehend it with the help of individual tenets or maxims, but rather by recognizing and understanding the mission and the task of our time. We want to embrace anthroposophical life in such a way that the true spirit of our time speaks to us and that the most significant event of our post-Atlantean era can be expressed through the words of anthroposophy. If these words are not just recited but rather put into practice as an expression of the spirit of our time, they will become a dynamic force of life in our souls, and this will make people understand what anthroposophical life is.

When we truly feel this, we will increasingly grow stronger, and the newly gained strength will help us to embrace our ideal firmly. Then we will know how this ideal can be justified, regardless of whether this happens in an environment where an old culture yearns for a new content, or in this environment here, where nature and the magnificent, spirit-endowed sunrays glittering around us encircle what the daily efforts of anthroposophy achieve. We will again learn to recognize the spirit within these sunrays and know that when the sun has set, the spirit indwelling in it will look into our hearts. We will also learn what it means to behold the sun and its spirit at midnight, and in understanding what this spirit is, we will see how it has descended and how it is now united with the highest impulses of our age. It is necessary that humanity understand the Christ-Impulse and that we can say who the Christ was. Such an understanding is now only in the beginning stages, but in direct proportion to its increasing spiritual insights, mankind will gradually understand how the Christ-Impulse has penetrated this worldly edifice.

To feel this way at the dedication of a branch of our movement is especially appropriate when, as is the case here, the members were united in wanting to express a heartfelt desire and name this branch after Francis of Assisi, whose life is enveloped by a deep spiritual mystery.

When Christ descended to the earth, He enveloped Himself with the threefold physical, etheric, and astral bodies of Jesus of Nazareth and lived three years in this sheath as Christ, the Sun-Spirit. With the event of the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ descended to the earth; but aside from what is known to all of you, something else special happened by virtue of the fact that Christ indwelled the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, particularly the astral and etheric bodies. After Christ cast off the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, they were still present as spiritual substance in the spiritual world, but multiplied in a great many copies. They did not perish in the world ether or in the astral world, but continued to live as identical images. Just as the seed of a plant, once buried in the ground, reappears in many copies according to the mystery of number, so the copies of Jesus of Nazareth's etheric and astral bodies were present in the spiritual world. And for what purpose were they present, considering the large framework of spiritual economy? They were there to be preserved and to serve the overall progress of the human race.

One of the first individuals to benefit from the blessed fact of these countless copies of Jesus's etheric body being present in the spiritual world was St. Augustine. When he again descended to earth after an earlier incarnation, not just any etheric body was woven into his own, but rather the copy of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth. Augustine had his own astral body and ego, but his etheric body was interwoven with the image of the etheric body of Jesus. He had to work through the culture of his ego and astral body, but when he had made his way to the etheric body, he realized the great truths that we find in his mystical writings.

Many other human beings from the sixth to the ninth centuries had a copy of the etheric body of Jesus woven into their own etheric bodies. Many of these individuals conceived the Christian images that later were to be glorified in the arts in the form of the Madonna or the Christ on the cross. They were the creators of religious images who experienced in themselves what the people living at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha had experienced.

In the period spanning the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries the time had come when a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was woven into the astral bodies of certain reincarnated souls. From the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries many human beings, for example Francis of Assisi and Elisabeth of Thüringen, had the imprint of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into them while their own astral bodies—the source of their knowledge—were formed during reincarnation. This enabled these individuals to proclaim the great truths of Christianity in the form of judgments, logical constructs, and scientific wisdom. But, in addition, they were also able to experience the feeling of carrying the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth within themselves.

Your eyes will be opened if you allow yourselves to experience vicariously all the humility, the devotion, and the Christian love that was part of Francis of Assisi. You will then know how to look at him as a person prone to make mistakes—because he possessed his own ego—and as a great individual because he carried a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth within his own astral body. All the humble feelings, the profound mysticism, and the spiritual soul life of Francis of Assisi become comprehensible if we know this one secret of his life.

Having such knowledge, we can see with our inner eye that the future of this new branch augurs well as it climbs upward under the guiding light of this great individual, for those who, like Francis of Assisi, received the grace and the calling to guide Christian humanity in the West will at all times let their spiritual light radiate into the areas of spiritual activity. And especially if this Francis of Assisi Section works in a genuinely spiritual sense, the unison of thoughts and feelings of this branch will be the reflection of the harmonizing light of Francis of Assisi, which he received as a gift of grace, as we mentioned before, by an infusion of his own astral body with a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. Something of this light will radiate into this very branch.

In letting such perspectives roll by our inner eye, we who are assembled today in this modest branch for the purpose of dedicating the new branch will leave the proper feelings behind us when we depart. Let us look up to the light of Francis of Assisi; let us take along with us what can be ignited in us in this moment, and let us remember this branch in the future. In doing so, our feelings and thoughts will hover invisibly over this Francis of Assisi Branch, so that the impulses struggling upward from below may prove to be worthy of the light that shines into our souls from the outside. In such a moment we become conscious of the fact that we are here to work for the true and real measures of progress in our post-Atlantean era. Surely, when the founders of this branch felt the need to name it after Francis of Assisi, their souls must have sensed something of the great progress.

What was the most decisive turning point of our entire evolution? It was the time when the Christ descended to earth. Let us look back six hundred years from that event and then compare the earth to what it was six hundred years after Christ, a period spanning some twelve hundred years. First, let us look at Buddha, who lived six hundred years before Christ. In him we see an individuality of such greatness that words of admiration should be superfluous. Specifically, let us look at the moment where he is led out into life, but not into the life he wanted to live. Consider how he first meets a helpless child and how from this experience he forms the perception that there is suffering in the journey that human beings begin with their birth. And upon seeing a sick person, he says to himself, “Not only is there suffering in this world, but human beings on this plane are also subjected to illness.” He sees an old person who no longer is able to move his limbs and says to himself, “Aging involves suffering.” And when he sees a corpse, the sight of it conjures up in him the perception that death is suffering. Another perception is that to be separated from a loved one creates suffering, as is the case when one is united with someone whom one doesn't love. Finally, not to obtain what one desires is suffering too.

This, then, is the teaching that spread as the teaching of Buddha, some six hundred years before Christ. Let us fix in our minds the moment where Buddha steps out into the world, sees a corpse, and stands face to face with death. It was six hundred years after the event of Golgotha when for the first time one particular image came into being: the image of the cross with the corpse of the Savior hanging on it. Thousands of people were there to look at it. Now when Buddha looked at a corpse, it was to him a personification of all suffering on earth. The believers of the Christian community six hundred years after Christ would look at the corpse and see it as the victory of all spiritual life over death, the claim to bliss. And here we see how a faithful community looked at a dead body six hundred years before Christ, and then six hundred years after the event of Golgotha.

What can the Christ-Event tell us about the other pronouncements of suffering? Is birth suffering, as Buddha expressed it? Looking at Christ on the cross, the part of humanity that really understands Him will say, “Through birth we step into this existence—an existence that was found worthy of harboring the Christ. We are born into a life in which we can unite with Christ.” Likewise, sickness is not suffering if one understands Christ. People will have to learn to understand through the Christ-Impulse what, from a spiritual point of view, creates health. Illnesses will be healed in a spiritual way through the innermost, Christianized life. By dying to the outer world, we become assured that the treasure acquired in connection with the Christ-Impulse is carried into every other life. Through Christ's victory, death appears to us as a bridge that leads to the spiritual world, and we learn to understand the meaning of death for this spiritual world through this Christ-Impulse.

Also, it is no longer possible to say that the separation from the object of one's love creates suffering because the power of Christ will unite us, as one soul to another, with everything we want to love. Moreoever, the power of Christ will tie those together who love each other. The suffering that could arise through the separation of those loving each other is overcome through Christ.

Let us learn to love all people, lest our interpretation of the world be that to be united with what one does not love means suffering. Rather, let us learn to love every creature in its own right, and when our spiritual wells start to flow, our desires will be purified in such a way that we can partake in everything our souls are destined to receive, once the hurdles of the physical world are eliminated. And those spiritual fountainheads can begin to flow through the Christ- Impulse. People who will be content to obtain through the Christ-Spirit what they want will have their desires purified.

The new spiritual life has placed itself next to the old spiritual life through the Christ-Impulse. That is how deep progress in spiritual life ran before and after the Christ-Impulse had surfaced. This is keenly felt by someone who turns to one of the most ardent and joyful admirers and messengers of the Christ-Impulse—Francis of Assisi; his name, therefore, may well be bestowed on an association in which spiritual life is to be cultivated. May this name be a good augury, and may the work in this branch proceed in the true spirit of our time, properly understood, because this is necessary for the programs we have envisioned in our souls.

Let us consecrate this branch of our movement in the spirit expressed by the preceding words and by calling down the benediction we used yesterday when we broke ground for the outer temple. Let us conjure up the same spirit one more time so that it may hold sway and weave in this Francis of Assisi Branch.

May the feelings of those who have come to this dedication ceremony unite with this spirit and also unite in a brotherly way with those who are at work here in serious, anthroposophical endeavors so that spiritual life may germinate in the midst of the trees, forests, and sprouting plants of this sunny piece of nature. It matters little whether the bright sunrays outside indicate what is beautiful or magnificent in nature, whether snow be piled up outside, or whether a thick cloud cover be out there to obscure the external, physical sunlight. In times when nature renews itself or when she wears her somber garb, may the spirit of a higher life always imbue those who will be engaged in spiritual activities, and let us now conjure up this spirit to aid all the human beings in this branch.

With this, let us dedicate, from the bottom of our hearts, the Francis of Assisi Branch and hope that it will continue its work in the spirit in which it began—through the spiritual force of the Masters of Truth and of the Harmony of Feelings that streams into every branch. May it also continue its work through the good spirit with which it has endowed itself by naming itself after the splendid bearer of Christ.

May this branch continue as it began. Good spirits will guide its course as it becomes one of the centers where the kind of life is cultivated of which our time is clearly in need and where the seeds for the requirements of a far-distant future are sown. Let us hope the people who will soon have to work in solitude here emerge strengthened from today's festivities, where so many sincere friends united their feelings with them! Then the spiritual life cultivated in this place will flow back to all people involved and coalesce with the great harmony of anthroposophical life. Thoughts that originate in this place will encounter our thoughts, just as our thoughts will flow here from distant places. This harmony is something like an external garment of spirituality, and spirituality must pass through human evolution like a spiritual breath of air if beneficial forces are to reign over humanity.

May this branch be dedicated in the fullest sense of the word; may it become a field of activity into which we can always place our hopes with the same love and inner satisfaction as is the case in today's dedication ceremony.

With all my heart I respond to the very kind greeting just expressed by your representative, and I feel sure that those friends who have come to this town to take part in Anthroposophical life in the company of our Bergen friends will unite with me in this. We have had a beautiful journey across the great mountains, which give us so pleasant and friendly a welcome, and I think our friends will certainly enjoy their stay in this old Hanseatic town all the time we are able to be here. That marvellous handiwork of man, the railway along which we traveled, brought to our notice more closely than in other parts of Europe the impression of the energy of human creative force in actual combination with Nature herself. When one sees the rocks that had to be broken up in order that the hand of man could construct such work, side by side with that other, constructed and piled up by Nature herself, the impressions that pour in upon one do truly make a visit to such a country one of the most beautiful of all possible experiences. In this ancient town our friends will spend the time of our sojourn amidst beautiful impressions which will be preserved in their memories as the background of their visit. These will be days for storing up memories, more especially because we can satisfy ourselves by physical vision that even here, in this part of the world, we can meet with Anthroposophical hearts which beat in unison with our own in the search for the spiritual treasures of humanity. Our visit to this town will certainly link us more closely and more affectionately with those who have received us here in so loving a way.

We are gathered here for the first time, and what I want to say to you will have to be of an aphoristic character. I should like to speak a little concerning that which belongs to the domain of the spiritual world, and this is more easily and better said by word of mouth than in writing, not only because, on account of the prejudices existing in the world today, it is difficult to confide to the written word what I am glad to entrust to the hearts of Anthroposophists, but it is also difficult to do so because spiritual truths really can be better given out in words than in writing or in print. This applies more particularly to the more intimate spiritual truths. Although it has been necessary for me to allow intimate spiritual truths to be written down and printed, I always feel it bitterly. For the very reason that the spiritual beings spoken of in such writings cannot read them, it is a question of much difficulty, for books cannot be read in the spiritual worlds. For a short time after our death they can still be read in our memory, but the beings of the higher Hierarchies cannot read our books. When I am asked whether they do not wish to acquire this art of reading, I am obliged to say that according to my experience they show no desire to do so at present, for they do not consider that the reading of what is produced on earth is needful or useful to them. The reading of the spiritual beings first begins when men on earth read what is written in books, and the content becomes their thoughts, the living thoughts of men. The spirits can then read that content in the thought of man. But what is written or printed is, as it were, darkness to the beings of the spiritual world; therefore one feels that in confiding something to writing or print one is communicating something behind the back of the spiritual beings, which yet is for these spiritual beings themselves. This is a genuine feeling, my dear friends, and one which, if I may venture to say so, even a cultured citizen of the present age cannot quite share, though every true occultist must have this feeling of reluctance to write or to put into print.

When with clairvoyant vision we penetrate the spiritual worlds, it seems to be of special importance that at the present time and in the near future knowledge of the spiritual world should be made more and more widely known, because the change in man's soul-life, which is so necessary now and will become more and more necessary, will greatly depend upon the spreading of Spiritual Science. You see, if we look back with spiritual vision even but a' few centuries to olden times, we come upon something which must greatly surprise anyone ignorant of these things. We find that the intercourse between the living and the dead is becoming increasingly difficult, and that a comparatively short time ago there was a much more active intercourse between them.

When the Christian of the Middle Ages, or indeed the Christian of but a few centuries ago, turned his thoughts when at prayer to the dead who were near and dear to him, his feelings and sentiments were then more able than are such thoughts today to press up to the souls of the dead. It was much easier then for the souls of the dead to feel permeated with the warm breath of the love of those who thought of them and looked up to them in their prayers than it is today, if we only follow the external culture of the age. At the present time the dead are much more shut off from the living than they were a short time ago. It is, in a sense, much more difficult for them to perceive what lives in the souls of those they left behind. This lies in the evolution of mankind, but in this evolution of ours must also lie the recovery of this connection, this living intercourse between the living and the dead. In former times it was still natural to the human soul to be in touch with the dead, although no longer with full consciousness, for men had ceased to be clairvoyant for a very long time. In still earlier ages they could look up at their dead with clairvoyant vision and follow their subsequent life, and just as it was then natural to have living intercourse with the dead, so the soul today, if it acquires thoughts and ideas about the higher spiritual worlds, will acquire the power of establishing intercourse, living intercourse, with the dead. And among the practical tasks of Anthroposophy will be that of gradually building the bridge between the living and the dead by means of Spiritual Science.

That we may clearly understand one another, I should like to draw your attention first of all to a few points connected with this intercourse between the living and the dead. I shall begin with a very simple phenomenon forming a link to further spiritual investigation. Those souls, whose custom it is to ponder over things a little, will have observed the following phenomenon in themselves—and I believe many have done so. Let us take the case of a man who hated someone or perhaps was only conscious that he was antipathetic to him. Now when the person who has been hated or disliked dies, it is often the case that the man who hated him in life cannot continue to hate him to the same extent; he cannot keep up his dislike for him. If the hatred extends beyond the grave he feels a sort of shame that it should be so. This feeling, felt by many, can be traced clairvoyantly, and during this investigation one may ask oneself the following question: “Why feel shame for the hatred or dislike which was felt for the dead, considering no single soul knew of its having been harboured?” When the clairvoyant investigator follows the departed through the gates of death into the spiritual worlds and then looks back at the man who stayed behind, he finds that, in general, the former has a very clear perception of the hatred in the living; in fact, if I may be allowed to use the expression, he sees the hatred as it were. The clairvoyant is able to state very definitely that the dead perceives the hatred, and we can also trace what such hatred means to the dead. It creates an obstacle to his good intentions in his spiritual environment, comparable to the obstacles we may encounter on earth which stand in the way of the attainment of our aims. It is a fact that in the spiritual world the dead encounter the hatred or dislike felt for them as an obstacle in the way of their carrying out their best intentions. So we can understand why, in a soul who searches into himself a little, hatred, even if quite justifiable, will die out because of the shame it entails after the death of the hated one. If a man is not clairvoyant he certainly does not know the reason, but a natural feeling in his soul tells him that he is being observed. He feels: “The dead man perceives my hatred. This dislike of mine is an obstacle in the way of his good intentions.” Many deep feelings exist in the human soul which are made clear when we ascend to the spiritual worlds and face the spiritual facts which are the cause of these feelings. Just as on earth we do not wish to be observed externally, physically, when doing certain things—and in fact refrain from doing them if we know ourselves to be observed—so we do not go on hating a man after his death if we feel ourselves observed by him. But the love, or even sympathy, which we feel for the dead man really makes his journey easier; it removes obstacles from his path. What I am now saying, namely, that hatred creates obstacles and love clears them away, does not imply any interference with Karma, any more than do many things that happen on earth which we must not consider as directly belonging to Karma. For instance, if we knock our foot against a stone we must not always put that down to Karma—at any rate, not to moral Karma. In the same way, it is not in contradiction to Karma that the dead feel relief because of the love that flows up from the earth, or that they encounter obstacles blocking the way of their good intentions.

Another thing which will appeal even more strongly with respect to the intercourse between the living and the dead is that the dead in a sense also require nourishment, though, of course, not the same nourishment as do human beings on the earth, but spiritual psychic nourishment. Just as we on earth must have our harvest-fields in which the fruits ripen upon which we support our physical life (I may use the comparison, for it corresponds to the facts), so too must the dead have their harvest-fields, from which they can reap the fruits they need in the time between death and a new birth. When clairvoyant vision follows the dead, it can see that the sleeping human souls are the harvest-fields of the dead. It is, indeed, not only surprising, but really extremely upsetting to a man who for the first time is able to see into the spiritual world, to perceive how the human souls living in the intervening period between death and a new birth hurry to the sleeping souls, seeking for the thoughts and ideas to be found in them. From these they obtain the food supply which they require. When we go to sleep at night the thoughts and ideas which have passed through our minds in our waking hours come to life—they become living beings, so to speak. Then the souls of the dead draw near and take part in these ideas, and in so doing they feel themselves nourished. Oh! it is an extremely affecting experience when we turn our clairvoyant vision to the dead who nightly visit their sleeping friends. (This applies particularly to blood-relations.) They wish to bathe in and, as it were, nourish themselves on the thoughts and ideas that the living took with them into their sleep, but fail to find anything nourishing. For there is a very great difference between one idea and another as regards our sleeping state. If we are busy all day long with the materialistic ideas of life, giving our minds only to what goes on in the physical world and to what can be done there, and do not give a single thought to the spiritual worlds before going to sleep—indeed, in some respects just the opposite—we can offer no nourishment for the dead. I know some parts of Europe where the young people are so educated that they go to sleep after having tried to drink as much beer as they can hold! That means that the thoughts and ideas which they carry over cannot live in the spiritual world, and when the dead approach them they find a barren field; this is just as hard for them as when our own crops fail and famine ensues. Particularly in our present time great famines can be observed in the spiritual worlds, for materialistic feelings are very prevalent now, and there are a great number of persons who consider it childish to think about the spiritual world. They thus withhold from those souls who ought to obtain nourishment from them after death their necessary soul-food.

In order that this fact may be rightly understood it is necessary to mention that after our death we can feed on the thoughts and ideas of those souls with whom we were in some way connected in our lifetime. We cannot draw nourishment from those with whom we had no connection. If we propagate spiritual science today, so that we may once again have living spiritual content in our souls, then, my dear friends, we are not only working for the living that they may have satisfaction, but we try to fill our hearts and souls with thoughts about the spiritual world, knowing that the dead who were related to us on earth must be nourished by them. We feel today that we are not only working for the so-called living, but that by spreading Spiritual Science we are also serving the spiritual world. When we are addressing the living, talking to them about what this daily life should be, then, by reason of the satisfaction which these souls experience, we are creating ideas for their night-life which can be fruitful nourishment for those whose Karma has led them to die before ourselves. That is why the need is felt, not only of making Anthroposophy known by the ordinary outer methods, but there is also an inner longing to cultivate it in groups, for it is of great importance that persons who study Anthroposophy should associate together. As I have already said, the dead can only draw nourishment from those with whom they were connected in life, and they try to bring souls together so as to make the harvest-fields for the dead ever more extensive. Many a man who can find no harvest-fields after death because his whole family are materialists, can find some in the souls of the Anthroposophists with whom he has associated. That is a deeper reason why we should work together and are anxious that any member who dies should, before his death, become acquainted with persons, Anthroposophists, who while still on earth occupy themselves with spiritual things, for he can afterwards draw nourishment from them when they are asleep.

In the early days of men's evolution, when men's souls were still filled with a certain religious spiritual life, the religious communities, and especially the blood-relations, sought intercourse with the dead. Now, however, blood-relationship has lost its power and must be replaced more and more by the cultivation of a spiritual life such as that of our Movement. Thus we see that Anthroposophy can promise to create a new bond between the living and the dead, and that we can thereby be of use to the dead. And when we today with clairvoyant vision find persons living between death and a new birth who have the unfortunate experience of discovering that all those they knew on earth, even their own relations, have only materialistic thoughts, we recognise the necessity of permeating the culture of our day with spiritual thoughts. For instance, we find in the spiritual world a man we knew on earth who recently died leaving behind him relations whom we also know, a wife and children, all of whom in the external sense are quite good people. With clairvoyant vision we see this man unable to find his wife, who was the very sun of his existence when he came home after a hard day's work; yet because she had no spiritual thoughts in her heart and mind he cannot see into her soul; and, if he is in a position to do so, he inquires: “Where is my wife? What has become of her?” He can only look back at the time when he was with her on earth; but now, when he wants her most of all, he cannot find her. This may happen. There are many people today who more or less believe that the dead, as far as we are concerned, have passed into a sort of nothingness, and they can only think of them with entirely materialistic thoughts—no fruitful thoughts whatever. When we look down from the after death life upon someone still on earth who was fond of us but does not believe in the survival of the soul after death, at that moment, when our whole attention is centred on trying to get into touch with the loved one, our vision becomes as it were extinguished, for we cannot find the living friend nor come into touch with him; yet we know it could easily be done if there were any spiritual thoughts in his mind. That is a frequent and very painful experience of the dead. Clairvoyant vision can perceive many a soul who, after death, finds many obstacles put in the way of his intentions through the thoughts of hatred by which he is followed; yet he can find no comfort in the loving thoughts of those he left behind, being unable to contact them because of their materialism. These laws of the spiritual world, which can be thus observed with clairvoyant vision, are really and truly valid, as can be seen in cases which we have been able to observe. It is instructive to observe how the thoughts of hatred, or at any rate of antipathy, work on, even if they were not formed in full consciousness. Schoolteachers can be observed who were generally considered severe and were unable to attract the love of their young pupils, whose thoughts of hatred and dislike are innocent, so to speak. When such a teacher dies, one sees how here too the thoughts that follow him are, as it were, obstacles to him in the spiritual world. The child or young person does not reflect, when the teacher dies, that he ought not to go on hating him, but he naturally goes on doing so, remembering how he was tormented by him. By means of these glimpses we can learn much as to the relation between the living and the dead, and what I have been trying to put before you today is for the purpose of suggesting something which may be developed and be a good result of our Anthroposophical strivings. I mean what is known as “Reading to the Dead.” It has been proved in our Movement that we render immense service to those souls who have died before us by reading to them about spiritual things. The way to do this is to direct your thoughts to them and, to make this easier, picture them standing or sitting in front of you. You can read in this way to several at a time. You need not read out loud, but follow the written thoughts attentively, always keeping the dead in mind, thinking: “He is standing before me, I am reading to him.” It is not even necessary to read from a book, but you must not think abstract thoughts, but think each thought out clearly; that is the way to read to the dead. This can be carried so far, although it is more difficult to do, that you can even read to someone with whom you were only distantly acquainted if you have had thoughts in common with him, such as a belief in the same conception of the cosmos, or if you had the same thoughts about some domain of life which brought you into personal relationship with him. It may be of great help to read to him after death. This has been done in all ages.

I have been asked, “What is the best time for this,” but it is quite independent of time. The thing that matters is that you should think the thoughts through to their end and not think superficially. The subject must be gone through word by word, as if spoken inwardly If this is done, the dead read it with us. Such reading is not only helpful to Anthroposophists—far from it! A short time ago one of our friends was disturbed every night, as was his wife also. They felt a disquietude; and, as the man's father had recently died, he came to the conclusion that the soul of his father was present, wanting something of him. Our friend then came to consult me; and it appeared that his father, who in his lifetime would never hear a word of Spiritual Science, now felt a very strong need to learn something of it. The son and his wife then read to his father the Course on St. John's Gospel which I once gave in Cassel, and this soul was very greatly helped, and felt himself lifted above many disharmonies which he had been feeling after his death.

This case is all the more remarkable because the dead man had been a preacher, constantly addressing the public from his own religious standpoint; yet after his death he could only be satisfied by having an anthroposophical elucidation of St. John's Gospel read out to him. Thus we see that it is by no means necessary that the dead we wish to help should have been Anthroposophists in life, although, of course, we help the latter more particularly by reading to them.

When we observe such a fact as this, my dear friends, we gradually acquire quite different thoughts about the soul of man. The human soul is, indeed, much more complicated than is generally supposed. What we are conscious of is really but a small part of our soul-life. Much takes place in the subconscious depths of the soul of which man knows but little. Often it is the very opposite of what he believes and thinks in his normal consciousness. It may often occur that a member of a family is attracted to Anthroposophy while his brother or his wife or someone with whom he is closely connected dislikes it more and more and rages against it because he has joined it. There is often an increasing dislike of Anthroposophy in such a family, so that life becomes really difficult because of the attitude of these good friends and dear relations. Now, if such souls are investigated clairvoyantly, it is often found to be the case that in their subconscious depths a profound longing for Anthroposophy is developing. Sometimes the relation who raises the strongest objection in reality longs subconsciously more intensely for Anthroposophy than does the member who attends all its meetings. But death lifts the veil from the subconsciousness and levels all these things out. It frequently occurs that a person may be dulled as regards what lies in his subconsciousness, where there may be a very strong yearning for Spiritual Science. By raging against it he deadens the longing of which he was not aware, but after death it will come out all the more strongly. Therefore we should not omit to read to those souls who in their lifetime fought against Anthroposophy, for indeed it often occurs that we can help those most of all.

The question frequently asked in this connection is: “How can we know that the dead really hear us?” Well, of course it is difficult to know this unless we have clairvoyant vision, but if we regularly think about the dead and work for them, we may suddenly come to feel: “They are listening.” This feeling is only lacking if we are inattentive and do not notice the peculiar feeling of warmth which is often present when we are thus reading. We really can acquire this feeling, but even if we fail to do so, my dear friends, there is a law which must often be applied to our relation to the spiritual world. It is the following: If we read to the dead and they hear us, we most certainly help them, but even if they do not hear us we are fulfilling our duty, and perhaps eventually we may succeed in making them hear. In any case, we are certainly doing good, for we are filling ourselves with thoughts and ideas which will most certainly serve as nourishment for the dead in the first-mentioned way. So that nothing is lost, and the practice of this custom has proved that the longing on the part of the dead for what is thus read to them is certainly widespread, and that we can render immense service to those to whom we read the spiritual wisdom which has now been brought to light.

Thus we may hope that the partition separating the dead from the living may become thinner as Spiritual Science is more widely known in the world. Truly it will be a beautiful result of the work of Anthroposophy, paradoxical though it may seem, if men eventually learn by practical experience, and not merely in theory, that we only have a difference of experience when we have passed through so-called death and are in the company of the dead. We can even help them to share in what we ourselves take part in physical life. We are forming an entirely wrong conception of the life between death and rebirth if we ask: “What is the good of reading to the dead? Can they not see for themselves all that we can read to them, and know it all much better than we do?” This question can only be asked by one who is not in a position to judge of what can be experienced in the spiritual world! As you know, a man may be in the physical world without acquiring knowledge of it; and if he is not in a position of being able to judge of this or that, he cannot acquire knowledge of the physical world. The animals live in the physical world with us, yet they have not so much knowledge concerning it as we have. The fact that the dead live in the spiritual world does not necessarily give them knowledge of the world, although they can see it. The knowledge which can be acquired through Spiritual Science can only be acquired on earth; it cannot be acquired in the spiritual world. If, therefore, the beings in the spiritual world are to possess it too, they can only gain it from the beings still on the earth. That is an important secret of the spiritual worlds. We may live in them and be able to perceive them, but the necessary knowledge concerning these worlds can only be acquired on earth. Here I must mention something about the spiritual worlds which I shall amplify in my lecture tomorrow—something of which most people have no correct conception. While man between death and rebirth is living in the spiritual world he has more or less the same longing as we here below have for the spiritual world, and he expects from us on earth that we should show him things connected with the earth, and cause them to shine forth so that they can be seen by him and thus give him the knowledge that can only be acquired on the earth. Not without reason has the earth been founded on the spiritual cosmic existence; it has been called to life so that what can only be brought about on earth can come into existence. Knowledge of the spiritual worlds which transcends the vision and perception of those worlds themselves can only be acquired on earth. I have already said that the spiritual beings of the spiritual worlds are not able to read our books, and I must now add that what lives in us now as Anthroposophy is to the spiritual beings, as well as to our own souls after death, what books are to human physical beings on our earth—something whereby they acquire knowledge of the world. But these books which we ourselves are to the dead are living books.

Realise this significant saying, my dear friends, that we must furnish literature for the dead! Our own books are in certain respects more patient; they do not cause their letters to vanish into the paper whilst we are reading them. We human beings often take the opportunity of reading away from the dead by filling our minds with material thoughts which are really invisible in the spiritual world. As the question is often put to me whether the dead themselves know all that we are able to give them, I must say that they cannot do so; for Anthroposophy can only be established on earth, and from thence must be carried up into the spiritual worlds.

When we ourselves observe these worlds and have a little personal experience of them, we find ourselves confronted with quite different conditions from those prevalent here on earth. That is why it is so extremely difficult to express these in human words and thoughts. Often when one tries to speak in a concrete way about the conditions in the spiritual worlds it all sounds paradoxical.

Here I may perhaps tell you incidentally something of a being, a deceased human soul with whom, because it knew much, I have been able to make investigations in the spiritual world concerning the great painter Leonardo da Vinci, and especially as regards his celebrated picture of the Last Supper in Milan. When one investigates a spiritual fact in cooperation with such a soul as this, it can point to many a fact that one might not discern simply by clairvoyant vision into the Akashic Records. The human soul in the spiritual world can indicate these, but can only do so to an investigator who has understanding of the things it wishes to point out. Suppose, together with such a soul, one investigates the way in which Leonardo painted the world-renowned “Last Supper!” What remains of that picture today is hardly more than a few specks of colour, but in the Akashic Records one can watch Leonardo at work and can perceive, although it is none too easy, what the picture was then like. If one is able thus to investigate, in company with a soul not in incarnation but who has a connection with Leonardo da Vinci and studies his paintings, one observes that this soul points out this or that. For instance, it may make one realise the actual faces of Christ and Judas on the canvas. Yet one becomes aware that the soul could not do this unless, at the time of showing, there was the necessary understanding on the part of the living investigator. This is a sine qua non. The discarnate soul itself only learns to understand what till now it could only perceive, during the time the living soul is being willingly taught. Thus a soul with whom one has had such an experience—which can only be experienced in the above-mentioned way—says to one, symbolically speaking of course: “You have brought me here to this picture. Because you yourself felt the need of investigating the picture, I on my part felt the impulse to look at it with you!” After that follow various experiences, but the time comes when the soul either vanishes or says: “Now I must go.” In the case to which I am referring the dead soul said: “Up to now the soul of Leonardo da Vinci was quite willing to have the picture seen, but it does not now wish the investigation carried farther.”

In telling you this I am giving you a very important detail of the life of the Spirit. As we in physical life always know what we see and always know that we are looking at this or that—as we see these roses here on the table—so in the spiritual life we always know when a spiritual being is looking at us. When we pass through the spiritual worlds we always feel that this or that being is looking at us. In the physical world we are conscious that we go through it observing the things around us, but in the spiritual world we feel that this or that being is looking at us. We are constantly aware of being seen, of being appraised, and this leads us to form decisions to do something or other, knowing that we are being approved of or the reverse; and if there is anything we ought or ought not to do, we either do it or not accordingly. Just as we pluck a flower because it takes our fancy after we have seen it, so in the spiritual world we do a thing because it pleases some being, or refrain from doing it because we cannot stand the glance that is turned on such an action. This is a state of things to which we must grow accustomed. Over there we have the feeling of being seen, just as here we feel that we see. In a sense what is passive here is active there, and what is active here is passive there. From this you can see, my dear friends, that we must acquire absolutely different concepts if we are to understand aright the descriptions referring to the spiritual world. You will see how difficult it is to coin in ordinary human language the descriptions of the spiritual world which one would so gladly give. You will realize that for many things the necessary understanding must first have been created.

There is just one thing more to which I should like to draw your attention. It might be asked why anthroposophical literature as a whole describes freely enough what takes place in the spiritual world immediately after death, what takes place in Kamaloca, and afterwards in Spirit Land, but tells very little of the separate clairvoyant glimpses? It may very likely be supposed that it is far easier to observe s particular soul after death than to trace the experiences generally described; but this is not the case. I shall make use of an example to prove this.

With the rightly developed clairvoyance it is easier to perceive the greater events, such as the passage of the human soul through death into Kamaloca and in its further ascent, than it is to see the particular experiences of a given soul: just as in the physical world it is easier to recognise what is regularly subject to the influences of the greater heavenly movements than what is in a sense spasmodically influenced by them. You can all reckon on the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow morning and set at night, but it is not easy to foresee what the weather may be, So it is with clairvoyance. The accounts we generally give in our descriptions of the spiritual worlds may be compared with the knowledge we have of the general course of the heavenly bodies. We can always reckon that these things will be fulfilled as described. But the separate events in life between death and rebirth are like the weather conditions on earth, which are, of course, subject to law, but are more difficult to recognise; for even on the earth itself one can hardly tell in one place what the weather will be in another. It is not easy here in Bergen to know w hat the weather in Berlin may be, although we know the relative positions of the sun and moon there. To follow up an individual life after death is more difficult, and demands a more special cultivation of the gift of clairvoyance than to follow the general course of the human soul. If the training be carried out aright, knowledge of the general conditions is acquired first, and the rest, which appears to be easier, comes much later—after much schooling. A man may have been able for a considerable time to see quite clearly as regards Kamaloca and Devachan and yet find it extremely difficult to read the time by the watch concealed in your pocket. The things of the physical world are most difficult of all to the clairvoyant training. It is exactly the reverse as regards acquiring knowledge of the higher worlds. A man makes mistakes here because there still exists a natural clairvoyance which is uncertain and subject to many errors. This may persist for a long time without giving the clairvoyant vision the outlook on the general conditions described by Anthroposophy, which to the trained clairvoyant comes more easily. These are the things of which I wished to speak to you today in respect of the spiritual world. Tomorrow we shall continue these observations and enter somewhat more deeply into them.

I SHALL TAKE the liberty of adding a few remarks to what I said yesterday, after which I shall invite contributions from those who have asked to speak.

You will remember that I endeavoured to solve the problem of the outside of the Goetheanum as well as was possible at the time by treating it as a building problem. A number of aspects were, though, made more difficult than they need have been by the speed at which the building was expected to be constructed. Nevertheless I believe that the shaping of the facade, of the portals, of the windows and window surrounds did portray outwardly the inner content of the Goetheanum, which was essentially a circular building.

Now, as I attempted to describe it to you yesterday, the impression is to be of a building that is partly circular and partly rectangular, having no longer a ground-plan that is circular. And it will be necessary to find for the forms a modern style that is appropriate for concrete as a building material.

Such things are always exceedingly difficult. It is of course easier to work in an abstract way out of the forms, and then choose the material, than it is to accept the material as the necessary given factor and then search for the forms out of this material, forms which are also partly determined by the circumstances which I described to you yesterday. Now, since we do not have time to go into more detail, I want to show you one essential feature, the underlying theme of the portals and of the windows, so that you can see how I want to let the inner formative force that was latent in the old forms assert itself once more also in the new forms of the intractable material, concrete.

I want the walls, coming down from the roof which is shaped in flat surfaces, to give the eye a definite impression of load. I want to bring it about that this downward pressure is caught and held, also for the eye, by the portal as well as the window surrounds. I also want to bring it about that inwardly the spiritual impression is of a portal that draws you in, or a window that takes in the light in order to usher it into the space within. But at the same time I want to bring it about that in a certain way this form reveals how the Goetheanum is to be a kind of shelter for the one who seeks the spirit within it. This will also have to be expressed by the portal. So let me describe what is to be revealed. [See [See Facsimile 5, Page XIX.]

For instance, on the west front the roof will rise up like this. So I want the next thing appearing after the roof to be a kind of small form growing out of this roofing. Let me make it easier for you to see by using different colours to draw what will, of course, be all the same colour.

So this will jut out (lemon-yellow); it will be immediately above the head of someone who is standing before the portal, about to enter. Below that will be a portion, something that could be seen as a portion of a pentagon, but only a portion (reddish). The remainder of the pentagon would be above. And the whole of this is carried by a form which recedes (blue). So what you remember as rounded forms in the earlier Goetheanum [Note 78] will here appear as something angular. You must imagine that this comes forward like a kind of roof (lemon-yellow), this goes back inwards (blue), and this becomes visible in the background (whitish). And the whole of this is to be supported by a pillar shape to the left and to the right in such a way that this pillar or column receives this protective form which appears above the head of the one who enters; it receives this protective form in another form (orange-yellow) like this, but at the same time it carries the roof part with an appropriate form which grows out of it.

This form will be used for both the side and main portals and for the windows. And in the use of this form we shall be able to achieve a really integrated external impression. It will show on the one hand how the load pressing down from above is carried and on the other hand how the pillars rise up in order to support that which comes out from the inside, revealing itself and needing to be received.

The essential thing about an angular building is the harmony between the forces of support and load. If we are to carry this out in an organic building, every part must reveal the indwelling character of the totality. The pillars in the old building reached from bottom to top. Now they will be metamorphosed so that on the lower level, the ground floor, they will develop like roots—architecturally conceived, of course. Out of these the actual pillars will grow on the upper level, becoming bearers of the whole. They will then bring the forms of the roof to completion from within outwards. The roof will not be terminated horizontally but rather in the way the cupola was terminated. The pillars and columns will be metamorphosed into supporting elements while at the same time expressing what in the old Goetheanum was to have been expressed in the roundness of the building.

We shall have to endeavour to calculate how basic the forms will have to be, merely hinted at perhaps, in order to keep the whole building, given this shape, within 3 to 3½ million Francs. Once we have made this decision—and I do not believe that any other is possible—then we shall I hope, and if the willingness of our friends to make sacrifices does not let us down, soon be in a position to begin construction and the building will then appear as a new Goetheanum in the place where the old one stood and in a much more basic and simple form.

I would now like to call on Herr van Leer, who has asked to speak on this matter.

Herr van Leer wants to found a World Goetheanum Association, resembling a World School Association, for the running of the Goetheanum.

DR STEINER: Yes, my dear friends, I cannot see any objection to the creation of a body of people who are members of a Goetheanum Association or something similar even if they are not members of the Anthroposophical Society. The question will be, though, as to what the members of such an organization can be called upon to do. It will be very difficult to win members merely by saying that they should pay money for the Goetheanum or for any other of our ventures. But perhaps in future Anthroposophy as such, as represented now here in Dornach, will become more and more known in the world. Perhaps people who are not in the first instance courageous enough to become anthroposophists will see that fruitful work can be done out of Anthroposophy and with Anthroposophy. Then it might be possible to say to people: Look, this is a spiritual movement; maybe you are not interested now; but help it to mature, do something so that the people involved can get going and show what they can do. It is quite likely, if we carry out into the world what has been discussed here during this Conference, that an Association such as that envisaged by our dear friend van Leer might indeed become a possibility.

Do not forget that a good deal of what is now included in the Statutes is of necessity bound up with the complete openness of the Society. You will see that much will change in practice. And once there is an understanding everywhere of what is connected with this openness of the Society, then it could very well be that a form such as that suggested just now by van Leer will be found. This openness will have to be taken very, very seriously by us. And on the other hand we here at the Goetheanum, this Vorstand, will have to take very seriously the fact that in future there can be no more working under cover. It will no longer be possible to say: If we approach people about a threefold social order or about Anthroposophy, they don't want to know about this, but they are interested in the things themselves. This is something that has done us the most damage of all over the last few years, or indeed over a longer period too, because it has brought us inwardly into a sphere of untruthfulness. The work going out from Dornach in future in all realms of life will be uprightly and honestly declared in full openness as being for Anthroposophy. Then people will know for what they are giving their money. And if we work from this angle then I do believe that a form such as you have suggested will become possible. It will never be possible if people have to ask what they are supposed to give money for.

This is what I believed I ought to say. If this is done, then the prospects are quite good. Would anybody else like to speak on the question of the rebuilding?

Miss X believes that eurythmy can show the public a great deal of what Anthroposophy is about. She asks for pictures, pictures of eurythmy and the picture of Frau Dr Steiner for publication in South America.

Mr Monges hopes to arouse interest in America. ‘Americans have to see before they will give.’

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Herr Donner speaks about the financial situation.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mademoiselle Sauerwein asks whether the 12 Schillings are for the Society or the Goetheanum.

DR STEINER: In order to clarify the question Mademoiselle Sauerwein has brought to our agenda, I should report to you on the meeting in committee the other day of the General Secretaries of many different countries with the Vorstand and with representatives of the Swiss groups. I must tell you what conclusions were reached. It was a matter of completing the only point of the Statutes which could not be finalized before they were printed. We have adopted the Statutes, but one small point remained open because I said that it would be better to discuss it in a smaller circle first; and that was the matter of the annual contribution to be made by the groups for each member.

I brought the following points of view to that smaller circle. You see, an anthroposophist—let me say this, though of course it will be easily questioned—an anthroposophist does not entertain illusions but must think realistically, for the future too. To think realistically is to say that one will need this much money for a particular project, that is, to make a preliminary annual budget which is likely to be sufficient. For the founding of the Anthroposophical Society there is no sense financially in talking a great deal about what each individual thinks should be paid annually for each member. The only sensible thing to do is to say how much we need and then to calculate how much this is likely to come to when it is divided by the number of paying members. I have concerned myself very fundamentally with this question ever since I decided—with the agreement of the members of the Vorstand whom I considered to be the right ones—to take the Presidency of the Anthroposophical Society into my own hands. All I can do is to tell you the conclusion given to me as a result of my considerations: If we really want to run the Society which you yourselves have decided shall exist, the only thing we can do is ourselves lay down the amount which we need from every group for each member. All we can do is enter at this point in the Statutes the membership contribution to be made by every group for each of its members: 12 Schillings annually. That is only 1 Schilling monthly. You can work out what a minute amount that is per day! But we cannot manage without these 12 Schillings annually for each member. We could, of course, have started off the other way round, though I don't know whether this would have been more dignified. We could first have said: We need 12 Schillings from every member and then we shall found the Anthroposophical Society. Perhaps that would have been more practical. However that may be, the Society will only be realistically founded when we have these 12 Schillings annually.

Now, my dear friends, there are sure to be many groups who will say that they cannot raise this amount. There are groups whose membership fees would not even cover this, and they all want to keep at least half of the membership fee for themselves! So in the cases where this is so it will be a matter of negotiating with them how much they can reduce their contribution. And the missing amount will have to be raised in another way. We still need this missing amount. But this minimum sum which we need will have to be the standard, and then groups can go below it, which is bound to happen, as we well know from experience, down even to the vanishing point. The vanishing point is often reached. But I hope that there will also be instances of the opposite, right up to the level of Carnegie, though of course never quite reaching the infinite! Anyway, this is the suggestion that I wanted to make in a smaller circle. And this smaller circle did not by any means agree immediately. But I do believe that most have meanwhile come to see that there is no other way. Countries also do it like this. You cannot set up a budget and then ask every single citizen: How much can you pay? This is not how it is done. We admittedly have no means of enforcing collection, and of course we want no such thing, for there must be freedom amongst us, including that of saying how much we need. So if you like, please do say what you think, or at least vote on whether you agree in general, in principle, to the payment of 12 Schillings per member, always remembering that everyone can negotiate how much below this it is necessary to go. I had to say this if this matter was to be discussed. (Applause)

Mademoiselle Sauerwein says that these 12 Schillings will be contributed by France because they are needed and she would like to know the date by which payment is required.

DR STEINER: The date will be a matter of administration. In the very near future—since time is too short to do so at the Conference—we shall issue By-Laws to the various groups and in these we shall say when the contributions can be paid. They do not all have to come in at the same time. The method will gradually emerge, and agreements can be made with the different groups as to when it suits them to pay. Certainly we shall not shirk. Does anyone want to speak to this question of the membership contribution?

Mr Pyle suggests that agreement be expressed immediately on the point that the 12 Schillings per year would be raised somehow, since they were absolutely necessary.

DR STEINER: It has been suggested that we vote straight away on this question of the membership contribution. Does anyone want to speak about this suggestion, which is actually a matter for the By-Laws? Only on the suggestion, not on the question. If that is not the case, then I now call for a vote on this suggestion. Will those friends who are in favour of the standard membership contribution being set at 12 Schillings with the given proviso please raise their hands. (They do.) Will those member-friends not in favour now also please raise their hands. There seems to be cordial agreement on this point.

I intended to bring up this point at the end of today's agenda, but it has now been settled. So after this interruption we can continue with the agenda if anyone still wants to speak about the rebuilding of the Goetheanum or about Herr van Leer's suggestion.

Mrs Merry wishes to speak.

DR STEINER: Would anyone else like to speak on this?

Herr Koschützki touches on the question of finance. He considers that work at research institutes is the most suitable for obtaining money for the Goetheanum from non-anthroposophists.

DR STEINER: So long as these things are in future always shown to be intimately bound up with Anthroposophy. It would be wrong to give the impression of merely wanting to do some research through ordinary science. In future we want to put things before the world simply as they emerge from the central core of Anthroposophy. Of course there is a good deal which does have to be presented in public in a way that is not possible through pictures, since pictures at best bring something super-sensible into the realm of the sense-perceptible. But we are supposed to present the super-sensible to the world. This is of course difficult, more difficult than presenting something sense-perceptible, but we must succeed. And we shall succeed. But please have the courage to present the super-sensible and not something that appears as though through a mask. This has brought us enough harm.

Does anyone else wish to speak?

Herr Leinhas speaks about the building of the Goetheanum and about the organization. He believes that friends can be won on the basis of pointing out what is said in the Statutes.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Dr Kruger speaks of personal impressions and of his feelings for what has been experienced here as a primeval founding.

DR STEINER: Now, dear friends, let me throw the discussion open for any subject people might still want to mention.

Herr Geuter says that the journal Anthroposophie and the articles of Herr Steffen and Dr Steiner are particularly valuable for disseminating Anthroposophy.

DR STEINER: Does anyone else wish to speak about anything?

Dr Zeylmans speaks from the medical point of view. There is surely no realm more in need of renewal than that of medicine. About thirty-five doctors were present at the founding of the small clinic in The Hague and by the end they were very enthusiastic about the lectures. It can certainly be said that we do not want anything different but we do want more. The lectures heard up to now have been marvellous, but what is needed is not only a bridge such as this but also an entirely new kingdom in one's heart in order as a doctor to become a healer in the sense of earlier times. He therefore especially welcomes the founding of the Medical Section.

DR STEINER: You will allow me, my dear friends, to add a few words after my lecture this evening about such questions as, for instance, the shaping of the medical work and how we think about it. I shall do so then because I want to ask any friends who would still like to say something in brief about one thing or another to do so now. The farewell words I myself want to say and also what I want to say about questions such as that brought up so kindly by Dr Zeylmans just now I shall say in connection with my lecture this evening. So would anyone who still has a short contribution to make please do so.

Herr Wullschleger, a teacher, speaks about the question of a school in Switzerland, considers a school in Basel to be absolutely necessary and requests support of every kind.

DR STEINER: Now we have come to the end of our agenda. Or rather we should say that time has brought us to the end of our agenda. It will be satisfying this afternoon, on the very day on which we saw for the first time from the grounds just outside here the ruins still in flames, on this very anniversary of that terrible day we shall meet here at 4.30 for a social gathering. The thought of meeting for such a gathering on this very day can be particularly dear to us when for one or another it may be possible to speak together in the most intense and best and intimate way such as will seem suitable for this very day of mourning and remembrance and such as our heart must long for. So at 4.30 we shall assemble here for our social gathering. At 8.30 my final lecture will take place. The practising doctors are requested to meet me again tomorrow morning at 8.30 down in the Glass House. I shall make any further announcements this evening.

Anything which one or another of you might still have wished to say will now remain unsaid. But just as last time it was possible for one or two things intended for more than a personal conversation to be said to everyone during the Social Gathering, so this time, too, it will be possible to speak to the members during the Social Gathering if anyone wishes to do so.

Now will those friends from Germany who wish to travel tomorrow at 10.45 please raise their hands so that Dr Wachsmuth can see how many there are wishing to travel tomorrow morning. Now will those wishing to take the evening train please raise their hands. It will not be easy to arrange for anyone to stay any longer. Only those who have had their passes extended properly can remain. It is not possible to endanger future meetings here by allowing the authorities to notice that fifty or more people are leaving later than intended. If only a few depart, it will not be possible to arrange for extra lodgings. Also would you please hand in any unused meal tickets at House Friedwart. In addition would you please hand in the blankets you have used at House Friedwart because we shall need them for future meetings. Then would those friends who have not yet collected their passes from House Friedwart please do so, because we have no use for them. We would of course gladly travel away on behalf of every one of you if we only could. Finally, for those friends still here, there will be a eurythmy performance at 7 o'clock tomorrow evening. The programme will include a repeat of ‘Olaf Asteson’.

by Marie Steiner to
the First German Edition of 1944

THE WORK that now began, without the interruption of even a single day, was at first devoted to medical knowledge; its scientific aspect had to be filled full of genuine spiritual forces; the esoteric work for which the younger doctors were so intensely striving had to be deepened, so that the loving will and the healing will that requires so much selflessness in the practice of caring for the sick could be unfolded.

On 2 January 1924 the third of the lectures to doctors was given. [Note 81] And also on 2 January the course of eight lectures [Note 82] to younger doctors and medical students began; it continued till 9 January.

The evening lectures brought contemplations of the destinies of inner spiritual life between the ninth and the end of the twelfth century. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation is the title of the cycle running from 4 to 13 January. [Note 83] In the final lecture we are led from the principle of Rosicrucian initiation up to the mystery of modern initiation and the beginning of the Age of Michael. A lecture given to members on 18 January [Note 84] is of particular importance. It gives a concise account of the coming into being of the Anthroposophical Society, from its beginnings, through the war years and right up to the completion of the building in Dornach. In opposition to the institutions being founded chiefly in Stuttgart, and to the work of scientists who join the Society in considerable numbers, there arises the will to destroy it held by a well-organized coalition of opponents. The gauntlet is thrown down when the Goetheanum is burnt to the ground, and finally we come, in view of the newly created world situation to the new founding of the Society as the General Anthroposophical Society.

The question now demanding an answer of us is: How can Anthroposophy be represented before the world? That lecture of 18 January culminates in this question. It also gives us a greater understanding of the coming inauguration of the Classes. And in order to provide a firm basis for the spiritual schooling to be striven for, nine lectures give new aspects of a deeper penetration into the nature of Anthroposophy, made possible only by the work of many years, under the modest title of Anthroposophy—an Introduction. [Note 85]

At the same time in Das Goetheanum began the series of what came to be called Dr Steiner's Letters to Members. In these he endeavoured to awaken and strengthen people's sense of responsibility for the forming of the life of the Society and of what went on in the different branches. They have recently been republished in the little book Life, Nature, and Cultivation of Anthroposophy. [Note 86] From this foundation Dr Steiner goes on to what he describes as the special fields of the different Sections at the Goetheanum. In the first few essays, under the title ‘The School of Spiritual Science’, he turns first to the promotion of the medical work with which he was at that time particularly concerned. Then he goes on to the tasks of the young people who search with such yearning for a spiritual view of the world. The perennial conflict between the generations, particularly strong at the time, is thoroughly examined. Youthful impetuosity, now emerging to the full rather exuberantly and immaturely amid the strife within the Society, is given an orderly field of work in the newly to be founded Section ‘for the Spiritual Striving of Youth’. There follow other brief discussions.

Since a new edition of these essays has been long awaited, this seemed the appropriate moment to bring it out as a continuation of the proceedings of the Christmas Foundation Conference. So the next private publication under the title of The Constitution of the School of Spiritual Science [Note 87] will contain in the main those essays as well as Dr Steiner's lectures of 18 and 30 January and an address given on 3 February. They treat of questions of dividing up the School into Sections and of the special significance of belonging to the Class.

Let me first of all express regret that I am unable to speak to you in your own language. As this is not possible, I must ask to be allowed to deliver the lecture in German.

To begin with, I want to express my heart-felt thanks for the cordial and friendly words of greeting. I only hope that I shall be able, in some measure, to fulfil the task which lies in front of me. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity given me by the students here to say something about anthroposophical Spiritual Science. [This lecture was given in answer to an invitation from an association of students in Christiania. It was held in the largest hall — the “Missionhaus” in Christiania, seating some 2,000 people.] After many long years of work in this domain of knowledge, I know well how difficult it is to make Spiritual Science to some extent intelligible to modern civilisation and culture, and I know, too, how easily misunderstandings arise. For these reasons I want to express very special gratitude to the students by whom the invitation was issued. I attach great importance to the fact that here too, as in other countries, students are beginning to pay some attention to anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

The wish was expressed that this lecture should deal with the theme of the reality of the higher worlds. As all my writings for many, many years have been concerned with answering this very question, you will realise that one brief lecture is foredoomed to be both inadequate and incomplete. My endeavour must be to indicate by certain guiding lines, how the higher worlds can become a reality. Obviously I shall be unable to-day — it may be possible to speak more fully elsewhere during the next few days (Cp.: Paths to Knowledge of Higher Worlds 26^th November, 1921) — to bring before you anything in the nature of convincing proof; all that I can do is to indicate the lines and directions along which proof may be found. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science cannot speak of the reality of higher worlds without pointing to the paths leading to this reality, and there is no desire whatever to set these paths in opposition to what has been achieved in so admirable a way by the scientific strivings, the scientific spirit of the last few centuries.

It is the conviction of anthroposophical Spiritual Science that doubts cast from one side or another upon the scientific exactitude of its research are based entirely upon misunderstanding. Anthroposophy does not wish to be a matter of amateurish talk but a path of knowledge along which the higher, super-sensible worlds are approached with the same scientific exactitude the same methodical and disciplined thought with which natural science has for so long approached the laws of Nature.

If, however, the aim is to reach the super-sensible worlds with the same strict exactitude with which natural science reaches its results, it is necessary both in regard to the results themselves and the methods of investigation, to go beyond what is universally recognised as ‘scientific’ today. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is founded upon the same fundamental principles which have helped to make modern science great. Modern science has achieved greatness through scrupulous observation of the material world, through experiment, through the reasoned deliberation of what is yielded by sense-observation and experiment. While going beyond the results as well as the actual modus operandi of authentic scientific research today, anthroposophical Spiritual Science wishes to proceed hand-in-hand with everything that can be learnt from modern research.

This ‘going beyond’ is founded primarily upon the knowledge that man’s power of investigation, in so far as it has developed in the sphere of natural science, comes up against certain boundaries. Every scientific researcher is aware that the great problem concerning the eternal nature of the soul — it is usually known as the problem of immortality, of destiny, in the widest sense, therefore, as the problem of the higher worlds — every scientific researcher is aware that this problem lies beyond the boundaries of modern science. Moreover it is recognised that the whole mode of thinking, the faculty of cognition, the power of knowledge itself, have all been evolved from investigation of the material world of sense and that at a certain point an impassable barrier is reached. Anthroposophy is in complete accord with modern scientists when it is a matter of affirming that these boundaries do indeed exist, so far as the everyday consciousness of man is concerned.

In the realm of philosophy, of course, many endeavours have been made to overstep these boundaries. But nothing that the intellect or the human heart can conjecture about what lies on yonder side of the world of the senses can stand the test of searching examination; the inadequacies of such conjectures are betrayed above all in that they reach into a void. The intellect feels that it is dependent upon what the senses communicate and that whenever it would like to pierce through the tapestry of the material world, no content remains in the field of ordinary consciousness.

Men of deep feeling, who try to justify their needs of soul and spirit before the tribunal of science, who are not content to resign themselves to mere belief but who want to have knowledge of things transcending the temporal — such men are very often apt today to take refuge in a kind of mysticism. They believe that what external science is unable to give them is to be found by plunging into the depths of the life of soul. They believe that evidence of the eternal significance of the human soul, of the links connecting the soul with the world of Divine Spirit can stream up from the deep places of the heart.

But with this kind of mysticism no really profound science of the soul can concur, cognisant as it is of all the hidden paths of the human faculty of remembrance, of memory. The ordinary consciousness has, of course, its stores of memories which it calls up again and again because this is necessary for a healthy life of soul. But deep down, mingling with these memories and remembrances, lie many factors which, in their real nature, cannot be surveyed by the ordinary consciousness. Many a mystic unearths from the depths of the soul, things which he regards as revelations from higher worlds, whereas to one possessed of real knowledge they may be merely impressions made upon a long past childhood by the material world of sense.

A genuine investigator knows that what is absorbed unconsciously in early childhood undergoes many metamorphoses and that it can reappear in later life in a different form. Many a man believes that in mystical experience he has discovered a spark of the Divine within him, whereas what he has drawn up from the depths of his soul is nothing else than stimuli received during childhood, appearing in a different form.

These are the two pitfalls lying ahead of us when, in our longing to find the reality of the higher worlds, we embark upon serious and genuine investigation. The true investigator must be on his guard on the one side against a philosophy which tries merely by intellectual deduction and speculation to pierce through the external world of sense to a kind of “Beyond,” and, on the other, against a form of mysticism which simply calls up memories in a different garb from the depths of the human heart. In both directions he comes up against insurmountable barriers: on the one side the material world of sense which ordinary consciousness cannot break through, and on the other, the human side, the storehouse of memories which must be present in any healthy life of soul and which forms a boundary interiorly — a boundary which again the ordinary consciousness cannot cross except it be through illusions and fantasies.

The aim of anthroposophical research is to avoid both these pitfalls and to attain true and genuine knowledge of the higher, super-sensible worlds. Hence in all honesty and frankness it asserts that the faculties of cognition operating in ordinary life and ordinary science will inevitably come up against these boundaries and are incapable of penetrating through them into the higher worlds. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science therefore sets out to awaken faculties slumbering in the soul of which the ordinary consciousness is unaware, and to embark upon investigation into the reality of higher worlds only when these faculties have undergone due development. This kind of investigation into the things of the Spirit does not take its start from anything that is nebulous or mystical; it takes its start from faculties of ordinary life, but transforms them, makes them essentially different.

The first faculty to which the attention of the bona fide spiritual investigator must be directed is that of remembrance, of memory, within those boundaries and limits of which mention has been made. This faculty of remembrance enables us to call up, either involuntarily or at will, pictures of our life since birth, or rather since a point of time shortly after birth. Unlike ordinary psychology, Anthroposophy takes full account of all the implications here and tries by deliberate efforts of will to bring ideas, mental pictures, concepts, thought-content, into the centre of the consciousness — which, in other circumstances, occurs only by the exercise of the faculty of memory and recollection. Anthroposophy sets out to develop a first, elementary faculty of higher knowledge in this way, by means of certain exercises carried out by the faculty of thinking. Anthroposophy does not, however, content itself with the faculty of thinking which comes to expression in ordinary memory, but goes on beyond this — not to the arbitrary meditation often cited by nebulous mysticism, but to inwardly disciplined, systematic meditation.

My task today is to indicate the principles of this subject: fuller and more precise details are to be found in my books, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, An Outline Of Occult Science, and others. It is only possible now to indicate certain fundamental guiding-lines for a study which will have to be pursued for many years. The point of importance is that the faculty of thinking in man is developed to a greater strength and intensity than it possesses in ordinary life and in ordinary science.

When in some piece of work a muscle has to be constantly exerted, its power is strengthened. The would-be spiritual investigator proceeds in the same way with respect to the forces of the soul. He places some mental picture, idea or set of ideas of which he can maintain a complete survey, deliberately and as a free act of will at the centre of his consciousness, and dwells upon it for a certain length of time. Some people will require more time, others less, according to their faculties and their capacity for concentration.

Please note — for it is a very important point — that I am speaking of pictures of which a complete survey can be maintained. If anything from our store of ordinary memories were to be brought up into this meditation or these exercises of thinking, we should be led astray. For the storehouse of thought contains many reminiscences, many unconscious impressions received from life which would have their effect during the exercises. Nothing whatever must be allowed to work from the Unconscious into true anthroposophical meditation; a complete survey must be maintained and everything must be subject to conscious deliberation. Therefore the demand is sometimes made, and with good reason, that one who aims at becoming an actual investigator in Spiritual Science shall ask already experienced investigators to recommend certain exercises. When such exercises are practised — we may have evolved them ourselves or they may have been given to us — they enter the consciousness as something new — like a sense-experience that is not recollected but enters the soul as something quite new. The point of importance is not that we acquire anything from the actual content of the picture or combination of pictures, but that it comes into our consciousness with all the newness and freshness of a sense-experience and that we dwell upon it with our forces of soul. Just as we execute some piece of work by using a muscle, so do we exert the forces of the soul when we dwell upon the picture or idea with sustained and deliberate concentration. If care is taken to observe all the details of the exercises described in my books, there will be no danger of succumbing to anything in the nature of suggestion or auto-suggestion; every moment of the exercise will be filled with a conscious activity of will and after a time we shall feel that the powers of our soul are being strengthened and enhanced.

It is not necessary to devote a great deal of time each day to these exercises but they must be repeated over and over again. One person will need a lengthy period, another may achieve considerable success in a few months; others again will need years. The principle, however, is the same throughout: the forces of soul, the forces of thought, are inwardly strengthened by the exercises, until finally a point is reached where the advance is made to Imaginative Thinking, Imagination.

I have called this development ‘Imaginative Thinking’ because one becomes aware by degrees that thought is getting free from the abstraction and intellectualism with which it is fraught in ordinary life and ordinary science. Pure thought begins gradually to be lit by a picture-content, warmed through by glowing life, as real in every respect as the pictures and inner vitality produced by external sense-impressions.

It is very important to remember this, for we all of us know that when our attention is directed to external sense-impressions, everything teems, is saturated, has great intensity; our whole being is given up to these sense-impressions. But if, having turned our attention away from these outer sense-impressions, we engage in the kind of thinking that is usual in ordinary life and science, this thought is colourless, has little warmth. There is good reason for speaking of the colourlessness, the ‘pale cast’ of abstract thought. And nearly all the thinking that goes on in ordinary life and science is abstract. Only those thoughts which arise in moments when we are caught up in the outer reality of the world of sense — only those thoughts teem with content. The glowing life and teeming content in what is, at first, a purely inward experience, however, can only be reached by the exercising and strengthening of thought in the way I have indicated. Then we begin, in very truth, to think in pictures, in Imaginations.

But one point must be quite clear. In this Imaginative Thinking we have at first nothing either before us or within us that amounts to external, spiritual reality. The objective significance of this Imaginative Thinking is gradually brought home to us, however, when we grasp the following: —

Everyone knows how in a tiny child the brain develops by degrees into the marvellous organ it eventually becomes in the course of life. It can be said with truth that, to begin with, the brain is a plastic organ, allowing the formative forces of the soul to express themselves in its whole structure, its convolutions and so forth. This process is at work during earliest childhood; it comes to a halt at a certain point — a point reached as a result of natural development and ordinary education. With what has thus been acquired, we try to meet the demands of every-day life, and to make progress in ordinary science. But in that, as children, we have developed from year to year, we have acquired greater and greater capacities.

In striving for Imaginative Knowledge we again become aware of this increasing capacity. We realise that through the activity which consists in the exercising of thought, something that is now plastic within us is being worked upon, elaborated. But we feel, too, that what is thus being worked upon — as it were ploughed and furrowed in the life of soul-and-spirit just like the physical brain in the child — we feel that this is something super-sensible, something of the nature of soul-and-spirit within the human being which transcends the physical body. After a time we feel that the outer and inner boundaries of knowledge can now be faced in an entirely different way. As a spiritual scientist one has to admit that those who speak of such boundaries do so with good reason, but one also feels that little by little these boundaries of knowledge can actually be crossed with the help of newly developed faculties.

When a man has reached this stage, when he actually feels: now I no longer need to come to a halt within the material world of sense, for now, by means of this living, pictorial thinking, I experience something real when I pierce through the material world and also when I gaze into my own being; I experience something that is beyond the range of natural science and that mysticism can only call up in illusory form ... When a man has this experience as a result of genuine inner development, he may be sure that he is treading a path which will lead him to the reality of the higher worlds.

To begin with, nothing that can be said to be an external reality lies before the soul; the old forces have simply been strengthened, intensified. But before long it will be noticed that something very significant is happening in the field of consciousness. An inner tableau arises, encompassing the whole of life since birth. This, indeed, is the first super-sensible reality to be experienced: a man’s own inner life since birth is presented in a tableau of which complete survey can be maintained. And the result is that the relation of the thinking to what is now an objective perception is different from the relation it previously bore both to external actuality and to inner experiences. In everyday life the human being unfolds the activity of thinking. He thinks about something or other; the thoughts themselves are within the soul — they are subjective. The object is outside. A man feels that his thoughts are separated from what is outside. He now has before him the tableau of his own life of soul since birth. But his thoughts enter as it were into the very tissue of which the tableau is woven; he feels himself to be in and part of it. He feels: now for the first time I am beginning to grasp the reality of my own being; I must yield up my thinking to what thus arises objectively before my consciousness. This, to begin with, constitutes an experience that is fraught with pain; but such experiences are essential and the Spiritual Scientist must not be afraid of having to endure them. I shall speak of this again, in a different connection.

To begin with, this tableau of life causes us to feel our innermost Self under a kind of oppression; the lightness and ease with which, in other circumstances, thoughts, ideas, feelings, impulses of will, wishes and the like, arise, seems to have departed and we feel our own being as it were under a load, constricted. But to put it briefly: in this very experience of oppression we begin to be aware of reality. If there is no sense of oppression, we have merely a thought-edifice, not reality at all. But if we bring into the sphere of this oppression all that was previously within us in the form of freely unfolding thought, we are protected from the danger of illusions, visionary experiences or hallucinations in our Imaginative Knowledge.

It is often said that the exercises recommended by anthroposophical Spiritual Science produce nothing but visions and hallucinations, that they simply bring suppressed nerve-forces to the surface, and that nobody can prove the reality of these higher worlds of which Spiritual Science speaks. Yet anyone who pays attention merely to what I have said to-day, will realise that the path taken by anthroposophical Spiritual Science is the antithesis of all the paths which lead to visions, hallucinations, or mediumship.

Everything that leads to mediumship, to hallucinations or visions, proceeds, fundamentally, from diseased bodily organs which as it were breathe their psycho-spiritual content into the consciousness in a pathological way. All these things lie below the level of sense-experience. Imaginative Knowledge, on the contrary, lies in a realm transcending sense-perception and is developed from objectivity, not from pathological inner conditions.

To describe as pathological the methods of anthroposophical research denotes complete misunderstanding, for the very reverse is the truth. Because Imaginative Knowledge is attained in full and free consciousness, it is possible to recognise hallucinations and manifestations of mediumship for what they really are. Nobody will reject these psychopathic manifestations more strongly than one who has not, like the visionary, submerged his life of soul in the body, but who has made it free of the body through the efforts described and who is able to survey his own life back to birth, to begin with, in the tableau of which I have spoken.

In this tableau — as I have said, it is a reality — we know that we have something consisting, not merely of thoughts, but of the living forces which have been working at the upbuilding of our organism since the beginning of earthly life. The Imagination that has here taken shape is actually the sum-total of the forces by means of which we grow, the sum-total of the forces which work, also, in the process of nourishment.

To what is here discovered as an active, super-sensible reality in the being of man, anthroposophical Spiritual Science gives the name of the ether body, or the body of formative forces.

As you see, a higher member of man’s being, a super-sensible member which works at the forming of the earthly body, is discovered methodically and systematically. And because in the tableau that has arisen, our thoughts do not roam hither and thither in the wonted fashion but the oppression makes us feel the reality — because of this we realise that what we are there beholding inwardly is none other than the forces working actively in the organism — in other circumstances, unconsciously.

The super-sensible ether-body or life-body spoken of by anthroposophical Spiritual Science is not an artificial creation of fantasy; neither is it the antiquated and hypothetical ‘life-force’ which scientific thought has rightly abandoned. The ether-body is a reality to the now strengthened and enhanced power of thinking — it is a reality just as the external world of sense is reality. And we are led to it, not by any kind of nebulous mysticism but by a strengthening and energising of the normal faculty of thinking which has been enhanced to the level of a free ‘I.’ Such is the development which brings this first reality before the soul.

But as at this first stage we are simply surveying a tableau of our own earthly life through the flow of time, further progress must be made along the path to the super-sensible worlds. This is achieved through exercises whereby yet other powers slumbering in the soul are brought into operation. You all know that in human life, as well as the faculty of remembrance, the capacity to retain ideas and mental pictures, there also exists the capacity to forget. In ordinary life, to our sorrow, forgetting often comes very easily to us. But a man who lives a great deal in the world of thought knows only too well that thoughts can also torment, that effort is needed to get rid of them. This demands very great efforts in the systematic meditation here described, when we are trying to develop deep, inward thinking.

When the consciousness is focused upon certain images and the forces of this mental presentation are strengthened, the images are loathe to take their departure. They press in upon us and allow themselves to be eliminated only when we train ourselves systematically and consciously to do this. If I may speak rather paradoxically, we must as it were train ourselves in a deliberate forgetting, a deliberate elimination of images which want to remain.

In the books mentioned I have described in detail many exercises for strengthening the power of eliminating mental images. When these exercises have been practised for a long time, the point is reached where, in full waking alertness, we can empty our consciousness entirely.

What has here been said is by no means as unessential as might appear. In ordinary life it is the case that efforts to empty the consciousness altogether send most people to sleep after a short time. Now it is even more difficult to empty the consciousness when, as the result of meditation, it has been filled with intensified images. Nevertheless this must be practised. Thereby we succeed little by little in suppressing not only single images, in emptying them out of our consciousness, but, after sustained effort, in effacing the whole tableau of life of which I have spoken. Practically the whole of our life is presented to us in a tableau, as it were in space that has become time, or time that has become space. The exercises gradually give us the power to eliminate the whole of this tableau from our consciousness; it was there before us but we are able now to empty our consciousness and yet to be fully awake and alert.

This is a very important step on the path to the reality of the higher worlds. For when the consciousness, having first been filled with the tableau of life, with perception of the ether-body, has been completely emptied, we are not confronting a void. True, we recognise that the material world of sense is no longer around us ... it is no more around us than it is in deep, dreamless, sleep ... but a world we have not previously known, a world of super-sensible beings and super-sensible happenings springs up before us. This is what happens after the life-tableau has been eliminated from our consciousness. It is absurd to say that what springs into view after all these efforts may simply be reminiscences of life, or illusions. Anyone who genuinely experiences it knows that reality is before him as surely as he knows that the external, material world is reality.

The essential point, however, is that when a man becomes prone to hallucinations and visions he loses his ordinary, normal consciousness; he lives in his hallucinations and his powers of thoughtful deliberation have departed. A man who has developed his faculties in the way I have described loses nothing at all of his healthy human reason, none of his powers of thoughtful deliberation. All the faculties that were formerly his, remain, and he can at any moment turn his gaze from the vista of the super-sensible worlds before him. Just as he can look back upon a memory, so he can at any moment, and at will, look back to what formed part of his consciousness in ordinary life or in ordinary science. Therefore a man who is developing in this way can fill his whole perception of the super-sensible world with conscious thinking, with his thinking that is now permeated with will. He can speak of the super-sensible world with the same reasoned clarity and intelligibility with which ordinary science speaks of the material world. And because he describes these higher worlds with normal reasoning powers and scientific method, anyone who exercises the faculty of healthy human intelligence can follow what is said, even if he is not himself an investigator in the anthroposophical sense of the word. This is not necessary, because the true anthroposophical investigator brings the faculty of healthy human reason into play in whatever knowledge he unfolds of the higher worlds. The knowledge he communicates must be in a form that is intelligible at every point to ordinary healthy human reason and discrimination. This holds good not only at the stage of Imaginative Thinking, through which, to begin with, the tableau of earthly life is all that rises up, but it also holds good at the further stage of knowledge of which I have just spoken and have called in my books, Knowledge through Inspiration, or Inspired Knowledge.

I would ask you not to allow these terms to be a stumbling block. They contain no element of superstition or antiquated tradition, but are used purely in connection with what I have been describing. I speak of ‘Inspired Knowledge’ because just as the air from the outer world enters the breathing organs as a reality, so does the super-sensible world now flow into the world of the soul. Equipped with this Inspired Knowledge, the spiritual investigator is in the following position. He starts out with a normal content and constitution of soul; having once acquired the faculty of emptying his consciousness, it is possible for him to do so again, at will, no matter where he stands, in time or in space, no matter what the content of his consciousness happens to be.

Something is then revealed of the beings and the happenings of the super-sensible world. It is like an in-breathing, it is an Inspiration. The spiritual world is breathed into the ordinary world.

Again we must be capable of re-asserting normal consciousness, to judge this spiritual world with normal consciousness. There is a continual out-breathing and in-breathing of the spiritual world, and ever and again the return to ordinary consciousness which enables a man to exercise thoughtful judgment in respect, also, of these spiritual worlds.

What I am now going to say merely by way of comparison, may suggest to you that the use of the term Inspiration is justified. The spiritual investigator of today is not in a position to press onward to the super-sensible worlds in the way that was possible during earlier, prehistoric epochs in the evolution of humanity. The methods by which oriental peoples attained access to the higher worlds in olden times have persisted through tradition and even today are still practised over in Asia as a decadent form of Yoga, by men whose bodily constitution differs from ours in the West. Nothing of this kind could be beneficial to the West. It all takes places instinctively, unconsciously, whereas what I have been describing is carried out in full waking consciousness, under complete control of the will.

In a certain respect, nevertheless, something can be learnt from the way in which men strove, in those early epochs of instinctive consciousness, to gain access to the higher worlds and their workings. In the practise of Yoga, the man of ancient India set out to regulate his breathing — to breathe, not in the ordinary way, but deliberately and systematically; he transformed the ordinary mode of breathing, strove all the time to be fully conscious in and with his breathing, whereas of course ordinary breathing is an unconscious, purely organic process. In that he experienced this rhythm: In-breathing — Out-breathing ... In-breathing — Out-breathing ... the pupil of Yoga in olden times was transported into the rhythm of the worlds, of the Cosmos — and in the physical rhythm of the breath he made himself one with the spiritual rhythm of that in-breathing and out-breathing of the spiritual worlds which I have here described in the form in which it is suitable for the West.

In very truth we enter as it were into unison with a rhythm. Our existence as men of Earth can be inspired again and again, continuously, by a higher, super-sensible world. What is this super-sensible world, in reality?

Through Imaginative Cognition we have learnt to know the ether-body, the body of formative forces working in us during earthly existence. This body of formative forces has now been suppressed and a new world discovered. The world of sense is no longer immediately present — it is only a remembrance. In this new world, a higher reality is discovered, that higher reality which permeates and works in and through the ether-body or body of formative forces, just as the ether-body in turn permeates the physical body.

Again as the result of deliberate and systematic steps taken along the path to the higher realities and not of any play of fantasy, anthroposophical Spiritual Science speaks of the astral body of man which is thus discovered and which permeates the body of formative forces although its life lies in other worlds. And when we examine the worlds in which this astral body lives with the ‘I’ — just as man lives as a corporeal being among the things of the material world — we discover the world of soul-and-spirit from which the human being descends when through birth or conception, he unites with the physical substance provided by the father and mother. In direct perception — which, as I have said, will stand the test of healthy human reason — the eternal, immortal core of man’s being is discovered.

Many people take offence today when instead of speaking in generalisations like the pantheists, of an undefined, all-pervading world of Spirit, specific description is given of a world of soul-and-spirit whence man has descended into physical existence through birth and whither he returns on passing through the Gate of Death — a world that is discovered as a reality, not through speculation or nebulous, mystical feeling, but through a strictly disciplined mode of perception. Offence is caused when these worlds are described as I have described them, for example, in my Outline Of Occult Science. Let me try to explain by means of a simple comparison how it is actually possible to describe these worlds.

Think of your ordinary memory, of your remembrance. — What are you experiencing there? One thing or another has happened to you in the course of life. What has long since become the past, has long ago ceased to be an external reality, stands before you in a memory-picture. From this picture you reconstruct the experience. It passed into you, as it were, from the external world, has become part of the content of your soul. Out of the content of the soul it is possible at any moment to reconstruct the whole world of remembrances, the whole world of external experiences with which existence is interwoven. The inner world is laid hold of, comprised within the life of thought, of feeling, of will. In laying hold of the inner life, the world of external experiences is conjured up before the soul. But what is it that is grasped by means of Imagination and Inspiration?

With Imagination and Inspiration we comprehend not merely what has been absorbed during earthly life, but we comprehend man in his whole being. We learn to know how the body of formative forces, remaining as a unity through the whole of life, works in the human organs; how in a world of soul-and-spirit before birth or conception, the astral body bears the eternal core of our being, how this astral body penetrates into and works within us. The whole nature and being of man becomes clearly perceptible. His physical nature is recognised as the product of the Spiritual. Just as we look into our store of remembrances and reconstruct earthly life in pictures, so, when we now look still more deeply inwards, grasping not merely the psycho-spiritual content implanted in the course of ordinary life, but recognising how our organs have been created, how ether-body, astral and ‘I’ are woven into the physical body — then we can transfer ourselves with opened eyes of soul, into the great arena of cosmic experiences, cosmic happenings, just as remembrances bear us into our ether-body. For man was always present in whatever has come to pass in the universe with which his being is united, be it in the realm of spirit, of soul, or in the physical sphere. And when, in the way described, he beholds himself in his own true being and nature, he can recognise the events whereby his evolution through history and within the Cosmos has been made possible.

Those who grasp the full import of these thoughts will no longer consider it peculiar when, in my Outline Of Occult Science, they find descriptions of how the human being, in his primeval forms, was connected not only with the Earth but with planetary worlds which, as earlier metamorphoses, preceded the Earth, and how the very make-up and constitution of the human being points to future transformations of the Earth into other planetary conditions; how it is possible really to penetrate into higher worlds and to recognise the kingdoms around us as men of Earth as the product of higher, spiritual worlds, super-sensible worlds.

It is only right that the strenuous efforts which anthroposophical Spiritual Science must make to achieve these results should be known and understood. There is a very prevalent opinion that what spiritual research says about the reality of higher worlds is merely the result of some form of ‘inspiration,’ so-called, or of subjective, intellectual deduction, or even of pure fantasy. Indeed it is not so. Clinical research, astronomical research, for example, demands specialised and difficult work. But what is acquired inwardly in the way described, learnt as it were from man’s own being by inner experimentation in order to unfold perception of higher worlds — this is an even more difficult task, demanding greater devotion, greater care, greater exactitude and methodical perseverance. What is here described in all seriousness as Spiritual Science is fundamentally different from current forms of Occultism, Mysticism and the like. As science stands in contrast with superstition, so does anthroposophical Spiritual Science stand in contrast with current forms of Occultism which try to acquire knowledge through mediums or by compiling external, sensational data in amateurish fashion. This particular brand of modern superstition is vanquished by nothing more decisively than by genuine spiritual research, with its absolutely scrupulous and exact methods.

When, having acquired Knowledge through Inspiration, a man is able to gaze into the world he left at birth or conception and will enter again after death, he experiences something which in its reflection in the ordinary consciousness seems to be a kind of pessimism. — In the realm of ordinary consciousness, after all, anything super-sensible assumes the form of indefinite, inchoate feelings and the like. — The experiences which come to the spiritual investigator through Inspiration seem to take the form of pessimism. Why pessimism? Because it is actually the case that when the spiritual investigator enters the higher worlds, he experiences something like deep pain, universal privation.

By means of the exercises indicated in my books, we must be armed against this pain, be ready to bear it valiantly and resolutely. What, then, is this pain that is experienced in all reality? It is actually a deep and intense longing, it is none other than experience of that force whereby the soul passes from the spiritual worlds through birth into physical existence. The soul has been living in spiritual worlds, and the last period of this life, before the descent through birth into physical existence, is experienced as a yearning for the physical world. This yearning subsequently becomes the pain experienced by the spiritual investigator. And precisely because experiences in the realm of Spiritual Science are not abstract or theoretical and because the whole being of man is involved, including his feeling and willing, this pain is an essential part of the path leading into the higher worlds.

Theorising is by no means sufficient when it is a matter of treading the anthroposophical path into the spiritual worlds. The experiences which accompany the methods employed by genuine investigation demand, at every stage, due moral preparation. And there is really no better preparation for the moral strengthening of man in body, soul and spirit, than practise of the exercises leading to knowledge of the reality of the higher worlds. They will never reveal themselves to one who merely theorises, but only to one who devotes his whole manhood to quickening in the soul all his faculties of good feeling, of appreciation of beauty in the world, his power of reverent contemplation of the secrets of the Universe. Only he who makes love of men and love of worlds into forces of inner, all-permeating warmth, achieves the moral strength that is necessary in order to press forward to the reality of higher worlds.

Many will admit, therefore, that the exercises I describe for the path to the higher worlds taken by Spiritual Science, have a moral side that is genuinely worthy of recognition. This will be admitted, too, by those who fall away and are not willing to tread the actual path to knowledge of the higher worlds. Yet it is this path alone which, in face of the modern longing for science, can lead into these worlds.

Through Imagination and Inspiration a man reaches his innermost Self. But this innermost Self must also surrender itself to the world around. I have already explained that thinking, even at the stage of Imagination, must flow outwards, into what is objective. Thinking, deliberate and disciplined thinking, is always in operation in our discovery of higher worlds; but we must also be aware that our whole being has, as it were, to be given over to this reality of the super-sensible worlds. After the attainment of Inspiration, however, through the efforts made and the experiences undergone, we become aware of the ‘I,’ the central core of our being, in all intensity. And this is the point at which the harmony, the union between the experience of freedom and that of nature-necessity can be realised and known.

In ordinary life we are enclosed in the web of this nature-necessity. How often we feel that what is living in our impulses of will surges up from subconscious depths, from instincts and natural urges, even when it has worked itself a little way out of the sinful in the direction of the good. It is almost as impossible to survey what is working in the urges and impulses of the will as it is to survey the experiences undergone during sleep. And after all, in the urges and impulses of the will, there is contained much that plays into our life of conscious, moral responsibility.

A man who has achieved Inspiration and Imagination however, has been strengthened by his efforts and exertions. He experiences the ‘I’ in far greater intensity — given over to the world, it is true, yet restored to his keeping. Such a man will not say with those who adhere to prejudiced scientific views: the same nature-necessity which causes the stone to fall to the ground, the stone in turn to be warmed by the sun, the nature-necessity which inheres in electricity, in magnetism, in acoustic and optical phenomena — that same necessity is at work when, as a human being, I act and unfold my impulses of will. Indeed in ordinary science and everyday life men cannot get rid of the gnawing doubts which assail them in connection with this problem.

On the one side there is the reality of human freedom. But the conviction is prevalent that this freedom must be renounced if one is a scientist in the modern sense, believing in the conservation of energy and matter and holding the view that no impulse of the human will, no human action can emanate from free will, since man, in common with all other creatures in the kingdoms of nature, must be subject to the domination of nature-necessity.

But with his true ‘I’ before him in greater strength and intensity, man acquires a kind of knowledge still higher than Inspiration and Imagination. I have called this still higher form of knowledge, true Intuition, for it denotes complete emergence in spiritual reality. At this stage, the fact of man’s repeated earthly lives spoken of by Anthroposophy is filled with meaning. The necessity which seems to be implicit in a man’s actions, in his will, is recognised as the consequence of preceding lives on Earth. Man’s eternal core of being passes through repeated earthly lives, and between these lives — that is to say, between death and a new birth — leads an existence in worlds of soul and spirit. And now comes the knowledge: flowing from life to life there is the factor which entails subjection of the ‘I’ together with its impulses of will ... not, however, to external, nature-necessity but to the necessity which runs through the chain of earthly lives.

To begin with, this necessity is hidden from ordinary thinking. But when truly free, sense-free thinking as described in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity is unfolded in a single earth-existence — with this kind of thinking we have the real foundation of our freedom, our free spiritual activity. In that we rise, as man, to these moral impulses which are seized by the free power of thought, we become free human beings here on the Earth. And what inheres in our existence in the form of necessity, living itself out as destiny — this is not nature-necessity but the necessity which runs through repeated earthly lives.

This too is revealed to Intuition, the third stage of super-sensible knowledge. There before us, presented in wonderful harmony, is the freedom inherent in a single earthly life, and what we feel to be the necessity of destiny — which is not external, nature-necessity, nor due to the normal constitution of the human body, but which streams in from earlier earthly lives. This no more makes us unfree than does a change of the stage on which our life takes its course, when circumstances are such as to make us still dependent upon the connection between this new life and the old. — If for example, we emigrate from Europe to America, the ship takes us thither and our life proceeds in a new setting. This is destiny; but in spite of having crossed from Europe to America, we remain free beings. Necessity and freedom can be differentiated when we perceive on the one side the necessity inhering in repeated earthly lives and, on the other, the freedom which is implicit in each single earthly life.

To look upwards into the higher worlds gives us security and confidence inasmuch as the purpose and meaning of earthly life become clear. We no longer merely yearn for higher worlds — although that too is necessary for any sense of security on the Earth. Earthly life becomes insecure if we lose our connection with the Divine-Spiritual within us.

True anthroposophical knowledge of the reality of higher worlds does not estrange us from the affairs of the Earth: we know that the descent to the Earth must be made over and over again in order that freedom may become an integral part of man’s estate. Conscious realisation of freedom permeates us in spite of our realisation of the problems of destiny, for we have learnt to understand these problems in their spiritual aspect, in the light of the reality of the higher worlds.

It has only been possible to give a very bare outline of this subject. Abundant literature exists today and is at the disposal of everybody. In one brief lecture I have only been able to indicate certain guiding lines, but what has been said will to some extent show you that anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds has not the slightest tendency to be remote from the world, to be unpractical. It does not wish to lead human beings in their egotism into vapid castles in the air; on the contrary, it holds that to alienate a man from the world would be to sin against the Spiritual. The Spirit is only truly within our grasp when the flow of its power makes us practical and capable human beings.

The Spirit is creative; the mission of the Spirit is to permeate, not to escape from material existence. Anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds is therefore at the same time a power in practical life. Hence — as I shall show in other lectures here in Christiania — Anthroposophy strives to enrich the several sciences, the life of art, as well the domains of practical life, with all that knowledge of the reality of higher worlds can add to the things of the material world.

As we have heard, Imaginative Knowledge reveals the ether-body, the body of formative forces. When, in the light of this knowledge, we understand the nature of the human bodily organisation, when we understand how the astral body which has descended from worlds of soul-and-spirit, works in man as an earthly being, in lung, liver, stomach, brain, and so forth ... then we understand the nature of health and illness. When this point is reached, our realisation of the higher worlds will have succeeded not merely in satisfying a need of knowledge, but actually in enriching medicine and therapy. In Stuttgart and in Dornach we already have clinics and institutes engaged in the practical application of the contributions which anthroposophical knowledge can make to medicine, to therapy — especially to therapy — but also to pathology. Anthroposophy strives, too, to make this knowledge of higher worlds bear fruit in the realm of art.

In the Goetheanum Building at Dornach, in the High School for Spiritual Science, a new style of architecture was created [See: Ways to a New Style in Architecture (with 12 illustrations of the first Goetheanum), by Rudolf Steiner.], out of anthroposophical principles. This new style of architecture has no sort of tendency towards the symbolic or the allegoric. Not a single symbol, not a single allegorical form will be found there; everything is the product of creative art in the truest sense. Spiritual Science is not theory, it is not a matter merely of the intellect. The element of intellect dragged down into art would produce nothing but barren, allegorical symbolism, Spiritual Science leads to actual perception, to concrete understanding of the spiritual world. The content of the spiritual world can then be woven into the material world. In the highest degree we strive to fulfil Goethe’s demand, namely, that Art should be a manifestation of secret laws of Nature which, without her, could never bear fruit. And we are also endeavouring to develop an art of movement founded on the reality of the formative forces working supersensibly within the human being. This is Eurhythmy, a performance of which is to be given here next Sunday.

Eurhythmy is not an art of dancing, nor anything in the nature of mime; it is an art that has been brought down from the super-sensible into the material domain of man’s being; it gives expression to the intimate connection of the human being with the Cosmos and its laws, showing how in a ‘visible speech,’ secrets of the life of soul and spirit can be made manifest, as well as in audible speech or song.

Similarly, Spiritual Science can flow into the social life, the moral and ethical life. I have tried to show this in my book, The Threefold Commonwealth. The problems of the social life of men can never be adequately solved by Marxian or other materialistic theories. In his innermost existence man is a spiritual, super-sensible being, and as a social being, too, it is his task to give expression to the super-sensible in the domain of his social life. Failing this, the burning social questions of our time can never be fruitfully solved.

Finally, the path to higher worlds which anthroposophical Spiritual Science strives to tread by means of genuine research and not through mere belief — this path is connected with man’s deepest and most inward quest, with the bonds he tries in devotion and piety to forge with the Divine-Spiritual foundations of the Universe. In short, Spiritual Science is bound up with the deepest religious feelings arising in the human heart, with the religious life that must unfold if the true dignity of manhood is to be attained. And so anthroposophical knowledge of the super-sensible worlds is at the same time a quickening, an enrichment of the religious life, of which, as every unprejudiced mind will admit, we stand in dire need to-day.

It is well-nigh incomprehensible to me that again, quite recently, anthroposophical Spiritual Science should have been accused by theological circles of destroying the religious life. It has been said, for example: the life of Anthroposophy betokens the death of religion! Now the life of Anthroposophy is indissolubly bound up with that life of the soul in which the very deepest forces of religion unfold. This search for super-sensible realities cannot betoken the death of religion — at most it might betoken the end of something that is merely regarded as religion and is already dead. If, indeed, this is what has happened to religion, Anthroposophy would simply be opening up a vista of death. By its very nature, however, being a living path to the super-sensible realities, Anthroposophy is a means whereby the religious feelings, the whole-hearted devotion of men to the super-sensible worlds may be enhanced, quickened, pervaded with warmth. [Compare: Jesus or Christ, a lecture given by invitation in the Theolog. Verein, Christiania, 29th November, 1921.]

The goal of Anthroposophy is to work fruitfully in all the different spheres of life, from the secular to the most sacred. In the noblest sense — however far off achievement still lies today — the goal and ideal of Anthroposophy is to promote and be a real factor in the advancing evolution of mankind. And every unprejudiced person who has passed with alert consciousness through the catastrophic period of the second decade of the twentieth century, will admit that many, many spheres of existence today are calling out for new and vitalising impulses.

What I have put before you in such brief outline is connected with the eternal concerns of human life. Anthroposophy can be cultivated in the forum of life, where man does not always seem to demand that inner security which can only be found in consciousness of his eternal being; and it can be cultivated in quietude, away from the hubbub of the forum of life. The human being of every epoch must be in contact with the Eternal within him, if he would be truly Man. Thus Anthroposophy is of universal, vital interest to all men because it concerns the things that are Eternal in human existence. In our days, when the signs of decline are to be seen on every hand, it must surely be admitted, too, that there is need to counter the forces of decline with impulses for the ennobling of Western civilisation. Anthroposophy is worthy of attention today not only because it pays heed to the Eternal but also because of the difficult tasks confronting our times.

In conclusion, let me say this. — Unlike the current tendency to lead the human being to mystical castles in the air and thus to estrangement from the world, the aim of Anthroposophy is to lead him to the reality of the super-sensible worlds in such a way that having seized the Spirit he may take a real hand in the affairs of practical and material life. In very truth man must lay hold of the Spirit, for the reason that if his life is to rest upon sure foundations, contact with the super-sensible worlds and with the Eternal part of his being is all-essential. And nowadays, above all, man needs the Spirit for the solving of the hard and heavy problems which surround him in these catastrophic times.

New Education and the Whole Human Being

Here in Bern, I have spoken to you often about anthroposophy in general. And it is a special pleasure to be able now to speak to you in the spirit of anthroposophy about education—the sphere of life that must lie closest to the human heart. We must develop an art of education that can lead us out of the social chaos into which we have fallen during the last few years and decades. Our chances of overcoming this chaos are very slight. In fact, one is tempted to say that there is no escaping this chaos unless we find a way to bring spirituality into human souls through education, so that human beings may find a way to progress and to further the evolution of civilization out of the spirit itself.

We feel confident that this is the right way to proceed, because in our hearts we know that the world is created in spirit and arises from spirit. Therefore, human creation will be fruitful only when it springs from the fountainhead of spirit itself. To achieve such fruitful creation from spirit, however, people must also be educated and taught in the spirit. I believe that anthroposophy in fact has much to say about the nature of education and teaching, therefore, it gives me great satisfaction that I can present these lectures here.

There are many all over the world who feel that a new impetus of some kind is needed in education and teaching. It is true that the nineteenth century was full of progressive ideas and much was done to further schooling and education. However, a recent tendency of our civilization has been that individuals are seldom brought into touch with their own humanity. For many centuries we have been able to record the most wonderful progress in the realm of natural science and in its resulting technology.

We have also seen that a certain worldview has gradually crystallized out of that scientific progress. The world as a whole—which includes the human being—seems to be viewed exclusively in terms of what the senses tell us about natural phenomena, and what the intellect, which is related to the brain, tells us about the realm of the senses. Nevertheless, all of our recently acquired knowledge about the natural world does not, in fact, lead us to the human being; this is not clearly recognized today. Although many people feel this to be the situation, they are unprepared to acknowledge that—regardless of all that the modern age has provided us in terms of information about the natural world—we are still no closer to understanding the human being.

This impossibility is most likely to be felt when we attempt to understand the growing human being, the child. We sense a barrier between the teacher and the child. Anthroposophy, which is based on a real and comprehensive understanding of the human being, would hear this heartfelt appeal coming from all sides—not by establishing theories on education, but by showing men and women as teachers how to enter the school’s practical life. Anthroposophic education is really the practical life of the school, and our lectures should provide practical details about how to deal with the various details of teaching.

Something else must come first, however; for if we were to begin by speaking of practical details in this way, then the spirit that gives birth to all this could not reveal itself. Therefore, you must kindly permit me to speak today of this spirit of anthroposophic education as a kind of introduction. What we have to say about it will be based on a comprehensive, truly penetrating knowledge of the human being—the active force of anthroposophy in education.

A penetrating knowledge of the human being—what does this mean to us? If a growing human being, a child, stands before us, it is not enough, as I have said, to make certain rules for teaching and educating this child, merely conforming to rules as one would when dealing with a technical problem. This will not lead to good teaching. We must bring an inner fire and enthusiasm to our work; we must have impulses that are not transmitted intellectually from teacher to child according to certain rules, but ones that pass intimately from teacher to child. An educator’s whole being must be at work, not just the thinking person; the person who feels and the person who wills must also play their roles.

Recently, the thinking and worldview of natural science have taken hold of people more deeply and closer to the marrow than they like to think. Even those not specifically trained as scientists think, feel, and act scientifically. This is not acceptable for teachers, since scientific thinking provides an understanding of only one member of the whole human being—the physical body, or body of the senses. But this is only one member of the entire human being, and anthroposophy shows us that when we have genuine knowledge of the human being, we see that the human being possesses three clearly distinguished members—physical body, soul, and spirit.

We see the whole human being only when we have enough wisdom and knowledge to recognize the soul’s true nature as clearly as we recognize the physical body. We must also be able to recognize the human spirit as an individual being. Nevertheless, the connections among the body, soul, and spirit in the child are not the same as in the adult; and it is precisely a loosening of the connection with the physical body that allows us to observe the soul and spirit of the child as the greatest wonder of knowledge and practical life in human existence.

The First Stage of Childhood

Let’s look for a moment at the tiny child and see how that child is born into the world. Here we see a genuinely magical process at work. We see how spirit, springing from the innermost being of the little child, flows into undefined features, chaotic movements, and every action, which seem still disjointed and disconnected. Order and form come into the child’s eyes, facial expressions and physical movements, and the child’s features become increasingly expressive. In the eyes and other features, the spirit manifests, working from within to the surface, and the soul—which permeates the entire body—manifests.

When we look at these things with a serious, unbiased attitude, we see how they come about by observing the growing child; in this way we may gaze reverently into the wonders and enigmas of cosmic and human existence. As we watch in this way while the child develops, we learn to distinguish three clearly differentiated stages. The only reason such stages are not generally distinguished is because such discernment depends on deep, intimate knowledge; and people today, with their crude scientific concepts, are not going to trouble themselves by acquiring this kind of intimate knowledge.

Soul and Spirit Build the “Second” Human Being

The first significant change in a child’s life occurs around the seventh year when the second teeth appear. The outer physical process of the change of teeth is itself very interesting. First we have the baby teeth, then the others force their way through as the first are pushed out. A superficial look at this process will see no farther than the actual change of teeth. But when we look into it more deeply (through means I will describe later in these lectures) we discover that this transformation can be observed throughout the child’s body, though more delicately than the actual change of teeth. The change of teeth is the most physical and basic expression of a subtle process that in fact occurs throughout the body.

What really happens? Anyone can see how the human organism develops. We cut our nails, our hair, and we find that our skin flakes off. This demonstrates how physical substance is cast off from the surface as it is constantly pushed out from within. This pushing from within—which we observe in the change of teeth—is present throughout the whole human body. More exacting knowledge shows us that indeed the child gradually forced out the body received through inheritance; it was cast out. The first teeth are forced out, and likewise the child’s whole initial body is forced out.

At the change of teeth, a child stands before us with a body that—in contrast to the body at birth—is entirely formed anew. The body from birth has been cast out as are the first teeth, and a new body is formed. What is the nature of this more intimate process? The child’s first body was inherited. It is the result of a collaboration between the father and mother, so to speak, and it is formed from the earthly physical conditions. But, just what is this physical body? It is the model that the Earth provides to the person as a model for true development as a human being. The soul and spirit aspect of a human being descends from a realm of soul and spirit where it lived prior to conception and birth. Before we became earthly beings in a physical body, we were all beings of soul and spirit in a soul and spirit realm. What we are given by our parents through inherited physical substance unites in embryonic life with what descends from a higher realm as pure spirit and soul. Spirit and soul take hold of the physical body, whose origin is in the stream of inheritance. This physical body becomes its model, and on this model an entirely new human organism is formed, while the inherited organism is forced out.

Thus, when we consider a child between birth and the change of teeth we can say that the physical body’s existence is due to physical inheritance alone. But, two other forces then combine to work on this physical body. First is the force of those elements the human being brought with it to Earth; the second is assimilated from the matter and substance of the Earth itself. By the time the teeth change, the human being has fashioned a second body modeled after the inherited body, and that second body is the product of the human soul and spirit.

Having arrived at such conclusions by observing the human being more intimately, one will naturally be aware of objections that may be raised; such objections are obvious. One is bound to ask: Can’t you see that a likeness to the parents often appears after the change of teeth—that, therefore, a person is still subject to the laws of inheritance, even after the change of teeth? One could raise a number of similar objections.

Let’s consider just this one: We have a model that comes from the stream of inheritance. On this model the spirit and soul develop the second human being. But when something is built from a model we don’t expect to find a complete dissimilarity to the model; thus, it should be clear that the human spirit and soul use the model’s existence to build up the second human organism in its likeness.

Nevertheless, when you can perceive and recognize what really occurs, you discover something. Certain children come into their second organism between nine and eleven, and this second body is almost identical to the initial, inherited organism. With other children, one may notice a dissimilarity between the second organism and the first, and it is clear that something very different is working its way from the center of their being. In truth, we see every variation between these two extremes. While the human spirit and soul aspect is developing the second organism, it tries most of all to conform to the being it brings with it from the realm of spirit and soul.

A conflict thus arises between what is intended to built as the second organism and what the first organism received through inheritance. Depending on whether thy have had a stronger or weaker spiritual and soul existence (in the following lectures we shall see why this is), human beings can either give their second organism an individual form that is strongly impregnated with soul forces, or, if they descend from the spiritual world with weaker forces, stay as closely as possible to the model.

Consider what we must deal with to educate children during the first period of life between birth and the change of teeth. We are inspired with great reverence when we see how divine spiritual forces work down from supersensible realms! We witness them working daily and weekly, from month to month and year to year, during the first phases of children’s lives, and we see how such work carries them through to forming a second individual body. In education we participate in this work of spirit and soul; for human physical existence, we continue what divine spiritual forces began. We participate in divine labor.

The Child as a Sense Organ

These matters require more than strictly intellectual understanding; one’s whole being must comprehend them. Indeed, when we are brought face to face with the creative forces of the world, we may sense the magnitude of our task in education, especially during the early years. But I would like to point out to you that the way spirit and soul enter the work of creating a second human organism shows us that, in the child, the formation of the body, the activity of the soul, and the creation of the spirit are a unity. Whatever happens while forming a new organism and pushing out the old involves a unity of spirit, soul, and body.

Consequently, children reveal themselves very differently than do adults. We may observe this clearly in individual instances. As adults, when we eat something sweet, it is the tongue and palate that perceive its sweetness; a little later, the experience of sweetness ceases when the sweet substance has gone into another part of the body. As adults, we do not follow it farther with our taste. This is very different for a child, in whom taste permeates the whole organism; children do not taste only with the tongue and palate but with the whole organism. The sweetness is drawn throughout the organism. In fact, the whole child is a sensory organ.

In essence, what is a sensory organ? Let’s consider the human eye. Colors make an impression on the eye. If we properly consider what is involved in human seeing, one has to say that will and perception are one in the human eye. The surface is involved—the periphery of the human being. During the first years of life, however, between birth and the change of teeth, such activity permeates the whole organism, though in a delicate way. The child’s whole organism views itself as one all-inclusive sense organ. This is why all impressions from the environment affect children very differently than they would an adult. An expression of the soul element in the human being—the element of human morality—is occurring in the environment, and this can be seen with the eye.

The Effects of the Teacher’s Temperament on Children

Subconsciously—even unconsciously—children have a delicate and intimate capacity for perceiving what is expressed in every movement and act of those around them. If a choleric person expresses fury in the presence of a child and allows the child to see this in the unconscious way I described, then, believe me, we are very mistaken to believe that the child sees only the outer activity. Children have a clear impression of what is contained within these moral acts, even when it is an unconscious impression. Sense impressions of the eye are also unconscious. Impressions that are not strictly sensory impressions, but expressions of the moral and soul life, flow into a child exactly the way colors flow into the eye, because the child’s organism is a sense organ.

This organism, however, has such a delicate structure that every impression permeates all of it. The first impression a child receives from any moral manifestation is a soul impression. For a child, however, the soul always works down into the bodily nature. Whether it be fear or joy and delight that a child experiences in the environment, all this passes—not crudely but in a subtle and delicate way—into the processes of growth, circulation, and digestion. Children who live in constant terror of what may come their way as expressions of fury and anger from a choleric person, experience something in the soul that immediately penetrates the breathing, the circulation of the blood, and even the digestive activities. This is tremendously significant. In childhood we cannot speak only of physical education, because soul education also means educating the body; everything in the soul element is metamorphosed into the body—it becomes body.

We will realize the significance of this only when, through genuine knowledge of the human being, we do more than merely look at children and imprint certain educational maxims on them, and instead consider all of human earthly life. This is more difficult than merely observing children. We may record observations regarding memory, thinking powers, sensory functions of the eye, ear, and so on, but such records are made for the moment or, at most, for a short while. But this has not helped us in any way toward true knowledge of the human being as such.

When we look at a plant, something is already contained there in the seed that takes root and, after a long time, will appear as blossom and fruit. Similarly, in children before the change of teeth, when the bodily nature is susceptible to the soul’s influences, there are seeds of happiness and unhappiness, health and sickness, which will affect all of life until death. As teachers and educators, whatever we allow to flow into children during their first phase of life will work down into the blood, breathing, and digestion; it is like a seed that may come to fruition only in the form of health or sickness when they are forty or fifty years old. It is in fact true that the way educators act toward the little child creates the predispositions for happiness or unhappiness, sickness or health.

This is particularly noticeable when we observe in detail the effects of teachers on the children, based on actual life events. These phenomena may be observed just as well as the phenomena of botany or physics in laboratories, but we seldom see this. Let us consider individual examples. Let us consider, for instance, the teacher’s relationship to a child in school. Consider the teacher’s temperament. We may know that, due to temperament, a choleric teacher may be energetic, but also quick-tempered and easily angered. A melancholic teacher may be the kind of person who withdraws into the self—an introvert who is self-occupied and avoids the world. A sanguine teacher may be quick to receive outer impressions, flitting from one impression to the next. Or, we may find a phlegmatic person who allows things to slide, someone indifferent to everything, who remains unaffected by outer impressions, generally gliding over things.

Let’s imagine for the moment that a teachers’ training college did nothing to moderate these temperaments and prepare teachers to function well in the school life—that these temperaments were allowed full and total expression with no restraint. The choleric temperament—let us imagine that, before the change of teeth, a child is exposed to a choleric temperament. If a teacher or educator lets loose with a temperament of this kind, it permanently affects the child’s soul, leaving its mark on the circulatory system and all that constitutes the inner rhythmic life. Such effects do not initially penetrate very deeply; really, they are only there in seed, but this seed grows and grows, as all seeds do. It sometimes happens that, at forty or fifty years of age, circulatory disorders of the rhythmic system appear as a direct result of a teacher’s unrestrained choleric temperament. Indeed, we do not educate children only for childhood, but for their whole earthly existence and even, as we shall see later, for the time beyond.

Or, let’s imagine a melancholic giving rein to that particular temperament—someone who was not motivated during teacher training to harmonize it and find an appropriate way to channel it into working with children. Such teachers succumb to their own melancholy in their interactions with children. But by living, feeling, and thinking such inner melancholy, such a person continually withholds from children exactly what should flow from teacher to child—that is, warmth. This warmth, which is so often missing in education, acts first as a warmth of soul, and then passes into the body, primarily into the digestive system. This quickens the seed of certain tendencies that appear later in life as all kinds of disorders and blood diseases.

Or consider the phlegmatic, a person who is indifferent to interactions with the child. A very peculiar relationship arises between them—not exactly a coldness, but an extremely watery element is active in the soul realm between the child and such a teacher. The foundation is not strong enough for the proper interplay of soul between teacher and child. The child is insufficiently aroused to inner activity. If you observe someone who developed under the influence of a phlegmatic person, and if you follow the course of that person’s life into later years, you will often notice a tendency to brain weakness, poor circulation in the brain, or a dulling of brain activity.

And now let us look at the effects of sanguine people on the child—those who allow their sanguine nature to get out of hand. Such an individual responds strongly to every impression, but impressions pass quickly. There is a kind of inner life, but the person’s own nature is taken right out into the surroundings. Children cannot keep up with such a teacher, who rushes from one impression to the next, and fails to stimulate the child properly. In order to arouse sufficient inner activity in a child, the teacher must lovingly hold that child to one impression for a certain period of time. If we observe a child who has grown up under the influence of an uncontrolled sanguine nature, we see in later life that there is a certain lack of vital force—an adult life that lacks strength and content.

Thus, if we have the ability to see it (and education depends on a capacity for subtle perception), we recognize various types of people in their fortieth or fiftieth year of life, and we are able to say whether a person has been influenced by the temperament of an educator who was melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, or sanguine.

The Lasting Effects of a Teacher’s Actions

I mention these things in introducing my lectures, not to give instructions on how to work out these things for training teachers, but to show you how actions meant to affect the child’s soul life do not just remain in the soul, but go all the way into the physical nature. To educate the soul life of children means to educate them for their whole earthly life, even in their bodily nature.

Anthroposophy is often criticized for wanting to speak of spirit as well as soul. There are many today who become very critical and antagonistic whenever they even hear the word spirit, and anthroposophy is easily assumed to be a kind of fantasy. Anthroposophists are accused of reducing the reality of the sense world to a kind of vague abstraction, and those who speak rationally of spiritual things should naturally be unconcerned with such abstraction.

In fact, what anthroposophy attempts in education is to apply the correct principles for bodily education, since we understand that precisely during the first stage of life, the entire physical nature of a child is influenced by soul impulses. Anyone who consciously tries to discover how all physical activity is based fundamentally on soul and spirit can still choose to be a materialist when working on child development between birth and the change of teeth. The way matter works in a child is contained in a unity of soul and spirit. No one can understand matter in a child unless soul and spirit are considered valid. Indeed, soul and spirit are revealed in the outer appearance of matter.

The ability to educate necessitates a sense of responsibility. The considerations I have presented to you strongly arouse one’s sense of responsibility as a matter of heartfelt concern. If you take up educational work knowing what affects the young child and that it will continue through all of life as happiness or unhappiness, sickness or health, such knowledge may initially seem like a burden on the soul; but it will also spur you on to develop forces and capacities and above all, as a teacher, a mental attitude that is strong enough to sow “seeds” of soul in the young child that will blossom only later in life, even in old age.

This knowledge of the human being is what anthroposophy presents as the basis for an art of education. It is not merely knowledge of what we find in a human being in a single stage of life—for example, in childhood; it springs from contemplating all of human earthly life. What, in fact, is a human life on Earth? When we view a person before us at any given moment, we may speak of seeing an organism, since each detail is in harmony with the formation of the whole.

To gain insight into the inner connections of size or form in the individual members of the human organism—how they fit together, how they harmonize to form both a unity and a multiplicity—let us look, for example, at the little finger. Although I am only looking at the little finger, I also get some idea of the shape of the earlobe, since the earlobe’s form has a certain connection with the form of the little finger, and so on. Both the smallest and the largest members of the human organism receive their shape from the whole, and they are also related in form to every other member. Consequently, we cannot understand, for example, an organ in the head unless we see it in relation and in harmony with an organ in the leg or foot. This also applies to the spatial organism—the organism spread out in space.

Besides having a spatial organism, however, the human being has also a time organism. We have seen that within the space organism, the earlobe receives its form from the body as a whole, as well as from the form of, say, the little finger or knee; but the time organism must also be considered. The configuration of a person’s soul in the fiftieth year—the person’s physical health or sickness, cheerfulness or depression, clarity or dullness of mind—is most intimately connected with what was present there in the tenth, seventh, or fourth year of life. Just as the members of a spatial organism have a certain relationship to one another, so do the members of a time organism separated from one another by time.

From one perspective, it may be asserted that when we are five years old, everything within us is already in harmony with what we will be at forty. Of course, a trivial objection may be raised that one might die young, but it doesn’t apply, since other considerations enter in. Additionally, as a spatial organism, a human being is also organized in time. And if you ever find a finger lying around somewhere, it would have to have been very recently dislodged to look like a finger at all—very soon, it would no longer be a finger. A limb separated from the organism soon shrivels and ceases to be a human limb. A finger separated from the human organism is not a finger at all—it could never live apart from the body, but becomes nothing, and since it cannot exist on its own, it is not real. A finger is real only while united with the whole physical body between birth and death.

Such considerations make it clear that in all our teaching, we must consider the time organism. Imagine what would happen to the space organism if it were treated the way people often treat their time-organism. Let say, for example, that we put some substance into a man’s stomach, and it destroys his head. Imagine, however, that we examined only the stomach and never looked at what happened to this substance once it dispersed into the organism, where it eventually reached the head. To understand the human organism, we must be able to examine the process that the substance goes through in the human stomach and also see what it means for the head. In passing from the stomach to the head the substance must continually alter and change; it must be flexible.

In the time organism, we continually sin against children. We teach them to have clear, sharp ideas and become dissatisfied if their ideas are flexible and not sharply defined. Our goal is to teach children in such a way that they retain in their mind what we teach them, so they can tell us just what we told them. We are often especially gratified when a child can reproduce exactly what we taught several years later. But that’s like having a pair of shoes made for a child of three and expecting them to fit when the child is ten years old. In reality, our task is to give children living, flexible ideas that can grow in the soul just as the outer physical limbs grow with the body. It is much less trouble to give a child definitions of various things to memorize and retain, but that is like expecting the shoes of a three-year- old to fit a child of ten.

We ourselves must take part in the inner activities of children’s souls, and we must consider it a joy to give them something inwardly flexible and elastic. Just as their physical limbs grow, so can their ideas, feelings, impulses, and soon they themselves are able to make something new out of what we gave them. This cannot happen unless we cultivate inner joy in ourselves toward growth and change. We have no use for pedantry or sharply defined ideas of life. We can use only active, life forming forces—forces of growth and increase. Teachers who have a feeling for this growing, creative life have already found their relationship to the children because they contain life within themselves, and such life can then pass on to the children who demand it of them. This is what we need most of all. Much that is dead in our pedagogy and educational systems must be transformed into life. What we need, therefore, is a knowledge of the human being that doesn’t say only that a human being is like this or like that. We need knowledge of the human being that affects the whole human being, just as physical nourishment affects the blood. Blood circulates in human beings, and we need human knowledge that gives blood to our souls also; it would not only make us sensible, clever, and intelligent, but also enthusiastic and inwardly flexible, able to enkindle love in us. This would be an art of education that springs from true knowledge of the human being, borne by love.

These have been the introductory remarks I wanted to present about the essential ideas that an art of education must get from anthroposophy. In future lectures we will see how the spirit of anthroposophic education can be realized in the practical details of school.

Anyone who has studied the forms that make up the living structure of the Goetheanum could see how Goethe's ideas on metamorphosis were incorporated into the architectural ideas. These metamorphosis ideas became clear to Goethe when he wanted to embrace the diversity of the plant world in spiritual unity. To achieve this goal, he searched for the archetypal plant. This was to be an idealized plant form. In it, one organ could be developed to particular size and perfection, while others could be small and unattractive. In this way, one could also devise an immense number of special forms from the ideal original plant; and then one could let one's gaze wander over the external forms of the plant world. One found this realized in one form, that in the other, derived from the original plant. The whole plant world was, so to speak, one plant in the most diverse forms.

But with this, Goethe assumed that a formative principle prevails in the diversity of organizations, which is recreated by man in the inward mobility of thought forces. He thus ascribed something to human knowledge whereby it is not merely an external observation of world beings and world processes, but grows together with them into a unity.

Goethe had applied the same principle to the understanding of individual plants. In the simplest way, he saw an entire plant in the leaf. And in the multiform plant he saw a leaf developed in a complicated way; so to speak, many leaf-plants combined again according to the leaf principle into a unity. — Likewise, the various organs of animal formation were transformations of a basic organ for him; and the whole animal kingdom the most diverse forms of an ideal “primordial animal”.

Goethe did not develop the idea in all its aspects. His conscientiousness led him to stop on unfinished paths, especially in relation to the animal world. He did not allow himself to go too far in the mere formation of thoughts without repeatedly having the ideational confirmed by the sensuous facts.

One can have a twofold relationship to these Goethean metamorphoses of ideas. One can regard them as an interesting peculiarity of the Goethean spirit and leave it at that.

But one can also attempt to bring one's own activity of ideas in the Goethean direction. Then one will find that in fact secrets of nature are revealed, to which one cannot gain access in any other way.

More than forty years ago, I believed I had realized this (in my introductions to Goethe's scientific writings in Kürschner's Deutsche National-Literatur) and called Goethe the Copernicus and Kepler of the science of the organic. I proceeded from the view that for the inanimate, the Copernican act consists in noticing a material connection independent of man; but that the corresponding act for the animate lies in discovering the right mental activity by which the organic can be grasped by the human mind in its living mobility.

Goethe accomplished this Copernican feat by introducing the spiritual activity through which he worked artistically into knowledge. He sought the path from artist to knower and found it. The anthropologist Heinroth therefore called Goethe's thinking a representational one. Goethe spoke with deep satisfaction about this. He took up the word and also called his poetry a concrete one. He thus expressed how close the artistic and cognitive activities were in his soul.

Immersing oneself in Goethe's spiritual world could give courage to lead the view of the metamorphoses back to the artistic. This helped to develop the architectural idea of the Goetheanum. Wherever nature unfolds in living activity, she creates forms that grow out of each other. One can come close to nature's creative activity through artistic-sculptural work, if one lovingly and empathetically grasps how she lives in metamorphoses.

It is now possible to call a building the “Goetheanum” which has been created in such a way, both architecturally and sculpturally, that the assimilation of Goethe's metamorphic view of life has dared to attempt to be realized in its forms.

And in the same way, anthroposophy itself is also the direct further development of Goethe's views. Anyone who embraces the idea of the transformation not only of the sensory forms – in which Goethe, in accordance with his particular soul character, remained – but also of what can be grasped in soul and spirit, has arrived at anthroposophy. This is only a very elementary observation. In the human soul, we see thinking, feeling and willing at work. Anyone who is only able to see these three forms of soul life side by side or in their interaction cannot penetrate deeper into the essence of the soul. But anyone who gains clarity about how thinking is a metamorphosis of feeling and willing, feeling a metamorphosis of thinking and willing, and willing a transformation of thinking and feeling, connects themselves with the essence of the soul. If Goethe, who wanted to be oriented towards the sensually descriptive, was highly satisfied to hear that his thinking was called objective, then a spiritual researcher can find a similar satisfaction when he realizes how his thinking becomes “spiritually animated” through the metamorphosis view. Thinking is “representational” when it can become so entwined with the essence of sense perceptions that this essence is experienced as resonating within it. Thinking becomes “spirit-animated” when it is able to absorb the spirit into its own currents and movements. Then thinking becomes spirit-bearing, just as perception, directed to the sense world, becomes color- or sound-bearing. Then thinking metamorphoses into intuition.

With this metamorphosis, however, thinking has been freed from the body. For the body can imbue thinking only with sense-perceptible content.

One conquers the living through the contemplation of metamorphosis. One thereby enlivens one's own thinking. It is transformed from a dead to a living one. But in this way it becomes capable of absorbing the life of the spirit by contemplation. Anyone who, on the basis of what Goethe's writings contain, wants to form the judgment that Goethe himself would have rejected anthroposophy may be able to cite external reasons for doing so. And one may concede that Goethe would have been very cautious in such a case, because he himself would have felt uncomfortable pursuing the metamorphosis into areas where it lacks the control of sensory phenomena. But Goethe's world view merges with anthroposophy without artifice.

Therefore, that which rests securely on Goethe's world view could be cultivated in a building that bore the name Goetheanum in memory of Goethe.

Today's meeting provides a further opportunity for me to speak to you who are friends of the anthroposophical movement before I leave. I wish to do something which in a way is particularly close to my heart, to discuss some of the things that really need to be discussed. It is possible that most of what I have to say today is a repetition of things that have been discussed on a number of occasions from all kinds of different aspects, things now also taken into consideration in public lectures. There are reasons, however, why it is necessary for us to consider some of them once again today.

I have often stressed that it is necessary for a sufficient number of people to fully understand the following. To prevent the decline into which we have got ourselves in the civilized world from continuing into utter ruin, certain impulses must be brought into modern civilization that can only arise if spiritual science reveals the nature of the world to its fullest extent.

Materialism has come to Europe over the last three or four centuries, coming to a crest in the 19th and then tumbling over in the 20th century. It has a peculiarity that seems paradoxical, particularly if one fails to realize the true causes. The peculiar thing about materialism is that it has no possibility of recognizing the material world as it really is. I think I have already given you an example of this. The materialistic way of thinking has in more recent times given rise to an idea that is believed by a great many people, namely that the heart is a kind of pump in the human organism that pumps the blood through the organism. This idea of the human heart being a pump comes up in all kinds of variations nowadays. The facts are rather different, however, and should be seen like this: The whole of our rhythmical circulatory system is something alive. It cannot be compared with a system of channels or the like with water flowing through them, water kept circulating with the aid of a pump. Our rhythmical circulatory system, our blood system, is something alive. It is kept alive by a number of factors, the major factors being breathing, hunger, thirst and so on. These clearly function at the level of soul and spirit. Our blood system is set in motion by entirely primary causes, and the movement of the heart arises when this spiritual principle enters into the rhythm of the blood. The rhythm of the blood is the primary, living principle, and the heart is caught up in this rhythm. The facts are therefore entirely the opposite of what every professor of physiology is teaching today, with the result that it is dinned into people's heads at school and indeed from their earliest childhood.

It therefore has to be said that materialism has not even managed to get a real understanding of the physical processes relating to the heart in the human organism. The material aspect in particular is completely misunderstood. This is just one of many examples. Material things in particular have found no explanation whatsoever under the influence of materialism. The heart is not a pump. It it something we might regard more as a sense organ incorporated within the human organism to give human individuals a kind of subconscious perception of their circulation, just as the eye perceives colour in the world outside. Basically the heart is a sense organ within the circulatory system, yet exactly the opposite is taught nowadays.

This would appear to be an example of limited relevance. I can imagine some philistine saying: ‘Well, it can't do much harm if people have entirely the wrong idea about the nature of the human heart. Of course, if doctors had the wrong idea about the nature of the human heart that would be cause for general alarm. After all, it does make quite a difference in human life if doctors have the right or the wrong idea about the heart.’ But this also holds true for other things. Everything is connected with everything else in life, and because of this humankind is absolutely full of wrong ideas, completely upside-down ideas. One might well think, if one was serious about it, that being hung up on wrong ideas would cause real havoc in our thinking processes. It certainly does. Our thinking is utterly ruined because it has been dinned into us and we have become used to thinking that things are the opposite of what they really are. That is why we never acquire the habit of steady, purposeful thinking. How can our thinking grow purposeful in social life, for example, if in areas where truth should be sought above all else we are in fact going in the opposite direction?

You see, some things that are important to know are a closed book for People today. When the human organism is investigated in conventional institutes nowadays, in physiological and biological laboratories, in hospitals and similar institutions, the brain for instance is examined by analyzing it bit by bit as it presents itself to the eye. The liver is examined by the same kind of analysis. In doing so, people never consider one thing that is absolutely essential if one wishes to understand the human being: The whole of the head organization as We have it today and everything it governs is entirely different from the rest of the human organism.

Let me show you what lies behind this. You can draw it like this. I intend to lead up gradually to what I really want to say. You can say that the human being has two organs of perception, and the direction in which they perceive is approximately like this [see (a) in the diagram]. Two other directions in which we perceive show a certain relationship to these. In diagrammatic form I would draw them like this (b):

I deliberately did not tell you where these organs are to be found in the human organism. If I draw nothing but two arrows to indicate direction (a) here, where one stretches out, as it were, to perceive, and two others here, (b), where we perceive sideways, it makes no difference at all if these are the directions in which feeling and sensation pass through my legs and these where they pass through my arms. Here we have something that is in accord. I perceive my own gravity, as it were, I stand with my two feet on the ground. I really perceive something. And I also perceive something when I stretch out my hand, stretch out my arm, even if I do not actually touch anything. I can draw it like this (a). The same drawing can also stand for something different. Imagine this is the horizontal plane. The two arrows could represent the two visual axes; I could draw the two visual axes like this. And these arrows (b) could indicate the directions of my ears. The same diagram would serve to indicate perception by the eyes and ears. On the one occasion I have the whole organism within the head, though the plane has turned through a 90° angle, on the other within the rest of the organism. There is a higher point of view where both are the same. Our two legs are merely directions in which we perceive that have become flesh. The same directions exist in a less physical form where they extend from the brain through the eyes to perceive colour. Elsewhere we perceive gravity and everything connected with it. We see our weight and we step on colour, we could say, if we were to change the two things over, entirely in organic terms, of course. I hear the blackboard chalk, I touch a C or C sharp that is sounding. The difference is merely one of degree. In the head everything has gone through a 90° angle and is less physical; the other is in the vertical plane, and is physical. In the final instance both are the same. It is only that I am aware of the way my eyes step on colours, my ears touch sounds; I know about it, it is part of my ordinary conscious life. Everything my legs see with regard to gravity and all kinds of other things that my arms hear—all these are in the subconscious sphere. Conditions belonging to the cosmic sphere are present in the subconscious. With the whole of my subconscious I have knowledge of the cosmic sphere, knowledge of the way the earth relates to other bodies in the universe, knowledge of the universal background to gravity. I hear the music of the spheres with my arms and not with my ears.

Thus we may say that we have a lower organism, as it is called, with subconscious cosmic awareness, and we have a head with early awareness; this however is a ‘conscious’ awareness. The whole of the human being is organized on the basis of these differences. Our outer form and configuration depends entirely on these differences. You know that the head we carry today is the transformed body of our previous incarnation, our previous earth life, and that the rest of our present organism will be the head in our next life. The head, then, is the rest of the organism which has undergone a transformation. It is more perfect, more finished in a way. As a result the legs have become fine visual threads extending beyond the eye and stepping on the colours in a very lively way. The arms of our former life have become so ethereal that they now extend from our ears and touch the sounds we hear.

These are concrete facts about the human being. It does not get People anywhere to know about repeated earth lives and so on. Those after all are dogmas and it makes no difference if you have the dogmas of the Catholic or Protestant church or the dogma of repeated earth lives. Real thinking only starts when you enter into concrete events, when you come to realize that looking at the human head you are looking at the transformed body of your previous earth life, and that the head you had then was the transformed body of the preceding life—you must imagine it without the head, of course. The head you see now is the transformed organism of the last life lived on earth. The rest of the organism as you see it now will be the head in the next life. Then the arms will have metamorphosed and become ears, and the legs will have become eyes. We must look at the physical world and understand it in its transformed non-physical form, our intellect must illumine the material world in this way. Then at last we shall have what humankind is much in need of today. Once the human mind has been organized so that it no longer produces the kind of folly that has been put forward as a potential social theory, particularly in the second half of the 19th century, human beings will indeed be ready to develop social ideas that can be put into effect in this world. It is necessary to gain a thorough understanding of this today. It is a serious matter when people say today: Something else will have to take the place of the science which has evolved and is so highly respected, of all the things that are generally disseminated. There can be no other way.

It is nonsense, and I also said so recently in a public lecture,³⁰ to talk about setting up adult education thinking that the same kind of work can be done there as at ordinary universities. It is the work done at the universities that has brought us to these disastrous situations, because it has become the materialistic view of a few leading personalities. This is now to be presented to the masses; that is, millions are to head for the disasters that so far have come about because the wrong lead was given by a few. Something that proved useless for a few is now to be spread among many. It is not as easy as that, however. Popular education cannot be introduced simply by teaching outside the universities what until now has been alive inside them. It would mean teaching something that is altogether unsuitable for human beings. This may sound radical, but it is absolutely essential that it is fully understood if there is to be even the least hope of the decline being halted and something new and positive developing. These are the things one wishes one could speak of in words that truly go to the heart. These concrete truths must reach as many hearts as possible. It was therefore important to me to point out in my public lectures that something has been achieved in the Waldorf School, that anthroposophy has positively influenced the history lessons in some places. I was also able to refer to the teaching of anthropology in class 5. There, too, anthroposophy was effective. Not that one would teach anthroposophy to the children—we would never think of doing such a thing—but lessons come to life if anthroposophy is the foundation, if the inspiration of anthroposophy is there in what we teach. This brings the souls of the children to life; they are quite different when this influence is there. It would be taking the easy way simply to teach anthroposophy in our schools. No, that is not what we are about, but rather to use anthroposophy to enliven the subject matter. It will of course be necessary for anthroposophy to come alive in oneself first of all, and that is something that really comes hard, to let anthroposophy come alive in human beings. Otherwise the potential is there today for all kinds of disciplines, not only in science but all kinds of disciplines in life, to have the full benefit of what life in anthroposophy is able to give.

That is a general way of looking at it. Let me go on to something specific, so that you can see the things we are considering in their proper context.

Marxist philosophy, Marxist views are widespread today. They have their most radical expression in Leninism and Trotskyism, which are destroying the world. A view of history known as ‘historical materialism’ plays a great role in Marxist philosophy, particularly the dogma of the fundamental importance of the modes and relations of production. Millions of proletarians have accepted this dogma according to which tradition, law, science, religion and so on are like smoke, like an ideology rising from the modes and relations of Production—you will find further details in my book Towards Social Renewal³¹—and that the modes and relations of production are the Only reality on which to base one's view of history.

It was very important to me on past occasions—this has to do with the feeling I have that I was really able to achieve something and create a potential basis at the Worker's Education Institute in Berlin³²—to speak in proletarian circles about the view that the modes and relations of production are the only effective element, and to present a clear picture. My aim therefore was not to teach historical materialism but the truth. That was of course also the reason why I was thrown °in, for it offended those in charge at the time just as much as the idea of a threefold social order offends people today. Authoritarian thinking and belief in authority were and still are as great in the socialist movement as in the Catholic church.

What really matters is to gain a clear understanding of social relations in this world. Real understanding of the natural threefold order of the human organism, of the way the human organism is an organism of nerves and senses, rhythmical organism and a metabolic organism, as shown in my book Von Seelenrätseln,³³ leads to a way of thinking that can also apply to social life. People of little understanding will say: ‘You are using analogy in applying the threefold order of the human body to the social organism’. This is nonsense of course. Analogy is not the method used in Towards Social Renewal. All I said was that if people succeeded in letting their thinking escape from the strait jacket put on it by modern scholarship and particularly public opinion, they would free their thinking to the extent that it will be possible to think sensible thoughts concerning social issues. The kind of thinking that puts the human brain side by side with the liver, examining everything as though it were of the same substance, will never come to sensible conclusions.

Using external analogies we might say: The social organism is threefold by nature and so is the human organism. The head is the organ of mind and intellect; it should therefore be compared with the cultural and intellectual life in the threefold organism. The rhythmical system establishes harmony between different functions in the action of the heart, in respiration—that would be the rights sphere in the social organism. Metabolism, the most physical, material aspect—something mystics tend to look down on to some extent, though they say they also have to eat and drink--would be compared to the sphere of economics.

This is definitely not the case, however. I have repeatedly pointed out on other occasions that in reality things are very different than mere analogy would make them to be. It cannot be said, for instance, that summer is comparable to the waking state for the earth and winter to a state of sleep. The reality is different. In summer the earth is asleep, in winter it is awake. I have gone into this in detail.

The same applies if we consider the real situation in comparing the social and the human organism. The economic sphere of the social organism actually compares to the activities of the human head. As to the sphere of rights, the legal sphere, people were quite rightly comparing this, the middle realm, with rhythmical activities in the human organism. The life of mind and intellect however has to be compared with the metabolism. This means that economic life has to be compared with the organs that serve the mind and intellect, and the cultural and intellectual sphere of the social organism with the metabolic organs. There is no way round this. Economic life is the head of the social organism; cultural life is the stomach, liver and spleen of the social organism but not of the individual human being. It is of course too much of an effort for anyone whose thinking is in a strait-jacket to make distinction between social life and the life of an individual person.

Again the essential point is that spiritual science prepares us to see things as they really are and not to produce analogies and elaborate symbolism. We will then arrive at important conclusions. We shall find, for example, that we can say: But in that case economic life, if it really is the head in the social organism, will have to live on the rest of the organism, just as the head does in the human organism. In that case we cannot say morality, religious life and the search for knowledge are ideological elements arising from economic life. Quite the contrary, in fact. Economic life is dependent on cultural life, on the metabolism of the social organism, just as the human head depends on respiration, on stomach, liver and spleen. We then come to see that economic life arises out of cultural and religious life. If we did not have a stomach we could not have a head. Of course we also could not have a stomach if we did not have a head, but it is the head after all that is fed by the stomach, and in the same way economic life is fed by cultural life and not the other way round. The socialist theories that now threaten to spread through the whole of the civilized world are therefore quite erroneous, a dreadful superstition. No one has thought to look for the truth in recent centuries; on a purely emotional basis everyone has been promulgating the kind of truth their class and point of view suggested to them. Now at last it is realized that it is a total delusion to see historical evolution as the product of the modes and relations of production. The idea is now to compare the actual facts and not to talk in analogies. Now a realistic view is taken and it is realized that if the stomach is undermined in the human organism, the head will suffer. In the same way there can be no sound metabolism in the social organism and economic life must fall into decline if morality, religious life and intelligent thought are undermined in the social organism. Nothing in fact depends on economic life; primarily everything depends on the views, the ideas, the cultural life of humankind.

The head is always dying—I have spoken of this in other lectures—and we only maintain the head organism because it is constantly dying and the rest of the organism rebels against this. The same applies in the sphere of economics. Economic life is constantly bringing death and decay into the progress of history; rather than generating everything else it brings about the death of everything. This element of death constantly has to be counterbalanced by what the cultural organism is able to produce. The situation is therefore exactly the other way round. Anyone speaking in materialistic terms and saying economic life is the basis for progress is not speaking the truth. The truth is that economic life is the basis of something that is always dying in stages, and the mind and spirit have to make up for this dying process. To proceed the way people are now proceeding in Russia is to help the world to its death. The only possible outcome of proceeding in this way is to help the world to its death, for the simple reason that the laws of death are inherent in the things that are being done there.

You can see the eminent social importance of these things. We have now been working in anthroposophy for twenty years, and all the time I have tried to make it utterly clear and apparent in all kinds of lectures that what matters to us is not the cultivation of a philosophy full of inner self-gratification, a kind of spiritual snobbery, but to develop the most important impulse that is needed in the present age.

I wanted to present this to you again today in a slightly different form in connection with a number of things that can help us understand the essential nature of the human being. It is important that those who call themselves friends of the anthroposophical movement clearly perceive the connection between this anthroposophical movement and other events as we know them.

The ideas put forward by myself and other friends are often seriously distorted. It is therefore difficult to speak freely to such a large audience, even if it is anthroposophical. As there is no immediate opportunity, however, to discuss these things at a more intimate level and yet it is necessary to speak of them, let me draw your attention to a few things. We must be aware, particularly here in Stuttgart, that the anthroposophical movement we have now had for twenty Years has indeed reached a new stage. If we are serious about the movement this means we have accepted the obligation to follow this change, to adapt to this change. You must properly understand that because our friends Molt, Kühn, Unger, Leinhas³⁴ and others have attempted to take the anthroposophical approach to its practical conclusion something has happened that concerns us all. It concerns us all and we must take account of it in everything we say and do. The fact is—and let us be very clear about this—that until then the anthroposophical movement was a current in the life of the mind and spirit. Such things continue on their way, cliques and closed groups, however objectionable, that go by personal and heaven knows what other interests, may form; a spiritual movement may even proceed by the agency of privy councillors like Max Seiling.³⁵ One does of course have to approach it properly in view of what is called for, but for as long as it is a purely spiritual or cultural movement it can be ignored. Now, however, three things have grown out of this spiritual movement.

The first followed the appeal I made last year.³⁶ It now forms part of the struggling threefold movement, the Association for a Threefold Social Organism. This has not yet been able to get anywhere near the real objectives. What the appeal had to say has in a sense met with rejection, and it would be a good thing to be fully aware that there has been this rejection, that only very little of what was intended has come to fruition.

This does of course mean that I have many requests made to me. The idea has come up in Dornach, for example, of issuing a further appeal that would make it known internationally what Dornach means to the world. I had to explain to our friends that in the ordinary life outside that is now heading for a breakdown, appeal usually follows appeal, programme on programme. We cannot do this if we work out of anthroposophy. It is important to realize that, in a way, it is not at all healthy if something is undertaken that does not come off. It is important to make a careful assessment of the chances of success, and not just do what comes to mind but only the things that have a chance of success. This is why I then said—it is important and I must ask you to consider it carefully—that I would not dream of making a similar appeal again, for what has happened to the first appeal should not happen a second time. It was possible to let the appeal for a Cultural Council³⁷ go out, for that was not my work, but we must be very clear that things are getting a great deal more serious than people are inclined to think if something like the anthroposophical movement stands behind them.

Three things have now evolved out of the anthroposophical movement, in a way, each of them quite distinct. A threefold order following that appeal—we will have to work at it, for it partly meets with rejection; secondly the Waldorf School;³⁸ thirdly the financial, commercial and industrial enterprise called Der Kommende Tag (Dawn of Tomorrow).³⁹

Coming to Stuttgart in the past, when we only had the anthroPosophical movement—I am referring only to Stuttgart—I would spend three or four days here and you know how many personal interviews I managed. These things have had some effect, as is now becoming apparent. It was not without significance that whatever had happened in the meantime—people will understand what I mean if they want to—could be put to rights again in those personal interviews. Events could then proceed until the next time. Now the position is such that following those outer developments one has to attend meetings from morning till night, and indeed well into the night, and there is no question of continuing in the ways we got used to when we were only an anthroposophical movement. Now there are many people who feel that it is a nuisance that things are no longer the way they were. It is necessary, however, to look at all the changes and really say to oneself: Things have changed since the spring of last year and this will have to be taken into account.

The situation cannot remain as it is, but a united effort must be made to see that it does not remain this way. It cannot remain as it is because everything that is done—be it for the Waldorf School or the Kommende Tag—has its basis in spiritual work. Without the spiritual work that has been done and must continue to be done there is no point to it all. The spiritual work must give form, vigour and content to the whole. To continue the way we are going would mean that the institutions which have now been established would swallow up the original spiritual movement. We would be taking away the original basis. Nothing growing out of the anthroposophical movement should be allowed to swallow up the movement as such.

You see, these are serious matters we have to discuss today, and I think at least some of you will understand what I mean. Things will not be different unless we accept it as a reality that anthroposophical work has been done for many years, for decades. This work must be seen as something real.

I would ask you also to consider the following. There is much conflict in the world, but where is most of this conflict to be found? It takes a certain form and people fail to notice, but most of it takes place in the sphere of spiritual endeavour. There is no end to the conflict within the body we call the anthroposophical movement, for example. When our movement evolved out of older practices—it was necessary to start from these, you know the reasons—that is, when many people familiar with the old theosophical practices joined our movement, I had the feeling that a gentleman, who at the time was particularly vehement in his defense of the line we were following, would very soon be in conflict with various other people. Conflict is likely to be particularly bad in this sphere. In fact I always made it quite clear that the gentleman in question, a theosophist of the purest Water, would not only come in conflict with others, but that his right side and his left would be involved in a desperate struggle. People Will find that the left side of this individual will have the most dreadful quarrel with his right side.

It will of course be necessary to develop the other extreme, where the conflicts that constantly arise are overcome. Such conflicts are due to the very nature of spiritual movements, because they all aim to develop the human individuality. The other pole, the other extreme, of human understanding, must be there as well; it is the pole of human understanding where it is possible to enter into a human individual, to go deeply into the life impulses of another person, and so on. It must be possible for the Kommende Tag and the Waldorf School we are now running to be given a sound moral basis by the anthroposophical movement here in Stuttgart, the moral basis that is the work of decades, or at least should have been such. That has to be the foundation, for it is the only way in which we can go ahead and restore the balance between a life consisting of meetings and the necessary spiritual work which after all should be the basis. We cannot achieve this, of course, if things go on all the time where one is told, for instance, that dreadful things have been going on again, with someone causing trouble all the time, someone upsetting all the rest. Well, that may be so. To date—and on this visit such things have come up again countless times—I have not been able, however, to pursue such an affair to the point where the second person, when approached, told the same story as the first. When it came to the fifth or sixth person, I would hear the absolute opposite of what the first had told me. I do not want to criticize, to apportion praise or blame, really, not even the latter, but that is how it is. What is needed, particularly among anthroposophists, and I have said this on many occasions, is an absolute and unerring feeling for the truth. It is very difficult to continue working in all these areas unless there is a basis of truth, of genuine, immediate truth. If there is this basis of genuine truth, surely it must happen that when something comes up and one pursues the matter further a fifth or sixth person would still present the same facts. Yet it happens that I am told about something ‘dreadful’ and everybody I ask tells me something different. I cannot, of course, apply the things I have from other sources to external life; I have said this many times. It is not a question of whether I know about it, know who is right and who is wrong. The question is whether the first says the same as the sixth or seventh. What I know has nothing to do with it. As a rule I do not allow people to pull the wool over my eyes, and that is not why I ask people. The reasons are quite different. As a rule it does not interest me very much what people tell me. The point is that I hear what the first person says and then the seventh, only to find on many occasions that one person says one thing and the seventh says the opposite. It evidently follows that one of the two things cannot be true. It seems to me that this does follow.

In outer physical life which for this very reason is going into a decline people have always wanted to shut their eyes to the function, the crucial significance, of untruths. Even unintentional untruths are destructive in their effects. In spiritual science working towards anthroposophy it is absolutely essential to realize that an untruth in the life of mind and spirit is the same as a devastating bomb in physical life. It is a devastating force, an instrument of destruction, and this in very real terms. It would certainly be possible to do important and fruitful work in the spiritual sphere again, in spite of the many new developments, providing these things are given some attention—objective attention, however, not subjective attention.

You know I do not normally go in for tirades; it is not my habit to moralize. Just for once, however, I really must discuss the facts that have become very obvious at this time, because the situation is serious. We are looking at undertakings that must not fail, that will have to succeed, and there can be no question of any kind of failure; we have to say today that they shall succeed. They must not however swallow up the original anthroposophical movement, and this means that everybody must do his share to ensure that the moral foundation established in the work of many years really exists. Everybody must do his part. It is really necessary for everybody to to their part.

It saddens my heart that I am unable to respond to almost all the many requests that are made to me. I had to keep refusing to help my friends because time cannot be used twice, and meetings go on not only from morning till night, but even well into the night. Quite obviously I cannot use the same time to talk to individuals. The membership in the widest sense must come to its senses and get rid of the things that play a role in all aspects of life here, the kind of thing I have just been mentioning. Every single member must reflect and see that here in this very place these things have to be done away With Unless this is done—and these things are connected—it will not be possible to find the time to do real fundamental spiritual work. Everything arising out of anthroposophy will succeed. Yet unless some things change the original spiritual movement will be swallowed up. The will impulses of those who consider themselves the bearers of this spiritual movement would then lead to a new materialism, as the original spiritual movement will have been aborted. The spirit needs to be nurtured or it will die. Materialism does not arise of its own accord; you cannot create materialism, just as you cannot create a corpse. A corpse is produced when the soul leaves the organism. In the same way everything created here on a spiritual basis, out of something that has soul, will become entirely material unless there is a genuine desire to nurture the spirit. It means that above all the moral and ethical basis which we have been able to establish is given careful attention. It is necessary above all to ensure that we do not become subject to illusion, that we do not think it is enough to accept Certain views just because they are easy to accept. We must look at life without flinching.

It is really very bad for people to say things like: ‘The threefold order is a good thing; we must take it up.’ Feeling rather good about it they will say: ‘I am getting something organized and it is very much in accord with the threefold order; aren't I good! It makes me really feel good getting something organized that is a nucleus of threefoldness’. Licking your lips morally speaking, full of inner self gratification—you may feel like this when you are doing such things, but it does not mean that you have a sense of reality. The threefold idea is true to reality because it requires genuine effort to bring it to realization. Many people's ideas are however so unrealistic that the idea of threefoldness goes against the grain with them. The first and most essential thing is for this idea to be taken up by a sufficiently large number of people. We must have the necessary sense of reality and practical common sense.

Eight days ago I had to speak here in Stuttgart about the consequences the threefold order has for the management of landed property.⁴⁰ I said that the threefold order obviously aims to achieve a situation where social exchange, social conditions relating to landed property, are such that land cannot be bought and sold like other goods That is entirely based on reality; to say the opposite would be unrealistic. I had to discuss the subject on a day when I actually got here late because we had been going round the countryside all day trying to buy land. If we have a sense of reality we cannot base ourselves on the threefold order and say: ‘I must be good; I am forming a nucleus for the threefold order.’ No, it has to be accepted, and there can be no illusions, that in a certain respect the only possible way in which we can work for a threefold order is by working on the most important aspect, not basing our work on the immediate present.

It is not a question of morally licking our lips as we say that we follow a particular idea. This would make it unfruitful and abstract. It is a question of really seeing the reality, seeing what is necessary. This is the difference between people whose approach is utopian and dogmatic and those who take a practical view. The latter will take an idea as far as it can go, but they are not unworldly people living for some private pleasure; they take hold of the reality. We really only give ourselves up to illusion for our own private pleasure. This must be realized. It is also necessary to realize that many other things go in the same direction. I am sorry, it could not be helped. There were quite a number of things that I could have talked about on this last occasion before my departure. I might have drawn your attention to many things that were put to me more or less in passing, things that do have an effect on the fruitful activities. One of the main problems with those fruitful activities is that there is a constant need to have endless discussions on matters that should be dealt with in half an hour, because things are thrown into the pool that really should not be there. If you have sound thinking habits—and those are the habits we must acquire if spiritual science as it is presented here is to come about—and then find yourself—I am not speaking theoretically—right in the middle of what is nowadays called business practice, the best way of defining what goes on is that people kill as much time as possible, that time is wasted. There are practical people today who boast of being busy all day long. If they did not waste so much time, their work, which let us say takes ten hours, could be easily done in one hour. Time is killed particularly in what is called active life today. This killing of time causes thoughts to be drawn out. Entering into practical life as it goes on today one really gets the feeling that one is in a noodle factory where thoughts that ought to be concentrated are drawn out, pulled apart like strudel or noodle dough; everything is pulled well apart. It is dreadful to come across those spread-apart thoughts that are cultivated in practical life. If you wanted to use thoughts like these to get a clear understanding of the world, of the things I have spoken of today by way of an introduction, you would not get anywhere. All this ‘strudel-dough thinking’ has arisen in the process of killing time. Thoughts that ought to be concentrated, for that is the only way for them to be effective, simply come to nothing by being drawn out. Something which functions properly at a certain density will of course be useless once it has become thin and worn. Many of the things that play a large role in modern economics are quite useless when it comes to making world affairs progress. Our particular task would thus be to grow concise in our thinking also with regard to practical things, and not to kill time. However, time still has to be killed these days, unless the anthroposophical movement, which after all supports our enterprises, becomes what it ought to be: A movement based on truth in every respect, a movement where all untruth eliminates itself because we have no use for it and because it would immediately show itself to be what it is.

This is what I wanted to say to you today. It is not addressed to anyone in particular. Please do not continue to go around saying that I was aiming at one thing or another in particular. I wanted to give you a clear picture of the facts as they are in general. The world situation is serious today and the things that have been going on among us here in Stuttgart really reflect the serious situation that exists for the whole of civilization. The things that haunt us in our community here can teach us a lot about the things that haunt the world as a whole.

I do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings. Nor do I want to moralize, to preach at you. The intention has been to discuss the things that have been obvious to the eye and to the soul on so many occasions over the last two weeks.

• 30. ‘Die Erziehung und der Unterricht gegenüber der Weltlage der Gegenwart’ (Education and teaching in the light of the present world situation), Stuttgart 10 June 1920. Published in Geisteswissenschaft und die Lebensforderungen der Gegenwart 6, Dornach 1950. To be published in GA 335. No record of translation into English.
• 31. Die Kernpunkte der Sozialen Frage in den Lebensnotwendigkeiten der Gegenwart und Zukunft (1919) GA 23. English translation: Towards Social Renewal. F.T. Smith tr. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1977.
• 32. See Rudolf Steiner's Mein Lebensgang (1923–25) GA. 28. English translation: Rudolf Steiner: An Autobiography. R. Stebbing tr. New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications 1977.
• 33. Von Seelenrätseln (Riddles of the soul) (1917) GA. 21. Parts translated into English in The Case for Anthroposophy. Owen Barfield tr. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1970.
• 34. Molt, Emil, see ref. 37.
  
  Kühn, Hans, writer and publisher.
  
  Unger, Carl, grad. engineer, owner of machine tool works, member of Council of the German Anthroposophical Society from 1905, lecturer and writer. Shot by a mentally sick individual in Nuremberg in 1929.
  
  Leinhas, Emil, businessman, managing director of Der Kommende Tag AG (see ref. 39), writer.
• 35. Seiling, Max, first a follower then an opponent of Rudolf Steiner. Bore the title Privy Councillor.
  
  TN. Rudolf Steiner used word-play here, calling Hofrat (Privy Councillor) Seiling an Un-Rat. The word Unrat means garbage, refuse, ordure.
• 36. An das deutsche Volk und an die Kultunvelt! (Appeal to the German nation and the civilized world), pamphlet, 1919, reprinted a.o. in Towards Social Renewal (ref. 31).
• 37. Appeal to establish a Council for Culture. Whitsun 1919, signed by many well-known figures in cultural life.
• 38. Waldorf School: intergrated primary and secondary school established by Emil Molt in 1919 for the children of workers in the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Factory and the general public. This was done under the guidance of Rudolf Steiner who also appointed the teachers and himself gave the preparatory teachers' seminars.
• 39. Der Konunende Tag, Aktiengesellschaft zur F6rderung wirtschaftlicher and geistiger Werte (join-stock company for the promotion of economic and cultural values), established in Stuttgart in March 1920. Rudolf Steiner was Chairman of the Board until 1923. The company became a victim of post-war inflation in Germany and had to be dissolved in 1925.
• 40. Stuttgart 16 June 1920; published in Landwirtschafi und Industrie/Neuordnung des Bodenrechtes als soziale Forderung der Gegenwart (Agriculture and industry/New proposals for land ownership as a social requirement for the present age); quoted from the writings and lectures of Rudolf Steiner, Roman Boos ed., Stuttgart 1957, S. 84 ff. (to be published in GA 335). No record of translation into English.

My dear friends!

It will be different for me too, and I will have to speak to you today from a different background than I have been able to do in these meetings in past years. For we are still under the impression of the passing of our beloved anthroposophical building, the Goetheanum. I do not need to emphasize again and again what that actually means. The words of the Chairman have brought this home to you today; and I am convinced that these words were spoken from the soul of each of you. It is indeed the case that an accident beyond a certain level can only be revealed in silent language, and that words are really not enough to express what has been lost for us with the Goetheanum.

In the lectures that I had to give at the General Assembly of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and the General Assembly of the Goetheanum Association in the meantime between the two assemblies and following them, I had to talk about everything that I feel compelled to say at this time.

Much of what I have to say at this time is, of course, said precisely in view of the great stroke of fate that has affected us. It should also not be overlooked how this stroke of fate has shown that there is a great deal of shared feeling among the members of the Anthroposophical Society. But, my dear friends, what I would say came to expression in a way that was self-evident to us at the time, when we were under the immediate and momentary impression of the Goetheanum fire, was that we did not want to give up the continuity of the work of our spiritual life. That must always inspire us. And it is particularly important that we know how to act in the sense of what I said yesterday: to work from the center of our spiritual life and not to be deterred by the most painful or uplifting impressions from the outside world in this actual inner work and attitude that comes from the center. The real perspective of the anthroposophical movement depends on this. It does not depend on how many and what kind of blows of fate come from outside. These must be accepted with the attitude that arises from the anthroposophical view of life. But the question of whether the inner energy needed to work out the center of spiritual life slackens despite all strokes of fate, or despite all favorable strokes of fate, depends on what is to be achieved and can be achieved with the anthroposophical movement.

But we must always remind ourselves of what is necessary for such work, especially in these very difficult times.

I would just like to note that in a spiritual movement of the kind that anthroposophy is, if it is to find the right path, success and failure must be taken as meaningless, and that only that which arises from the inner strength and impulses of the cause itself means anything. But a great deal depends on the consciousness of those united in the Anthroposophical Society.

My dear friends, you only have to consider the following: attitudes and impulses of consciousness do not materialize overnight. We cannot say today what the successes of the impulses of consciousness and attitudes of the day before yesterday are. If you did that, you would end up in a completely different direction than anthroposophy can take. For example, if you were to take the matter in this external way, you would be able to say: We rely on our good luck. But then, if this luck is not there in the way you imagine it, you would also say: We lose our courage, our energy. I might have imagined that at the time when we were struck by the terrible misfortune, there might have been souls, even among anthroposophists, who would have said: Yes, why did the good spiritual powers not protect us in this case? Can one believe in the impact of a movement that is so abandoned by the good spirits?

Such a thought, my dear friends, is linked to appearances, not to that which comes unerringly from the inner center of the matter, through appearances alone. If we want to take it seriously that our attitudes, thoughts and, in particular, our impulses of consciousness are realities, then we must believe in them ourselves, in these impulses of consciousness, in these thoughts, in these feelings, not in the help that they can get from outside, but in their own power. Then one must be sure that what one draws from such impulses will, despite all outward appearances of failure, reach its true goal, the goal prescribed for it in the spiritual world; even if it were to be completely destroyed for the time being by external circumstances in the external world.

He who can ever entertain the belief that a spiritual idea, which is rightly willed, can be completely destroyed by anything in the external world, even if the destruction takes place in the external Maja, does not really believe in the power of spiritual impulses, in the power of spiritual energy. It must still be possible to say at the moment when everything external perishes: Success is certain for that which is willed from within. But then one may only speak of success in the sense of that which lies within the inner impulses, the thoughts, the intentions of consciousness themselves. The things that take place in the outer world usually happen in such a way that they often only become explainable after decades, or perhaps even longer. And to judge the government of the spiritual world by the current constellations, if I may say so, would be to be timid about this spiritual world. The spiritual world must give itself its strength and power. Now there is nothing within the earthly world except human minds in which this power can find a home, can be understood; not organizations, not institutions, however beautiful or ugly they may be, can in any way prove or disprove what is really willed by the spirit.

Those who seek to prove or disprove the truth or falsehood of the spiritual by outward appearances are on the wrong path, for they do not stand within the center of spiritual impulses but outside it. The innermost part of the human soul is the only thing that can be used to judge what is at issue here; external connections can never be decisive. On the other hand, however, this means that people who want to be the leaders of such a spiritual movement must strive more and more for this inner strength and develop an understanding of what it actually means to work from the inner center of a spiritual movement. It seems to me, my dear friends, that it is urgently necessary, especially at this moment, to become fully aware of how difficult this is and how it cannot be sufficiently fulfilled by what is often expressed by saying, “I have the anthroposophical attitude, I have the anthroposophical will.” It cannot be satisfied by that in any way.

And here I would like to mention a word that I have often spoken, often spoken since the Goetheanum fire, and which I would like to see really understood; I have often said it: The first Goetheanum, the form of the first Goetheanum, this home of anthroposophy, as a building, as it stood there, cannot be rebuilt.

You see, my dear friends, when such a word, which is meant in the spirit, is spoken, it must be felt as a reality, one must make the assumption that one can look at it from the most diverse sides, as one can look at realities from the most diverse sides, that one can often only gain the right perspective for such a word from a certain starting point. For such a word was spoken initially out of spiritual obligation. And at the moment when the word is spoken out of spiritual obligation, there is absolutely no need to carry around on one's physical hands all the reasons, the so-called reasons, for such a word.

Today, at this hour, it is less incumbent upon me to speak of the external circumstances, but I would like to speak today particularly about something that is connected with the inner impulse of this word: the first Goetheanum cannot be rebuilt. And please allow me to speak of it with all seriousness; because only this seriousness towards the task of reconstruction can give the friends the right attitude.

You see, we can report an external fact today. This external fact is that the legal investigations that followed the Goetheanum fire have now been concluded; one can say that they have been concluded so that the authorities have now been able to decide to pay us the sum insured of three million and some hundred thousand francs. The payment has been made. These three million are there; and this fact can be recorded for the time being today. So, since June 15, we have had these three million.

Now, my dear friends, it could turn out that souls would breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that we now have these three million for the construction and at most have to raise another three million through the willingness of our friends to make sacrifices. One could characterize the fact in this way. One could now record this June 15 as an extraordinarily joyful event in the development of the anthroposophical movement.

My dear friends, it is not. And if I am to shed light on the matter for you today from a perspective that is wholly in keeping with anthroposophical life, then I must speak differently. For me, for example, this fact, which may be described as extraordinarily joyful by some and extraordinarily sad by others, is extraordinarily painful. And one of the feelings of suffering that I have had since the Goetheanum fire is that I have had to say to myself: what has happened now must be brought about, must be brought about in the best and most energetic way, must happen of necessity; but something must be brought about that actually has nothing to do with the center of the anthroposophical movement, that lies completely outside the center work of this movement.

You see, my dear friends, the saying: The first Goetheanum cannot be rebuilt, has not only an aesthetic, not only an opportunistic, not only an external-historical background, but also an anthroposophical-moral one. And it is this anthroposophical-moral background that I would like to talk about today.

Let us look back to 1913, 1914, and ask ourselves: what were the reasons behind the decision to build the Goetheanum and to start this construction project? What was pursued at that time and in the period leading up to December 31, 1922, or January 1, 1923, was based on the fact that every single franc that was invested in the Goetheanum flowed from the willingness to make sacrifices of those who, in some way, professed their belief in the anthroposophical movement. The Goetheanum was built entirely out of inner understanding. Every franc flowed out of inner understanding for the cause.

My dear friends, the following is truth, is real truth, because reality coincides with the inner core of the matter: at the moment the last lecture was given at the Goetheanum, we had a home for anthroposophy that had been built with the sacrificial pennies and sacrificial cents of those who were wholeheartedly committed to the cause. From the hill in Dornach, the building shimmered, having incorporated anthroposophical will and anthroposophical willingness to sacrifice into every cubic centimeter of wood and stone. This moral substance was built into the first Goetheanum.

My dear friends, now we will begin to build with three million francs, many of which come from the pockets of those who not only have no inner interest in the Goetheanum, but have an interest in this Goetheanum not being there. And when the Goetheanum again shimmers down from the hill of Dornach, it will not only be built with anthroposophical willingness to make sacrifices, but also with what is common outside of anthroposophy in the structure of the present world.

Then, my dear friends, there will be a very different structure, seen from the inner spiritual point of view. There will most certainly be people who will not only not accompany with any deep sympathy, but perhaps even with a kind of curse, what, according to the social context that now exists, comes out of their pockets and is built into the Goetheanum.

I have often said that within a movement such as anthroposophy's, it is a matter of being awake, not sleeping. What I have told you now is not said in a sleeping state, but in a waking one. For us, words such as “blessing of a thing”, “connection of blessing with beautiful qualities of the human mind” must not be a mere phrase; for us they must be a fact. And so the first Goetheanum was built with the inner feeling that we were doing something that, from its right causes, takes the path forward in such a way that this path is the path of the causes themselves. Now we are building the Goetheanum in a tragic direction, my dear friends. A tragically built Goetheanum is different from the Goetheanum that we were able to tackle in 1913, 1914.

You see, my dear friends, anthroposophy is often criticized for being too intellectual. No, it leads through what lies in its real impulses to the deeper feelings of humanity. In 1913, one could begin building with a joyful heart; today, when one begins, it is almost inevitable that one begins in tears. I am giving you just such a description, which comes from the inner center of spiritual thinking; and such thinking differs quite essentially from thinking that takes its impulses from external facts. Thinking that is linked to external facts would probably not express the words I have just spoken; instead, it would be excitedly joyful that June 15 brought us the three million.

My dear friends, I have often spoken, perhaps unjustifiably in the eyes of many of you, about the fact that there is an inner opposition within the Anthroposophical Society to what I sometimes have to represent from the center of anthroposophy; today I do not want to characterize this opposition again; but I would just like to ask the question: Has the feeling that I have just expressed been present everywhere in the course of the last few months, since the Goetheanum fire? If another feeling has been present, it has been an example of inner opposition. It was a feeling that should no longer have been reckoned with, after the anthroposophical movement has gone through the three periods of its existence.

When we stood here on the hill in Dornach, bowed down with grief on the first day after the fire, while the flames were still licking outside, many anthroposophists gathered around the still burning building. One or another said something. In the end, it really did not matter to me what anyone said, because the content of the words is only a symptom for the actual spiritual background; but I would like to say that what was said on that first day after the outbreak of the terrible disaster differed in two respects. Anthroposophists spoke the word, for example: Now we no longer have the Goetheanum, now we want to build it in our hearts. It was an elementary feeling that already had something to do with the center of the movement. But there were other voices that spoke like this: The Goetheanum is insured; will it be possible to rebuild it with the insurance money?

My dear friends, I do not want to lead you into impracticality in any area of life. I have nothing against these things being considered as practically as possible. But it depends on the intentions. It depends on whether one recognizes the difference between what was there before and what will necessarily have to be built now. For no one should say, in the anthroposophical field, that it does not matter what the intentions are, as long as the Goetheanum is rebuilt. Attitudes and thought impulses, especially impulses of consciousness, do not work overnight, but move in the currents of the spiritual world and must not be judged by mere external facts, which are only symptoms for them, not an immediate reality.

Now, in everything that had to be done after the fire – please forgive me for mentioning this too – I tried, as far as it was possible under the influence of the necessary facts, to shape our actions from the center of the matter. Therefore, I calmed the friends who, in the first few days, saw it as the most necessary thing to use all possible means to protect our interests – for example, during the negotiations with the insurance company. I tried as far as possible to remove from our actions everything that did not come from the core of the anthroposophical movement itself.

My dear friends, must we not think that we have to learn to take our affairs into our own hands, that we have to learn not to proceed as we would on unanthroposophical ground? It was certainly not to impose more work on myself that I tried to conduct all negotiations in such a way that they were conducted by us on our own side.

I knew that I was taking on a responsibility towards our friends. Because if the outcome of June 15 had been worse, people would naturally have said: If you had taken the right lawyers at the time, things would have been different. But such responsibilities have to be taken on when it comes to the higher duties arising from the center of anthroposophical work. They have to be taken seriously. And they are no longer taken seriously if one does not, as far as possible, remain within the designated center in specific cases. One immediately describes one's powerlessness when one declares oneself unable to deal with matters that are one's own, from the center of anthroposophical impulses. Of course, we can never set out today to do what should actually be done, I would say, as the most radical thing: to use the three million for some charitable purpose, and to build the Goetheanum again only out of the sacrificial willingness of the friends.

My dear friends, as I said, do not regard me as a person who wants to tempt you not to be practical. But my concern now is not just to focus on the external deeds; my concern is to utter the words that should shape our thinking, to utter them quite openly. If we make them shape our thinking, then they will also, in the nobler sense, have the right results.

Those who say, “So we have to use the three million for charitable purposes and have to wait until the building can be rebuilt out of a willingness to make sacrifices,” would of course be wrong now. They would again be confusing what must be done with what suits their selfish, ambitious intentions. The energy and strength do not lie in choosing the easiest path, even if the easiest path can be described as extraordinarily moral in an egoistic sense; but the energy lies in the fact that, even if the path has to be a tragic one, one plunges, if I may say so, into the tragedy. But this must not be done unconsciously; one must plunge into the tragedy consciously and know that one is in a realm in which one cannot do what is purely anthroposophical; one must know that one must do what one has to do, despite the fact that it is not anthroposophical, but must balance it out with an all the stronger anthroposophical element. When you weigh something, you don't take away from the pan on the side where the weights are too heavy for the other side; you add to the other side.

We will need that. We will have to create the counterweights through an even stronger anthroposophical approach to counteract what we are tragically being led into, as something that, for the most part, perhaps for half of it, must happen un-anthroposophically. I can say that it would perhaps have been easiest for me to say: I will only lend a hand in building the Goetheanum if the three million insurance money is used for charitable purposes and the building fund is created entirely through donations. It would have been easier because it would have caused less pain. But we must not shy away from pain, my dear friends, if we want to work in the realm of reality. But neither should we want to ignore the pain. We should not just keep telling ourselves: we are doing what is most beautiful, what is best. We cannot do that in the earthly world, least of all in the present. Therefore, we should not let our heads sink and say: then I will lose heart altogether. When the gods sometimes seem to fade away, as if they were not there, as if humanity had been abandoned by them, the wisdom of the gods consists in people receiving impulses to seek them out even more in the places where they have hidden, but not to complain about their disappearance and inaction. Wanting the earth only as a soft resting place and only finding it divine when it presents itself in such a way that it always corresponds to what one would like, can never form the attitude of a spiritual movement, because that is not strength, that is powerlessness. And we will not perform the Goetheanum, which is colorfully tragic, out of powerlessness, but only with the development of strength, with the awareness that where the gods seem to have withdrawn, they must be sought all the more by us in their place, where they seem to be hidden.

My dear friends, I wanted to develop thoughts of encouragement. And since it is quite difficult to speak between the lines, today I have added some things to the lines themselves, I would say with a certain clarity. But what I have added to these lines is really necessary if we want to develop the right attitude in the near future for the reconstruction of the Goetheanum and also for other things. It would not help at all to lull ourselves into this or that illusion; but it helps solely and exclusively to face ourselves without a veil with the eyes of truth, in this case the inner truth that flows from the moral side of anthroposophy.

If that can happen, then what should actually happen would happen: that the Anthroposophical Society, in the midst of today's world events, would be a place where people do not indulge in the illusions in which everyone lives today. Because for much of what is happening in the present, you can expose the illusions. Since 1914, people have been living with a certain relish in illusions because they do not have the inner courage to admit the truths. If the Anthroposophical Society, the association of the Goetheanum, could develop awakening soul power in the midst of a world full of illusions, then, my dear friends, the tragic situation in which we now find ourselves, and about which we should not be under any illusion, would be counterbalanced as it is in every real tragedy.

Study the tragedians of all times. You will see that the tragedy consists in the fact that everything external seems to collapse and that only within oneself is the strength to lead beyond the catastrophe. When this occurs in art, some people like to look at it, although today there are not many, because tragedies are no longer very popular. But if it is to happen in reality, then things must happen as I have characterized them. Then something must happen that makes the Anthroposophical Society, the Goetheanum Association, stand out in its inner spiritual attitude like an island formation within a world based on illusions. Then what is a real power can radiate into the world based on illusions.

My dear friends, if we take the words in the right way that I had to speak to you, then there will be much intention, much endeavor, much striving for a different state than the one we are in, in our feeling. Then we will not be blinded by much satisfaction, especially not much self-satisfaction. We will banish from us the thoughts of satisfaction and self-satisfaction and awaken in us those thoughts that can arise from a purely spiritual view of things. Then we will have right thoughts of building up out of the spirit.

My dear friends, it was in all seriousness, but also, I believe, with complete objectivity, that I wanted to speak to you today. And I thank the board of the Goetheanum Association for giving me the opportunity to speak these words at this event about what is so closely linked to the fate of the Goetheanum, the past and the possibly coming Goetheanum.