The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends!

The development and reception of anthroposophical endeavors in the present makes a change in my working method necessary. Anthroposophy has revealed itself as a soul need for an ever-increasing number of people; on the other hand, it is increasingly confronted with misunderstandings and misjudgments by many.

This requires that I meet the increased demands for the cultivation of the anthroposophical need more than has been the case since the time when practical institutions of various kinds have been formed by the objectives of the friends of our cause. These institutions have arisen in a thoroughly justified way from the intentions of these friends on the basis of the anthroposophical movement. And it was also understandable that when these friends strove for the realization of such practical ideas, the wish arose for me to be involved in the administration of the corresponding institutions. I accommodated this wish, although I was aware that this accommodation, which was a natural obligation, would draw me away from my actual task of caring for the center of anthroposophical work for some time.

For a relatively short period of time, I had to comply with the wishes of my friends. But now I must also take the position that I may continue to work only within this center of anthroposophical life with its artistic and educational implications. I must belong entirely to anthroposophy as such, as well as to its artistic and educational endeavors and the like, and to institutions such as “Kommender Tag” etc. only to the extent that the spiritual impulses of anthroposophy flow into them. In the interest of the anthroposophical cause, I must withdraw from all administrative matters of these institutions. Only in this way will it be possible for me to work as intensively as is necessary in view of their own demands and the rapidly growing opposition.

These are the reasons that move me to resign from the office of chairman of the supervisory board of “Kommenden Tages” now. I ask the friends of the anthroposophical cause not to take this as a change in the intensive, factual and ideal work of “Kommenden Tages”. This work is in good hands; and I ask that no degree of trust be withdrawn from it in the future. I am convinced that everything will go better if I now formally place this work in the hands of those who will do it well, and devote myself to the cause to which I have been assigned by fate. Whatever intellectual stimulus I can give to the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, the Coming-Day Publishing House, the research institutes, the journals, etc., will flow better to them if I am removed from the actual administration. Practically speaking, nothing essential will change within the same, since I have been obliged, even in recent times, to grow into the situation described as necessary for the future through the circumstances I have explained. So it is only the situation that has actually arisen that is being officially established.

I therefore hope that my resignation from the supervisory board of the “Day to Come” will be seen as an expression of my trust in its leadership and that it will become such among the members of the Anthroposophical Societies as well. It should strengthen, not weaken, that trust. If there were any reason to weaken it, I would have to stay. However, the fact is that I am indebted to the knowledgeable and prudent leadership and therefore have no need to return to the anthroposophical cause in the narrower sense. I ask you to take this as the reason for the step that is now necessary.

Rudolf Steiner.

The following are three addresses given to the children of the first Waldorf school at school assemblies in 1919 and 1920. In the Christmas assembly address Steiner also spoke to the parents who were in attendance. Steiner had previously assisted the industrialist Emil Molt in establishing the school for the children of the factory workers of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany. He made frequent visits, traveling from Switzerland, to work with the faculty of the school and to view the students' progress. (A chapter from Molt's autobiography describing the opening of the school appeared in Issue No. 2 of The Threefold Review.)

What is most revealing in these addresses is how open and straightforward Steiner was concerning the Christian basis of the school. Even though Christ is central to Anthroposophy, the world view based on spiritual-scientific research and inaugurated by Steiner, Anthroposophy is open to everyone regardless of religious background. Waldorf schools, which are based on Anthroposophy, are also open to families of any religious background.

A universal approach to Christianity is elaborated by Steiner in the following passages:

“Would a Buddhist be justified in saying that he may not acknowledge Christ because nothing is said to this effect in his scriptures? Is anything essential at stake when a truth is not found in particular writings or scriptures? Would it be right for a Buddhist to say that it is against the principles of Buddhism to believe in the truth of the Copernican theory of the universe, for no mention of it is made in his books? What applies to the Copernican theory applies equally to the findings of modern spiritual-scientific research concerning the Christ-being, namely, that because He has nothing to do with any particular denomination, the Christ can be accepted by a Hindu or an adherent of any other religion. Those who reject what spiritual science has to say about the Christ impulse in relation to the religious denominations simply do not understand what the true attitude to religion should be.

“Perhaps some day the time will come when it will be realized that what we have to say about the nature of the Christ impulse and its relation to all religious denominations and world-conceptions speaks directly to the heart and soul, as well as [endeavors] to deal consistently with particular phases of the subject. It is not easy for everyone to realize what efforts are made to bring together things that can lead to the true understanding of the Christ impulse needed by man in the present cycle of existence. Avowal of the belief in Christ has nothing fundamentally to do with any particular religion or religious system. A true Christian is simply one who is accustomed to regard every human being as bearing the Christ principle in himself, who looks for the Christ in a Chinese, a Hindu, or whoever he may be. In a man who avows his belief in Christ is founded the realization that the Christ impulse is not confined to one part of the earth. To imagine it as confined would be a complete fallacy. The reality is that since the mystery of Golgotha, Paul's proclamation to the region with which he was connected has been true—Christ died also for the heathen. Humanity must learn to understand that Christ did not come for one particular people, one particular epoch, but for all the peoples of the earth, for all of them! Christ has sown His spirit-seed in every human soul, and progress consists in the souls of men becoming conscious of this.”¹

• 1. Life Between Death and Rebirth (Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, N.Y.,1968), pp. 50–51.

To the members of the Anthroposophical and the Free Anthroposophical Society in Germany:

May 1923

My dear friends! The development and reception of anthroposophical endeavors in the present makes it necessary for me to change the way I work. Anthroposophy has revealed itself as a soul need for an ever-increasing number of people; on the other hand, it is increasingly confronted with misunderstandings and misjudgments by many.

This requires that I meet the increased demands for the cultivation of the anthroposophical need more than has been the case since the time when practical institutions of various kinds were formed by the objectives of the friends of our cause. These institutions have arisen in a thoroughly justified way from the intentions of these friends on the basis of the anthroposophical movement. And it was also understandable that when these friends strove for the realization of such practical ideas, the wish arose for me to be involved in the administration of the corresponding institutions. I accommodated this wish, although I was aware that this accommodation, which was a natural obligation, would draw me away from my actual task of caring for the center of anthroposophical work for some time.

For a relatively short period of time, I had to comply with the wishes of my friends. But now I must also take the position that I may continue to work only within this center of anthroposophical life with its artistic and educational implications. I must belong entirely to anthroposophy as such, as well as to its artistic and educational endeavors and the like, and to institutions such as “Kommender Tag” etc. only to the extent that the spiritual impulses of anthroposophy flow into them. In the interest of the anthroposophical cause, I must withdraw from all administrative matters of these institutions. Only in this way will it be possible for me to work as intensively as is necessary in view of their own demands and the rapidly growing opposition.

These are the reasons that move me to resign from the office of chairman of the supervisory board of “Kommenden Tages” now. I ask the friends of the anthroposophical cause not to take this as a sign that the intensive, appropriate and ideal work of “Kommenden Tages” will change. This work is in good hands; and I ask that no degree of trust be withdrawn from it in the future. I am convinced that everything will go better if I now formally place this work in the hands of those who will do it well, and devote myself to the cause to which I have been assigned by fate. Whatever intellectual stimulus I can give to the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, the Coming-Day Publishing House, the research institutes, the journals, etc., will flow better to them if I am removed from the actual administration. Practically speaking, nothing essential will change within the same, since I have been obliged, even in recent times, to grow into the situation described as necessary for the future through the circumstances I have explained. So it is only the situation that has actually arisen that is being officially established.

I therefore hope that my resignation from the supervisory board of the “Day to Come” will be seen as an expression of my trust in its leadership and that it will become such among the members of the Anthroposophical Societies as well. It should strengthen that trust, not weaken it. If there were any reason to weaken it, I would have to stay. However, the situation is such that I am unnecessarily dependent on the knowledgeable and prudent leadership, and therefore obliged, to return to the anthroposophical cause in the narrower sense.

I ask you to take this as the reason for the step that is now necessary.

Rudolf Steiner

Address by Rudolf Steiner before his Departure for Stuttgart

My dear friends! Since my departure has been delayed a little, I am now able to say a final farewell to you. You are aware, of course, that I am now leaving behind the care here in Switzerland for the publication of the essay on the social question, which has just been completed and which I hope will appear quite soon. After what I said here last Monday, I would like to once again strongly recommend this essay to you. I have indeed expressed the hope that here in Switzerland, in particular, something can be done in the sense intended by this writing, and in a particularly fruitful way, for the reason that in Eastern and Central Europe what has to happen first, what is an urgent necessity, has already been challenged, so to speak, by the immediate pressure for the very near future. Here in Switzerland, traditional conditions will continue for a while. Here, therefore, people are still able to do of their own free will many things that others are forced to do.

Now it so happens in our present human development that only that which happens out of free will, out of the free initiative of people, can be particularly fruitful, truly fruitful. If only people could pull themselves together in places where it is still possible without being forced by the terrible facts of the matter, if only they could be roused to do of their own free will what can ultimately only be recognized in a spiritual-scientific way, something tremendously significant could be achieved through this initiative of free will. For this reason, it may now be said, even on Swiss soil, that very special hopes are possible here.

Now, my dear friends, you know that what has been striven for as anthroposophical spiritual science for almost two decades has experienced many, many trials. It is to be assumed that what is expressed in this social writing will initially be met with strong opposition from many who are unable to rethink, because it still appeals to a broader, much broader public. People will find all sorts of objections: impracticality, fantastic flights of fancy, contradictions. People will take particular issue with the latter because the writing is taken from life and real practice, and life and practice themselves have contradictions, so it is easy to find contradictions in them. The philistines, the philistines, all those who like to grovel for contradictions, will have a rich pickings; all those things that, as you have often heard and also otherwise know, come from originate from gossip, which are actually such that one would not want to deal with them at all, and only has to deal with them again and again because there are always members of our society who cannot take the right view of things. I am always amazed, though, that – while my coherent literary work of world view has been available since the beginning of the 1980s and its most essential features can be examined by anyone in terms of its value and content – there are always people, even among the members, who cannot find the right point of view to naturally reject all the stupidities that arise when, for example, it is said here or there, as is now being said from a particularly foolish side, that what I have taught comes from this or that source, from this or that mysterious place or from this or that person; that not all our members are clever enough to object: Yes, the works have been available since the 1980s. And what kind of foolish, stupid things do you gossip about? It is not necessary to judge by gossip what has been publicly available for decades; the fact that not all of our members have already become so clever is something that could fill us with a certain bitterness. Because what is to be judged here is quite obvious to everyone, it is available to everyone. And when people still come to me and keep asking: “Is it true? Is it true?” and so on, there is a channel where this and that is said. All the material to refute the things is there. They have been around for a long time, in printed form. These are things that naturally, my dear friends, will also be attached to what is really coming out of the revelations of humanity right now, through this social intention that is emerging in this book. And so I would like to add a few words here today, that there should at least be a certain number among our members who understand what is being put into the world in the right way and really take it in terms of its content, not according to all kinds of mysterious ideas and suggestions and so on. It is not necessary, my dear friends, that we always color our things from mysterious hints, but our real task is to step forward boldly and fearlessly with what results from the deepest demands of the present, and to stand up for it in such a way that today only the anthroposophist can actually stand up for these things. For anthroposophy should not only give people something that they can think in one way or another. However strange it may sound, my dear friends, what is a major demand of the present day is that people become wiser. And anthroposophy should help people in all areas of life to become wiser, to make them more agile in their thinking, to give them what people today so sorely lack: the possibility of being convinced of something.

Yes, my dear friends, consider in this area what is perhaps one of the most necessary things in the present day. In response to that appeal, which appeared some time ago, which could have been read by thousands of people, which has been much discussed, even in response to this appeal, some characteristic personalities have said that they cannot understand what is in it. Yes, my dear friends, that is precisely the most saddening thing, that people who for years, in the last difficult, catastrophic years for humanity, have believed everything, have been able to understand everything that they have been ordered to believe, that people who are quite willing to accept what have nothing but an order from above, that they welcome that which appeals to their freedom, to their free understanding, simply when it does not run in the usual lines of thought, so that they say, 'Yes, there you need more detailed explanations, you can't understand that'. That is already one of the saddest things in the present, this resistance to being convinced, this brutal response arising from the most terrible lack of understanding of the demands of humanity: “You can't understand that, it's abstract, or something like that. It is precisely those people who, under the terrible straitjacket of censorship, or the censorship of different countries, have accepted everything, who have parroted every word that has come from above, no matter how idiotic it was, who cannot understand that which appeals to their free minds, to their free souls.

But today we have reached a point where only that which people allow to approach their free understanding will be decisive, only that which people do not allow to be commanded to be understood, but what people want to understand from their innermost being. That is why what a man of the local community recently said to me about the social lecture I gave here is very true: Yes, some people say that they have not understood it: these are just the people who did not want to understand. They did not want to understand. We must always keep this in mind, that must be our strict, straight direction, what is said with these words. That is what it is about. What is needed for the future is not a change of institutions based on old, familiar ideas. What is needed for the future is new ideas, new impulses and, in particular, the awareness that what we have been thinking in the old way is no longer useful.

And the present faces a momentous decision. You of all people should not keep coming back with: But that has already been said, that has been said, that has been said. Of course, many things have been said. But that is not the point. What it is about is summarizing from a broad perspective, from the perspective that follows from the demands of the immediate present. If we as anthroposophists can stand on this ground, then we will be able to place our personality here or there in the turmoil of the times, so that you can really throw something meaningful, no matter how small, into the present.

In particular, I would like to see anthroposophy bear fruit in this social work. I would not like you to regard these two areas as separate entities, but to see how one can support the other and you are aware that people who have never wanted to listen to any spiritual deepening of the world view in recent times are of course at first as unsuitable as possible to understand those social impulses that are given here. But all the more reason to remember our obligation, once we have the anthroposophical basis, to do something to make things understandable to people. Today, my dear friends, it is not a matter of asking for details at every opportunity. Those who ask for details at every opportunity only want to continue in the old tracks. Today, it is truly not a matter of having things worked out in the most specific details. What is at issue is the great, significant lines of a reorganization of things that extends across the world. And much of what still seems to people today as if they could not do without, much of it will no longer be talked about at all in some time, so it will be swept away.

This sense of being attuned to the times will have to provide the basic nuance for what the ideas and ideals and impulses that have grown on anthroposophical soil have to permeate. From this point of view, I would like to urge you not to take this matter lightly, not to take it lightly. As I said last time, it is not a matter of distorting these things into sectarianism, but it is a matter of thinking these things on a large scale, above all, of thinking that it is important to find as many people as possible who understand the matter. It is not so much the institution that matters today: it is people who understand that matter today. For everything that people think who do not want to understand what today's times demand must first go and will go. You can be quite sure: it will go. It must first go. Only that which those who really want to work with new human feelings strive for has validity. The greatest resistance will arise precisely among the so-called intellectuals, among the so-called educated. They are the least able to think outside the box. This is something we are experiencing again today. There is an example, an example that can illustrate what I am talking about here: a little book about a particular person's mental illness has recently been published in Germany. Of course, there are plenty of “academically trained” doctors who accuse such a booklet of amateurism, contradictions, and insufficient foundations - not well researched by an expert. They claim that you can only judge mental illness if you have observed a person for a long time, if you have been in their environment.

Now, in this case, we are dealing with a person whose actions were laid bare for the whole world to see, discussed daily in the newspapers and so on. The fools who have their academic years, their clinics and their specialization behind them do not consider that the case must be judged quite differently. One must have the courage to look into such things without prejudice today.

That, my dear friends, is anthroposophy, not the mere parroting or inward parroting of the individual content: when you go beyond what is today the ballast of humanity, in the so-called professional world - one could better say, in the professional talk - that gives off the worst impulses. If you can penetrate to an unbiased judgment of these things, then you will have done something tremendous for your soul. Because that is what it is about, that is what we need. Above all, we need a courageous penetration through the wild prejudices that come from science, intelligence, scholarship, and their institutions. Because that is what holds us back the most. Do you believe that all the things that have been dreamed of here and there in terms of social structure can be true? Now, however, people are no longer dreaming because they have experienced not construction but destruction wherever it was discussed. But what has been done? Somehow a few people at the top have been replaced by others – and the whole apparatus, the whole vast apparatus, has remained. Yes, my dear friends, what is the inner basis of this whole apparatus in human nature? During the last four hundred years, people have been educated in their youth – but on what basis? They are brought up by the “All-holder, All-embracing, does it not grasp and hold you, me, itself?” - from the state or from that which is in some way connected to the state: to get a job, to live from this job, to let what is necessary for life be passed to you as passively as possible, and then, from this public institution, I mean, from this res publica, to draw a pension for the time after you have worked, until you die. After all, pensionable or insured positions are particularly what people love. And when death comes, the church assures eternal bliss, to which one comes without having really established an inner connection with the divine that flows and weaves through the world. This life, as it has increasingly taken hold of humanity in recent centuries: to be educated as passively as possible for a job that one does on the orders of this or that public institution, then to receive a pension from the very institution one , and finally, after death, eternal bliss, without knowing how to connect with the soul to the eternal in any way, has educated those people who today face the terribly speaking facts so passively. We must rise above this passivity with a pension and an eternal claim. We must find that which is divine substance within ourselves, we must find the impulses that place us in eternal life. We must place ourselves in this, not in some external institution to which we slavishly surrender. Man must become active, find within himself the impulses that are world impulses. This is what is ultimately most necessary and what underlies the question that may be raised: Yes, but how do people come to arrange their lives comfortably? And so on. That will no longer be possible in any case. And unless you first seek the God in your heart, anthroposophy will not grant you any bliss. Hegel's words remain true: Man is not only eternal after his death, man must be eternal - here in this physical body. That is, he must have truly found that which is eternal in him. These things are all already in anthroposophy; these things also underlie the healthy social ideas, which are now being expressed in writing and which I commend to you. And with this heartfelt recommendation, I would now like to suggest to you, since we have to leave, that we stay together in thought. We should have learned that. Therefore, until we meet again, in whatever way, we will stay together in thought, my dear friends.

Report in the “Mitteilungen des Zentralvorstandes der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft” No. 1/1921.

At four o'clock, Dr. Unger opens the discussion on the prerequisites, tasks and goals of an Anthroposophical Society and welcomes the numerous members of the Anthroposophical Society (about 1200) present. After a few procedural remarks that this is not a general assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, nor a founding assembly, but a gathering of the members present here, he hands over the chair to Mr. Uehli, who then gives Dr. Unger the floor as speaker.

Dr. Unger: We are in a difficult position with our movement in the midst of the decline of spiritual life, surrounded by organized opposition, behind which stand spiritual forces that we initially have to counter with only our free will to work. In order to arrive at a discussion of our main questions, some of the history of the anthroposophical movement should be presented, which is briefly outlined in my essay in the double issue of “Drei” appearing on the occasion of this congress, as it must be known to the public today. In future, no opponent must be allowed to claim ignorance of these facts. (What now follows is a reproduction of this essay, which may be read on the spot. The essay ends with the publication of the 'Draft of the Foundations of an Anthroposophical Society' written by Dr. Rudolf Steiner.) Unfortunately, there is reason to assume that even today this 'Draft of the Basic Principles' is not sufficiently known among the members of the Anthroposophical Society to fulfill its task. In the early days after the founding of the Society, it was my task to give lectures to the individual working groups that existed at the time and were forming rapidly about the tasks and goals of the Society. I had already indicated the Society's point of view in Number XIII (March 1912) of the “Mitteilungen” (Communications) for the members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, and characterized it by the words “trust” and “responsibility”. The founding committee considered itself responsible for the spiritual current and wanted to call for people to come forward who were willing to share this responsibility. Working groups were to be formed and a kind of trust organization was to be created from trustworthy personalities, who in turn should be willing to take responsibility for what they achieve to the founding committee, just as each individual member should be willing to take their share of responsibility to the trustworthy personalities. Trust should be the prerequisite for responsibility: just as the task was entrusted to the anthroposophical movement, so should trust be expressed in people, that in their hearts the spiritual current that is to be served is at work, trust in the will and understanding of those who approached the task in order to take on the responsible task of building something that could last into the future within the increasingly collapsing world of the present.

A motto precedes the 'Draft of the Basic Principles': 'Wisdom is only in the truth'. (From Goethe's Prose Sayings.) This motto was placed in its position when the Theosophical Society fought against the truth in an organizational way, when untruthfulness, lies and defamation began to cloak themselves in the nimbus of wisdom. In a serious sense, this motto calls us to the starting points of our society. A simple overview of the content of the “Draft” shows that the prerequisites, tasks and goals of the Anthroposophical Society are set out here. It contains an obligation in that every member must know it before joining the Society. But this obligation does not lie in the external organizational structure; rather, the Society as such should mean something to its members in a human sense.

There are secret societies with which the Anthroposophical Society is often compared, albeit wrongly. But for the members of such secret societies, their society means something. Of course there are also disputes among their members, and there are also apostates, but it will certainly not happen that such people will carry anything to the outside world that could harm their society. The Society as such is respected above and beyond all differences of opinion. This is one of the prerequisites of the Anthroposophical Society, which cannot establish a connection between its members through external discipline, obedience and the like, but must achieve this connection out of a free understanding of genuine spiritual life.

The goal of “a satisfying and healthy way of life” is pursued by the Anthroposophical Society in accordance with the “Draft of the Basic Principles” “by promoting genuine and healthy research directed towards the supersensible and by cultivating its influence on the human way of life”; “true spiritual research and the attitude of mind that arises from it shall give the Society its character”; thus from the very beginning the main emphasis has been placed on the practical side of life, and what has since emerged as the effect of anthroposophy on the various areas of life is precisely part of the ‘cultivation of its influence on human conduct’. The three guiding principles, in which the character of the Society can be expressed, are based on true spiritual research. They are prerequisites or conditions for the work of the Society, which sets itself and is not intended to present an external commandment. In particular, the first guiding principle shows that brotherhood is not presented as a phrase or abstract demand, but that it can result from observing the spiritual that is common to all human souls. In order to gain influence on the way of life, the work of Dr. Steiner had to be given the widest possible distribution. It must be added here to the history of the Anthroposophical Society that the initial period after its founding had to be devoted to the inner attitude towards the goals. However, this work was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of war. An Anthroposophical Society only makes sense on an international basis. However, the way in which national matters were handled during the war did not allow for external work. In addition, of the three founders of the Society who served as the Central Board, Dr. Steiner (Miss von Sivers) resigned from her post at the beginning of 1916, so that an interim administration of the Society had to be set up. And in the following years, Mr. Bauer's state of health repeatedly led him to announce his decision to resign from the central board, so that this wish could not be ignored.

The fact that the inner work was able to continue to a certain extent is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that after the armistice was concluded, out of the necessity to make a serious effort to implement the life-promoting impulses of spiritual science in the midst of the collapse of the traditional way of life, many initiatives were taken, initially by individuals. Forms began to develop out of the anthroposophical movement that were increasingly isolated from the outside world: the threefolding movement, the artistic impulses of the Goetheanum, eurythmy, the Waldorf school, research institutes, university courses, etc. All of this worked to influence people's way of life. In the explanations of the “guiding principles”, the “draft principles” then speak of an ideal of life that can be a general human ideal of how to live. Reference is made to the exemplary nature that can flow from the living interaction of the members, but that can only be shaped if the members have the right attitude despite the “complete appreciation of the thinking and feeling of the individual”.

The draft contains much that prompts us to ask: has the Anthroposophical Society fulfilled its tasks, is it in a position to fulfill them in the future? This will be the subject of our discussion. It has become quite evident in the present time that “the human being needs to know and cultivate his own supersensible nature and that of the world around him,” as stated at the beginning of the “Draft of Fundamental Principles”. The souls of people today, especially the souls of young people, are attracted by all kinds of movements with lofty goals that are pursued in an abstract way that suits the times. Such movements seek to attract people who we know are valuable and who should work with us towards our goals. Such valuable people experience great disappointments in these movements. Why don't they come to us?

As a statistical comment, it may be said that the membership of our Society has increased from 3647 in 1914 to 8238 on August 1 of this year; a large increase in membership coincides with the time when strong opposition has become effective. Let us assume that all of the more than 8,000 members own the fundamental works of Dr. Steiner (although not all of them are subscribers to the Threefolding Journal or the “Drei”!). Most of these fundamental works have reached print runs of over 20,000, with the “Core Points of the Social Question” reaching 40,000. With print runs of 20,000, one can certainly expect a readership of 40,000, and these are truly interested readers, because Dr. Steiner's books do not appear in second-hand bookshops. This proves that spiritual science as such is effective; but the Anthroposophical Society is not effective. It must be said, without fear of contradiction, that it is a stumbling block in many quarters, especially for valuable people. Why is this so? That should be the subject of our discussion, for the cooperation of the members of our Society does not correspond to what is stated as a prerequisite in the “Draft of the Basic Principles”.

The Society as such means little in the consciousness of many of its members. One symptom of this is that hundreds of members present here have come to our congress as people interested in the lectures, but not as members of the Society as such. This is shown by the fact that hundreds came without a membership card; this is said without reproach for the individual. There is much that can be said about what happens among us that flies in the face of our principles. But it has consequences that are felt throughout the world. So, in an organization that wants to be based on freedom, giving advice is what can prove to be spiritually effective. In such a society, one must be able to give advice, and such advice should be properly appreciated. Dr. Steiner's position within society is particularly that of an advisor. Dr. Steiner often gave advice, and often the opposite of what he advised happened. But often enough, the effect is that Dr. Steiner is blamed for the opposite of what he advised. I have been able to mention only a few. But much can come from the impulses of this congress for the fulfillment of the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society, which must break away from the inheritance of the old Theosophical Society. I pointed out many things in a circular letter a year ago; the circular letter had no effect. At that time, the success of such a congress could not be assumed with certainty. Now we have ventured this undertaking. Whether it will have the desired effect as an action will depend on the members of the Anthroposophical Society. To do this, we must take a serious and honest look at the situation. What I have said should be the basis for discussion, and you will contribute the best to it.

Mr. Uehli opens the discussion on the presentation and asks for written contributions.

Rector Bartsch underscores Dr. Unger's comments about Dr. Steiner's almost superhuman work and would now like to see the relationships of the members to the only remaining member of the central Executive Council regulated. He continues: Much has come from Stuttgart, as this congress also proves, and much would be better if the members of the Anthroposophical Society had shown themselves equal to their task. A movement with such great tasks would need a daily newspaper, and if the well over 5,000 members in Germany were each to recruit two to three subscribers to the three-part newspaper by Christmas, that would be a great success.

Of course, differences of opinion will always arise, but they can be resolved in the way I have described. We can only become a cohesive society if we are based on mutual trust. We must work towards solidarity. Various prominent figures at the forefront of our movement have been moved by such thoughts and feel it necessary to express that we have confidence in the extension of the board through free election, so that such an active board has the opportunity to embody the thoughts that have flowed from anthroposophy. Mr. Graf von Polzer-Hoditz: It is one of the basic truths of our spiritual movement that everything we decide and do happens at the right time. It is part of the signature of our time that everything has been stirred up in the individual human being. Therefore, we must approach our tasks with the right attitude. On behalf of many anthroposophists in various working groups in Austria, and speaking from my experience of being involved in the movement, I would like to express our confidence that the Central Board, which now consists of only one member, will be able to act again. From our relations with our friends in Czechoslovakia, I can also speak on behalf of those anthroposophists who live in Czechoslovakia today.

Dr. Stein uses an example to show how important it is to consider not only what may bother individuals, but also how things appear to the outside world. This is not given enough thought in our circles. He continues: “From this point of view, I would like to say a few words about the opposition, which is little known by members. You can't let the opponents be dealt with by a few specialists, of whom I am one. We must also take care of the individual issues raised by our opponents, for example, against the new edition of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. We do not represent our spiritual heritage at all if we accept it authoritatively. Each individual has the duty to examine the issues that an opponent wants to cast doubt on, and then to stand up for them when they know that they themselves stand for the cause with their entire personality. We are facing an opposition that does not just want to fight us, but to destroy us. The opponents organize themselves by loving evil. If our members knew that evil is even enthusiastically loved, then the strength would also be mustered to defend what wants to flow out of the sources of anthroposophy into all of humanity.

Mr. Ch. von Morgenstierne: Many difficulties have already been pointed out, and much more could be mentioned, for example, the great danger that our movement is perceived as a sect from many sides. Many influential people are repelled by this. We can best avoid this if we try to present the matter as it is done in the two main centers in Central Europe, in Dornach and Stuttgart. This could be seen at the summer course in Dornach that has just ended and at the present congress. We want to try to follow this example in the different countries. This is also said on behalf of many Nordic friends. We want to stand by the leadership of our movement, and I would also like to express the wish that the connection between the leadership of the Society and the other countries, for example with us in the north, becomes a firm and vibrant one.

Mr. Paul Smit: A true coexistence between people, the interaction from one person to another, which is so necessary for today's world, is often prevented by ideas coming between people. But these perceptions must be overcome as such; they must die in order to be transformed into life. That is why it is so important for the Anthroposophical Society to have people who understand how to practise spiritual science by silencing their perceptions when they are in contact with another person.

Mr. Uehli: Dr. Steiner wishes to read a statement.

Dr. Steiner: In a letter addressed to Dr. Steiner and myself, Mr. Kurt Walther, who has admirably led the management of the Anthroposophical Society in recent years, has resigned his office into the hands of those from whom he received it, in view of the changed circumstances and because it might be necessary to make changes that would be beneficial for the further development of the Society. Mr. Walther has devotedly administered the office within the Central Executive Council during these years, which I resigned at the beginning of 1916 for no other reason than because I did not want to associate Dr. Steiner's name with the thousand small affairs of the Society. Mr. Walther has thus taken on many arduous duties. I would like to publicly express my gratitude to him, who has to be absent today for official reasons.

Mr. George Kaufmann: Conscious of the tasks that the Anthroposophical Society has to fulfill in the whole civilized world today, I would like to warmly welcome the impulses that arise from this assembly. As it is also written in the 'Draft of the Fundamental Principles', this is connected with the fact that a knowledge of the supersensible nature of the human being and the world outside the human being is flowing into the hearts of many people. Therefore, our work is always directed towards the ability to judge and the sense of truth. Much is being done from here and from Dornach in all fields, which is beginning to give the anthroposophical spiritual knowledge respect in the world. The Anthroposophical Society should form the spiritual center of this work. Therefore, the Society must not be a sect, but the serious representative of a deep spiritual impulse. This movement is international, and in our hearts, we who work in different countries, live Dornach and the Goetheanum as the actual center of the movement; but it must be said that what could realize the Goetheanum as the center of the spiritual movement has not yet been done. Something could go out from this assembly to all parts of the world that can realize the internationality of the movement with its spiritual center in the Goetheanum; if a new revival of society emanates from here, where the strongest work is being done, and leads to concrete solidarity, then it will be able to have an effect on the non-German countries.

Mr. J. van Leer: In his opening speech, Dr. Unger pointed out that we are openly expressing here what is on our minds. I would like to point out some of the things that are to blame for the fact that we have not realized what could and should have been realized. The Anthroposophical Society welcomes all people who want to work in our spirit, but when Dr. Steiner pointed in a certain direction, cliques easily formed. One cannot say that the artistic is the main thing, or the threefold social order, or the economic, the school, but one must also look at what has been worked on in the branches for ten to fifteen years. That is also necessary. Recently, for example, Dr. Steiner's work has been focused on science, but if we want to let all of anthroposophy flow into all human hearts, then we must not consider the other aspects as unimportant either, even if sectarianism in the branches is reprehensible. This is one of the serious mistakes in our movement: we do not have enough trust to appreciate all the work. Not everyone can do all the work, but everyone can do work in their own field. We also need people who are not scientifically educated. In our society, everything is represented. If we appreciate the work of all people, we have the basis for the proper leadership of the Anthroposophical Society. If everyone works together and places their trust in the board, then we are a cohesive body that has power in the world, and we will also be able to cope with our opponents.

Mr. Vegelahn: Why is it that spiritual science works but the Anthroposophical Society does not work? I fully agree when the confidence is expressed to the central board here. It is indeed nice when it is said that we must strive for community, but what is given as a knowledge of the supersensible world must be put into the right relationship to what can be experienced here in the physical world. The right foundation for spiritual science can be gained from the 'Philosophy of Freedom'. Dr. Unger has given figures about high print runs. The 'Philosophy of Freedom' was out of print for a long time, and one would have expected the new edition to sell quickly. However, it took quite a long time. If the anthroposophists can show that their powers of judgment have been developed, then other people will have to change their judgment of them over time. Many people come to the Society as if seeking refuge from the disappointments of life, but they must also be able to leave this refuge and return to the world. To do this, they need to have strengthened their powers of judgment through the Philosophy of Freedom.

Dr. Kolisko: It has already been pointed out from various sides how necessary it is for our Society to present a unified front to the outside world. However, it can clearly be observed that a large part of what is directed against our movement as opposition arises from the fact that such a unified approach by all members of the Society is not present, because in many cases a basis of trust is still lacking. For example, when certain things are done after careful consideration, one can be sure that one will encounter mistrust or a lack of understanding and that the actions of many members will be in opposition to this. One must remember a peculiar prejudice against the Threefolding Newspaper, which I often encountered when traveling: namely, that it is too polemical, and that this is the main obstacle to all members supporting it and ensuring its distribution. This is because people are not sufficiently interested in the opposition. It has not been realized that, after the opposition had opened the fight, one was forced to take such a tone, as for example with what we have called positive time criticism. It is the case in our society that before the emergence of the threefolding movement, there was never any possibility of forming a social judgment. One was taken by surprise by the emergence into the public. But this had always been pointed out in the anthroposophical movement. The newspaper has been made as well as it could be, and if it is not yet better, it is because there is not yet broad support.

But one could also notice that there was a certain mistrust when, say, something was undertaken from Dornach or Stuttgart. They do not have the confidence that the things that have been undertaken have emerged from a certain solidarity between groups. We will not be able to work externally if we do not try to let what is being done take effect. So many things are thwarted. For example, negotiations were held with opponents when it would have been better not to negotiate with them after taking the opposing view towards them. It is often the case that outsiders have the impression that there is no society in which things are done in such an unsolidaristic way as in the Anthroposophical Society. This comes from the extraordinarily strong individualization in our society, but we must create such a basis of trust that our actions in public are carried out out of an ever-growing understanding of the movement's overall tasks, following joint deliberation. We must be able to trust the people working in the public sphere, because we have the impression that they are acting out of common understanding. Then we can counteract the formation of cliques. Not everyone needs to be an expert in everything, but everyone can take an interest in what is going on in the anthroposophical movement. The fact that they are not properly integrated into society gives rise to a wide range of grievances. I would just like to mention the issue of Dr. Steiner's lecture cycles, which are intended only for members of the Anthroposophical Society. The Society has been unable to preserve this spiritual material. The situation is such that these cycles have been leaked to a very large extent. In many cases, publishers have been keen to get hold of them. There is a tendency in the Society not to take seriously the words that are written down in the cycles. The admission of members to the Society is also handled in a casual manner, so that people have been admitted who then, due to a certain necessity, had to be excluded again. It is clear that precisely those whom one was forced to exclude have become the worst enemies of the movement. Consider where the opponents get their ideas! From the writings of Seiling. Such people, who like Seiling become our opponents, always come from certain cliques, and what confronts us is a reflection of what is present in our own circles.

All those in society who are really active in their work – and there should be as many as possible – must have the opportunity to trust each other, so that one has the impression that things are happening under responsibility. The individual can only come to a correct judgment through intensive, real collaboration. The task we face today must be to create such a basis of trust in the Anthroposophical Society, so that collaboration takes place from the point of view of feeling that one is standing in the same thing and trusting one another.

Mr. Uehli: A motion has been made to take a break now. Before that, Dr. Unger would like to say a few words.

Dr. Unger: I support this motion and would like to see something happen that will serve to fulfill our tasks. But before that, I have to discharge the most important duty. Various speakers have been kind enough to express their trust in me for what I have done or can still do for society. I can only accept this on the condition that I am allowed to express this trust and our heartfelt thanks to those individuals who were particularly involved in the creation of our society. Above all, I would like to mention Dr. Steiner (applause), who from the very beginning did everything that could be done by human beings to bring about a movement. I have already mentioned that Dr. Steiner's works were not yet valued by people in the sense that a movement came about around the turn of the century. The credit for initiating the movement goes to Dr. Steiner. She combined within herself the knowledge and abilities needed, and especially the will to achieve. It is only thanks to her work that forces could develop within society that can now try to develop something for life based on the spiritual science given by Dr. Steiner.

Among our friends, Mr. Bauer is known precisely for always being a personal center for all living things that can work among us. His intimate experience of the spiritual world flows through invisible channels into the hearts of people. In the most sincere and profound sense, I would like to transfer to Mr. Bauer what has been expressed here in terms of approval.

I would also like to express my special thanks to Dr. Steiner for what she shared about our friend Mr. Walther. For it was precisely during the most difficult times that he had an extraordinary workload on his shoulders. Mr. Walther stepped into the breach when something needed to be done, which he took on in such a commendable way.

Since words of trust and thanks are too weak for what is in our hearts at this moment for Dr. Steiner, I would like to express it in the form of a request; because, of course, everything that I and others have said here is based on what Dr. Steiner himself has done. And since everything depends on our being able to listen to advice in the right way, I would like to ask Dr. Steiner to give us his advice on this extremely important matter, where everything can depend on what comes from here, when we meet here again.

It is decided to continue the discussion in the evening. Mr. Uehli opens the continuation at [9] p.m.

Mr. Mengen: I have given particular attention to the question of why our society is often a stumbling block, and have found that we have an individualism in which people come together, listen to a lecture and then drift apart again. It is not recognized that there is a connection between the different areas of life. A free spiritual life is just as necessary as a fraternal economic life. When people talk about fraternity today, it is a cliché. Fresh forces must be brought into economic life from the living forces that are among us. An associative economic collaboration is the necessary complement to spiritual individualism. Today it is necessary for each individual to feel responsible for everything that happens.

Mr. M. Grundig: If we want to get to the point where everyone can be responsible for everything, it is necessary that everyone not only be content to be a member of the Anthroposophical Society, but that if they want to bring something into the public sphere, they must be imbued with the idea of anthroposophy. It has been pointed out that not everyone can be in science. But anyone who is in the circles of the working class knows that it is precisely here that we have to approach the matter as scientifically as possible. In his 'Key Points of the Social Question', Dr. Steiner pointed out how strongly natural science ideas have affected the proletariat. These ideas can only be made fruitful through anthroposophy. One can, as Dr. Steiner once said, come to an appreciation of spiritual science through a healthy feeling, but especially in the face of what can arise from scientific ideas in the proletariat, one must be able to provide sufficient knowledge. And then anthroposophy must intervene in the daily life of the broad masses of the people. To do this, something must be created, such as the foundation stone for the “Waldorf School” and so on, as laid out in “The Coming Day”. In this way, the worker can also do something good for the Anthroposophical Society.

Mr. Heydenreich: As a young person who has asked for the floor, I would like to make an announcement in all modesty. We anthroposophists who emerged from the youth movement came together during the congress in a few special discussions and realized that we have special tasks in our intermediary position between the youth movement and anthroposophy. We have come to realize that it is not only our duty to bring anthroposophy to the youth movement, but also that it is our duty to place our young forces at the service of anthroposophy, so that a corresponding action can emerge from it.

Mr. Michael Bauer: I would just like to make a few brief remarks that the assembly is expecting. It concerns the new central committee. I wanted to make this announcement myself so that people can feel and know from this fact that the new members of the central committee have emerged from the continuity of our movement. The two new members were not chosen over the heads of the outgoing members of the Central Committee, but with their consent, after much deliberation. They are Ernst Uehli and Emil Leinhas. Although both are friends of Stuttgart, it should be noted that it was one of the weaknesses of the old Central Committee that its members lived in different places. There must be close and constant contact between the members of the Central Committee if healthy and fruitful work is to be done, and now that all three members of the Central Committee live in Stuttgart, this is guaranteed. I probably do not need to mention that it is precisely the best factual reasons that justify this election.

Allow me to touch on a thought that has already been widely expressed in today's speeches, particularly in Mr. Kaufmann's speech from London. There has been much talk of trust, and I would like to add that there can be no meaningful communication from person to person if there is no trust in the background of the soul. When I speak a word to any human being and he has the will to understand me, something of my soul plays into the other; and it plays, strictly speaking, on the basis of what is in the first of our guiding principles, on the basis of a common spiritual. That which connects one soul with another, by which one can communicate in words, is consciously the very basis of our society. I could go on to explain that this trust that speaks from person to person in words can intensify and blossom forth as love. I could also point out that what we feel when we listen carefully, as the heartbeat of our aspirations, is a being that may be called the good spirit – I could also say the holy spirit – of humanity. Our society is based on the good spirit of humanity, which must weave from person to person if something healthy is to come about. In recent weeks, I have often been preoccupied with Uehli's beautiful book 'A New Search for the Holy Grail'; it tells how the Knights Templar were obliged not to leave the battlefield as long as a flag was still flying. Do believe that we are in an equally hard fight as the Templars had to face many times! And we should enter the fight with the same loyalty and full consciousness. I want to point out such loyalty at this moment, when you are facing a new central committee that has been formed after the most loyal and conscientious deliberation. And I would like to add the request that you reflect on the common spiritual that is placed in the hearts of people at this moment, when a new start is being made to step into the future with all that this movement wants to bring into the world, in loyalty and in the awareness of our obligation. Then the advice we are now expecting will be fruitfully received.

Dr. Steiner: My dear friends! The occasion for our being together today is an extraordinarily important and significant one; I therefore want to meet Dr. Unger's request in any case. If this request implied that I should give advice, then that will only be possible if I too try to say something about some characteristics of our social life that seems to me to be particularly necessary today. In the Anthroposophical Society, if it is to have full legitimacy and a good inner reason for being, it is necessary to address each individual. Individualism is that which cannot be separated from the nature of such a society as the Anthroposophical Society must be, and therefore it is always difficult to say this or that in small circles if there is no possibility that what has been discussed or, for my sake, reported there will really find its way to the individual members as quickly as possible and then find a responsive heart in the individual members.

Today, however, it is possible to speak to a large number of my dear friends, and so mentioning one or other of them today can also have a very special significance. And so please allow me, even if I do not claim to do so even in outline, to go into some of the history of our anthroposophical movement, and then to come to certain current details. From the very beginning, significant obstacles have stood in the way of this Anthroposophical movement, to the extent that it should live in society. It has already been mentioned today that for certain reasons, what is being attempted within the Anthroposophical Society was first attempted within the framework of the Theosophical Society. Twenty years ago, the German Section of the Theosophical Society was formed in Berlin. During the formation of this German Section, I gave a lecture for a completely different audience that was part of a lecture cycle called “Anthroposophical Reflections on the History of Humanity”.

Even at the founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, the anthroposophical goal was the decisive one for me. I do not want to go into the details of the founding now, but just mention that everything that happened in this context led to a small scene, to an argument between two celebrities – at that time German celebrities of the Theosophical Society. They were so angry about everything that had happened back then that the day after the founding they made the following very harsh statement: “Yesterday we buried the Theosophical movement in Germany.” That was the prognosis that two Theosophical celebrities gave at the time to the movement that was to be inaugurated in the way described to them. What had to happen could not be done differently at that time than it was done. But it had the effect that the whole anthroposophical movement carried certain fetters. I would like to characterize these fetters, at least in a few pages. What gradually became the practice of the Theosophical Society was something that, I would say, was second nature to a large number of the members who joined together to form the German Section at that time. They simply had the idea that they could not do anything differently from the way it was done in the Theosophical Society; you will see later why I am emphasizing and mentioning these things.

But my dear friends, for me it was actually impossible at that time, despite my involvement in the German Section of the Theosophical Society, to understand anything of these practices. I will mention just one fact: at that time, a person working with the German Theosophical Society gave a lecture in which she presented an excerpt from Misses Besant's “Ancient Wisdom”. At that time I had not really concerned myself with the literature of the Theosophical Society, but in one excerpt I heard the main teachings being put forward – and with the retention of the whole style of thinking, of looking at things – that were being spread within the Theosophical movement. I found the whole thing terribly unappealing, and I actually rejected such dilettantish, lay talk out of an inner scientific conscientiousness. This led to my being compelled to write my book 'Theosophy' as a matter of course, so that there would be something to hold on to that could also stand up to science. To me, standing up to science was always something different from being recognized by conventional science.

Then I want to highlight one more thing from all these things: I went on a lecture tour in Holland. I presented what I had to say from my own point of view. It actually caused consternation among the members of the Dutch Theosophical Society, because in essence it was heretical in their opinion. This also led to the fact that these Dutch 'Theosophists were the first to turn with all their might against what was then expressed at the Munich Congress in 1907. What came close to the Theosophical Society, but was actually intended by Anthroposophy, was, my dear friends, in many respects a crowd of dreamers who took an extraordinary pleasure in their “dreams”. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not talking about any doctrine today, not about any occult facts or the like, but about human moods. Within the Theosophical Society, it was simply the custom to absorb the Theosophical attitude in the following way:

As an external person, one lived exactly the same way as one had lived before becoming a Theosophist; one was a civil servant, teacher, noblewoman or anything else in the same way. One continued to live in the same way as before, but one had, if I may say so, a new sensation, albeit of a better kind. One pleased oneself in knowing, or at least in pretending to know, something about the whole world from occult sources. Now, my dear friends, they particularly liked to say: “Yes, somewhere, in a place that is as inaccessible as possible, there live certain individuals who are called ‘masters’; they are the guides of humanity, who have been guiding the development of humanity for so long, we are all in their care, we have to serve them.” One took pleasure in these services, which were particularly enhanced by the fact that these masters lived in an inaccessible distance, so that one never knew anything about whom one served as an actor or the like. Perhaps by extinguishing the light or darkening the room and sitting down at a small table, head in hands, one imagined that one was serving the masters in such a way that one was involved in all the most important matters of the present. In particular, one liked to sit down and then send out thoughts; this sending out of thoughts was even practiced with great enthusiasm in circles, especially within theosophical circles.

With these things, I only want to hint at the moods that, out of a certain pleasure in reverie, actually substantiated what, as a kind of mystical coquetry, was one of the vital nerves of the Theosophical Society and of theosophers in general. You see, my dear friends, this kind of mood has become too entrenched within the movement that was now incumbent upon us. No one is to be reproached for this; some have worked devotedly and sacrificially out of this mood. But one cannot say that this mood has prepared well for what Dr. Unger emphasized today.

When 1919 came, the task was suddenly to throw oneself into the stream of world evolution, to show that one had grown with what one had prepared in order to work in the stream of human development. It was no longer a matter of sitting down with a dim lamp, resting one's head in one's hands and sending out thoughts, but of grasping reality with one's thinking, which had been worked through with anthroposophy and had become practical.

In principle, this attitude had always been in preparation, but as far as I was concerned, I perhaps encountered the most vehement opposition – even if it was not expressed – from those followers who, in a certain respect, rightly considered themselves the most loyal followers. For there was always a certain tendency towards nebulous mysticism, which had to be fought against in the most terrible way, especially among those who were most well-meaning and well-intentioned. It is the after-effects of this tendency towards nebulous mysticism that is causing us such great difficulties within the Anthroposophical Society today. Because, my dear friends, we do not want to live in abstractions; we want to see reality as it is everywhere, and it must be said that this mood of dreaming is what becomes the most dangerous seducer of untruthfulness and volatility in relation to real life. No one is more exposed to taking real life lightly than the one who blurs his soul in nebulous mysticism. But that, in turn, is what makes it so difficult for anthroposophists to look at things realistically with a healthy mind. If anthroposophy were taken as it is given, if sometimes, by flowing into the other soul, a completely different soul content did not flow out of it, then the ability to take things of external reality quickly, with presence of mind and simply, would flow out of this very anthroposophy, and from the simple one would then also find the basis for confronting the organized opposition, which is much more than you think.

Let me also say a few words about this, because if the Anthroposophical Society wants to continue to exist, it is necessary to be very clear about these things. It has been pointed out today that a large proportion of the opponents copy the judgments they release from a book by Max Seiling, who once behaved as one of the most loyal confessors of the anthroposophical view. He was cajoled in the most diverse cliques, and again out of a certain nebulous mysticism, he was given a great deal of importance in certain cliques. Now, this man has written a book. Why did he write this book? One can disregard all the filth that can be found in this book. But this is to be envisaged with a healthy sense of reality: this man, who at first threw himself with all his might at - forgive the trivial expression - our Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, was allowed to publish a small booklet, for which I because this booklet was basically quite useful, I even wrote an afterword; but then this man wanted to have a book published by the same publishing house, half of which consisted of plagiarism from my lectures and half of his foolish spiritualist ramblings. This wish had to be rejected, and out of annoyance at this and out of his character, which simply lies when it hates, all kinds of lies were sent out into the world by Max Seiling. That is the reality, and any other judgment about it is nonsense; anyone with a clear mind sees through things.

I will give you another example, which may not be so easy to see through; but if one were to see that within the Anthroposophical Society there really is what has often been expressed today by the word “trust”, then one would only need to say something characteristically significant to illuminate a case on the basis of this trust. This would take hold within the Anthroposophical Society, a truthful judgment would be established. And that is what we need above all. I would like to mention the Goesch case as a small example. Goesch was also someone who, in every way, first of all threw himself at it, if I may use the trivial expression again. One day, Dr. Goesch's wife came to me with her children and introduced me to one of the children, of whom she seriously claimed that this child – I don't know how many days, but a sufficiently large number of days, as the woman believed, always knew in advance when – it was during the war – when the French would attack the Germans in some battle.

Well, my dear friends, you see, all that was needed was to set up a telephone line between the Goesch house in Dornach and the large headquarters, and then, according to the promptings of this little child, it would have been possible to communicate to the large headquarters in Germany every time the French would attack the Germans again. The fact that I was told something like that led me to say a few words about the somewhat inadequate education, and I had to point out in particular the man who was to blame for some of the failings in the education. From the next day onwards, Dr. Goesch was the opponent he has become. My dear friends, things are not that simple. But one must not look for something other than this simplicity, and to achieve this simplicity one must first acquire the ability to judge; this is acquired through healthy anthroposophy, not through that which still remains from the old practices of the Theosophical Society.

My first advice is to ensure that the remnants, not of Theosophy, but of the theosophical-social feeling, may finally be expelled from our Society.

Now, this also means that certain things that happen must be taken with the necessary weight. In my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' (Mysteries of the Soul), I pointed out the whole corruption of Max Dessoir. If what is said in my book about Dessoir's character had been taken seriously – I am not talking, of course, about the powerless anthroposophists, but about those who had the obligation to take such things seriously – then it would be clear that This is not about defending anthroposophy, but about the character of a university lecturer, and my book shows that a person contaminated by such scientific immorality must never be allowed to remain a university lecturer for a moment. This is not really relevant here, but I still had to learn that, after the fact, I was told that our side had personally negotiated with that individual Max Dessoir, so it was considered important to somehow make this man more inclined towards our anthroposophical movement than he is.

And a man like Traub has been sufficiently characterized by the reference to the sentence that he, invoked as an authority, wrote in an important Württemberg newspaper: “In my ‘Theosophy’ I claim that in the devachan, spirits move like tables and chairs here in physical space!” My dear friends! Anyone who is capable of writing such things without thinking must be judged as a pest in the position he holds. And when one is constantly confronted with such things as the sentence: “Yes, the threefold order should deal with positive things, it should not deal with these things in a polemical way so much.” – then, my dear friends, it must be said: This is a complete misunderstanding of what reality demands of us. It is necessary that the truth be told in all its unvarnishedness, and I could multiply a hundredfold what I have given only in examples.

But if such an attitude, which is thoroughly compatible with what brotherhood and universal love are, if such an attitude were to penetrate our ranks, then we would be better off. But we are still very far from this attitude, because one cannot rise to find the way from a false judgment to a true judgment. The false judgment is: “Be loving towards such a Traub, who, as a weak human being, can make a mistake, perhaps out of the best of knowledge and belief!”

My dear friends, I call that a misjudgment. I call it a correct judgment: “Be loving towards all those who are corrupted by such a university educator!” That is what it is about, not throwing one's love in the wrong place, but understanding where to let it flow. Anyone who wants to be benevolent towards the corrupters of youth out of nebulous sentimentality lacks true human love. But this must be developed within humanity, although the first may be more comfortable.

Today, a question has also been touched upon that is indeed important for the existence of the Anthroposophical Society, namely the “cycle question”. In fact, every single member has undertaken to ensure that the cycles remain within the Society. For me personally, it was less important that these cycles should not be read outside the Society than that the form in which these cycles had to be printed, because I did not have time to correct the typesetting, should remain known only to those who are aware of the circumstances. Nevertheless, it has turned out that it is even possible that Count Keyserling can continually boast that he has read the cycles, the man who, when confronted with the objective untruths he has told about me, simply has the frivolous excuse: he has no time to do research on Steiner. - In other words, this Count Keyserling has no time to inquire about the truth, so he spreads untruth. The Cycles have been delivered to people with such an attitude; and if I wanted to go over to the other side, I could cite many other things. So it has come about that today, torn out of the cycles by the enemies everywhere, sentences can be quoted. Actually, I would have to say today: Now that this has happened through the membership, the cycles can be sold anywhere, because it would be better to hand over the cycles to the public than to hand them over to those who misuse them. No one should be criticized in a derogatory way, because what has happened has happened because of all the continuation of what I have referred to as nebulous sentimentality, nebulous mystification and the like.

But such grounds have led to something else, and it is really important to speak out in this regard. Today, too, it has often been said, and it has sounded to me like a shrill discordant note, that changes have occurred in our society, that in the past there was somehow a way of dealing with things by which even the non-scientifically educated could approach society as collaborators, and that it has now become fashionable to proceed scientifically. Now, my dear friends, in forming such judgments, they spread. They are false judgments. Compare the way I presented the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society with the way I present it today; compare how I spoke to the public then and how I speak to the public now, and you will find nothing that could seriously be called a change of direction in the Anthroposophical Society. It is a different matter that individual things have been added that the times have demanded. I would even say the opposite. Anyone who takes some of the public lectures from the beginning of the century will find a more scientific tone from me from a certain point of view than he can find today; but if one were to sense correctly from the depths of the soul in this regard , then one would not come to say, as no one has said today, but as has been said many times: “Now the scientists rule, now the scientists are in favor, now is the scientific era!” No, a healthy sense of reality would lead one to say: Well, it is quite good that people have finally come to the anthroposophical movement who are able to defend anthroposophy against all scientific criticism. In any case, people would be pleased about the active work of our scientists. But from there, my dear friends, it is only one step to a healthy judgment, which is extremely important in terms of cultural history. And for that I would like to present you with a small piece of evidence. In issue no. 48 of “Zukunft” you will find an open letter written by a man who is not particularly well-liked by me, but he is a university teacher among university teachers, and he apostrophizes the entirety of German university teachers in the following manner:

I must go public, because today the filthiest lout believes he can rub up against me where Harnack rubbed up against me.

In an open letter, an attempt is made to show that Harnack, Rubner, Eduard Meyer, the celebrities, simply lied about the scholar in question.

Even blackmailers have taken up the matter and pointed out to me that the slightest public scandal would be highly inconvenient for someone who has been denounced by his peers; therefore, I should rather pay. To stand alone in a world of such mentality and to know that only the law is on one's side is not exactly pleasant. That is why I asked Herm Harden to publish this cry for help. I am looking for that one righteous person (not even the ten for whose sake Sodom and Gomorrah were spared) who will restore German science to its Christian roots.

This is how university teachers talk to each other today.

If only one determined person belonging to the university were to insist on an investigation of this dark matter, then it would have to and would come. I expect especially the honest ones among my enemies to support my demand for objective clarification. They must be convinced that it will show that I have defamed Mr. Eduard Meyer. And since slanderers do not belong at a university, my enemies would then have achieved by fair means what they have so far vainly striven for by foul ones: to deprive me of my associate professorship at the University of Berlin. But if this one honest man cannot be found, then no university teacher should be surprised if our previously respected status is tarnished even more than Sodom and Gomorrah.

My dear friends! I do not want to pass judgment on who is right or wrong here; that would be far from my mind. But I am drawing your attention to the tone in which people speak to one another today, even among intellectual leaders. Is it not time to rejoice that on anthroposophical soil a number of scholars have come together who have what it takes to lead humanity out of what is not me, but one who belongs to the people, worse than a Sodom and Gomorrah calls? I believe that this joy could be greater than the characteristic that we have now entered the era of science. What we really need to do is to take things straight and simply and look for the most important and meaningful, never closing our eyes to what is.

And if the anthroposophical movement had to broaden its circles, so to speak, how did that happen? Please study the history of this movement and you will see that it was usually not out of an urge for further work. My dear friends! I have — I think — five or six uncorrected new editions of my books, and I have had them for months. There is truly no urge, and never has been, to keep on being busy. What looks like a change has come about under the pressure of the times, under the demands that have arisen. The Federation for Threefolding, Waldorf Schools, Kommender Tag magazine – none of this came out of anthroposophical initiative. Study history and you will see how it really lies. But this is something that every single anthroposophist should know.

And that is the second piece of advice I would like to give: that institutions take root in our society that are designed to foster not only ideal trust, which is to be valued in the highest degree, among our members, but also to enable a living exchange that is never and nowhere interrupted.

How often have I had to hear it in recent times: Yes, anthroposophy, that's very beautiful, threefold social order very beautiful, but you can't agree with what those people in Stuttgart are doing. And a certain opposition to Stuttgart is something you come across everywhere.

My dear friends! Among those prominent figures who are directing affairs here from Stuttgart, there are many who, if they could act according to personal sympathies and antipathies, would gladly lay down this burden. If one really takes into account all the things I have tried to point out, one must also come to some conclusion about how the circumstances, how the whole course of events in our anthroposophical movement, have brought those personalities into the leading positions who now hold them. Then we will criticize these leading personalities less for personal reasons and more for everything else. Then we will have active trust and then we will also make it possible for these personalities not to always have to deal with personal differences among the membership and to lose time with it , but then these personalities will be able to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that, with the help of the branches, everything that can be observed at the center as being important for the movement is passed on to each individual member.

My dear friends! It is like trying to open an open door when you point out that the branch work should be appreciated. Branch work has never been underestimated, and least of all by those who have found their way into the Society as scientists. This branch work should be organized in such a way that less judgment is heard: “Yes, we don't hear anything from headquarters.” You can also do something to make sure you hear something, and I have often found that the response “We're not hearing anything” is based on the fact that you're not listening. For example, it shouldn't have happened that Dr. Unger was able to say that he circulated a letter last year and that nothing of significance came of it. This, my dear friends, is what brings us to the central issue: it is necessary for each individual member to regard the Society as their very own concern, not just as a framework for individual cliques that then stick together very closely, but as something in which anthroposophy can live as a reality. If each person regards the society as their own business, then interests in the whole of this society will arise from it. And this interest, the most vital interest in the whole of this society, is what we need if we want to realize what should be realized through the anthroposophical movement. The situation at the Goetheanum in Dornach, at the Waldorf School, at the Kommende Tag, Futurum and so on would be quite different if this interest were present; because living deeds would flow from this interest. But as it is – I am pleased that I can now also mention something that is outside the borders of the Reich, which here is actually only of theoretical interest – but as it is, I had to experience it. Because of what I call the inner opposition, which, contrary to my intentions, is actually very strong, , that last fall in Dornach I pointed out in the sharpest terms the necessity for founding a World School Society and that during my lecture tour in Holland this winter I repeatedly pointed out the necessity for this World School Society.

My dear friends! This world school association has failed, despite my conviction that it was up to us to be able to finish building the Goetheanum in peace. So it is necessary, I would say from month to month, to face the heavy concern that we will not be able to finish building the Goetheanum at all because the funds are gradually drying up. As I said, I do not need to tell you that the countries of Central Europe cannot do anything for the construction of the Goetheanum at present. But it is an example of how little respect is shown for what is, so to speak, thrown into the Anthroposophical Society as a necessity. I would not say it has failed if I believed it was impossible to do this or that, if I had not seen that the words were not understood in the sense in which I had to understand them, that the seriousness and the earnestness needed for such a matter are not taking hold in people's hearts.

And that is the third piece of advice I would like to give: that we acquire the ability to take things seriously enough, not with the superficiality that exists in the world today.

We need this within the Anthroposophical Society, and if we translate what I have taken more out of the historical development into the practical, then today it would be a matter of each and every one of the dear friends who are here trying to do what is possible for them, where they are, so that the future central board society, with such trust that it makes it possible, at the moment when one disagrees with this or that, to also say to oneself, it does not depend on the individual case, it depends on having the necessary total trust in the people who are in their place, even if one cannot see in the individual case what has led them to one or the other. And again, this central board will have to co-opt a number of personalities who are out in the world, working either like the branch leaders or in some other way on the anthroposophical movement and on related matters.

This central board will have to choose these personalities from the available options and will have to do so as quickly as possible if the Anthroposophical Society is to continue to make sense.

This is an organization that cannot be made mechanically. It is an organization that must be done with heart and soul, whether it concerns spiritual matters or scientific ones. We will make progress in everything if we want to bring life into the Society in this way. This life will ignite many other things and extinguish many damages that have occurred because, in recent times, very little has been seen of such life. Then, when such a living organism emerges from society, those personal discrepancies will cease, which today rise up like terrible waves from society and actually disfigure everything, everything, impair all work, because in the face of the great interest in the great cause of society, all these pettinesses in one's own heart will be able to disappear. That is what we must work towards.

I would like to say that the first thing we would take from today's meeting would be unconditional trust in the central committee and the conviction that if this central committee now forms its extended trust committee, the right trust can also be placed in this extended committee. It will be hard work for the Central Board to bring this extended board into being in accordance with the wishes of the members, which cannot be expressed in a vote but must be expressed in quite a different way. But it must be done; and when it is done, my dear friends, the details will have been followed in accordance with the advice that I could have given right at the start in a few words if I had wanted to spare my voice today. I could have said: “The ‘Draft of the Principles of an Anthroposophical Society’ has been printed at the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now been reprinted in the ‘Three’. And I could have summarized my advice in the words: ‘Realize these principles, because everything is contained in these principles’. And if these principles are realized, then everything will be all right in the Anthroposophical Society and with everything connected with it.

But one must understand these principles in their totality; if one understands them in their totality, then one also knows how to develop a feeling for what is approaching this anthroposophical movement. A representative of the youth movement has spoken here! There are a whole number of student representatives here, my dear friends! The fact that members of such movements or such bodies have come to our Anthroposophical Society is something we must regard as epoch-making in the history of our Anthroposophical Movement. We must feel the need to do everything that can rightly be expected of the Anthroposophical Society from such quarters. The student movement that has emerged within our Anthroposophical Society bears a great deal of the hope for the success of our Society. And how did this student movement come about? Well, it comes from something that I have already mentioned from other points of view: it comes from the fact that young scholars, scientifically minded people, have found their way into our Society. It is because of this “fashion”, this alleged “change of course” in our society, that we have a guarantee for a fruitful future of our movement through the entry of the student body.

My dear friends! We must have an open, free eye for everything that occurs in our society. You cannot give advice in the form of telling someone to do this or that. The only advice that can be given is addressed to the heart and mind of each individual member. Such advice must not shy away from saying something that could be taken by some as unloving criticism. No, if you really care about someone, then out of love you must tell them the truth. And today it is necessary to express the truth in all areas in the most concise words possible. We must see what kind of contrast this truth must be given in order to provide our anthroposophical movement with the momentum it needs.

My dear friends! We must speak of certain necessary educational measures; if we are true anthroposophists, we regard what should be made general through the Waldorf School as something that must necessarily be brought to life for the benefit of our cultural and civilizational development in the present day, for there are remarkable principles precisely in relation to the present. When I mention such principles, you will say, “That is rare.” No, this attitude is very widespread, even if it is not expressed in such drastic words everywhere. The educational principles of an opponent who has recently made himself very badly known, and who, among other things, has also campaigned against the Waldorf School and its educational system, have come to light. And I would like to share with you one of his educational principles, which is: “Children are actually hardly more intelligent than dogs, so you have to educate them similarly.” We are already speaking into the strange perceptions and attitudes of the present, and we must not shrink from developing all the strength that is necessary to be able to work into what is being treated in this way from many sides in the present.

A clear understanding of the present, an interest in the present, and an open eye for what is must, like the recovery of humanity in general, also lead to the recovery of the Anthroposophical Society. Then a time will come when perhaps the possibility will arise to no longer have to negotiate such things as the scattering of the cycles and the like. But if the attitude that I sincerely desire and that I have characterized by speaking today the words that may be displeasing to some takes hold, then perhaps it will be avoided having to sell the cycles in any way, because there is no difference in attitude within the walls and outside of them with regard to this point. So I had to tell you, my dear friends, my advice, actually characterizing; but it cannot be any different within the Anthroposophical Society. It rests on the individuality of each individual, so one can only speak to each individual. And this society will only flourish if the heart and soul and spirit of each individual strive to unfold in full health.

When we set out today to speak about Anthroposophy and the Threefold Movement with its various consequences—which indeed arise out of Anthroposophy, and must really be thought of as arising out of it,—then we must first of all hold before our souls that it is difficult to make oneself understood. And, without this feeling—that it is difficult to make oneself understood—we shall hardly be able to succeed as lecturers for anthroposophical Spiritual Science and all that is connected with it, in a way satisfying to ourselves. For if there is to be speaking about Anthroposophy which is appropriate, then this speaking must be entirely different from what one is accustomed to in accordance with the traditions of speaking. One has often fallen into the habit of speaking also about anthroposophical matters in the way one has become used to speaking in the age of materialism; but one is more apt thereby to obstruct the understanding for Anthroposophy, rather than to open up an approach to it.

We shall first of all have to make quite clear to ourselves what the content of the matter is that comes towards us in Anthroposophy and its consequences. And in these lectures I shall deal as I said yesterday, with the practice of lecturing, but only for anthroposophical and related matters, so that what I have to say applies only to these.

We must now make clear to ourselves that primarily it is the feeling for the central issue of the threefold order that must at first be stirred in our present humanity. It must after all be assumed that an audience of today does not begin to know what to do with the concept of the threefold order. Our speaking must slowly lead to the imparting first of a feeling for this threefold order in the audience.

During the time in which materialism has held sway, one has become accustomed to give expression to the things of the outer world through description. In this one had a kind of guidance in the outer world itself. Moreover, objects in the outer world are, I would say, too fixed for one to believe that, in the end, it makes much difference how one speaks about the things of the outer world; one need only give people some guidance on the way for perceiving this outer world. Then, in the end it comes to this: if, let us say, one delivers somewhere a popular lecture with experiments, and thereby demonstrates to people how this or that substance reacts in a retort, then they see how the substance reacts in the retort. And whether one then lectures this way or that way—a bit better, a bit less well, a hit more relevantly, a hit less relevantly—in the end makes no difference. And gradually it has tended to come to the point that such lectures and such talks are attended in order to see the experimenting, and what is spoken is just taken along as a kind of more or less agreeable or disagreeable side noise. One must express these things somewhat radically, just in order to show the exact direction in which civilization is moving in regard to these things.

When it is a matter of what to stimulate in people for doing, for willing, one is of the opinion that one must just “set up ideals”. People would have to accustom themselves to “apprehend ideals”, and thus one gradually glides more and more over into the utopian, when it is a matter of such things as the threefold order of the social organism.

So it has also happened in many an instance that many people who lecture about the threefold idea today absolutely call forth the opinion, through the manner in which they speak, that it is some utopia or other that should be striven for. And, since one is always of the opinion that what should be striven for in most cases cannot be expected to come in less than fifty or a hundred years—or many extend the time even further—so one also allows oneself, quite unconsciously, to approach speaking about things as if they would first ripen in fifty or a hundred years. One glides away from the reality very soon, and then talks about it thus: How will a small shop be set up in the threefold social organism? What will be the relation of the single person to the sewing machine in the threefold social organism?—and so on. Such questions are really put in abundance to any endeavor such as the threefolding of the social organism. As regards such an endeavor, which with all of its roots comes out of reality, one should not at all speak in this utopian fashion. For one should always evoke at least this feeling: the threefold order of the social organism is nothing which can be "made" in the sense that state constitutions can be made in a parliament—of the kind for example, that the Weimar National Assembly was. These are made! But one cannot speak in the same sense of making the threefold social organism.

Just as little can one speak of "organizing" in order to produce the threefold order. That which is an organism, this one does not organize; this grows. It is just in the nature of an organism that one does not have to organize it, that it organizes itself. That which can be organized is no organism. We must approach things from the start with these feelings, otherwise we shall not have the possibility of finding the appropriate expression.

The threefold order is something which indeed simply follows from the natural living together of people. One can falsify this natural living together of people—as has been the case, for example, in recent history—by extending the characteristic features of one member, the states-rights member, to both others. Then these two other members will simply become corrupted because they cannot prosper, just as someone cannot get on well in an unsuitable garment, that is too heavy, or the like.

It is in the natural relation of people that the threefold order of the social organism lives, that the independent spiritual life lives, that the rights or states life, regulated by the people's majority, lives, that the economic life, shaped solely out of itself, also lives. One can put strait jackets on the spiritual life, on the economic life, although one does not need them; but then its own life asserts itself continually nevertheless, and what we then experience outwardly is just this self-assertion. It is hence necessary to show that the threefolding of the social organism is implicit in the very nature of both the human being and the social life.

We see that the spiritual life in Europe was entirely independent and free until the 13th or 14th centuries, when, what was the free, independent spiritual life was first pushed into the universities. In this time you find the founding of the universities, and the universities then in turn slip by and by into the life of state. So that one can say: From about the 13th to the 16th or 17th century, the universities slip into the states-life, and with the universities, also the remaining educational institutions, without people really noticing it. These other institutions simply followed. This we have on the one hand.

On the other hand, until about the same period, we have free economic rule that found its true, middle-European expression in the free economic village communities. As the free spiritual life slipped into the universities, which are localized at first, and which later find shelter in the state, so does that which is the economic organization first receive a certain administration in the “rights” sense, when the cities emerge more and more. Then the cities, in the first place, organize this economic life, while earlier, when the village communities were setting the pace, it had grown freely. And then we see how increasingly, that which was centralized in the cities seeks protection in the larger territories of the states. Thus we see how the tendency of modern times ends in letting the spiritual life on the one hand, the economic life on the other, seek the protection of states which increasingly take on the character of domains constituted according to Roman law. This was actually the development in modern times.

We have reached that point in historical development where things can go no further like this, where a sense and a feeling for free spiritual life must once again be developed. When in a strait jacket, the spirit simply does not advance; because it only apparently advances, but in truth still remains behind—can never celebrate real births, but at most renaissances. It is just the same with the economic life.

Today we simply stand in the age in which we must absolutely reverse the movement which has developed in the civilized world of Europe with its American annex, the age in which the opposite direction must set in. For what has gone on developing for a time must reach a point at which something new must set in. Otherwise one runs into the danger of doing as one would when, with a growing plant, one were to say it should not be allowed to come to fruition, it should grow further, it should keep blooming on and on.—Then it would grow thus: bring forth a flower; then no seed, but again a flower, again a flower, and so on. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to familiarize oneself inwardly with these things, and to develop a feeling for the historical turning point at which we stand today.

But, just as in an organism every detail is necessarily formed as it is, so is everything in the world in which we live and which we help to shape, to be formed as it must be in its place in the sense of the whole. You cannot imagine, if you think realistically, that your ear lobe could be formed the very least bit differently from what it is, in conformity with your whole organism. Were your ear lobe only the least bit differently formed, then you would also have to have quite a different nose, different fingertips, and so forth. And just as the ear lobe is formed in the sense of the whole human being, so must also the lecture in which something flows be given—in the sense of the whole subject—that lecturing which is truly taking on new forms.

Such a lecture cannot be delivered in the manner which one could perhaps learn from the sermon-lecture. For the sermon-lecture as we still have it today, rests on the tradition which really goes back to the old Orient,—on a special attitude which the whole human being in the old Orient had toward speech. This characteristic was continued, so that it lived in a certain free way in Greece, lived in Rome, and shows its last spark most clearly in the particular relationship which the Frenchman has to his language. Not that I want to imply that every Frenchman preaches when he speaks; but a similar relationship, such as had to develop out of the oriental relationship to language still continues to live on in a definite way in the French handling of speech, only entirely in a declining movement.

This element which we can observe here in regard to language came to expression when one still learned speaking from the professors, as one could later, but now in the declining phase—professors who really continued to live on as mummies of ancient times and bore the title, “professor of elocution”. In former times, at almost every university, in every school, also in seminaries and so on there was such a professor of elocution, of rhetoric. The renowned Curtius¹ of Berlin actually still bore the title “professor of elocution” officially. But the whole affair became too dull for him, and he did not lecture on elocution, but only demonstrated himself as a professor of elocution through being sent out by the faculty council on ceremonial occasions, since that was always the task of the professor of elocution. Nevertheless, in this Curtius made it his business to discharge his duties at such ceremonial occasions by paying as little regard as possible to the ancient rules of eloquence. For the rest, it was too dull for him to be a professor of elocution in times in which professors of elocution did not fit in any more, and he lectured on art history, on the history of Greek art. But in the university catalog he was listed as “professor of elocution”. This refers us back to an element that was present everywhere in speech in olden times.

Now, when we consider what is quite especially characteristic in the training of speech for the middle European languages, for German, for example, then indeed everything denoted in the original sense by the word “elocution” has not the least meaning. For something flowed into these languages that is entirely different from that which was peculiar to speaking in the times when elocution had to be taken seriously. In the Greek and Latin languages there is elocution. In the German language elocution is something quite impossible, when one looks inwardly at the essential.

Today, however, we are living definitely in a time of transition. That which was the speech element of the German language cannot continue to be used. Every attempt must be made to come out of this speech element and to come into a different speech element. This also is the task, in a certain sense, to be solved by him who would speak productively about Anthroposophy or the threefold idea. For only when a fairly large number of people are able to speak in this way, will Anthroposophy and the threefold idea be rightly understood in public, even in single lectures. Meanwhile, there are not a few who develop only a pseudo-understanding and pseudo-avowal for these.

If we look back on the special element in regard to speaking which was present in the times out of which the handling of elocution was preserved, we must say: then it was as if language grew out of the human being in quite a naive way, as his fingers grow, as his second teeth grow. From the imitation process speaking resulted, and language with its whole organization. And only after one had language did one come to the use of thinking.

And now it transpired that the human being when speaking to others about any problem had to see that the inner experience, the thought experience, to a certain extent clicked [einschnappte] into the language. The sentence structure was there. It was in a certain way elastic and flexible. And, more inward than the language was the thought element. One experienced the thought element as something more inward than the language, and let it click into the language, so that it fitted into it just as one fits the idea of a statue or the like into marble. It was entirely an artistic treatment of the language. Even the way in which one was meant to speak in prose had something similar to the way in which one was to express oneself in poetry. Rhetoric and elocution had rules which were not at all unlike the rules of poetic expression. (So as not to be misunderstood, I should like to insert here that the development of language does not exclude poetry. What I now say, I say for older arts of expression, and I beg you not to interpret it as if I wanted to assert that there can be no more poetry at all today. We need but treat the language differently in poetry. But that does not belong here; I wanted to insert this only in parenthesis, that I might not be misunderstood.)

And when we now ask: How was one then supposed to speak in the time in which the thought and feeling content clicked into the language? One was supposed to speak beautifully! That was the first task: to speak beautifully. Hence, one can really only learn to speak beautifully today when one immerses oneself in the old way of speaking. There was beautiful speaking. And speaking beautifully is definitely a gift which comes to man from the Orient. It might be said: There was speaking beautifully to the point that one really regarded singing, the singing of language, as the ideal of speaking. Preaching is only a form of beautiful speaking stripped of much of the beautiful speaking. For, wholely beautiful speaking is cultic speaking. When cultic speaking pours itself into a sermon, then much is lost. But still, the sermon is a daughter of the beautiful speaking found in the cult.

The second form which has come into evidence, especially in German and in similar languages, is that in which it is no longer possible to distinguish properly between the word and the grasping of the thought conveyed—the word and the thought experience; the word has become abstract, so that it exempts itself, like a kind of thought. It is the element where the understanding for language itself is stripped off. It can no longer have something click into it, because one feels at the very outset that what is to be clicked in and the word vehicle into which something is to click are one.

For who today is clear, for example in German, when he writes down “Begriff” [concept], that this is the noun form of begreifen [to grasp; to comprehend] be-greifen (greifen with a prefix) is thus das Greifen an etwas ausfuehren [the carrying out of the grasping of something]—that “Begriff” is thus nothing other than the noun form for objective perceiving? The concept “Begriff” was formed at a time when there was still a living perception of the ether body, which grasps things. Therefore one could then truly form the concept of Begriff, because grasping with the physical body is merely an image of grasping with the ether body.

But, in order to hear Begreifen in the word Begriff it is necessary to feel speech as an organism of one's own. In the element of speaking which I am now giving an account of, language and concept always swim through one another. There is not at all that sharp separation which was once present in the Orient, where the language was an organism, was more external, and that which declared itself lived inwardly. What lived inwardly had to click into the linguistic form in speaking; that is, click in so that what lives inwardly is the content, and that into which it clicked was the outer form. And this clicking-in had to happen in the sense of the beautiful, so that one was thus a true speech artist when one wanted to speak.

This is no longer the case when, for example, one has no feeling any more for differentiating between Gehen [to go] and Laufen [to run] in relation to language as such. Gehen: two e's—one walks thither without straining oneself thereby; e is always the feeling expression for the slight participation one has in one's own activity. If there is an au in the word, this participation is enhanced. From running (Laufen) comes panting (Schnaufen) which has the same vowel sound in it. With this one's insides come into tumult. There must be a sound there that intimates this modification of the inner being. But all this is indeed no longer there today; language has become abstract. It is like our onward-flowing thoughts themselves—for the whole middle region, and especially also for the western region of civilization.

It is possible to behold a picture, an imagination in every single word; and one can live in this picture as in something relatively objective. He who faced language in earlier times considered it as something objective into which the subjective was poured. He would as little not have regarded it so, as he would have lost sight of the fact that his coat is something objective, and is not grown together with his body as another skin.

As against this, the second stage of language takes the whole organism of language as another son' skin, whereas formerly language was much more loosely there, I should like to say, like a garment. I am speaking now of the stage of language in which speaking beautifully is no longer taken into first consideration, but rather speaking correctly. In this it is not a question of rhetoric and elocution, but of logic. With this stage, which has come up slowly since Aristotle's time, grammar itself became logical to the point that the logical forms were simply developed out of the grammatical forms—one abstracted the logical from the grammatical. Here all has swum together: thought and word. The sentence is that out of which one evolves the judgment. But the judgment is in truth so laid into the sentence that one no longer experiences it as inherently independent. Correct speaking, this has become the criterion.

Further, we see a new element in speaking arising, only used everywhere at the wrong point—carried over to a quite wrong domain. Beautiful speaking humanity owes to the Orient. Correct speaking lies in the middle region of civilization. And we must look to the West when seeking the third element.

But in the West it arises first of all quite corrupted. How does it arise? Well, in the first place, language has become abstract. That which is the word organism is already almost thought-organism. And this has gradually increased so much in the West, that there it would perhaps even be regarded as facetious to discuss such things. But, in a completely wrong domain, the advance already exists.

You see, in America, just in the last third of the 19th century, a philosophical trend called “pragmatism” has appeared. In England it has been called “humanism.” James² is its representative in America, Schiller³ in England. Then there are personalities who have already gone about extending these things somewhat. The merit of extending this concept of humanism in a very beautiful sense is due to Professor MacKenzie⁴ who was recently here.

To what do these endeavors lead?—I mean now, American pragmatism and English humanism. They arise from a complete skepticism about cognition: Truth is something that really doesn't exist! When we make two assertions, we actually make them fundamentally in order to have guide-points in life. To speak about an “atom”—one cannot raise any particular ground of truth for it; but it is useful to take the atom theory as a basis in chemistry; thus we set up the atom concept! It is serviceable, it is useful. There is no truth other than that which lives in useful, life-serviceable concepts. “God,” if he exists or not, this is not the question. Truth, that is something or other which is of no concern to us. But it is hard to live pleasantly if one does not set up the concept of God; it is really good to live, if one lives as if there were a God. So, let us set it up, because it's a serviceable, useful concept for life. Whether the earth began according to the Kant-Laplace theory and will end according to the mechanical warmth theory, from the standpoint of truth, no human being knows anything about this—I am now just simply reporting—, but it is useful for our thinking to represent the beginning and end of the earth in this way. This is the pragmatic teaching of James, and also in essence,the humanistic teaching of Schiller. Finally, it is also not known at all whether the human being now, proceeding from the standpoint of truth, really has a soul. That could be discussed to the end of the world, whether there is a soul or not, but it is useful to assume a soul if one wants to comprehend all that the human being carries out in life.

Of course, everything that appears today in our civilization in one place spreads to other places. For such things which arose instinctively in the West, the German had to find something more conceptual, that permits of being more easily seen through conceptually; and from this the “As If” philosophy originated: whether there is an atom or not is not the question; we consider the phenomena in such a way “as if” there was an atom. Whether the good can realize itself or not, cannot be decided; we consider life in such a way “as if” the good could realize itself. One could indeed quarrel to the end of the world about whether or not there is a God: but we consider life in such a way that we act “as if” there were a God. There you have the “As If” philosophy.

One pays little attention to these things because one imagines: there in America James sits with his pupils, there in England Schiller sits with his pupils; there is Vaihinger, who wrote the “As If” philosophy: there are a few owls who live in a kind of cloud-castle, and of what concern is it to other people!

Whoever has the ear for it, however, already hears the “As If” philosophy sounding everywhere today. Almost all human beings talk in the sense of the “As If” philosophy. The philosophers are only quite funny fellows. They always blab out what other people do unconsciously. If one is sufficiently unprejudiced for it, then one only seldom hears a human being today who still uses his words differently, in connection with his heart and with his whole soul, with his whole human being, who speaks differently than as though the matter were as he expresses it. One only does not usually have the ear to hear within the sound and the tone-color of the speaking that this “As If” lives in it,—that fundamentally people over the whole of civilization are seized by this “As If.”

Whereas things usually come to be corrupted at the end, here something shows itself to be corrupted at the beginning, something that in a higher sense must be developed for handling of speech in Anthroposophy, in the threefold order and so on. These things are so earnest, so important, that we really should speak specially about them. For it will be a question of elevating the triviality, “We need concepts because they are useful for life,” this triviality of a materialistic, utilitarian theory, of raising it up to the ethical, and perhaps through the ethical to the religious. For, if we want to work in the sense of Anthroposophy and the threefold order, we have before us the task of learning good speaking, in addition to the beautiful speaking and the correct speaking which we can acquire from history. We must maintain an ear for good speaking.

Until now, I have seen little sign that it has been noticed, when, in the course of my lectures I have called attention to this good speaking—I have done it very frequently. In referring to this good speaking I have always said that it is not only a question today that what is said be correct in the logical-abstract sense, but it is a matter of saying something in a certain connection or omitting it, not saying it in this connection. It is a question of developing a feeling that something should not only be correct, but that it is justified within its connection—that it can be either good in a certain connection or bad in a certain connection. Beyond rhetoric, beyond logic, we must learn a true ethics of speaking. We must know how we may allow ourselves things in a certain connection that would not be at all permitted in another connection.

Here I may now use an example close to hand, that could perhaps have already struck some of you who were present lately at the lectures: I spoke in a certain connection of the fact that, in reality, Goethe was not born at all. I said that Goethe for a long time endeavored to express himself through painting, through drawing, but that nothing came about from it. It then flowed over into his poetic works, and then again in the poetic works, as for example Iphigenia, or especially in Naturliche Tochter [“Daughters of Nature”], we have indeed poetic works not at all in the sentimental sense. People called these poems of Goethe's “marble smooth and marble cold,” because they are almost sculptural, because they are three-dimensional. Goethe had genuine capacities which really did not become human at all; he was actually not born.—You see, in that connection in which I spoke lately, one could quite certainly say it. But imagine, if someone were to represent it as a thesis in itself in the absolute sense! It would be not only illogical, it would he of course quite crazy.

To speak out of an awareness of a life connection is something different from finding the adequate or correct use of a word association for the thought and feeling involved. To let a pronouncement or the like arise at a particular place out of a living relationship, that is what leads over from beauty, from correctness, to the ethos of language—at which one feels, when a sentence is uttered, whether one may or may not say it in the whole context. But now, there is again an inward growing together, not with language, but with speaking. This is what I should like to call good speaking or had speaking; the third form. Aside from beautiful or ugly speaking, aside from correct or incorrect speaking, comes good or bad speaking, in the sense in which I have just presented it.

Today the view is still widespread that there can be sentences which one forms and which can then be spoken on any occasion, because they have absolute validity. In reality, for our life in the present, there are no longer such sentences. Every sentence that is possible in a certain connection, is today impossible in another connection. That means, we have entered upon an epoch of humanity's development in which we need to direct our view to this many-sidedness of living situations.

The Oriental who with his whole thinking lived within a small territory, also the Greek still, who with his spiritual life, with his rights life, with his economic life, lived on a small territory, poured something into his language that appears as a linguistic work of art must appear. How is it though in a work of art? It is such that a single finite object really appears infinite in a certain realm. In this way beauty was even defined, though one-sidedly, by Haeckel, Darwin and others: It is the appearance of the idea in a self-contained picture.—The first thing which I had to oppose in my Vienna lecture on “Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetics,” was that the beautiful is “the appearance of the idea in outer form.” I showed then that one must mean just the reverse: that the beautiful arises when one gives to form the appearance of the infinite.

And so it is with language, which in a certain way also acts as a limited territory—as a territory which encloses the possible meaning within boundaries. If that which is actually infinite in the inner soul- and spirit-life is to click into this language, it must there come to expression in beautiful form.

In correct speaking the language must he adequate; the sentence must fit the judgment, the concept, the word. The Romans were compelled to this, especially as their territory became ever larger and larger; their language transformed itself from the beautiful into the logical. Hence the custom has been retained, of conveying logic to people precisely in the Latin language. (You have indeed learned logic quite well by it.)

But we are now once again beyond this stage. Now, it is necessary that we learn to experience language with ethos—that, to a certain extent we gain a kind of morality of speaking in our lecturing, while we know that we have in a certain context to allow ourselves something or to deny ourselves something. There, things do not click-in, in the way I described earlier, but here we make use of the word to characterize. All defining ceases; here we use the word to characterize. The word is so handled that one really feels each word as something insufficient, every sentence as something insufficient, and has the urge to characterize that which one wishes to place before humanity from the most varied aspects—to go around the matter to a certain extent, and to characterize it from the most varied aspects.

You see, for free spiritual life—that is to say spiritual life that exists out of its own laws—there is as yet not very much understanding in present-day humanity. For, mostly what is understood by free spiritual life is a structure in which people live, where each one crows his own cock-a-doodle-doo from his own dung heap—excuse the somewhat remarkable picture—and in which the most incredible consonances come about from the crowing. In reality, in free spiritual life, harmony comes about through and through, because the spirit, not the single egoists, lives—because the spirit can really lead its own life over and above the single egoists.

There is, for example,—one must already say these things today—a Waldorf School spirit definitely there for our Waldorf School in Stuttgart that is independent of the body of teachers,—into which the body of teachers grows, and in which it becomes ever more and more clear that possibly the one can be more capable or less capable, but the spirit has a life of its own.

It is an abstraction, which people today still represent to themselves, when they speak of “free spirit.” This is no reality at all. The free spirit is something that really lives among people—one must only let it come into existence; and what works among people—one must only let it come into existence.

What I have said to you today I have also said only so that what we are meant to gain here may proceed from fundamental feelings, from the feeling for the earnestness of the matter. I cannot, of course, suppose that every one will now go right out and, as those in olden times spoke beautifully, in the middle period correctly, now all will speak well! But you may not for this reason object: of what help, then, are all our lectures, if we are not at once able to speak in the sense of good speaking?—It is rather a matter of our really getting the feeling of the earnestness of the situation, which we are thus to live into, so that we know: what is wanted here is something in itself so organically whole, that a necessity of form must gradually express itself even in speech, just as a necessity of form expresses itself in the ear-lobe, such as cannot be otherwise depending on how the whole human being is.

Thus I shall try to bring still closer together what is for us the content of Anthroposophy and the threefold order with the way in which it should be presented to people. And, from the consideration of principles I shall come more and more into the concrete, and to that which should underlie the practice of lecturing.

I have often emphasized that this must be Anthroposophy's manner of presenting things. I have often emphasized that one should not indeed believe that one is able to find the adequate word, the adequate sentence; one can only conduct oneself as does a photographer who, in order to show a tree, takes at least four views.

Thus a conception that lives itself out in an abstract trivial philosophy such as pragmatism or humanism, must be raised up into the realm of the ethical. And then it must first of all live in the ethos of language. We must learn good speaking. That means that we must experience as regards speaking something of all that we otherwise experience in relation to ethics, moral philosophy.

After all, the matter has become quite clear in modern times. In the speaking of theosophists we have an archaism simply conditioned through the language—archaic, namely as regards the materialistic coloration of the last centuries: “physical body”—well, it is thick; “ether body”—it is thinner, more nebulous; “astral body”—once again thinner, but still only thinner; “I”—still thinner. Now, new members of the human being keep on coming up: they become even thinner. At last one no longer knows at all how one can reach this thinness, but in any case, it only becomes ever thinner and thinner. One does not escape the materialism. This is indeed also the hallmark of this theosophical literature. And it is always the hallmark that appears, when these things are to be spoken about, from theoretical speaking, to that which I once experienced within the Theosophical Society in Paris, (I believe it was in 1906). A lady there who was a real rock-solid theosophist, wanted to express how well she liked particular lectures which had been given in the hall in which we were; and she said: “There are such good vibrations here!” And one perceived from her that this was really thought of as something which one might sniff. Thus, the scents of the lectures which were left behind and which one could sniff out somehow, these were really meant.

We must learn to tear language away from adequacy. For it can be adequate only for the material. If we wish to use it for the spiritual, in the sense of the present epoch of development of humanity, then we must free it. Freedom must then come into the handling of language. If one does not take these things abstractly, but livingly, then the first thing into which the philosophy of freedom [spiritual activity] must come is in speaking, in the handling of language. For this is necessary; otherwise the transition will not be found, for example, to the characterization of the free spiritual life.

You see, for free spiritual life—that is to say spiritual life that exists out of its own laws—there is as yet not very much understanding in present-day humanity. For, mostly what is understood by free spiritual life is a structure in which people live, where each one crows his own cock-a-doodle-doo from his own dung heap—excuse the somewhat remarkable picture—and in which the most incredible consonances come about from the crowing. In reality, in free spiritual life, harmony comes about through and through, because the spirit, not the single egoists, lives—because the spirit can really lead its own life over and above the single egoists.

There is, for example,—one must already say these things today—a Waldorf School spirit definitely there for our Waldorf School in Stuttgart that is independent of the body of teachers,—into which the body of teachers grows, and in which it becomes more and more clear that possibly the one can be more capable or less capable, but the spirit has a life of its own.

It is an abstraction, which people today still represent to themselves, when they speak of “free spirit.” This is no reality at all. The free spirit is something that really lives among people—one must only let it come into existence.

What I have said to you today I have also said only so that what we are meant to gain here may proceed from fundamental feelings, from the feeling for the earnestness of the matter. I cannot, of course, suppose that every one will now go right out and, as those in olden times spoke beautifully, in the middle period correctly, now all will speak well! But you may not for this reason object: of what help, then, are all our lectures, if we are not at once able to speak in the sense of good speaking?—It is rather a matter of our really getting the feeling of the earnestness of the situation, which we are thus to live into so that we know: what is wanted here is something in itself so organically whole, that a necessity of form must gradually express itself even in speech, just as a necessity of form expresses itself in the earlobe, such as cannot be otherwise depending on how the whole human being is.

Thus I shall try to bring still closer together what is for us the content of Anthroposophy and the threefold order with the way in which it should be presented to people. And, from the consideration of principles I shall come more and more into the concrete, and to that which should underlie the practice of lecturing.

• 1. Ernst Curtius, 1814–1896, archeologist and historian.
• 2. William James. 1842–1910, American philosopher.
• 3. F. C. S. Schiller. 1864–1937. Representative of pragmatism in England which he combined with humanism.
• 4. S. MacKenzie, born 1560. Professor in Cardiff.

Today I would like to talk about an important concept in esoteric science, the connection between microcosm and macrocosm. Within esoteric science, there are various fundamental concepts that run like leitmotifs through the entire esoteric movement. One of these is the concept of rhythmic number, another is that of microcosm and macrocosm. The mystery of number is expressed in the fact that certain phenomena succeed each other in such a way that the seventh repetition can be designated as the conclusion of an event, the eighth as the beginning of a new event. This fact is reflected in the physical world in the relationship between the octave and the fundamental. For those who seek to penetrate into occult worlds, this principle becomes the basis for a comprehensive world view. Not only are the tones arranged according to the law of number, but so are the events in time. The events of the spiritual world are arranged in such a way that a relationship is found as in the rhythm of the tone.

Even more important is the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. We find the sensory image of this at every turn. If we look at the relationship between the whole plant and the germ, we see a macrocosm in the whole plant and a microcosm in the germ. In a sense, the forces that are distributed throughout the whole plant are concentrated in the germ as if at a single point. In a similar way, we can understand the development of the individual human being from childhood to old age as a microcosm, and the development of a nation as a macrocosm. Every nation has a childhood in which it absorbs important cultural elements. The ancient Romans, for example, absorbed Greek culture. A nation grows and draws the forces for its further development from within itself. It is therefore important that the members of a nation go through what the whole nation goes through. They are to their nation as the germ is to the plant. The relationship between microcosm and macrocosm is found to the highest degree in man, as he appears to us in the sense world, and the cosmos. Just as he stands before us in the sense world, he has drawn together the forces of the universe within himself, just as the forces of the whole plant are drawn together in the germ.

We can now ask ourselves: Are these forces in man also distributed in some way throughout the macrocosm, just as the forces of the plant germ are distributed throughout the whole plant? Only esoteric science can give us an answer to this, because within earthly life, man only gets to know himself as a microcosm. But he does not only live in the microcosm, he also has a life in the universe.

At first this seems to be no more than an assertion, that in the experience of waking and sleeping, man alternates between a life in the microcosm and a life in the macrocosm. When he sinks into sleep, consciousness ceases to function, affects cease to be there for him. An external science will seek in vain to find within the sleeping person what constitutes his soul life in the waking state. But it is logically impossible to think that when a person falls asleep, his soul life is destroyed and that it comes out of nowhere when he wakes up. In the not too distant future, external science will admit that one can no more recognize the soul life from external material facts than one can know the lungs by knowing the laws of oxygen. To do this, we study the lungs in their organic functions. Thus we also recognize that in the external laws there is nothing of the physical life that we inhale when we awaken and exhale when we fall asleep. For the occultist, falling asleep and waking up is nothing other than breathing. With every morning, man takes in spiritual-soul substance through breathing and exhales it again when he falls asleep. Where is this spiritual-soul substance when man is in a state of sleep, corresponding to the air in the room that he has exhaled? Occult science shows us that it is enveloped by the atmosphere of the spiritual world, just as we are enveloped by the atmosphere of air, only that the latter extends only a few miles, while the former fills the universe.

If we consider the amount of air that a person has inhaled into their body, we can compare it to the entire atmosphere: the same amount that is in the human body after inhalation is part of the atmosphere after exhalation. In the sense of occultism, we can say that after inhalation it is in the microcosm and after exhalation it is in the macrocosm. Likewise, the soul-spiritual life that is active within our body, from waking to sleeping in the microcosm, from sleeping to waking in the macrocosm. Just as external physical science teaches us the existence of the physical atmosphere, so occult science speaks of the spiritual macrocosm that receives our soul during sleep.

Spiritual science is acquired through spiritual methods: initiation. The life of our soul within the microcosm is shown to us by daily experience; we get to know the life within the spiritual-soul macrocosm through initiation. This science must be spoken of first if the transition from microcosm to macrocosm is to be understood. This science takes on a special significance because in it we enter the spiritual world after death. Crossing the threshold of death only means that the soul leaves the body for good. The method of initiation teaches the soul intimate exercises. Just as we act on our physical environment in our daily lives, we must enable our soul to act spiritually and soulfully on the macrocosm and to receive impressions from it. We must seek to free our spiritual and soul forces that are bound to our physical life. In our ordinary lives, three soul forces are connected to the body, and these are released through initiation. The first soul force is the power of thought. In our ordinary lives, we use this to form thoughts and to imagine the things around us. Let us try to put ourselves in the shoes of this power of thought. What happens when we think and imagine? Even physical science will admit that every time we think of something sensual, a process of destruction takes place in our brain. We have to destroy fine structures of the brain, and fatigue shows this sufficiently. What is destroyed by everyday thinking is restored during sleep.

Through the method of initiation, we attain a state in which we free the power of thought from the physical brain: then nothing is destroyed. We achieve this in meditation, concentration, contemplation. These are certain processes in our soul that differ from ordinary soul life. The images and soul processes that fill us in our ordinary life are not very suitable for creating meditation in our soul; we have to choose others for this. To speak in concrete terms, an example will be given. Imagine two glasses, one empty, the other half full. Then imagine that we are pouring water from the half-filled glass into the empty one, and now imagine that the half-filled glass is becoming fuller and fuller. The materialist finds such a thing foolish. But in a meditation suitable for meditation, it is not about something in the physical sense of the word, but about something that forms soul perceptions. Precisely because such a perception does not refer to anything real, it distracts our minds from the real. But it can be a symbol, namely for the soul process that is linked to the secret of love. In the process of love, it is like a half-filled glass from which one pours into an empty one, and which thereby becomes fuller. The soul does not become emptier, it becomes fuller to the extent that it gives. This symbol can have such a meaning.

When we treat such an idea by turning all the powers of our soul towards it, then this is meditation. We must forget everything else, including ourselves, when we are dealing with such an idea. Our entire soul life must be directed towards it for a long time, about a quarter of an hour. It is not enough to do such an exercise once or a few times; it must always be repeated. Depending on the disposition of the individual, it will become apparent that the soul life changes in the process. We notice that we develop a kind of thinking power that does not destroy the brain. Anyone who undergoes such a development will recognize that meditation does not cause fatigue and does not destroy the brain. It may seem contradictory that beginners fall asleep during meditation. But this is because in the beginning we are still attached to the external world and have not yet freed our thoughts from the brain. Once we have freed our thoughts from the brain through repeated efforts, we have achieved meditation without fatigue, and then a transformation occurs in our entire human life. Just as we were unconsciously outside the body during sleep, so now we are consciously outside the body. And just as we think of our ego in our skin during our daily lives, so after meditation we experience ourselves outside our body. The body becomes an object that we look at. But now we get to know it differently than in sleep. We get to know it like magnetic forces that chain us to our body. It is something we want to plunge into. And we recognize that these are the same forces that draw us to our physical body every morning, that we have drawn out of the spiritual world before birth, and that have caused us to seek out the currents of inheritance to find a new body. We thereby experience why we feel drawn to our parents and ancestors.

We can exclude one idea, one soul experience, which is different from those we have when we pass from the microcosm to the macrocosm. When we look at the body from the macrocosm, we say of all experiences: This is outside of us. But if we have awakened the Paul experience in us, then we have developed a soul element that is already outside of us. When we are out of the body, we feel the Christ-experience as an inner one. This can be called the first encounter with the Christ impulse in the macrocosm. Now we have to discuss a second kind of initiation forces. Just as we can detach the power of thinking, we can also detach the power we use for linguistic expression. Materialistic science says that the motor speech organs have their center in the so-called Broca's area. But it was not Broca's organ that formed language, but language that formed Broca's organ.

The power of thought has a destructive effect, while language, which comes from our social environment, has a constructive effect. Now we can detach this power that Broca's organ builds up. We achieve this by permeating our meditation with emotional values. If I meditate: In the light shines wisdom - this too does not reflect an external truth, but it does have a deep meaning, a deep significance. If we imbue it with our feeling: We want to live with all the light that wisdom radiates - then we feel how we grasp the power that is otherwise expressed in the word and that now lives in our soul. When one speaks of golden silence, it refers to this: we have a power in our soul that creates the word. We can grasp it like the power of thought. Then we overcome time, just as we overcome space by grasping the power of thought. What is a remembering for everyday life up to childhood then extends to prenatal life. This is the way to gain experience about life from the last death until our present birth, and at the same time the way to understand the evolution of humanity. We understand the forces that guide the evolution of human history.

And we recognize life from birth to death. When we develop the power of the silent word, we recognize the spiritual foundation of life on earth. Here again we come across a historical event, the Mystery of Golgotha. For this is the way in which we find the ascending and descending evolution of humanity and the point where Christ incarnates. He is recognized as he is in his very own power. Just as we connect with the Christ through the liberation of thought, as he was on earth, so we connect with the Mystery of Golgotha through the liberation of the word. A special light thus falls on the first line of the Gospel of John.

Then a third power becomes independent through meditation. It takes hold not only of the brain and larynx, but also of the blood circulation and the heart. When it is working in a weak form, we feel it when we blush or turn pale. Then something soul-like takes hold of the pulsation of the blood and goes up to the heart. This soul power can be drawn out of the pulsation of the blood and become an independent soul power. This happens through meditation, where the will connects with meditation. We meditate: In the light shines wisdom. But we make the decision to connect our will with it in such a way that we want to go with this radiant wisdom in the evolution of humanity. When we arrive at this kind of will-meditation, we achieve an inflow of willpower into the soul. These forces can be grasped and drawn from the blood – although they cannot be drawn out completely – and then they form a clairvoyant power through which we can transcend our Earth. We learn to recognize our Earth as a re-embodied planet that will re-embody itself and we human beings with it. Thus we grow through the spiritual and soul world into the macrocosm. In a sense, we experience how life between death and birth must be opposite to life in an incarnation. For what man experiences after 'death', freed from the body, that is what the initiate experiences. Let us take the main characteristic of what was presented to us in the body-free state. It is the same experience as in the life after death. Living in the microcosm, we perceive through the physical organ of the senses. After death, we look at the body like the initiate. One cannot perceive what the sense organs perceive. The initiate can recognize the life between death and new birth because he has already found the transition from microcosm to macrocosm here.

In the ordinary language of man, one cannot talk to the dead. But when we have liberated the power of speech, we can see how we are with the dead. By liberating the power of thought, we can talk to those who are between death and rebirth.

Let me give you an example: a seer was able to talk to a deceased person. He had been an excellent man, but he had only taken care of his family in a material sense. He had no religious or anthroposophical ideas. The seer was able to learn the following from the man: “I know that I lived with my family, with my loved ones, and they were my sunshine. They still live now, I know that, but I only see them up to the point when I left the earth. No connection can be established with them. The circumstances are complicated after death. The seer was able to see the following: The woman still showed something of the effects of her husband's influence in her nature. The man could see these effects, but not as one sees a person, but as in a mirror: there is indeed seeing, but it is as if one were only seeing an image in a mirror. This seems gruesome because one cannot really see the person as he is. Just as we see the physical in the life of the senses, so must we be able to see the soul afterwards. But just as we cannot see a candle in a dark room if it is not lit, so here too is the recognition subdued, darkened. Yet a connection is still possible between the dead person and the person on earth if the latter imbues himself with spiritual life. This is the basis for the benefit we can do for the dead. Someone has passed through the gate of death, with whom we have common interests: we can read to him. We imagine that he is in front of us, we read to him quietly, and we can also send him thoughts. But he will only receive an impression if we send him ideas and concepts with spiritual life. The task of anthroposophy will be understood when we understand that we have to remove the abyss that separates us from the dead.

Even a soul that was opposed to anthroposophy can feel a benefit from such reading aloud. In our soul life, two sides can be distinguished: what we consciously experience and the soul's undercurrents, which, like the depths of the sea, only express themselves in the waves on the surface. Thus we can experience that, for example, one of two brothers becomes an anthroposophist and the other an opponent of anthroposophy. This can only be a fact of the external world. The inner process is as follows: there is a deep longing for something religious, and the only way to numb oneself to this is to reject anthroposophy. The conscious idea is only an opiate to forget what is going on in the depths. Death removes all this and we then hunger precisely for what we unconsciously long for. That is why reading anthroposophical writings aloud is such a blessing for us. Gradually, we become aware of our connection with the dead. But even before we have this feeling, we risk nothing more than the dead person not listening to us when we read to him. Thus we see that through the living comprehension of the anthroposophical teaching, the dead and the living, microcosm and macrocosm, come into connection.

This also happens in another area. When the seer observes the sleeping, he sees: souls pass through the gate of sleep that never have spiritual interests, and others that absorb spiritual thoughts during the day. — There is a difference: the sleeping souls are like germs in the field. Famine would occur in the spiritual world if no spiritual thoughts were taken across. The dead feed on the spiritual and anthroposophical ideas that the dying bring with them. If we do not carry spiritual concepts with us when we fall asleep, we deprive the dead of nourishment. By reading to them, we give them spiritual stimulation; with the spiritual ideas that we carry with us when we fall asleep, we give the dead nourishment.

Through what a person creates in his soul, he becomes a bridge from the microcosm to the macrocosm. What we acquire is like a seed. I would like to describe the living, not just the theoretical mission of anthroposophy as follows: Theory is transformed into elixir of life, immortality becomes an experience. Just as the seed guarantees the germination of another seed, we develop spiritual and soul forces that guarantee our return in a subsequent earthly life. We not only comprehend, we experience immortality within us. From the moment our hair turns grey, we experience that which passes through the gate of death. In this sense, anthroposophy will become the elixir of life, just as blood courses through our physical body. Only then will anthroposophy be what it is meant to be. When we learn to recognize this and want to summarize it in a basic feeling, in the basic feeling that the human soul is connected to the spiritual world as our physical body is to the physical world, then the human being experiences:

The following speaks to the human mind:
The beings in the expanse of space,
They change over the course of time.
The human soul, experiencing,
From the expanse of space, unlimited
And unperturbed by the passage of time,
Into the realm of eternity.

published in the German weekly journal “Anthroposophie”, No. 48 of May 31, and in the Swiss weekly journal “Das Goetheanum” of June 17, 1923. Also sent as a circular letter.

To the members of the Anthroposophical and the Free Anthroposophical Societies in Germany.

My dear friends!

The development and reception of anthroposophical endeavors in the present makes a change in my working method necessary. On the one hand, anthroposophy has emerged as a soul need for an ever-increasing number of people; on the other hand, it is increasingly confronted with misunderstandings and incorrect assessments by many.

This requires that I meet the increased demands for the cultivation of the anthroposophical need more than has been possible since the time when practical institutions of various kinds were formed by the objectives of the friends of our cause. These institutions have arisen in a thoroughly justified way from the intentions of these friends on the basis of the anthroposophical movement. And it was also understandable that when these friends strove to realize such practical ideas, they wished to see me personally involved in the administration of the corresponding institutions. I accommodated this wish, although I was aware that this accommodation, which was a natural obligation, would draw me away from my actual task of caring for the center of anthroposophical work for some time.

For a relatively short period of time, I had to comply with the wishes of my friends. But now I must also take the position that I may continue to work only within this center of anthroposophical life with its artistic and educational implications. I must belong entirely to anthroposophy as such, as well as to its artistic and educational endeavors and the like, and to institutions such as “Kommender Tag” etc. only to the extent that the spiritual impulses of anthroposophy flow into them. In the interest of the anthroposophical cause, I must withdraw from all administrative matters of these institutions. Only in this way will it be possible for me to work as intensively as is necessary in view of their own demands and the rapidly growing opposition.

These are the reasons that move me to resign from the office of chairman of the supervisory board of “Kommenden Tages” now. I ask the friends of the anthroposophical cause not to take this as a sign that the intensive, appropriate and ideal work of “Kommenden Tages” will change. This work is in good hands; and I ask that no degree of trust be withdrawn from it in the future. I am convinced that everything will go better if I now formally place this work in the hands of those who will do it well, and devote myself to the cause to which I have been assigned by fate. Whatever intellectual stimulus I can give to the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, the KommendenTag publishing house, the research institutes, the journals, etc., will flow better to them if I am removed from the actual administration. Practically speaking, nothing essential will change within the organization, since I have been obliged, even in recent times, to grow into the situation described as necessary for the future as a result of the circumstances I have explained. So it is only the situation that has actually arisen that will be officially established.

I therefore hope that my resignation from the supervisory board of the “Kommenden Tages” will be seen as an expression of my trust in its leadership and that it will become such among the members of the Anthroposophical Societies as well. It should strengthen, not weaken, trust. If there were any reason to weaken it, I would have to stay. But the fact is that I am unnecessary to the knowledgeable, prudent leadership and therefore obliged to return to the anthroposophical cause in the narrower sense.

I ask you to take this as the reason for the step that is now necessary.

What seems most disconcerting to many people who are not yet familiar with anthroposophy is that it not only has something different to say than what we are accustomed to hearing in the natural sciences and in life today, but that it also has to say it in a different way, in a different form. And in a sense, it is precisely this different mode of expression, this different form, that people find most difficult to forgive in anthroposophy. They immediately begin to measure and criticize what anthroposophy has to say against what they are accustomed to and what they otherwise have in today's science and in today's life.

What I have just said will probably have to be emphasized most today, when I have to speak to you about the way and the methods by which anthroposophy arrives at its research results. These methods are, of course, quite different from the methods of external observation and also from the usual methods of thinking. Today, when we talk about scientific methodology, we are accustomed to being told about things that come to us from outside: observations, experiments, and so on. And in the treatment of observation and experiment, we then see the methods of research.

This is not the case with anthroposophy, especially when it comes to the foundations of anthroposophy. And that is what I am mainly talking about today. Of course, when anthroposophy spreads to the individual sciences, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and so on, as can be seen from the discussions that have already taken place here, then the methods of spiritual research, which I am speaking about today, will touch on some point with the experimental and observational methods that one is otherwise accustomed to in the clinic, in the laboratory, in the observatory and so on. But today we shall be dealing with the foundations, so to speak, with the way of entering into the soul state through which one can present anthroposophical results to the world at all. It is absolutely essential that research in the field of anthroposophy can only be carried out when the researcher has developed his soul forces, his powers of knowledge, further than they are in ordinary life, in ordinary science. One must develop what I would call intellectual modesty. This intellectual modesty can be characterized in the following way. Think back to when you were a child, think of the dull mental experiences of early childhood. You will have to say to yourself that the clear overview of life and the world around you, which you acquired in later life, was still missing then. The ability to orientate yourself in the world was still lacking. All this one has developed within oneself. Compared to one's childhood, one has become a completely different person, not only physically and bodily but also mentally and spiritually. Abilities have sprouted from within that now serve one in life and in science. Just as the human soul is now, so one says to oneself: Certainly, education and life have drawn certain abilities out of my inner being since my childhood. But now I am finished. Now I have certain abilities with which I want to know the world, with which I want to place myself in the world as a human being who acts, who does things; with which I also want to judge my religious and moral impulses. One does not say to oneself: What has happened to the human soul from childhood until now could perhaps continue to happen. One could just as well say: I could extract further abilities from my soul. Then I would consciously make a person out of myself with quite a different soul capacity, a person who might differ from the normal person of today just as I differ from the child in my present state of soul.

As I said, it takes intellectual modesty to say what I have just characterized at a certain point in one's life and then to put it into practice. To put it into practice in such a way that one really tries to make progress, to bring up abilities hidden in the soul to the goal of further research. For how could the results of research in today's science, how could the moral-religious impulses in today's life have taken hold in the world if all people had developed only with the soul-condition that they had in childhood?

And so it is absolutely necessary for anthroposophical spiritual scientific research to take the position quite seriously: I want to bring out of my soul abilities that are dormant in my soul today, just as the abilities that are now manifest once lay dormant in my soul during childhood.

I will still have to explain that not everyone who really wants to commit themselves to anthroposophical research, or who wants to be active in it, must also become a researcher in the sense I have just indicated. But in order to achieve real results, real outcomes, something like what I have said must take place. When these research results are then presented to the world, they are perfectly accessible to common sense and can be tested by it; just as anyone who is not a painter can judge a picture artistically. So, to understand anthroposophy, it is not necessary to go through everything that I will have to describe today, but it is necessary for research. And it is also necessary to discuss it for the reason that, to a certain extent, the anthroposophical researcher has to account to his fellow human beings for how he arrives at his results.

Now I would like to start from the most fundamental point, from which one can start in this day and age if one wants to characterize the anthroposophical research method. Basically, you can find everything that is the first, let's say, axiom, that is the first, most elementary thing to understand the anthroposophical research method, in my “Philosophy of Freedom”, yes, in even older of my books. This “Philosophy of Freedom” was published in 1894, and was actually written much earlier. It may perhaps even surprise some who know this book that I make this claim, and yet it is true: the most elementary understanding of anthroposophical research methods can be gleaned from this “Philosophy of Freedom”. What one draws from it as an elementary understanding must then, however, be further developed. Only the most elementary things can be found in this “Philosophy of Freedom”. But these most elementary things can be found.

In this “Philosophy of Freedom” I have tried to determine where the moral impulses, the ethical, the moral impulses of man actually come from. Now, because I will only be able to briefly characterize this “Philosophy of Freedom” today, I will characterize it in a slightly different way than it is done in the book itself, tying in with some of the things I have said here in the previous days.

I believe that anyone reading this “Philosophy of Freedom” will find that there is something like mathematical thinking in it - strange as it may seem, but there it is - a mathematical thinking in that this “Philosophy of Freedom” actually aims to find the human impulse of freedom and the moral impulses. But the way in which this “Philosophy of Freedom” attempts to talk about the moral world is not qualitatively different from that which is present in us as a state of mind when we do mathematics. I have characterized this mathematizing in the preceding days. I have shown how it is drawn from the depths of the human soul, how we then, as it were, forget ourselves, how we forget that we have drawn mathematical space out of ourselves, and how we then live in this space with our view of space. I also said: People are initially interested when it comes to their own human abilities, not so much in what state of mind one is in when one mathematizes. I would say that there are only a few people in the world who, if I may use the expression, have the right respect for mathematization. For example, Novalis, a profound, amiable, extraordinarily sympathetic poet, had this proper respect for mathematization. Anyone who allows Novalis' poetry to take effect on them has the impression: there is a wonderful lyrical momentum, there is a complete enthusiasm, there is poetry in the soul. And when Novalis, the wonderful lyricist, starts talking about mathematics, he says something like: In mathematics we have, basically, the most beautiful, the greatest, the most powerful human poetry! I know how few people admit this at first. But, as I said, the amiable, profound lyricist Novalis knew – because he was a mathematician – what is stirred in the soul when one does not merely solve individual mathematical problems in a mechanical way, even if they are problems of function theory, number theory and the like, or of synthetic geometry; he knew how the soul feels when it is so enraptured that it forgets itself and knows itself in the space outside.

But now one thing is possible. It is possible, in fact, if one is familiar with this state of mind of mathematical thinking that Novalis speaks of so wonderfully, and can then put oneself in a position to gain something completely different from the same state of mind, namely the experience of moral impulses. In other words, if one succeeds in grasping and experiencing moral problems with the same inner clarity and the same inner certainty with which one solve, let us say, the Pythagorean theorem, to grasp and experience moral problems, then one knows: one is in the spiritual, in the supersensible world with this grasping of moral problems, and one speaks of the fact that in this supersensible world moral intuitions flow into the soul with the moral impulses. One knows that one is feeling one's way within the moral world, that one is feeling one's way in a supersensible world, which has nothing to do with what can be perceived externally through the senses. One knows that one is in a world where, firstly, one experiences one's deepest inner moral impulses directly; where one is one with them; where, because one is one with them, they are intuitive insights. And one knows a second thing. One knows that no matter how long one looks around in the sensory world, no matter how astutely one thinks and observes and experiments, what one, if I may say so, discovers in the mathematical world as moral intuitions cannot come from any sensory external world; it comes to one from the supersensible world. But that means, in other words, that it is inspired. The real, the deepest moral impulses that a person can receive from the supersensible world are intuitions that are at the same time inspired for our soul. And although they are not visual, do not appear in pictures, they are nevertheless there in the same way as sense perceptions themselves. Just as sensory perceptions are in the realm of the sensual, so too are moral impulses in the supersensible realm. That is to say, they are imaginations. And anyone who has discovered in which world the moral element, as also meant by Novalis, is experienced, knows that this moral element appears in this field, that it appears to the person who is completely removed from the sensory world as intuitions, which are both inspirations and imaginations. In short, by trying to gain a moral foundation for human life from the supersensible world, one learns to recognize how the soul must experience if it wants to be in the supersensible world. And it must be said that for today's human being - I have explained how it is different for the person who undergoes the yoga practice, or who undergoes the practice of grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, and so on - for today's human being, it is first of all the best way for a person to get to know how to leave their physical body and live in a purely spiritual world, if they live in a purely supersensible world in the way that I have tried to indicate in my Philosophy of Freedom.

I know that very many people are not satisfied with such a way of living in the spiritual world, because in this world only moral truths appear, which one prefers to accept as commandments, as conventional facts, and so on. But I am not here to talk further about the “Philosophy of Freedom”, but only about the elementary methodical. But once you have become familiar with this special way of being in the supersensible world, you are encouraged to go further, to try to see whether it is not also possible for other areas of life to penetrate into a supersensible world in relation to the sensory world. And then one gradually comes to the point where methods of inner soul development are really possible, which lead people up the path to see the whole cosmos and human inner knowledge in such a way, otherwise, in the sense of the “Philosophy of Freedom”, one only looks at the moral, where one does not yet want to admit that it is a matter of the supersensible, if one does not go into the actual foundation of the matter.

The methods by which one ascends into the supersensible world in other fields consist in further developing the ordinary soul powers as one has them in ordinary life and in ordinary science. And these soul powers are, after all, first of all, if we characterize them externally in abstract terms, thinking, feeling and willing. We distinguish these three soul abilities, thinking, feeling and willing, but in the unified life of the soul they are not strictly separated from each other. One would actually have to say: when we speak of thinking, of mental images, we are speaking of a 'soul ability in which, for example, the will and also feeling are present, but it is mainly thinking that is present. In the will, on the other hand, thoughts are definitely present, but it is mainly will that is present. Thus, it is only the most salient feature that is referred to in the individual soul abilities, while everywhere below the surface, one might say, the other soul abilities also lie.

This becomes particularly important when it comes to the further development, the evolution, of the ability to think, of the power of thought. For this, we must be clear about the following. First, we must be clear about our relationship to the things around us and to ourselves in ordinary life and in ordinary science. We perceive the world through our senses, through our eyes, ears, and so on. We live with a certain inner intensity in these sensory perceptions. Then we form mental images of what we perceive with our senses. We move away from the things we perceive with our senses. In our mental images, there remains an afterimage of what we experienced with our senses. But consider how dull and shadowy the thought, the mental image, is compared to what we experienced with full vitality in our sensory perception. These mental images that are linked to sensory perceptions are dull and shadowy. And we are accustomed in life and even in ordinary science to let the sensory perceptions speak to us and to passively surrender to these sensory perceptions so that they awaken in us the mental images that make what we have perceived through the senses permanent. And then, more or less clearly, even after a long time or throughout our whole life, we can in turn bring up from the depths of our soul or our human being, as memories, what we have experienced externally through the senses. The mental images that are otherwise linked to the sensory perceptions and that are faint and shadowy in comparison to the sensory perceptions can also arise from us, from memory. We experience inwardly in the life of mental images what we perceive outwardly through the senses; we experience it again through memory. It should be clear, very clear, that just about all ordinary life, even that which is immersed in science, proceeds in this way in terms of imagining: that we expose ourselves to the liveliness of sensory perceptions, that we then get dull mental images, but that we can bring up again from our human being in memory that which we have received from outside as impressions. Our inner life is mostly nothing more than more or less transformed, metamorphosed mental images in the sense of external perception.

I will not go into the deeper nature of memory today, because I want to describe how what I have just characterized in terms of mental images can be further developed. It can be further developed by thinking in a way that does not merely tie in with external sense perceptions, but by thinking through the methods that I have mentioned in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds?” and in my “Secret Science”: meditation, concentration, and so on - the names are not important. You will find a detailed description of how to proceed in the books mentioned. I will now only explain the principles.

While thoughts usually arise when we passively devote ourselves to perceptions or when the echoes of experiences resurface from memories, to become an anthroposophical spiritual researcher, one tries to do so through inner arbitrariness, as one has learned to do when mathematizing, when solving mathematical problems, so that one carries out everything fully consciously, not in a dreamy, hallucinatory state – that would be the opposite of what I will describe today – but in full awareness, devoting oneself to thinking and imagining, so that one learns to rest on mental images that one has arbitrarily brought into one's consciousness. It is good to bring into the center of your consciousness mental images that are as clear as possible, not those in which you can experience all kinds of nebulous, mystical stuff, but those that you can easily grasp. What matters then is not what kind of mental image you have, but the soul activity that you develop in this meditation. Just note: if you continually tense a muscle when you need it for work, the muscle becomes strong. The same thing happens with your soul's thinking power when you repeatedly concentrate on mental images that you bring to the center of your consciousness. The power of thought becomes stronger and stronger and finally reaches a point where you can say: “Now I am able to have my mental images as vividly as I otherwise only have external sensory impressions.” Mind you, I do not have hallucinations or illusions. These come from the unconscious. I now live in such vivid inner mental images as are otherwise external sensory perceptions, but I live in them with full consciousness, not with that dreamy mood of the soul, that mystical, nebulous mood of the soul, as it is present in hallucinations or visions. It must be a mathematical state of mind, through which one can immerse oneself in such inner experiences from mere mental images, which one otherwise only has when one is devoted to external sensory perception. One must compare, to say it again, the vividness and intensity of external sensory perception with what one otherwise experiences only pale and shadowy in thought. But in the way I have described, one learns more and more to be inwardly present with thoughts that have only been raised inwardly, as one is otherwise only present when some external sense impression stimulates one. No more pale, shadowy thoughts - inwardly vivid thoughts! The soul's power of thought has been strengthened. One has summoned a new power from the depths of one's soul. One has strengthened one's thinking power. When one has strengthened one's thinking, one has reached the first step of supersensible knowledge. In my books I have called this the imaginative stage of knowledge. One has reached the stage of imagination. This stage of imagination shows one, by means of the very vivid mental image that one now has: something is connected with this mental image.

Let us once again take up our ordinary sensory life and our ordinary mental images. Today we perceive something. We are vividly immersed in this perception. We form a pale, shadowy mental image. After a week, say, prompted by something or also free-rising, as one might say, this mental image arises again from memory. It comes out of us, to put it trivially. The fact that I once had the sensory experience is the cause of the same mental image emerging again later from my inner human being in memory. Now, after my practice, I am able to have thoughts that are intensified in my consciousness, which I call imaginative thoughts because they occur with the vividness, with the intensity of images, because they are really like sensory images, even though they are only thoughts at first. But just as otherwise, through the fact that I have thought about an external experience – if I just stare at it, no memory comes to me later, only if I have thought about it – a memory can come from my own being, so through the fact that I now have a thought, and to an increased extent in the soul, something comes to me from my own being, which at first looks like a memory, but which is not a memory. Something is now arising that is not a reminiscence of an external sensual experience, but something that I have never before perceived arising from within me at all. If I may put it this way: just as memories of ordinary experiences arise otherwise, so now, through the power of intensified thinking, that which I have never before seen inwardly arises from within. And I will very soon recognize what that is that is arising. I try, by continuing to meditate, to bring it to ever greater and greater clarity in this inner arising, and I finally come to understand what this inner arising actually is. I come to it: this inner ascent is I myself, as I have developed in the time since my birth here on earth.

Otherwise we have only the stream of memories, from which individual ones arise that are otherwise down there in the unconscious. I do not mean these memories. These memories are indeed what also arise in ordinary consciousness. But what is now arising, called forth from the inner being through the power of intensified thinking, that is not just thought, memory thought, it is that which leads me much deeper into my inner human nature than the power of memory. It is something that leads me, so to speak, deeper into the layers of my inner being than memory thoughts do. It is something that shows me how, as a small child, I used abilities that I had in my soul to shape my organism plastically from the brain outwards. This is what shows me how, as a somewhat older child, I used my ability to speak to further develop my inner self in a plastic way. In short, my innermost life comes before my soul in a grand, powerful tableau, the like of which I have never seen before. And what now comes before my soul is not just an image. Please bear this in mind. It is not just an image, but something that I recognize by grasping it, that it is connected with my growth forces, with that which grows in me, which also lives in me in the nourishing forces, in the circulation, in the breathing forces, which is in fact an inner, supersensible body in relation to the physical body. I am now getting to know a second person in me. I am learning to recognize that I can say the following to myself: You carry your outer body with you, it is extended in space, it has arms, feet, a head and so on. That is a spatial body. But what you have now discovered through your meditation, through imaginative recognition, that is an organism that lives in time, not in space, a time organism.

It is difficult for today's man when one speaks to him of such a time organism. But this time organism really is present in us as a second person, and we may call it an organism. Because you come to it, let's say, when you've become an old fellow, as I may say of myself, you know, you have a certain soul configuration. This soul configuration, which you now carry within you, is connected with a soul configuration perhaps in the fifth or sixth year of life. And just as my left hand is connected in my spatial organism, for my sake, with some part of my brain in this spatial organism, and just as the brain is in this spatial organism so that the individual parts relate to each other, so the individual parts of the time organism relate to each other in time, not in space. I carry this time organism within me. I have called it the etheric body or formative forces body in my books. This formative forces body is a time organism. It is the first thing we discover on the path of imaginative research. We survey our previous life on earth in its inwardly creative, supersensible forces. We do not speculate about a life force, but we look at our past life on earth as an internally organized tableau, as a time organism, as the formative body. Older, less conscious views of these things, which were more intuitive, more instinctive, but which knew something of these things in their intuitions, called this time body, this body of formative forces, the ether body. It is not the terms that are important, but what is meant by these things. In this etheric body, one has a reality, a time reality within oneself, and no one understands the formation of the human being without understanding this etheric body. And the most significant thing about this etheric body is that, at the moment we are ready, we can see our previous life on earth as if with a spiritual vision in this life tableau, which is the formative forces body, and we also stop distinguishing between subjective and objective. We could draw a diagram of the etheric body, or formative body, which we carry within us and which is a fluid temporal body. But we must realize that we are then depicting in a single instant something that is constantly flowing. Just as one cannot depict lightning, one cannot depict this etheric body either. One can only paint a moment that is captured. We must realize that our human formation depends on this body of formative forces. And in the moment when we become aware that this etheric body within us is a body of forces, without knowing the inner structure of which we cannot understand the human being, we realize that the same forces that work within us as such an etheric body also permeate the world as etheric forces; that subjective and objective cease to have any meaning; that this formative body of forces is connected with the great course of time of the universe; that we are part of this great universe. We begin to speak of the etheric processes of the universe, for these become clear to us at the moment when we arrive at such a vivid mental image, as we otherwise only have external sense perceptions in a vivid way. And we can achieve this through meditation. In short, we enter into an etheric world. But at the same time we learn to recognize the first supersensible thing in ourselves. We do not yet come out of earthly life, but we learn to recognize that which is supersensible in us within earthly life.

If we now want to progress, we must continue our exercises. These exercises consist of many, many details. I have described it in the books and will only state the principles here. The first thing in these exercises was to strengthen the power of thought, to come to develop imaginative thinking, a thinking that is as alive as otherwise only the experience of sensory perception. The second thing that must be trained can be characterized as follows: the person who, in full consciousness, develops such imaginations through which he then gets to know the ether world, the formative forces, also comes to understand that these imaginations, these images – for as images one's own life to date appears in a large tableau, the outer world appears in a universal tableau -, that these images, despite being evoked quite arbitrarily, hold one more strongly than the ordinary, pale, shadowy thoughts. Most people know that these pale, shadowy thoughts unfortunately all too quickly fade into obscurity — especially before an exam, it is usually the case. But if you have just applied a strong force in your thoughts, then the thoughts hold you, they do not want to let go. You must now, in order to get ahead, not remain at this level. With the same arbitrariness with which one has called these images, these imaginations into the soul, with the same strength and arbitrariness one must also be able to remove them again, to send them out of the soul, so that one can have in the soul what I would now like to call: emptiness of consciousness.

Just realize what this emptiness of consciousness looks like in ordinary life. When empty consciousness occurs in ordinary life, there is usually no consciousness left, you fall asleep. The ordinary consciousness falls asleep when it becomes empty of sensory impressions, memories and so on. But that is precisely the difference between this ordinary consciousness and what one has already attained in imaginative knowledge: one learns to muffle, to muffle these imaginations completely, and yet one is now facing the world in an absolutely alert state. I would like to say: it is all expectation. One is awake, but has nothing in one's consciousness because one has extinguished the imaginations with the great strength that was necessary. One waits, alert, for what will now arise. And when one has created an empty consciousness by first having to extinguish an intensified power of thinking, then this empty consciousness does not wait in vain. Then the supersensible world penetrates into this 'empty consciousness', penetrates in exactly the same way as the sensory world penetrates through our eyes and ears, through our warmth organism and so on. We discover that a supersensible world surrounds us, and this penetrates into the empty but alert consciousness as the spiritual world, just as we previously had the sensory world around us. In doing so, the original consciousness of everyday life, that is, common sense, always remains present alongside this heightened consciousness, because we carry out all of this with absolute awareness. This is in contrast to the state when someone hallucinates and has visions, because in doing so, their entire consciousness is absorbed in individual visions. This is not the case with the consciousness I am talking about. The everyday consciousness, through which we are firmly rooted in life, in ordinary science, remains with us at every step, constantly present as a controller. Those who say that what is described as anthroposophical consciousness could also be based on visions or hallucinations do not know what it is about. They speak without inquiring what it is about.

But if a supersensible world now penetrates through the empty consciousness from our environment, then we are also able to perceive more about ourselves than just the tableau-like etheric body described above. Now we are able to look beyond birth and conception. By being able to erase what the whole formative forces body is, we see through the empty consciousness nothing more of the whole human being between the birth and the present moment of experience. For when we have learned to expunge the imaginations and to have empty consciousness, then we can also expunge everything that fills us as an etheric body and look back at ourselves with empty consciousness. The ordinary human being remains for the onlooker, who can observe him. But this elevated consciousness now penetrates into the world in which we were before we descended from the spiritual and soul world and accepted an earthly body from our parents and great-grandparents. Now we look into the world in which we, before we were clothed with a physical body, were united with those spiritual substances that are in the spiritual world. Now we learn to recognize how we were before we descended into physical life. Now we learn to recognize another thing supernaturally.

First, by looking at ourselves as physical beings on earth, we have our spatial body, the physical body; we have the second body, which we grasp through imaginative knowledge, which is a supersensible one, but does not lead beyond earthly life; but now we have the third body. Because it leads into the world of stars, it is called - it is only a terminology - the astral body. One gets to know the actual soul being of the human being. One gets to know this third, the second supersensible entity of the human being. But we also have this in our body in earthly life. It is veiled in the physical body. It was present before our birth or our conception. Through observation, one then comes to an understanding of one side of the human being's eternity. We have lost so much of this one side of the human being's eternity that modern languages hardly have a word for it anymore. We speak of immortality, of that which we have through the traditions, but which were only the traditions of the last millennia, we speak of the extension beyond death. That one can also speak of an extension beyond birth would necessitate that we also know about the other side of eternity and coin the word unbornness, for this unbornness is the other side of eternity.

Now, in this way we have ascended to such insights, which now cannot enter our soul condition otherwise than by getting to know something that is completely closed to our ordinary consciousness. I have already described to you how empty consciousness must enter and how the contents of the supersensible world must come into this empty consciousness from the spiritual world, just as the sensory world otherwise penetrates into the eyes and ears. This second step of supersensible knowledge I call inspiration: inspired knowledge. Through inspired knowledge we now come directly into the supersensible world. Above all, we learn to recognize ourselves as supersensible beings in our prenatal existence. We also learn to recognize the spiritual environment. And now something very significant occurs. I would like to sketch it out for you today, and it will be explained in more detail in the next few days. Take the relationship between our environment and our own inner world. We can describe it by saying that for ordinary consciousness, the material world is out there. If we now look at the human being objectively, we can say that when a person looks into this material world through their eyes and perceives other things through their ears, material things and facts are out there, and inside the soul are its ideational, feeling and willing contents. By perceiving the material, he carries this outer material world in his soul's inner being pictorially, as an image, soulfully fine, soulfully thin. In the moment when we learn to grasp the spiritual world around us in our empty consciousness, something new also arises for our inner being.

Suppose I now see this material world as permeated by the spiritual world for the inspired consciousness. Now it is not pictorially occurring in the inner being of man, what is seen out there as spiritual, but now one learns to recognize the spiritual outside, as it is reflected in the inner being of man, and there it is reflected as his physical organs, as lungs, liver, heart, kidneys and so on, as all that which is materially in the first instance in the inner being. There is a complete reversal, a reciprocity. While the material world is reflected in us in a spiritual-soul way for ordinary consciousness, the spiritual world is reflected in us through our organs. We get to know ourselves inwardly as physical human beings by becoming aware of the spiritual world around us. Before that, one does not understand the physical human being. Before that, through anatomy, we get to know the heart, lungs and liver externally, but not how they are connected to the external world. Through anatomy and physiology, we get to know the heart, lungs and liver as if we were to learn that a person has all kinds of mental images inside them, but is unaware that their inner images relate to the outside world. They do not know that these organs relate to the spiritual external world. This is the origin of what becomes possible, for example, as the effect of spiritual science in a rational medicine. Because only now do you really get to know the human being, you get to know the inner nature of his organism. There is no way to get to know it before. You can only recognize it externally.

This is the second step on the path to supersensible knowledge and research, and it is the step of inspiration. A third step is reached by appealing to the will. One can also develop this will, in particular by first becoming quite clear about what this will is all about in ordinary life. It has already been mentioned, also from other sides in these days, that man is actually a continually sleeping being in relation to his will nature. If I just raise my arm, I first have the mental image of the goal that I want to raise my arm. But what then happens, as I plunge this thought of the goal into the human being and bring about the arm movement through the will, that initially eludes the human capacity for knowledge. I become aware again, and again through the perception, the raised arm, but the will remains as unconscious to ordinary consciousness as the states that we live through while asleep remain unconscious to the sleeper himself. We are actually awake in ordinary consciousness only for our imaginative life; we are asleep in ordinary consciousness for our will life. But we can raise this life of the will into the waking state. The exercises for this are very different from the exercises that are initially thinking exercises, as I have described them. And the best way to show this difference is to make it clear to you by means of a characteristic feature.

Those who want to achieve something through such exercises, for example in observing the etheric body, must indeed undergo preparation. The preparatory exercises are described in the books mentioned. These concern, for example, the preparation for a quality that I would like to call presence of mind. Presence of mind in ordinary life consists of being able to make quick decisions in the face of a situation. But this must become a habitual quality for someone who wants to ascend into the spiritual worlds. Because what can be perceived there is not so easy to perceive. In fact, very diligent practitioners, if I may call them that, believe: I cannot perceive anything. They cannot do it because they are not sufficiently prepared for presence of mind, for the things flit by so quickly that one must grasp them quickly. Most people have such poor soul abilities that when they should turn their attention to what they should experience spiritually, it is already gone. It is therefore a matter of presence of mind.

Exactly the opposite quality must be developed for will exercises. There it is important to apply the perfect will in the most elementary way in ordinary life, when walking, grasping, moving, in fact when doing anything, when performing actions, deeds. As long as one only develops the will inwardly in life, there is actually only a wish, not a will. A real will is always connected with an organic process, I could also say with a combustion process. The truly complete will actually changes the organism. It is linked to the organism in the metabolic process. But what about our ordinary will? We are not able to see through it at all. The impulses of the will take place, we look into our inner being, we are spiritually opaque to these impulses of the will. We look into a darkness in relation to the will. But we can lighten this darkness. We can make ourselves spiritually transparent. But this requires a lot of patience, because now we have to extend our exercises over long periods of time. I will tell you a simple exercise, the more complicated ones can also be found in the books mentioned. So let's take a simple exercise: for example, I have a habit, I write in a certain way, I have a handwriting. Once you've become an old guy, you don't like to get used to a different handwriting. It takes effort, it takes inner effort. It is something that remains within you, although it is expressed on the outside by writing. But all the volitional processes involved in changing one's handwriting take place within. Apart from the fact that I would not advise doing this particular exercise too much, even for external reasons – I just want to illustrate something with it, not give instructions on how to forge handwriting. But if one could train one's will to such an extent that one could change something that is so interwoven with a person as handwriting or other habits, in short, if one could make oneself a completely different person through inner awareness, through the cultivation of the will, one could make the will transparent. It takes years to achieve this. In particular, it is good to take the trouble to incorporate certain qualities that one initially only perceives as beautiful but does not have, by resolving, for example: “You will spend the next eight years training yourself with all your might to acquire certain qualities that you do not have, certain special ways of expressing yourself.” What I am describing seems easy, but one would like to say with Faust: “Yet the easy is difficult”. And the one who does such exercises will see that it is difficult to turn the will in this way through strong self-discipline in a different direction. In short, what otherwise only comes to life in moments when the will becomes full by expressing its existence outwardly in action, when applied to the development of the will itself, leads us to really look within ourselves through such exercises, you can find more details about these exercises in the books, to make ourselves completely transparent in relation to the will. By way of comparison, I would like to try to make clear to you what is achieved by this. How do we actually see through our eyes? Only because the eye is selfless, because it does not assert its own substantiality. It is transparent. The moment the eye partially gives up this selflessness, asserts itself, it can no longer serve us to see. It must extinguish itself.

Now I am not going to claim that for ordinary life our physical body is sick and needs to be made healthy through exercises. It is not like that. For life and for ordinary science, our body is naturally healthy, but it is useless for supersensible perception. For that, it must be transformed. Not that it remains constantly transformed. The person with the ordinary, healthy human understanding always remains alongside. It is also not a matter of one person dissolving into the other, of the ordinary, healthy human being disappearing. Both the developed personality and the original personality with the healthy human understanding remain alongside one another, so that the latter acts as a controller for the former. But for the higher consciousness, which must already be empty, we come to the point where our body is no longer there for the soul to perceive. We see, as it were, through our body. We see how the will works in us.

In ordinary science, one does not see how the will works. Therefore, one assumes that there are motor nerves. They do not know that the will works directly. It has been said today that the real discovery of the facts that exist here can only be made when one has come to make oneself transparent like a sense organ, so that the whole human being becomes like a single sense organ, permeable in soul and spirit, as the eye is transparent to light. Just as we first become free through intensified thinking and first reach the body of formative forces and then the prenatal astral body, so now, having trained the will in this way, we come to know the other side of our eternal being. By making our physical body transparent, we are able to summon the image – I say expressly: the image – of what happens to us at the moment of death. At that moment we leave our physical body, which is handed over to the physical elements. The soul and spirit pass over into the spiritual world. This moment, when we pass through the gate of death into the spiritual world, we perceive it at the moment when our physical body becomes transparent to the soul. In intuitive knowledge, this third stage of supersensible knowledge, our body becomes transparent. Therefore, we get to know ourselves in the state in which we are after death, when we no longer have the physical body. For we can now see beyond it by having risen to it in the third, intuitive stage of knowledge, by disregarding the physical body. Now we get to know the other side of the soul's eternity. We get to know immortality through direct contemplation.

Anthroposophy is not a form of philosophical speculation. In order to get to know immortality, it does not start from the usual consciousness, but it assumes that the abilities slumbering in the soul, the slumber of which one becomes aware through intellectual modesty, can be awakened and thus rise to see the spiritual world. One learns to recognize the universe spiritually. You get to know your own eternal being spiritually. And when you get to know these two sides in yourself, you learn to recognize what a person is like between birth and death, when the soul is hidden under the bodily processes. on the other hand, recognize the spiritual and soul life that we unfold when we are outside the body before birth or after death, then insights into our true self also arise. And then we learn to recognize that which goes through repeated earthly lives. However, I will have to talk about this important result of anthroposophical research, about repeated earthly lives, tomorrow.

As you can see, the path of supersensible knowledge, the anthroposophical path of research, involves first entering the world of formative forces through imaginative knowledge, so that we recognize the supersensible that is already in us in ordinary physical life, but in a supersensible way: the body of formative forces. Then, through the ascent to inspired knowledge, we get to know the astral body, that is, the soul body; we get to know entering into the body and, in turn, emerging from the body through death; then we also get to know the human ego. One now enters into a concrete spiritual world, into a world of spiritual beings. For that which one recognizes as a spiritual world, for which the organs are developed, with the empty consciousness, but which is still awake, is a world in which spiritual entities are next to our own spiritual entity, next to our own spiritual-soul being. One looks into a spiritual world in this way. And now one realizes: If one wants to explore this spiritual world, one must develop these three degrees of supersensible knowledge, must draw from the soul imaginative, inspired and intuitive knowledge. They reveal themselves, they structure themselves in degrees, when one wants to know the Cosmos in its spiritual content in itself as spiritual entity.

One has already received a hint of an impression when one searches through the moral world in its actual essence. There one comes, basically, to be in the same world, even if only for the moral impulses, as one otherwise is when one has the imaginative, the inspired, the intuitive world before oneself. Only it is so present for the moral that only the moral impulses are in it. But these can be found when one has passed through imagination and inspiration to intuition. But it is given to us human beings on earth that this world alone, the world of the moral, which we need for life on earth, can be present to our ordinary consciousness in its supersensible nature before the mind's eye. And anyone who understands the real existence of the supersensible nature of the moral can, if they only develop what they learn here in an elementary way as cosmology and anthropology, advance to a real spiritual insight into the world, so that the spiritual formations, then the spiritual inner life of other spiritual beings and then the interweaving with the spiritual world, as we are interwoven here with the other realms, and that his own eternal soul essence also really comes before the soul's eye. This is what one can get to know by studying the “Philosophy of Freedom” not just in theory but by really experiencing it. It is the same as reading the axioms of Euclid on the first page of a geometry book and getting an idea of what is to come. Just as the whole of geometry follows from these axioms, so the whole spiritual world is present, as it were, in the nature of things, in the real insight into the moral world. But no one should think that he knows the nature of the spiritual world just because he knows the nature of moral impulses. He only knows the axiomatic, the elementary.

What is described here as a method of research for the supersensible worlds is indeed something that alienates most people today. But the one who is at home in these matters says to himself: How much of our present-day spiritual life began as something alienating and then became a matter of course. One need only really know the spiritual history of humanity and one will be able to say: Today, most people see what must be said as something absurd, ridiculous, as something funny. Later, a time will come when it will be taken for granted, just as the Copernican system was first taken as a curiosity, then became a matter of course. But people will feel – and feelings are precisely the most important thing that should arise from the life of the anthroposophical worldview – that this anthroposophy truly does not want to oppose what justified natural science or other science is in the present day. For what does it want to be at bottom? This question should emerge from what I have discussed today about the research methods of this anthroposophy: What does it want to be, this anthroposophy, also in relation to the other sciences, as in relation to universal human life? What does it want to be?

Now, when we have a person in front of us, we see their outer facial features, their physique, their gait, their movements, their gestures. We cannot be satisfied with simply stating: This is how he walks, this is how he looks, and so on. We see this as an external physiognomy, but we only have a complete experience of this person when we add to this external experience his soul and spirit, his soul, when we see the soul through the outer form and outer movements. But if we understand things aright, we also have in external science what is described to us by the external physiognomy of nature and of the human being. Just as one does not deny that man must also be observed in his external form through the senses if one wants to experience his soul, so one does not deny that through external science the external physiognomy of nature and of the human being must be explained, described, and grasped by means of external science, if one asserts that behind all this there is something that can be regarded as the soul of nature, the soul of the cosmos.

And so it is that just as a reasonable person who recognizes the soul of man does not negate his body, his outer form, his physiognomy, the reasonable anthroposophist does not negate the outer science. On the contrary. He wants to be fully immersed in it. He only wants the outer science to have a soul for the further development of humanity, just as the complete human being carries the soul in his physical body. Yes, he maintains that it needs soul. And anthroposophy does not want to be an opponent of the spirit of today's science, but wants to become the soul of this scientific endeavor in the future.

We have been endeavouring, as Christmas has drawn near, to enter into that spirit which also from the anthroposophical standpoint may be called the true spirit of Christmas. We have been seeking to realise that there is an interpretation of the Christmas Festival, which in a measure enables us to bring the spirit of Christmas to bear on everything of importance that happens to a man during the year. The celebration of the Christmas Festival, in the true anthroposophical spirit, is a matter of the utmost importance to the anthroposophist, especially at the present time. And what else could this mean, this ‘celebration of Christmas in the true anthroposophical spirit,’ but that all the year round we should set before ourselves, in fervency of soul, the endeavour to fulfil our spiritual duty towards the present stage of human evolution; and to this end we must understand the task of humanity in our time and continually enrich our souls through experiences drawn from the spiritual world. This is to be our aim, in order that we may be able, that we may have the right to belong to those whose task it is to accomplish the necessary spiritual work in the next epoch of humanity. Thus the whole year through, we seek to fill our thoughts with what Anthroposophy has to give us, to open our hearts to anthroposophical wisdom. And when the year draws to its close (and even outwardly this season has a symbolical importance, for in the outside world, owing to the limited power of the sun’s rays, an excess of darkness prevails), then, at this Festival time, let us try to understand how we may connect our Christmas Celebration with the anthroposophical year that is past. Let us be continually realising afresh that anthroposophical truth, in its entirety, must be permeated and illumined by that mighty Impulse which we call the Christ-Impulse! If we try in this way to inscribe the anthroposophical truths in our hearts and souls, as the message of Christ Himself, then we can indeed say: At Christmas-time we anthroposophists must develop the spirit of Christmas by allowing all that we have learned during the whole year to be lighted up in our souls by means of deeper feelings, so that new force may be generated in us. We must be able to feel that we not only know something of anthroposophical wisdom, but that it penetrates our soul, our heart, becomes in us an illuminating, glowing force, which enables us during the coming year to fulfil our duty and to carry on our work in any sphere of life in which we may be placed. If we thus seek to transmute the holy truths of the Spirit into holy feelings, into holy force in our souls, then will be born in us, on a higher plane, that which we learn at first by means of the forces of this earthly world. For this reason we ought, ever more and more, to call to mind those occasions upon which one or another of the human family strove to rise to those spiritual realms where the Christ Himself is to be found. The truly Christian poet, Novalis, has already guided us, during this Christmas-time, into these realms of spirit. And again to-day a little of that anthroposophical Christmas spirit just described—the kindling of feeling by means of those rays of warmth—may well be sought in the writings of a truly anthroposophical poet, such as Novalis was. Let us turn to Novalis.

We may perhaps most effectually realise, in the various forms in which Novalis gives us his rarest wisdom, how we may be enabled, through Anthroposophy, to fill life with a new glory. All around us life is rushing by, and our own work forms part of this modern whirl of life. When, through Anthroposophy, we gain the power of bringing wisdom down from the spiritual world, we shall gild the whole of life with the gold of anthroposophical wisdom, however prosaic circumstances may appear. This we must learn. We shall see that life becomes filled with a new glory, if each year we allow the anthroposophical Christmas-spirit to enter into our souls; if we, so to speak, allow Anthroposophy to be re-born within us at Christmas-time, as feeling and perception. We shall then feel how impossible it is, if we want to live here in the ordinary world, to attain, even in small degree, to spiritual perception. There is much to-day which hinders a man from unfolding his wings in order to rise to the spiritual world! Let me tell you briefly something which we may regard to a certain extent as symbolical.

Many of us, who come to Anthroposophy, may say: Ah! everything which it offers to me would be beautiful, would be glorious; it warms my heart and fills my soul with love, but I cannot believe it! I am bound by what I have learned in the outer world, by the prejudices which I have acquired. ‘That is mere idle fancy,’ say these prejudices: ‘These things do not rest on any sure foundation!’ Many a man is thus thrown into bitter doubt. If he could only rise above the prejudices of the outer world, by which he is so beset at the present time, if he could only feel himself free in the pure ether of the spirit, he would know himself to be in touch with spiritual forces, and he would be able to make use of these forces in his daily work. The following little event may serve as an illustration of that attitude of mind, which prevents the ordinary man of the present day from perceiving, without prejudice or hindrance, all that Anthroposophy is able to provide for heart and soul.

There lived a man in the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the German Count Hardenberg. He had a son, whom we know as Novalis, and we have been able to admit in intimate anthroposophical circles, that the poems and deep wisdom given to the world by this son sprang from a soul which was the reincarnation of significant and powerful personalities, who had accomplished momentous things for the earth. But how was the father, surrounded as he was by the influences of the outer world, to recognise this soul in his son? How could he have even a suspicion of the spirit, which was able to express itself in the soul of this son? He was as unable to free himself from the prejudices of the material world and his connection with the actualities of life around him, as many to-day, who are influenced by the prejudices of our time, are unable to perceive the impelling force of the spiritual wisdom of Anthroposophy. The old Hardenberg would have had to free himself, as it were, from harshness in his misunderstanding of his son; he would have had to rise above a completely material life, before he could feel, within his Moravian Community, anything of a deeply religious spirit—or, as one might perhaps say, ‘A knowledge of the universal spirit as it was understood in the olden days.’ Those traditional, authoritative influences which are operative within such a community were necessary in order that his inmost soul might be affected by that true Christian spirit, which can only be understood when it has received anthroposophical inspiration.

Old Hardenberg had once a remarkable experience of the breath of that Christian spirit, when he and others were assembled in the Moravian Church, and they began to sing one of their hymns. By means of this hymn, the origin of which he did not know, there came to him a breath from the eternal world. He was deeply moved by the hymn beginning:

Without Thee, where should I have ended,
Without Thee, what should I have done?

He perceived something which hitherto he had been unable to perceive! The service came to an end. Old Hardenberg went out and asked some of his fellow-worshippers: ‘Who then is the writer of this glorious poem?’ ‘It was written by your son,’ was the reply. Old Hardenberg, freed from all the associations of the ordinary world, undisturbed by the prejudices of the physical plane, had felt the compelling power of the spiritual life. But his son, as far as his physical body was concerned, had already been in his grave for some months. For this experience only came to old Hardenberg some months after the death of Novalis. Only when his surroundings were such as enabled him for a short time to escape from all his preconceived physical-plane ideas, was he borne upwards into the spiritual heights, and realised their constraining force—that constraining force which we ought to feel, untroubled by all the prejudices of the material world. Let us rise above the materialistic prejudices of the present day! Let us feel the constraining force of the spiritual life, and let power and warmth flow from it into our hearts! If we do this, we shall then fulfil our duty towards the humanity of the present day. Through this illustration, taken from a real experience of Novalis’ father, I wished to lead you into that spirit to which we now want to attain, by means of the strong, anthroposophical forces which lie in the songs of Novalis. (Here follow readings from Novalis’ ‘Spiritual Songs.’)

This time of Festival perhaps makes it easier not only to understand and to know, but to feel and to realise, all that we have been considering, through so many anthroposophical hours, in connection with our Gospels. And we know that a large part of the time which we had at our disposal during this past year, was devoted to this Gospel study. There are still further important deductions to be drawn from our study of the Gospels, and now, in the short lecture to-day, in which we must still think of our Christmas Festival, let us realise what is associated with that Event—the Christ-Event—which should be so vividly before us at Christmas-time.

Consideration of the Christ-Event enables us to estimate very fully the significance and force of the anthroposophical conception of the universe, as it affects the present time, and also the future of humanity. If we allow ourselves to be influenced by the same deep feeling for the Christ-Event, which filled the soul of Novalis, we shall continually be constrained to ask ourselves afresh: ‘How can that mighty impulse, which entered into mankind when Christ was born in Palestine, become more and more a reality to us?’ At the present time we are right in associating Anthroposophy with the Christ-Event. Could we but show how the different streams of human spiritual life, which existed before the time of Christ, were united in the Event of Palestine, we could also show how great a number of people have, at the best, but a dim idea of the Event of Palestine, and how it will only gradually be possible to understand it, in its full power and significance, in the far future, when men come to seek a more spiritual view of life. For however great may be the wisdom gained in the course of the evolution of the earth, this wisdom will only find its deepest fulfilment as it makes itself into an instrument for the understanding of what the Christ-Impulse really is. We are thus faced with the immediate necessity of bringing direct spiritual experience to bear upon the Christ-Event. At the time in which Christ walked on earth in bodily form, humanity received the great and powerful impulse to rise again into the spiritual world, but even now this impulse is only apprehended, in its true form, by those souls who are fitted to receive it. On the other hand, as though to complete the measure of that which must be overcome, humanity has continued to descend more and more deeply into materialism. Man’s whole existence is, in fact, a descent into matter. During the post-Atlantean time also, man has become ever more and more immersed in matter. The Christ-Event signified the impulse which enables men once more to ascend, but this empowering impulse has as yet been but little realised. On the other hand, the descent into matter, even during the time since Christ, has manifested itself ever more and more forcibly, and, as the result of this descent, the whole thinking, feeling, and perception of man have been injuriously affected. To-day we are already living in an age in which materialistic investigation is brought to bear on our understanding of the Christ-Event. And since we are met for serious thought, it is fitting to refer to such a serious matter as this application of materialistic investigation even to the most spiritual event that has ever happened on the earth. We see that the materialistic theology of the present day states on the authority of so-called ‘higher criticism,’ that it is impossible to give any proof of an outward historical Christ, and there are already theologians who say: ‘Higher criticism compels us to admit, that “ historically ” it cannot be proved that, at the beginning of our era, there lived in Palestine One of whom the Gospels proclaim such mighty facts, and from whom such mighty impulses appear to have been poured into the spiritual life of humanity.’ Thus Science to-day, as a result of its methods, seems to feel called upon to do away with the historical Christ. On this account, we need to remember that Spiritual Science, in accordance with its principles, is now being called upon to prove the historical Christ Jesus. The faith of men does not depend upon the truths belonging to any particular branch of learning. Illustration after illustration could be given to prove how threadbare such learning is. But people may spend their lives without perceiving that such proofs exist. Thus also in the future (and this will be the case for a long time to come) an ever-increasing number of people will follow the line of materialistic thought and will be influenced more and more by the belief that the true historical method must needs deny the certainty of an historical Christ Jesus. Science would seem to abolish that for which we are hoping to obtain a new symbol in the light of golden wisdom. The time will surely come, in which Christ will only be known in circles such as this, where through the study of Spiritual Science light is thrown on the words: ‘I am with you al way even to the end of the world,’ and where those who are able to investigate for themselves, through spiritual vision, will know that He, from Whom the Christian impulse has gone forth, is ever to be found in the spiritual world, and that certainty with regard to the Christ-Event is to be obtained from within that spiritual world. Only in circles in which such spiritual truths are acknowledged will it be possible to reach the assurance of that for which this symbol is once more being sought. And the outer world will not accept any proof that the historical, the outer scientific method, is itself built on an uncertain foundation. Certainly those who are able to understand the nature and value of Science to-day know already how threadbare and unfounded its methods are, and therefore how little is proved when those who believe they are proceeding on strictly scientific lines come to the conclusion that history provides no proof that any of the persons, from Christ down to the Apostles, ever lived.

But it will be a long time yet before men free themselves from that belief in authority which does not appear to them to be belief in authority. The worst form of this belief exists at the present time. And men do not perceive that He Who really frees us from belief in authority, is He Who taught man to build in his inmost being on the power of his own Ego. He who has revealed to us what the Ego is capable of taking into itself can also show us how to find the source and the power of truth within our own being. With Christ within, we find truth within; with Christ within, we find the sure foundation for free and independent judgment, a foundation which is deeper than that of authority. But during this hour, when our thoughts are turned to the Christ-Event, let us give our earnest attention, in order that we may realise our calling as anthroposophists. Perhaps I should postpone for future lectures what I now propose to include here, were it not that it will be some time before we meet again. But I want to direct your attention to what the anthroposophist should recognise as one of the most significant signs of the time in which he is living, namely, the impossibility, so to speak, of the scientific methods of the present day. One cannot hope to convince those who wish to believe in the material science which in our time explains away even the historical Christ. But there must be some who, through the teaching of Anthroposophy, understand something of the way in which material science is failing in all departments and how, in the future, spiritual life alone can promote the welfare of mankind.

In current events people fail to see the most important point. A lawsuit was recently held in Vienna, in which the whole civilised world was interested. Because this lawsuit was considered of importance, the whole of Europe may be said to have assembled in order to gain information from it, but probably the most important thing which happened there passed unnoticed. And even if this most important point were put into words those, who were not anthroposophically prepared, would regard it as a mere fantasy. A certain professor of history was present, a man famous in Europe, esteemed by the rest of his profession, who had written important words in accordance with the strict methods of historical research—a ‘good dabbler in learning.’ This dabbler in learning became possessed of a series of documents, which had been handed over by one of the southern countries of Europe. These documents were to prove that there had been treachery in the south-east of Austria. Now who could be more fitted, according to present-day ideas, to put the matter to the test than a professor of history? A historian, before all others, ought to be called upon to examine the value of documents. All the beliefs of the world are founded on documents! Truth is determined by the testing of documents and the way in which they are applied and compared. The truth, even about the miracle of Christianity, can be reached in no other way! The historian and investigator into whose hands these documents fell, was also a pupil of the professor of history whom I like to call to mind when I think of my own young days. There were, at that time, two historians; the one carried on his investigations in accordance with the strictest methods of documental research, the other, his colleague, paid less heed to these strict methods and was more concerned in seeing that the candidates knew something of real historical events. Now it happened that the favourite pupil of this investigator of documents was to take his degree. He was examined first in the science of ancient documents, i.e., the science by means of which one learns to establish satisfactorily how to arrive at the truth through outward material means. For instance, he was asked in which Papal Document the dot over the i appeared for the first time. This is, of course, a very important piece of knowledge, and the candidate knew instantly that it was in the time of a certain ‘Innocent’ that the dot over the i first appeared. But the other historian, his colleague, then said: ‘May I now ask something of the candidate who knew so exactly when the dot over the i first appeared?’ ‘Can you tell me, sir, when the Pope, in whose documents the dot over the i first appeared, ascended the Papal throne?’ No, he did not know that. ‘Do you know then, perhaps, when he died?’ No, he did not know that either. ‘Now tell me something else about this Pope.’ He knew nothing! Then said the Professor, whose favourite pupil he was, ‘Really, sir, it seems as if you are very stupid to-day.’ To which the other rejoined, ‘But, my dear colleague, he is your favourite pupil! Who then has made him very stupid?’

The historian in question had not, at that time, proceeded far on the path of learning. But he became an able student of ancient documents, capable of establishing the truth with regard to times far past, by means of historical investigation. So what more suitable person could be found to discover if there were any treachery in the documents which had been handed over to him from a most important quarter? In accordance with the methods of historical research he duly examined them, and in a public article made serious accusations against a number of people. This resulted in a lawsuit, and, during this lawsuit, one of the most important documents was proved to be an altogether clumsy forgery. The whole point lay in the fact that a certain personality ought to have taken the chair at the meeting of a society in a certain town; but on making inquiry, it was ascertained that this man had been elsewhere during the time in question.

We see here the methods of historical research at work on documents dealing with events of the present day and the only result in this case was that these methods were turned to a laughing-stock. The important point to which I alluded is this: not that any man, or men, were condemned, but that the historical, scientific method was completely condemned. And this was the really significant point which a modern lawsuit brought to light. We ought therefore seriously to face the question: What is a method worth, which sets out to decide whether something took place eighteen or nineteen centuries ago, when it is not in the position to discover anything about the plainest modern affairs? Here Science itself was brought to judgment and this is a fact that should be recognised! A science, arising out of the materialistic prejudices of the present day, will always be brought to judgment, if people are so indolent that they accept authorities without knowing what they are. The present day demands that we should know what our authority is. If, with an earnest belief in a spiritual philosophy, we give ourselves to the study of what is known to-day as Science, we shall see how it vanishes, how it proves to be built on sandy foundations and falls to pieces when we really set to work upon it earnestly. But men are not willing to regard the things of the present day from the spiritual standpoint. Men are not conscientious enough (that is, those who are outside anthroposophical life) to judge for themselves as to the character of these methods, which force materialistic, authoritative opinion into the minds of men. Hence for a long time to come, except within the intimate circle of anthroposophical influence, there will be no possibility of perceiving, in its true form, that which is for the highest welfare of mankind. And as Science increasingly questions and does away with that which took place in Palestine and which we symbolically bring to life anew in our hearts every year, then the anthroposophical, spiritual world-movement will provide a place in which the power of the Event in Palestine will shine forth ever more and more clearly and from this centre there will stream forth again into the rest of humanity that life which can only proceed from this Event. What can develop in our souls through a true inner experience of the Event of Palestine?

‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’

We may look upon this as the fundamental word of Christ Jesus. That is to say, Christ Jesus lived in Palestine in bodily form at the beginning of our era. Since that time He is to be found in the spiritual world; for He has united Himself with the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth. He became ‘The Spirit of the Earth,’ If we seek Him within the spiritual atmosphere of our Earth, we find Him there. He permeates the whole life of our Earth ever more and more. But what are men to gain through the continual indwelling of the Christ- Spirit? If we want to understand clearly what men are to gain in the future through the dwelling of the Christ-Spirit in their souls, then we must continue what has been already attempted for some time in our anthroposophical movement. What we are doing in this movement has not arisen from any arbitrary spirit—not from any programme drawn up merely by this or that man. Spiritual life is traced back ultimately to those sources which we seek in the individualities whom we call the ‘Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feeling.’ Through them, if we search rightly, we shall find the impulse which will enable us to work as we ought to work, from epoch to epoch, from age to age.

A great impulse has recently come to us from the spiritual world and today, on this solemn Christmas evening, let us refer to this momentous impulse—a direction, so to speak, which has come to us during recent years from the spiritual world. It is through this impulse that our anthropsophical movement here in Central Europe has developed. We might describe this impulse in human words somewhat in the following manner:

‘Look at what is happening in the outer world: the words of the Gospels are becoming more and more misunderstood! They are being explained childishly, they are being tested by outward historical methods. The spiritual investigator must for a time disregard all merely outward history. What is necessary now is that the Gospels should again be understood quite literally, for it is through the literal understanding of them that the real depths of their Wisdom are reached.’

The spiritual world has directed us to become acquainted once more with the literal meaning of the Gospels, to understand what is contained in the actual wording of them. And all that we have attempted in our study of the Gospels of St. John, St. Luke and St. Matthew and which we hope still to attempt in our consideration of the Gospel of St. Mark, has arisen from this impulse, as it developed and took shape. We ought to try once again to understand the Gospels literally! This we are told by those who have given us this impulse from the spiritual world. Such is the ‘coming Christianity,’ the following of this impulse to understand the Gospels in their literalness. And what shall we gain through the literal understanding of the Gospels, through giving heed to the instruction of the Spiritual Powers who have spoken from the astral plane with such clearness as would scarcely be possible a second time in one century? We shall gain what is necessary if we desire to make ourselves into instruments which shall be able to guide the coming era of humanity in the right way, able to direct that which requires guidance and instruction in the world around us.

When we look back on the evolution of mankind in the remote past, we know that the human ego was not yet fully developed. As we trace back the evolution of man, we come to the Group-soul. A certain number of human beings had at that time an Ego-soul in common, just as animals still have a group-soul to-day. We find this in every race. Thus we know that humanity has developed itself from the group-soul consciousness and at the time when Christ came down to our Earth humanity had reached the point in which the old group-souls were beginning to lose their significance. The old group-souls had withdrawn. Every man was now called upon to develop his own individual soul, his true individuality. And who brought that which was to be poured into the individual soul? It was brought by the Christ-Impulse! And the more we fill ourselves with the Christ-Impulse, the richer will our individuality become, so that those truths, which we need to carry over into the future, spring up within the Ego itself. At the present time we are at an important turning-point. Many are asking to-day: What does it mean, that we, anthroposophists, speak of reincarnation, when we have no recollection of any previous life? It is true, we have as yet no such recollection. But I have already pointed out, that if we take a four-year old child and say, ‘This is a human being, but he cannot reckon! that is no proof that human beings are unable to reckon. One must wait until the child has grown old enough to learn; in ten years he will be able to reckon I In the same way the human soul will so mature, that it will be able to remember past incarnations. Whether it will remember correctly or not is another matter.

We are at an important turning-point. In the fourth post-Atlantean period, Christ descended as that Impulse whereby man is enabled to realise his individuality as a self-dependent being. We are now in the fifth Period, the last in which men are unable to recall their former incarnations. In the sixth Period, which will succeed our own, men will have the power to recall the past. Whether they remember correctly depends upon how they receive into their souls to-day the impulse thereto: whether they make themselves capable of remembering in the right way. In the future only those will remember their present existence in the right way, who have taken into themselves the Christ- Impulse, the source of true individuality. On the other hand, those who do not appropriate this source of true individuality will form new group-souls. Look at the impulse there is in men to-day towards the group-soul spirit, although there is no need for it, when they might find instead the sources of truth springing up in their own souls. It is well-known how everybody wants to do as ‘they’, the other people, do. Men do not look for what is to be found in their own souls, but they follow that which leads them into companies and groups and we see them happiest when they can have, not truths which are independent, but those which are held in common with others. Yes, and what is more, people hate individuality and they think that through this hatred of what is individual they can forge the strongest weapon against such wisdom as the anthroposophical. For anthroposophical wisdom must shine forth in the soul of each individual, it cannot be forced upon us by lever and screw, or by means of the rack. All that Anthroposophy says must come to us without the help of any external instrument. We must each one of us appropriate its teachings for himself, without being persuaded through any outward means, because it belongs to the invisible world into which each one must enter through his own power of thought. Through anthroposophical wisdom a man becomes individual. If we receive this wisdom in the true individual way—i.e., permeated by the Christ-Impulse—then there sinks into our souls that which will enable us to recall, in the sixth Period, an individuality, which each man has for himself, which belongs exclusively to himself. On the other hand, the memory of those who to-day are seeking to live in the old group-soul spirit, will be such that the group-soul consciousness will still be present. They will remember their present incarnation in the sixth Period, but they will then see clearly that they made their judgment at that time dependent on the judgment of others. And it will be a fearful chain for a man to be obliged to feel himself as part of a group-soul consciousness.

The prospect of being bound to the group-soul consciousness threatens all those who are unable to receive the Christ-Impulse in our time. When we accept the Christ-Event, that Event which is the message to us of our human individuality, there enters into our souls the possibility of attaining the goal which humanity is to reach in the sixth Period—viz., that we should not look back to a group-soul consciousness, but to an individuality, permeated by the Christ. Thus he who comprehends Christianity in the right way to-day and understands how to inspire and permeate it with the spirit of Anthroposophy, will be enabled to rise to his full height and to be an instrument for work in the sixth Period.

That then is the question: whether we resolve to look back from our reincarnations in the sixth Period, upon our present ego as a non-individual, lacking in independence, bound up in the group-soul consciousness, or whether we desire to remember an ego, which has laid hold for itself of the source of spirituality in our Earth-evolution, which has laid hold of the great Word. Before all personality existed, before there was anything belonging to humanity upon the earth and ‘before Abraham was, was the I AM.’ That which lives within us is in close union with the Father-Spirit—something is brought to life in us through the understanding of the Christ-Impulse and it is this understanding alone which unites us consciously with the source of the universe. Thus the entering of the Christ-Impulse into our souls signifies the possibility of rising again in the sixth Period as individual beings who look back upon an independent existence. If we allow the Christ, truly understood, to be born within us, we shall be able to awaken the remembrance of this Christ in the sixth post-Atlantean Period. And if in the fifth Period, we celebrate a true Christmas Festival, we shall then be able to celebrate a true Easter Festival in the sixth Period. As the beautiful Christmas hymn sings in our hearts on Christmas night: ‘Unto you is born this day a Saviour, Christ, the Lord,’ so, in looking back to the birth of the Christ in our souls, we shall hear within ourselves the announcement of this true Higher Ego. We shall look back upon this, and shall allow the memory of it to arise as an Easter Festival within ourselves; and then we shall be able to hear the grand and beautiful strains of Easter music: ‘May the Christ arise in us, enkindling and illuminating our own divine individuality.’ In this way the Festivals of Christmas and Easter are linked together in the fifth and sixth Periods of our post-Atlantean epoch—this is how we must learn to understand what we are taught in the Gospels. We have already partially learned and we shall learn still further, how the forces of Buddha, of Zoroaster and those of the old Hebrew race, flowed together in Christianity, and how, as the Gospels also show, they were united in the Person of Jesus Christ. That which has lived and moved in the world in pre-Christian times, must now live in our own individuality: it must be born again, penetrated by the Christ- Impulse. We then celebrate the anthroposophical Christmas Festival in our own souls, the birth of Christ in ourselves. And if we carry this inner knowledge of the Christ through Kamaloka and Devachan and back into a new life on earth and ever again into new earthly existences, until the sixth Period is reached, we shall then remember what we experienced in the fifth Period, and shall thus celebrate in ourselves the Christian Easter Festival.

So, through the Christmas symbol, may that live in us symbolically, which we have been learning of late from the Gospels concerning the Mystery of Christ. So may these lights, now burning before us, incite us to give ourselves up to that impulse, which comes to us from the spiritual world: i.e., to understand the Gospels literally! And we look upon these outward lights as symbols of those lights which must be kindled in our souls and which, if they are kindled through the anthroposophical knowledge of Christ, will still bum in the sixth Period of the post-Atlantean epoch.

Let us feel, just at this Christmas Festival, that it is for us to resolve to become worthy instruments for the future evolution of humanity. Let us feel the full meaning and gravity of this anthroposophical resolve: we are not to be anthroposophists for our own sakes alone; but, taking into consideration what has just been said, we are to be anthroposophists from a sense of duty towards humanity. Let there shine down upon us symbolically from the Christmas-tree, the Light which can fill us with enthusiasm for our spiritual mission to the race. We shall then have understood something of that which can again give us strength in this New Year to become ever more and more familiar with anthroposophical life and anthroposophical wisdom.