The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Address by Rudolf Steiner on the eve of the first Anthroposophical College Course at the Goetheanum.

My dear friends!

With the start of the School of Spiritual Science here in Dornach tomorrow, we are undoubtedly standing at a very important stage in our movement in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. And even if it is only very briefly, I would like to be allowed to say a few words today about the development of this spiritual science, after I already did so to a certain extent here some time ago, a few months ago, due to [opposing] attacks. Nevertheless, today I would like to draw your attention to a few things in this regard.

We will open this course for spiritual scientific knowledge in the Goetheanum itself, in the construction of the Goetheanum, in a building that is still unfinished but has progressed so far that work will be able to begin in it in the next few weeks. And when I now consider the name 'Goetheanum', which was given to this building in the way you know, I cannot help thinking of one of the starting points of this movement. As I have often indicated, and also printed in a few sentences in the introduction to my book Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life, our movement originates from the lectures I gave in Berlin at the beginning of the century to a small circle. This inner circle in Berlin consisted partly of people who at that time called themselves Theosophists; but it also included such personalities who were quite distant from what the others called Theosophy. This circle met once a week in the house of Countess Brockdorff in Berlin, and there lectures were given from the most diverse areas of intellectual and public life; some artistic activities were also cultivated. Once I was invited to give a lecture in this circle. And I accepted, although I had never been in this circle before and did not know whether I had met one or other of the personalities in this circle; in any case, I did not know the lady of the house or the master of the house. But there are moments in life when one is polite. So after I had agreed through an intermediary to give the requested lecture on Nietzsche - it was, after all, quite some time after the writing of my essay “Nietzsche, a Fighter Against His Time” - it occurred to me: You have to be polite, you are now going to the housewife and the head of the household. So I first wrote a letter to Countess Brockdorff, asking her for permission to pay a courtesy call before giving the lecture at the house. Countess Brockdorff wrote back to me that it was not necessary, I should just come to the lecture – I no longer remember on which day it was, just the next lecture [evening]. And so I came into this circle and gave a lecture on Nietzsche. At the end of this lecture, I was invited to give another lecture during the winter season. And I immediately said: Yes, I would give a lecture on the same topic that I had written about in the “Magazin für Literatur”, which I was editing at the time, for Goethe's hundred and fiftieth birthday.

I had written on the occasion of Goethe's hundred and fifth birthday: “Goethe's Secret Revelation”. I said that I wanted to speak about this topic, “Goethe's Secret Revelation”, at the lecture evening to which I had been invited. The lecture took place. And I tried to present everything that can be connected to Goethe's “Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” in this lecture at the time.

That was actually, I would say, the original cell of this movement, my dear friends. The original cell was that lecture on Goethe's secret revelation. I have to mention this when we begin an important stage in our movement here at the Goetheanum tomorrow. Actually, it is very nice that this movement is returning to its beginning – at least for me and what I have to do in the movement.

It began with Goethe, and tomorrow we begin something extraordinarily important in the building that was given its name by Goethe. So you see, there is something of consistency and continuity in the whole course of our movement.

The lecture I gave [at that time] on Goethe's secret revelation then led to me having to present the essentials of what is now contained in my essay 'Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life' in connection with modern natural science in that circle during the following winter. Thus, having arisen from Goethe, it was then continued in that writing. I then presented to a wider circle what is contained in my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”.

What is contained in my book “Mysticism” has already led to a large part of this “mysticism” being translated into English. And that led to me being invited to give lectures on what, in its various forms, was the “Theosophical Society”.

Now I will never allow anyone to take away the right to give lectures, to give what I have to advocate in order to advocate it, where I am invited to do so. Therefore, I also gave lectures for those who called themselves Theosophists, among other lectures, but which, as I told everyone from the outset who wanted to or should hear it, did not contain anything that had not arisen from my own research.

I then took part in various Theosophical congresses. In the meantime, this movement, which had come into being in this way, had gained members within Central Europe, members who stuck together mainly because of the world view that I had already advocated at the time. When I gave the lecture on Goethe's Secret Revelation, it didn't mean much that what was advocated there was advocated at the invitation of the Theosophical Society.

At one of the congresses in London, I also saw Olcott, the president of the Theosophical Society. He said to me at the time, “Yes, with this German Section, it's an awkward business.” I said: Why? – Yes, the membership lists are so difficult for us. – I said: I am not interested in the membership lists, I am more interested in the members; and if the members are there, I don't really care if they are on the list. – Well, similar comments were made more often.

After going through various stages [a congress was held in Munich – it was 1907 –] with the other Theosophists. And at that time, people were very surprised that this movement had sprung up so quickly within Central Europe, as it was put. For there was a dictum that had been passed from one to the other among members of the Theosophical Society, especially in the circles of those who were “advanced” - that's what they called those who directed something here or there; and this dictum, which was constantly being uttered among these people, was: Germany is not ripe for this.

Now, this dictum was somewhat suppressed in Munich at the time. But actually, this dictum did not seem entirely unjustified to me; because we were not ripe for what the Theosophical [Society] held in its bosom, nor are we today, and I don't think we care about it at all.

What this “immaturity” led to was that we did not mature to recognize this Hindu boy, Alcyone – or something like that was his name – who had been chosen to carry the soul of Christ Jesus, when others who had been chosen as suitable candidates for the incarnation of the soul of Christ Jesus had proved unsuitable. We proved ourselves to be completely immature. And so we were thrown out.

And so, more and more developed outwards into the clarity that is the Anthroposophical Movement. But it simply developed outwards only what was originally, very originally there.

You see, I had just been invited to lecture at the Theosophical Society, and I had just founded a German Section in Berlin in 1902; but during the founding, founding negotiations, founding meeting, I had to leave because I had to give a lecture in another venue that was part of a cycle called “Anthroposophical Reflections on World History”. And so you see that while the Theosophical Society was founding its German Section, I was speaking about anthroposophy.

Today there is nothing else there but what actually arose from this original cell, 'Goethe's Secret Revelation'. And the Anthroposophical Society is just that, even in its external name, which was always intended by me.

In 1909 there was a Theosophical Congress in Budapest. At that time all kinds of curious things were already simmering in the center of the Theosophical Society, the Adyar Center. I believe that a part of the more reasonable people at the time had split off from the Theosophical Society, and this part needed a name. They turned to me. I did not think the time had come then to come out openly under the real flag of the Anthroposophical Movement. And so I said at the time: I already know a name that should be given when this movement takes on a reasonable form; but I need it later, I don't want it misused yet. So I said in 1909. I had in mind the name “Anthroposophical Society”.

And then in 1913 the Anthroposophical Society was founded. Those who were then there as members, insofar as they were still members of the Theosophical Society, were thrown out of the latter, lock, stock and barrel.

These things must be faced if we want to see the whole continuity of what is before us today, my dear friends; for here beginning and end are truly connected. And in the course of development, too, you will basically not perceive any breaks if you do not artificially construct them.

Then came the time that had often been pointed out in our anthroposophical lectures, the time when the decline of modern civilization became most evident: the terrible years since 1914 came, and with them the collapse of Central Europe, which in reality is a collapse of modern civilization as a whole. And it was necessary to include this in the current of our anthroposophical movement, which now, I would say, is moving as a social wing within this movement.

Anyone who follows the movement internally can see how the threefold social order movement has grown out of this anthroposophical movement in a completely organic way.

The threefolding movement brought all sorts of new elements into the anthroposophical movement. However, the personalities who were the bearers of these elements were already there at the same time; admittedly, others were added, but as I said, the personalities who were the bearers of these elements were there at the same time. But for a number of personalities, the idea of threefolding had the effect of awakening a new impetus, a new impulse in them. It is not clear to me how this impetus could have arisen from within the Theosophical Society. Because, you see, when I consider these real, actual moments of the genesis of the anthroposophical movement, I always think of such things, as I have mentioned before.

I was once at a Theosophical event in Paris. There, for the most part, the people who were “advanced” spoke. And afterwards, people would express their judgments about what had been said. I can't say they talked about what had been said, but the advanced ones, especially the ladies, moved around partly nimbly, partly a little drowsily, and declared everywhere: There were such wonderful vibrations in this room while so-and-so was speaking! And everywhere you heard praise for these very brilliant “vibrations”.

And from everything that had been said behind the various lectures, I could only imagine that one actually did not use one's ears as a mediator for what was going on in the hall, but it seemed to me that one's nose was used. Because the way people talked afterwards was actually as if they had smelled these “vibrations”. So that one actually had to smell theosophy.

But I have to say: I don't think that much of a social nature could have been sensed from these reports, from these speeches! For there was nothing in all of this that was native to it, nothing of an impact that would have gone so far as to directly grasp the living existence, the full humanity.

The need to grasp this full humanity, however, came to the fore with great force in the second decade of the twentieth century. And if the anthroposophical movement had not sensed that it had to absorb social elements within itself, or rather, had to allow them to emerge from itself, then it would have proved to be just any old sect standing in the corner, but not as that which it was meant to be from the very beginning: the renewal of spiritual life from the original spiritual source for the developmental needs of modern humanity.

This should be fully understood within our movement. And above all, it should be understood that if anthroposophy is to fulfill its task, then it must actually pour its currents into all the individual branches of modern knowledge, it must take hold of all science.

In this respect, nothing was similar in all that had been achieved on anthroposophical ground to what had been achieved on the ground of the Theosophical Society. Because, you see, there they had also made all kinds of compromises with science, but they were compromises. If, on the other hand, you could impress people in Italy or England or elsewhere with a professorial conquest that you had made in this or that, of course, brilliant name, then you were happy: Professor so and so became a member of the Theosophical Society – a brilliant achievement! That's how you drew the line to the sciences.

But the anthroposophical movement should not draw its lines in this way. Of course, one could have some success by bowing and scraping to ordinary science, but we did not do that. So I made myself unpopular, at least in that respect. I could give many examples, but I will give only one.

There was a man [...] within the Theosophical Society who was actually quite charming. He once came to a place where we had an anthroposophical branch. He was a botanist. I was always interested in those things that I thought might incidentally interest him. And so I spoke to the professor of botany, and I talked about some details of botanical science. He was not at all interested, not in the least. He was even a little annoyed, because he was fond of “theosophy” and he assumed that it would not interfere with his botany. He thought to himself: “A botanist – that's someone in the style of modern scientific development. It's a matter of course that everything is in order there. And then, if you have any needs on the side, you also take up theosophy. But there you have two neatly separate drawers: here botany, here theosophy. And there the one does not interfere with the other. Therefore, it became extremely uncomfortable for him to hear about botany from an anthroposophical point of view. One example among many.

But we could not refrain from pouring into everything that comes from the sources of anthroposophical research, into the specific activity of life, into everything that belongs to the world. This became unpleasant for many people, quite unpleasant. Because, right, you could be a good botanist in the sense of the demands of the time, because you had graduated from high school, then did your specialized studies, wrote your dissertation, then became a private lecturer, wrote your book, became a professor – well, you also had your botanical collection – it was all in order; you had that behind you. Why interfere in any way? But because it was unsatisfactory, something was needed for the other needs of the human being. So one took up Theosophy. It was easy to grasp in relation to the many books one had studied before finally becoming a university professor. So one bought a few more, that is, Theosophical books. Now one also had something for the other. The circles should not be disturbed.

But we couldn't do it that way. I, in particular, could not become that well-behaved, my dear friends. And so I was obliged to speak out against this from an anthroposophical basis, to tell people: No, this is not right; we do not need to approach things with a hide; instead, each of the other subjects needs to be properly cleaned up; everything has become dead and must come to life again.

The whole matter is connected with our social demands. For if we had not this ghastly specialization in individual sciences alien to life, if we did not have this lack of understanding of life through these separate individual sciences, then we would not have been driven into the misfortune of recent years. And we must get out of it by starting at the right end and properly penetrating into the pigeonholes. So that the spirit, which alone can carry the development of humanity, is also present in all the individual activities of the life of knowledge. And everything that was to emerge from this life of knowledge was in our anthroposophical movement. And when the new elements came, who felt inspired by the idea of threefolding and by many other things that have been going on in the anthroposophical movement in recent years, the impetus also came to take the path that now leads to what is to begin tomorrow as our anthroposophical college course here.

Above all, it was Dr. Boos, the founder and leader of the Swiss Threefolding Union, who had the inner strength that led to what we will begin tomorrow.

In a certain way, one had to be completely immersed in the realization of the necessity to fertilize all scientific, all artistic, all social life from anthroposophy. You had to be equipped with the inner audacity to really combine absolutely clear, sharply defined thinking with the necessary intuition that sees that what flows through the currents of anthroposophy can really deliver what needs to be delivered to the sciences. Then you have to have that sacred fire that is dedicated to such work. This has been done in a way for which we cannot thank our friend Dr. Roman Boos enough, and it is actually thanks to him that we have his work in front of us, this anthroposophical university course that is to begin tomorrow.

Of course, we must not forget all those who have worked and contributed in abundance; but a driving force must be behind all of this. And this driving force must, I would say, be a social impetus. That was necessary above all. We have had that in relation to these enterprises, and I would just like to wish that we still had many more ventures with Dr. Boos; then we will certainly make progress.

And so we can follow the growth of what I took the liberty of presenting to you today in the original cell, how it branched out into the life of the individual sciences, how it summoned all the friends whom we cannot greet warmly enough and who will now devote themselves as lecturers to the development of anthroposophy in the individual sciences and branches of life. If we can show the world how Anthroposophy is working in the individual branches of science, we will also gain the necessary momentum for the social work of Anthroposophy.

And that, my dear friends, is what should inspire us as we experience this course of the anthroposophical higher education system. We hope that many new seeds will arise from everything that is done, spoken and shown here.

[The following remarks are not directly related to the history of the society from 1902 to 1913:]

"According to the program, we will begin tomorrow with this anthroposophical college course. The first event tomorrow will be what is intended to be the starting point, so to speak. We will begin tomorrow at five o'clock with a musical prelude by our friend Stuten. Then there will be a series of addresses, which I am supposed to open with one about science, art and religion, but which will hopefully lead to a whole series of addresses that briefly point out the significance of the moment, which is so embedded in the present that from here, from this Goetheanum, we are really trying to lead that impulse into the world, which, above all, aims at a renewal of scientific life.

Then there will be a rehearsal of the musical settings of our friend Schuurman, namely his setting of a poetic insertion in the “Chymischen Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz”. Then there will be a break. After a break, declamations and other musical performances will follow. Then this morning celebration will close with a eurythmic performance. So we will first point out the different lines of activity that are to be cultivated here at this Goetheanum.

Today, my dear friends, it would probably be our task first of all to think about how to accomplish the work that falls to us, since we have to ensure that the entire three-week event runs in a dignified but also practical manner. To do this, the gentlemen from our Swiss threefold social order, the gentlemen from the Goetheanum, from the Association of Goetheanism and so on, the ladies and gentlemen, need to be supported by a number of other personalities who - please don't be offended by me, I don't always mean it to sound so bad - order, right, because if they have already been standing outside the entrance before, it is really not necessary to spend another hour until everyone is sitting in their seats, but to make sure that everyone finds their seat as quickly as possible, that what is done is that which leads to sitting still and listening as soon as possible. I have to say that I am actually sorry that I have to speak tomorrow: I would much rather be a steward, because you can develop such wonderful talents when you are a steward. Firstly, a steward, if he is really agile, if he is not clumsy, when he gets a ticket in his hand – excuse me, I don't mean any harm – first looks at it from all sides, just like a clumsy clumsy postal clerk at the counter with the letter, so that you get desperate until you get your ticket for a registered letter, but with a quick movement you immediately know: there is the place - so that the person in question can walk and immediately get to his seat. So direct them quickly, but calmly, and be charming at the same time, not rough, so that the person who is directed to the seat is very happy; so that no one can think: You're being snarled at. So I think this is a good opportunity to develop your best talents; it's actually extremely desirable. And so I ask the gentlemen in particular to be charming. I think it will be especially nice in this case if the gentlemen are officially charming, so to speak; the ladies without office are charming in between. I ask the gentlemen to strive for two things: to get the blue ribbon here, which is to distinguish the folder, into the buttonhole. I think that it will really be a worthwhile goal, especially for those who come from monarchical states, where nothing else is available now in the buttonhole, will be a contemporary ideal. So we will adorn all those who endeavor to view the tickets so quickly, to show them to their seats and to be charming, with a blue ribbon - not a red one, for example, so that the Swiss don't think we're socialists or something like that; right, you can get into all sorts of trouble with the minister Kully if you give people red ribbons; so you will get blue ribbons and all of you will be charming and nimble ushers. I ask you to consider this from these two points of view. The one point of view is that if you know you are one of those who can be nimble and charming, then don't refrain from helping to maintain order. And if you should know that you may have absorbed too much militarism in the course of the last few years, so that you cannot develop such qualities - but this is only said in parenthesis and really not meant badly - so if someone in the course of the last few years has absorbed too strong military tendencies , which are then not suitable for being charming and the like, so if you have got into the habit of commanding too much, then you may practice anthroposophical self-restraint and refrain from participating in the ordering. But as I said, I am only saying this as one would say in the old science: “for the sake of wilderness.” I will present alternatives in a moment. One must be complete in science. We have a scientific course now. Right? There's no need to be as radical as the one person from the neighborhood who, when she came up here for the first time, didn't want to miss the opportunity to reprimand us right away because we — who wanted to be an “innovator” wanted to be – now, wherever you look, we have “old hat, as the Berliners say, about doctor titles and so on; if you are going to start renewing, the personality said, then you should leave out such titles.

Well, that's not true, you can have different opinions about whether you want to do this or that, whether you should dress in a new style; but we don't want to see our ideals in outward appearances, and that's why I mentioned the second point for the sake of completeness, and I sincerely hope that it was not necessary for me to mention it.

Now, that would be part of what we have to complete today, if the personalities concerned, who, as stewards, now feel particularly called upon to do so after what has been said, let us know that they want to get this blue ribbon in their buttonhole for the next few days, and especially for tomorrow. Perhaps it could be the case that Dr. Boos himself or someone he appoints will take the names of those who feel called to such a high office at the end, after all the others have been addressed. That will be one thing.

The other thing would be for me to ask those of the honored gentlemen who are presenting and are already here today to perhaps contact me at the end of this evening, because there is still a lot to be discussed.

That is what I have to say for the time being. And now, since I have only been here since today and have not been able to participate in the rather extensive preparations that were necessary to launch this course, I will ask Dr. Boos to take over the management of this evening and to suggest to us what else needs to be done in this direction.

But then, when we have completed the things to be discussed for tomorrow and the following “days”, we will have to discuss some other things for this evening that relate to some other events. But first we want to discuss the agenda for the course.

Dr. Boos introduces the necessary measures and arrangements for discussion.

At the end, Dr. Steiner takes the floor again:

"I would just like to mention for those friends from out of town who have come as members of the Anthroposophical Society that, as before, anthroposophical lectures will take place on Saturday and Sunday when I am present in Dornach, and I also believe there will be eurythmy performances on Saturday and Sunday. The lectures will take place after the eurythmy at eight o'clock or, if there are no performances on Saturday and Sunday, at half past seven, and if we can accommodate everyone, here in the carpentry workshop, otherwise over in the building. The eurythmy performances will also be here in the carpentry workshop.” Dr. Boos reports on various activities that are intended to incite and slander, and calls for a statement to be made regarding a proposal that has been made to him to send something to the press from the meeting, which is now already in session.

Dr. Schmiedel says that the number of guests should be indicated.

Dr. Boos says that he had also considered drafting a resolution through a mass meeting here, in which those not yet present here could also be included according to the mood; one does not need to come up with numbers; a resolution would be extremely effective in a concise, short form. Adoption of the resolution is proposed. Since no amendments have been proposed, he will ask again. There is unanimity. This matter is thus also brought to a conclusion with regard to this resolution.

Rudolf Steiner: “I do not think it is necessary to say much about the meeting that apparently took place here in Dornach and was evidently convened by the machinations of Pastor Kully and Pastor Arnet, I think it is not necessary to say much about this meeting after the press report.

Certain things have been reported that might perhaps lead one to notice this or that. For example, it is a remarkable fact that these gentlemen, who now, out of absolute untruthfulness and dishonesty, collect all kinds of things that are not true, that these gentlemen are, or at least are supposed to be, able to have accurate reports, for example, of the celebration of our laying of the foundation stone and the like. All the signs are that our people, our members, are basically willing to give the two gentlemen, who are the soul of the counter-action and the emerging movement, just about anything the gentlemen want.

My dear friends, it will soon be nonsense to hold closed meetings when everything from our circle is carried to Father Kully and similar people. It has to be said, because things express themselves. The assembly itself is no concern of ours; what people want to decide among themselves, they may decide among themselves, they may be as indecent as they like; they were indecent enough, as we already know. The thing that the resolution we have just been proposed by Dr. Boos is directed against is precisely what they have excreted as garbage, and what has even been spread by a Swiss newspaper. Of course we have to take a stand against that. Let them decide among themselves what they decide among themselves. Unless we hear that it is happening through spiritual-scientific communications from our members, about things that should be kept within our circles. It is said, for example, that the gentleman who is reported to have spoken in original Swiss German, that he is said to have spoken such filth that people are now said to have felt compelled to simply leave out the dirty bits. But as I said, people can discuss whatever they like among themselves, that's none of our business for the time being. I notice that they should really settle it among themselves. Because those who did not belong and are said to have gone to that meeting were shown in a very indecent manner that they had no business talking, and they were thrown out in an indecent manner. So that in the end, or at least during part of the meeting, some people who did not belong to the group do not appear to have been present at all. There may have been only a few there.

On the other hand, I would like to warn against being too lulled and again giving in to the sleep that has often been characterized here. This sleep in the face of the dangers that come to us from that side is the very worst thing that could actually happen in our ranks. And there is a lot of sleep in this direction.

Today, too, after I barely returned, I heard again that news is spreading in a certain comfort that the Catholics' behavior in such a disgraceful way, as it has happened, has brought us good friends everywhere among the non-Catholics. So for a large number of our members it is not a matter of facing the facts, but of finding another excuse for themselves to lie comfortably on their backs, on the other side, when one ear what is negotiated in the Dornacher “Ochsen” - in that meeting, of which it is said - I don't know if it is true, I emphasize this expressly - of which it is said: Such a great “Ochsen” event has never taken place in Dornach before. - But that was only because the meeting was in the “Ochsen”.

But to those who would like to go back to their cozy comfort zone, I would like to recommend paying attention to a certain statement in the report that has been written about this meeting, a statement that is already intended to be understood and that could show how significant the attacks actually are. It is said there – I don't have it verbatim right now, but it is in one of the reports – that the way Pastor Kully spoke at that Catholic gathering was quite remarkable. The person reporting this was apparently strangely touched, struck by Pastor Kully's particular turn of phrase. He says: “A unified thought did not go further through the speech; the speech did not make much sense either; but it was made up of nothing but individual images, which were presented to the people in a certain way, and which were only summarized by everything that hatred could do to present these images and these imaginations to the people, held together by the element of hatred. Anyone who is aware of the nature of the methods and polemics on certain sides also knows that such a message means an extraordinary amount, and that these things are effective.

It is necessary, or at least would be necessary, that finally, after decades of practicing anthroposophy, it could be known on our side that such things cannot be ignored, and that one cannot calm oneself by saying: Now they are being stirred up on that side, and stirred up in a very shameless way... This only wins us special friends on the other side. The point is to try to look things squarely in the eye; because the people - I have said this before - the people who are fighting on that side, they know very well what they want, they know very well how they should work, and how they should escalate things, and how they should then finally reach their goal through this clever escalation and sentiment.

So it would be better to try to face the matter squarely and realize that the situation is indeed a very dire one for us, here where we have just put what should be most sacred to us. And it would be necessary to consider that we should wake up, and to consider that it is always possible that things that should remain among us are immediately also carried to Father Arnet. Or is it not very strange, for example, when there is a message here: Pastor Arnet has spoken of how many people have been seriously affected in their health by the effects of my exercises; if he wanted to talk further about what is being reported to him, he would have to violate the seal of confession.

So, it would be a good idea to keep an eye on what is coming to the surface again and again as a result of such things, even within our ranks.

Furthermore, I consider it unworthy of us to concern ourselves with the assembly; because, right, certain things simply cannot be negotiated about anymore. When they begin to consider a certain level below decency as their own, you can no longer negotiate, you can no longer talk about the matter seriously at all. But that should not encourage anyone not to be vigilant about what comes from there.

I don't think we have anything else to discuss today. I would therefore ask those honored friends who wish to acquire the blue ribbon in their buttonhole to report to Dr. Boos.

And in a few minutes I will be back here and ask those friends who will be speaking in the next few days and are here today to come together for a very short meeting to discuss a few points on which we need to agree. So I will be back here in a few minutes.

On this day when we meet to celebrate our Christmas festival, it may be seasonable to depart from what has been our customary routine and, instead of seeking after knowledge and truth, to withdraw inwardly, foregathering for a time with that world of feeling and sensations which we are endeavouring to awaken by the aid of the light we receive through Anthroposophy.

This festival now approaching, and which for countless persons presents a time of joyousness—joyousness in the best sense of that word—is, nevertheless, when accepted in the way in which it must be accepted in accordance with our anthroposophical conception of the universe, by no means a very old one.

What is known as the ‘Christian Christmas’ is not coeval with the dawn of Christianity in the world—the earliest Christians, indeed, had no such festival. They did not celebrate the Birth of Christ Jesus. Nearly three hundred years went by before the feast of His Nativity began to be kept by Christianity.

During the first centuries, when the Christian belief was spreading throughout the world, there was a feeling within such souls as had responded to the Christ Impulse inclining persons to withdraw themselves more and more from contact with the external aspects of life prevalent in their day—from what had grown forth from archaic times, as well as from what was extant at the inception of the Christ-Impulse. For a vague instinctive feeling possessed these early Christians—a feeling which seemed to tell them that this Impulse should indeed be so fostered as to form anew the things of this earth—so forming them that new feelings, new sensations, and, above all things, fresh hopes and a new confidence in the development of humanity should permeate all, in contradistinction to the feelings which had before held sway—and that what was to dawn over the horizon of the vast world-life should take its point of departure from a spiritual germ—a spiritual germ which, literally speaking, might be considered as within this Earth.

Oft-times, as you will be aware, have we in the spirit transported ourselves to those Roman catacombs where, removed from the life of the time, the early Christians were wont to rejoice their hearts and souls. In the spirit have we sought admittance to these places of devotion. The earlier celebrations kept here were not in honour of His Birth. At most was the Sunday of each week set apart in order that once in every seven days the great event of Golgotha might he pondered; and beyond this, there were others the anniversaries of whose death were kept during that first century. These dead were those who had transmitted with special enthusiasm the account of that event—men whose impressive participation in the trend thus given to the development of humanity had led to their persecution by a world grown old. Thus it came to pass that the days upon which these Martyrs had entered into glory were kept as the birthdays of humanity by these early Christians. As yet there was no such thing as a celebration of the Birth of Christ. Indeed we may say that it is the coming—the introduction—of this Christ-Birth Festival, that can show how we in the present day have the full right to say: ‘Christianity is not the outcome of this or that dogma, it is not dependent upon this or that institution—dogmas and institutions which have been perpetuated from one generation to another—but we have the right to take Christ’s own words for our justification, when He says that He is with us always, and that He fills us with His Spirit all our days.’ And when we feel this Spirit within us we may deem ourselves called to an increasing, never-ceasing development of the Christian Spirit. The anthroposophical development of the Spirit bids us not foster a Christianity which is frozen and dead, but a new and living Christianity—one ever quickening with new wisdom and fresh knowledge, an evolution from within, stretching forward into the development of the future.

Never do we speak of a Christ Who was, but rather of an eternal and a living Christ. And more especially are we permitted to speak of this living and ever-active Christ—this Christ Who works within us—when the time is at hand for dwelling on the Birth-festival of Christ Jesus, for the Christians of the first centuries were alive to the fact that it was given to them to imbue what was, as it were, the organism of the Christian development with a ‘new thing’—that it was given to them to add thereunto that which was actually streaming into them from the Spirit of Christ.

We must therefore regard the Christmas Festival as one which was not known prior to the fourth century; indeed, we may place the date of the first ‘Christ-Birth’ Festival in Rome as having taken place in the year 354, and it should, moreover, be particularly borne in mind that at a time less critical than is the present, those who confessed themselves Christians were, imbued with the true feeling—a feeling which impelled them to be ever seeking and garnering new fruits from the great Christian Tree of Life.

This perhaps is the reason why we too feel that at such a season we may do well to rejoice in an outward symbol of the Christ’s Birth—in the symbol of the Christmas-tree now before us and around which through the coming days countless people will gather, a symbol whose true meaning it is the mission of Anthroposophy with ever deepening seriousness to impress upon the hearts and souls of men.

We should indeed almost be coming to loggerheads with the evolution of the times were we to take our stand by this symbol—for it is a mistake to imagine it to be an old one. It would be, however, quite easy to imagine that some such poetic belief giving credence to the Christmas-tree being a venerable institution, might arise in the soul of present-day humanity.

There exists a picture which presents the Christmas-tree in Luther’s family parlour. This picture, which was of course painted during the nineteenth century, perpetuates an error, for not only in Germany during Luther’s days, but also amid the surrounding European countries, there were as yet no such trees at Christmas.

May we perhaps not say, that the Christmas-tree of to-day is something which should be taken rather as the prophetic sign of times to come?—that this Tree may, as the years roll on, be regarded ever more and more as the symbol of something stupendous in its meaning—in its importance? Then, indeed, being trammelled by no illusions as regards its historical age, we may let our eyes rest on this Christmas-tree the while we call before our souls an oft-repeated memory—that of the so-called ‘Sacred Legend.’ It runs as follows: When Adam was driven forth from Paradise (this Legend, I should add, is told after many fashions, and I shall here only put the matter as shortly as possible)—when therefore Adam was driven forth from Paradise, he took with him three seeds belonging to the Tree of Life—the tree of which man had been forbidden to eat after he had once eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And when Adam died, Seth took the three seeds, and placed them in Adam’s grave, and thus there grew from out the grave a tree. The wood of this tree—so runs the legend—has served many purposes: From it Moses is said to have fashioned his staff; while later on, it is said, this wood was taken to form the Cross which was raised upon Golgotha.

In this way does a legend significantly remind us of that other Tree of Paradise, the one which stood second. Man had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge: enjoyment of the Tree of Life was withheld from him.

Yet within the heart of man has remained for evermore a longing, a desire for that Tree.

Driven forth from the Spiritual Worlds—which are signified by ‘Paradise’—into an external world of appearances, men have felt within their hearts that yearning for the Tree of Life.

But what man was denied unearned and in his undeveloped state, was nevertheless to be his through the struggle of attainment when with the aid of cognition he should in the course of time and through his work upon the physical plane, have made himself ripe to receive and capable of using the fruits of the Tree of Life. In those three seeds we have presented to us man’s longing for the Tree of Life.

The Legend tells us that in the wood of the Cross was contained that which came from the Tree of Life, and through the entire development there has been a feeling, a consciousness that the dry wood of the Cross did nevertheless contain the germ of the new spiritual life—that there had been ordained to grow forth from it that which, provided man enjoyed it in the right way, would enable him to unite his soul with the fruit of the Tree of Life—that fruit which should bestow upon him immortality, in the truer sense of the word, giving light to the soul, illumining it in such manner as to enable it to find the way from the dark depths of this physical world to the translucent heights of spiritual existence, there to feel itself as indeed participator in a deathless life.

Without, therefore, giving way to any illusion, we—as beings filled with emotion (rather than as historians)—may well stand before the tree which represents to us the tree of Christmas-tide, and feel the while we do so, something in it symbolical of that light which should dawn in our innermost souls, in order to gain for us immortality in the spiritual existence; and turning our gaze within we feel how the spiritual tendency of anthroposophical thought permeates us with a force which permits of our raising our eyes to behold the World of the Spirit. Therefore, in looking upon this outward symbol—the tree of Christmas-tide—we may indeed say: ‘May it be a symbol to us for that which is destined to illumine and burn within our souls, in order to raise us thither—even to the realms of the Spirit.’

For this tree, too, has, so to speak, sprouted forth from the depths of darkness, and only such persons might be inclined to cavil at so unhistorical a view, who are unaware that the thing which external physical knowledge does not recognise has nevertheless its deep spiritual foundations. To the physical eye it may not be apparent how gradually this Christmas-tree grows, as it were, to be a part of the outward life of humanity. In a comparatively short time, indeed, it has come to be a custom that brings happiness to man, one which has come to affect the world’s intercourse in general. This, as I have said, may pass unrecognised, yet those who know that external events are but impressions of a spiritual process, are bound to feel that there may possibly have been some very deep meaning at work, responsible for the appearance of the Christmas-tree upon the external physical plane; that its appearance has emanated from out the depths of some great spiritual impulse—an impulse leading men invisibly onward—that indeed this lighted tree may have been the means of sending to some specially sensitive souls that inspiration of the inward light whereof it furnishes so beautiful an external symbol. And when such cognition awakens to wisdom, then indeed does this tree—by reason of our will—also become an external symbol for that which is Divine.

If Anthroposophy is to be knowledge, then it must be knowledge in an active sense and permeated with wisdom—that is to say, it must ‘gild’—external customs and impressions. And so even as Anthroposophy warms and illumines the hearts and souls of men, present and future, so too must the Christmas-tree which has become so ‘material’ a custom recover its ‘golden glint,’ and in the light of this true knowledge rise once more to illustrate its true symbolical meaning in life, after having spent so long a time amid the darkened depths of men’s souls in these latter days.

And if we delve down even a little further and presuppose a deep spiritual guidance to have placed this impulse within the human heart, does this not also prove that thoughts bestowed upon man by the aid of the Spirit can attain to even greater depths of feeling when brought into connection with this luminant tree?

It used to be ancient custom common in many parts of Europe to go t into the woods some time before Christmas and collect sprigs from all kinds of plants, but more especially from foliage trees, and then seek to make these twigs bear leaf in time for Christmas Eve. And to many a soul the dim belief in ‘Life unconquerable’—in that life which shall be the vanquisher of all death—would thrill exultantly at the sight of all this sprouting greenery, branches artificially forced to unfold their tender leaves over-night at a time of year when the sun stands at its lowest. This was a very old custom—our Christmas-tree is of far more recent date. Where, then, have we in the first place to look for this custom?

We know how earnest was the language used by the great German mystics, more especially the impression created by the words of Johannes Tauler, who laboured so assiduously in Alsace; and anyone who allows the sermons of Johannes Tauler to ‘work upon him’ with the sincerity so peculiar to them will understand how at that time—a time when Tauler was more especially concerned in deepening the feeling of men for all that lay hidden within the Christian Belief—a peculiar, unique spirit must have prevailed, a spirit which of a truth was suffused with the Mystery of Golgotha. In those days when Johannes Tauler was preaching his sermons in Strasbourg, the passionate sincerity with which he delivered his ‘words of fire’ may well have sunk into the soul of many a listener, leaving there a lasting impression, and many such impressions may well have been caused by what Tauler was wont to say in his wondrously beautiful Christmas sermons. ‘Three times,’ said Tauler, ‘is God born unto men: Firstly, when He descends from the Father—from the Great All-World; again, when having reached humanity He descends into flesh; and thirdly, when the Christ is born within the human soul, and enables it to attain to the possibility of uniting itself to that which is the Wisdom of God—enabling it thus to give birth to the higher man.’

At all such seasons when the gracious habit of celebrating the Festivals prevailed, Johannes Tauler might be found round about the neighbourhood of Strasbourg dwelling earnestly upon the meaning of these deep verities, and more especially did he do this at the Christmas season. Indeed the words sinking at such times into receptive souls may have echoed on—for feelings, too, have their traditions—and what was felt within some soul’s depths in the hush of such an hour may—who knows?—still stir responsive chords from one century to the other. And so the feeling once possessing souls passed to the eye, and gave to this a capability of perceiving in that external symbol the resurrection—the birth of man’s spiritual light.

Taken from the point of view of material thought the coincidence may be deemed a pretty one: but for those who know the manner in which spiritual guidance permeates all that is physical it becomes far more than a coincidence to learn that the first record of a Christmas-tree having stood in a German room comes from Alsace, and indeed from Strasbourg in Alsace, while the date may be given as 1642.

How ill German Mysticism has fared at the hands of a Christianity wedded to outward forms may be seen in what happened to the memory of Master Eckhard, the great forerunner of Johannes Tauler, since posterity branded him a heretic after death—having omitted to do so while he lived!

Nor did the burning words of Johannes Tauler, words which flamed up from a heart fired with Christian passion, meet with much response; the outward Christianity of the times lacked the spiritual depth of the teachings proclaimed by these men, and this may fully account for the fact that in recording the news of this first Christmas-tree the ‘eye-witness’ alludes to it as ‘child’s play,’ and observes that ‘people would do better by going to places where the right Christian teachings could be proclaimed to them.’

The further progress of the Christmas-tree was a slow one. We see it figuring here and there about Middle Germany during the eighteenth century, but not till the nineteenth century did it become practically a regular ‘spiritual’ decoration intimately associated with the Christmas season—a new symbol of something that had survived throughout the centuries of time.

In such hearts, therefore, where the glory of all things can be truly felt—not in the sense implied by a Christianity ‘made up of words,’ but by the force of a true, a spiritual Christianity—sentiments of the highest human kind were ever prone to kindle in the tree’s illumined presence.

Another reason for placing the advent of the Christmas-tree at so recent a date may be seen in the fact that Germany’s greatest poets had left it unsung: had it been known in earlier times we may be sure that Klopstock, to mention only one, would have chosen this symbol for poetic treatment. And we may, therefore, gather additional certainty from this omission to strengthen our statement as to its being a comparative innovation.

More especially might we then dwell upon this symbol when the feeling of the spiritual truth of the awakening Ego wells up within our souls—that Ego which senses the spiritual bond ’twixt soul and soul, feeling it with intensified strength where noble human beings are striving in a common cause. And I will but mention one instance of how the fight of the Christmas-tree has streamed in to illumine the soul of one of humanity’s great leaders.

It was in the year 1821 that Goethe (whom we so often meet wherever we regard the life of the spirit in the light of Anthroposophy) was bringing his Faust to its close, and in so doing he came to find how essential the Christian symbols were in order to present his poetic intentions—that, in fact, they became the only possible ones. Goethe, indeed, experienced at this time most intensely the way in which Christianity weaves the noblest bond for joining soul to soul; and how this bond has to lay the foundations of a brotherly love not dependent upon the tie of blood, but on that of souls united in the spirit. And when we dwell on the close of the Gospels we are able to feel the impulse yet dormant within Christianity.

Gazing downward from the Cross upon Golgotha, Christ beholds the mother—beholds the son; and in that moment did He found that community which hitherto had only existed through the blood.

Up to that time no mother had had a son, no son a mother, without the tie being that of blood relationship. Nor were blood ties to be eliminated by Christianity; but to these were to be added spiritual ties, diffusing with their spiritual light those ties created by the blood.

It was to these ends, then, that Christ Jesus on the Cross spoke the words: ‘Woman! behold thy son!’, and to the disciple: ‘Behold thy mother!’ What had been instituted as a blood-tie became through the mediation of the Cross a bond of the spirit.

Wherever Goethe perceived a noble effort in furtherance of this spiritual union being made, he was moved to turn towards the true Christian spirit, and what possessed the heart soon yearned for outward expression. The year 1821 gave him a special opportunity for giving utterance to this desire. The residents of the little Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, to the interests of which Goethe dedicated so great a measure of his powers, had united forces in order to found a ‘Bürger-schule’. The undertaking was, in fact, to be a ‘gift,’ as it were, to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and Goethe, desirous of celebrating in some suitable manner the spiritual impulse that had led to so progressive a step, called upon various members to give poetic expression to thoughts respecting this undertaking they all had at heart. These verses Goethe then collected in a volume for which he himself wrote an introductory poem which was recited by Prince (later Grand Duke) Karl Alexander, then three years old, who presented the book to his father, Grand Duke Karl August—this little ceremony taking place beneath the Christmas-tree. So we see that the tree was, by the year 1821, already a customary symbol of the season and by this act did Goethe indicate the Christmas-tree as being the symbol of a feeling and sentiment for spiritual progress in things both great and small. His introductory poem written for this little volume is still preserved in the Weimar Library and runs as follows:

‘Bäume leuchtend, Bäume blendend,
Uberall das Süsse spendend,
In dem Glanze sich bewegend,
Alt—und junges Herz erregend—
Solch ein Fest ist uns bescheret,
Mancher Gaben Schmuck verehret;
Staunend schaun wir auf und nieder,
Hin und her und immer wieder.
Aber, Furst, wenn dir’s begegnet,
Und ein Abend so dich segnet,
Dass als Lichter, dass als Flammen
Vor dir glänzten allzusammen
Alles, was du ausgerichtet,
Alle, die sich dir verpflichtet:
Mit erhöhten Geistesblicken
Fühltest herrliches Entzücken.’¹

The above verses of Goethe are the first of what we might call Christmas poems, and when in connection with Anthroposophy we speak of ‘symbols’ we may well say that such symbols, which in the course of time surge up involuntarily within men’s souls, are indeed gilded over with the gold of wisdom.

We have seen that the first Christian Christmas was celebrated during the fourth century in Rome. It would seem, furthermore, a matter of divine dispensation that this Feast of Christ’s Birth has—as far as Middle and Northern Europe are concerned—been introduced at the very time when a most ancient feast—that of the Winter Sun, when the shortest days are chronicled—was also wont to be celebrated.

Now it must not be imagined that this change of the old time-honoured Festival into the new Feast, the Christmas Festival, was brought about in order, as it were, to conciliate the nations. Christmas was born purely and simply out of Christianity, and we may say that the way in which it became accepted by the more Northern lands was a proof of the deeply spiritual relationship connecting these peoples as well as their symbols with Christianity.

In Armenia, for instance, the Christmas Festival has never become customary, and even in Palestine the Christians were for a long time averse to its celebration, and yet it soon found a home in Europe.

And now we will try to understand in the right way the Christmas Feast itself when taken from the anthroposophical view—doing so in order that we may also be enabled to apprehend the Christmas-tree in its symbolic sense.

When, during the course of the year, we meet together, we allow those words—which should not be mere words, but rather forces—to permeate our soul in order that the soul may become a citizen of eternity. Throughout the year do we thus assemble allowing these words—this Logos—to sound upon our ears in the most varied manner, telling us that Christ is with us always, and that when we are thus assembled together the Spirit of Christ works in upon us, so that our words become impregnated with the Spirit of Christ. If only we enunciate these things being conscious that the word becomes a ‘carrier on wings,’ bearing revelations to humanity, then indeed do we let that flow in upon our souls which is the Word of the Spirit. Yet we know that the Word of the Spirit cannot entirely be taken up by us—cannot become all it should be to us if we have only received it as an outward and abstract form of knowledge. We know that it can only become to us that which it should be if it gives rise to that inner warmth through which the soul becomes expanded—through which it senses itself as gushing forth amid all the phenomena of world-existence—in which it feels itself one with the Spirit—that Spirit which itself permeates all that is outwardly apparent.

Let us, therefore, feel the Word of the Spirit must become to us a power—a life-force—so that when the season is at hand at which we place that symbol before us, it may proclaim to our souls: ‘Let a new thing be born within you. Let that which giving warmth can spread the Light—even the Word—rising from those spiritual sources, those spiritual depths—be born within you—born as Spirit-Man!’

Then shall we feel what is the meaning of that which passes over to us as the Word of the Spirit. Let us earnestly feel, at such a moment as the present, what Anthroposophy gives to us as warmth, as light for the soul, and let us try to feel it somewhat in.the following manner:

Look at the material world of to-day with all its perpetual activity, consider the way in which men hurry and worry from morning till evening, and the way in which they judge everything from the materialistic standpoint, according to the measure laid down by this outward physical plane—how utterly oblivious they are that behind all there lives and works the Spirit. At night people sink to sleep oblivious of aught else than that ‘unconsciousness’ enwraps them, and in the morning they similarly return to a sense of the consciousness of this physical plane. Thoughtlessly, ignorantly, man sinks to sleep after all his labours and worries of the day—never even seeking enlightenment as to the meaning of life.

When the anthroposophist has become imbued with the Words of the Spirit he knows that which is no mere theory or dogma: he then knows what can give warmth as well as light to his soul. He knows that were he day by day to take up naught but the presentments of the physical life, he would inevitably wither—his life would be empty and void. All he came by would die away were he to have no other presentments than such as the physical plane is able to place before him. For when of an evening you lie down to sleep you pass over to a world of the Spirit—the forces of your soul rise to a world of higher spiritual entities, to whose level you must gradually raise your own being. And when of a morning you wake again, you do so newly strengthened from out that spiritual world, and thus do you shed spiritual life over all that approaches you upon this physical plane, be it done consciously or unconsciously. From the Eternal do you yourself rejuvenate your temporal existence each morning.

What we should do is to change into feeling this Word of the Spirit, so that we may when evening comes be able to say: ‘I shall not merely pass over to unconsciousness, but I shall dip into a world where dwell the beings of eternity—entities whom my own entity is to resemble. I therefore fall asleep with the feeling, ‘Away to the Spirit!’, and I awaken with the feeling, ‘Back—from the Spirit!’ In doing this we become permeated with that feeling into which the Word of the Spirit is to transform itself, that Word which from day to day, from week to week, has been taken up by us here. Let us feel ourselves connected with the Spirit of the Universe—let us feel that we are missionaries of the World-Spirit which permeates and interweaves all outward existence—for then we also feel when the sun stands high in summer and directs its life-giving rays earthward that then too is the Spirit active, manifesting itself in an outward manner, and how—in that we then perceive His external mien, His outward countenance, mirrored by the external rays of the sun—His inner Being may be said to have retired beyond these outer phenomena.

Where do we behold this Spirit of the Universe—this Spirit whom Zoroaster already proclaimed—when only the outward and physical rays of the sun stream in upon us? We behold this Spirit when we are able to recognise where it is He beholds Himself. Verily does this Spirit of the Universe create during summer-time those organs through which He may behold Himself. He creates external sense organs! Let us learn to understand what it is that from Springtime forward decks the earth with its carpet of verdant plants giving to it a renewed countenance. What is it? ’Tis a mirror for the World-Spirit of the sun! For when the sun pours forth its rays upon us, it is the World-Spirit Who is gazing down on earth. All plant-life—bud, blossom and leaf—are but images which present the pure World-Spirit, reflected in His works as they shoot forth upon this earth:—this carpet of plants contains the sense-organs of the World-Spirit.

When in the autumn the external power of the sun declines, we see how this plant life disappears—how the countenance of the World-Spirit is withdrawn—and if we have been prepared in the right manner we may then feel how the Spirit which pulsates throughout the universe is now within ourselves. So that we can follow the World-Spirit even when He is withdrawn from external sight, for we then feel that though our gaze no longer rests upon that verdant cover, yet has the Spirit been roused in us to so great a measure that He withdraws Himself from the external presentments of the world. And so the awakening Spirit becomes our guide to those depths whither Spirit life retires and to where we deliver over to the keeping of the Spirit germs for the coming Spring. There do we learn to see with our spiritual sight, learning to say to ourselves:

‘When external life begins gradually to become invisible for the external senses, when the melancholy of Autumn creeps in upon our soul, then does the soul follow the Spirit—even amid the lifeless stones, in order that it may draw thence those forces which in the Spring will once more furnish new sense organs for the Spirit of the World.’

It is thus that those who having in their spirit conceived the Spirit come to feel that they too can follow this World-Spirit down to where the grains of seed repose in winter-time.

When the power of the sun is weakest and when its rays are at their faintest—when outer darkness is at its strongest—it is then that the Spirit within us united to the Spirit of the Universe feels and proclaims that union in greatest clearness, by filling the grains of seed with a new life. In this way we may indeed say quite literally that by the power of the seed we also live within and permeate—as it were—the Earth. In Summer-time we turn to the bright atmosphere about us, to the budding fruits of the earth, but now we turn to the lifeless stones, yet knowing that beneath them reposes that which shall in its turn again enjoy external life, and our soul follows in the spirit those budding germinating forces which, withdrawing themselves from outward view, lie dormant amid the stones in Winter-time.

And when Winter-time has reached its central point—when the darkness is deepest—then is the time at hand when we may feel that the exterior world is nevertheless not capable of counteracting our union with the Spirit—when within those depths to which we have withdrawn we feel the flashes of the Spirit-light—that light of the Spirit for which the greatest Impulse received by humanity was given by Christ Jesus. In this way we are enabled to sense what the Ancients felt when they spoke of descending to where the grain of seed lay dormant in Winter-time in order that they might learn to know the hidden powers of the Spirit.

We then come to feel that Christ has to be sought for amid that which is hidden—there where all is dark and obscure, unless we ourselves kindle the light in the Soul—that Soul which becomes clear and illumined when penetrated by the Light of Christ. At Christmas-tide, therefore, we may well feel an ever-increasing sense of strength—strength due to that Impulse which, grace to the Mystery enacted on Golgotha, has permeated the human race. If truly experienced in this way the Christ Impulse becomes for us indeed the most powerful incentive, strengthening year by year this life which is leading us into the Spiritual Worlds where death—as known in the physical world—does not exist.

It is in this way that we are enabled to spiritualise a symbol which to present-day materialistic-thinking persons is no more than a token of material joy and pleasure, and we thus may also feel within our hearts what Johannes Tauler really meant when he spoke of Christ having to be born three times: once as God the Father Who permeates the world—once as Man, at the time when Christianity was founded—and since then again and again, within the souls of those who can awaken the Word of the Spirit within their innermost being. For without this last birth Christianity would not be complete, nor would Anthroposophy be capable of grasping the Christian Spirit did it not understand that the Word brought home to us year after year is not intended to remain theory and dogma, but is to become both Light and Life—a force, indeed, by which we may contribute spirituality to life in this world as well as gather spirituality for ourselves—and so be one with the other—incorporated with the Spirit for all Eternity.

No matter the step of evolution upon which we stand—we can nevertheless feel what was felt at all times by those who had been initiated and who therefore really did in this Holy Night descend at the midnight hour to gaze upon the spiritual Sun in the darkness of the Christmas Night—when that spiritual Sun could call forth from apparently dead surroundings and waken into life all budding nature, bidding it burst forth and proclaim a new Springtide.

This is the Christ Sun we should feel behind the physical sun: to it we ourselves must rise—rise to experience and see that which, by grace of those new forces man may develop, shall unite him with the Spirit—then shall it also be for us to

See the Sun
About the midnight hour,
And build with stones
Amid the lifeless clay,
Finding that as we pass
To the dark night of Death
Creations new come forth—
Young morns arise to power—
The heights above reveal
The Gods’ eternal Word,
And depths below shall guard
The peaceful Place of Rest.

Dwelling in Darkness,
Oh! create a Sun!
And while ye weave the web,
Oh I recognise
The blissfulness of Spirit.

• 1. The first verse is descriptive of the earthly joys—the union, of friends and the gifts interchanged at Christmas; while the second hints at the spiritual significance of the ceremony, the flames of light giving rise to feelings and sentiments which respond to Higher Planes.—Translator's Note.

For many years it has been my duty to give lectures upon Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy.

Those present at the lectures cannot but acknowledge that the foundation of Spiritual Science as presented is not a dreamy, idle pursuit for the few who have withdrawn from the common paths of life; it illumines the deepest problems and mysteries of existence.

Spiritual Science will lead the mind towards spiritual origins. It is destined to give out to man-kind knowledge of the spiritual worlds. At the same time its mission is to make life intelligible, to be a guiding star in work and action, giving us a broader and deeper understanding of what happens in our environment, through a comprehension of the underlying spiritual causes.

The confusion that exists in the average mind and the consequent spirit of dissension, are due to the endless contradictions found in the opinions of famous authorities regarding the problems of human life. Many people have, however, already felt how Anthroposophy widens the vision, and therefore leads to a wise adjustment of opinions.

Two famous modern contemporaries, whose influences are far-reaching, will be brought before us to-day; individualities well suited to present to us the vital contrasts existing in our time. It would be difficult to find two personalities in greater contrast in their thought and feeling and in their standard of right and wrong. On the one hand is the famous, the influential Tolstoy—so strong a personality that no appellation seems adequate to describe his significance for his day and generation. It is difficult to describe him as moralist, prophet, or reformer. But it is evident that in speaking of him something deeply rooted in the innermost depths of human nature is touched; that in his personality something lives which rises from the depths of the human soul—something that cannot be felt in those whose work is merely superficial. The other personality, in so marked a contrast to Tolstoy, is the American millionaire, Carnegie. Why should Carnegie be mentioned in connection with Tolstoy? Just as Tolstoy, out of the depths of his soul, strives to solve the problems of life satisfactorily, even so Carnegie, in his own way, endeavours with a practical and intelligent outlook upon life, to reach guiding principles.

Perhaps it might be said that just as Idealism and Realism are diametrically opposed, so are Tolstoy and Carnegie in relation to each other. As Fichte says, “Your opinion of life depends upon the kind of man you are,” and a man’s point of view is always connected b, finer or coarser threads with his peculiar character and temperament. Between these two personalities we find the greatest possible contrast. There is the wealthy Russian aristocrat, born in the lap of luxury, who through his social position was not only bound to know the external aspect of that life, but obliged to live with and to taste it. He is satiated with the modern way of thinking, which offers only the superficial. He looks up and beyond at the great outspread wings of moral ideals which the majority of mankind, even though admiring and willingly admitting as beautiful, still believe unattainable.

On the other hand we have Carnegie, who was born in simple surroundings, knowing necessity and sacrifice, not equipped with the advantages enjoyed by Tolstoy, but with a will to work with the endless, one may say, ideally-coloured ambition of becoming a man in the broadest sense of the word. Through this attitude towards life Carnegie evolves a kind of realistic idealism, a moral standpoint which reckons from what is seen with physical eyes of the turmoil of experiences in practical life.

Tolstoy, in his radical way, throws down the gauntlet to the modern order of things. His criticism becomes hard as it endeavours to combat modern thought, feeling, and selfish impulses. Carnegie sees life as it has developed historically. The word his soul uses to express his connection with life is “Satisfaction”—satisfaction with the existing order of things. He sees how the differences between rich and poor have arisen and how the differentiation of service has come into being. And everywhere this is his penetrating judgment: It is immaterial whether we find good or evil. Both exist, must exist. They are there and must be reckoned with. Let us work it out. From a realistic conception of things as they are, let us work out an idealism that aims at the great goal of pointing out the right way, within existing conditions, towards such an order of things as will further human progress and development.

This lecture does not “take sides” with either of these lives; but the conditions of their development must be understood in order to explain the contrasts: and if Spiritual Science has any task in regard to these men it must be that of understanding and explaining how these differences are evolved from the underlying principles of existence. It cannot be my task to offer biographical information. Only that will be said which will so illumine the souls of both men that we can enter into a deeper understanding of their personalities.

Tolstoy was from the first a man who did not have to fight for the material necessities of life, but was born in the midst of over-abundant wealth, and could easily have vanished like the many thousands who live within the realm of luxury. For this, however, he possessed too strong an individuality. From childhood only that which touched upon the deepest questions of the soul, and of life, seemed to influence him, though as a boy he did not regard critically the happenings around him but accepted them all as a matter of course. How different his attitude was later in life, when he became a censor of his surroundings.

A long account could be given of how Tolstoy became acquainted with the dark and miserable side of modern social life, especially during his period of army service; how, having learned the misery of war, and the superficiality of the social and literary life of St. Petersburg, he became disgusted with the ethics of the ruling classes. All this is well known. But what interests us more are the great questions which shone out before Tolstoy. Forcing itself more and more into his being, was the question, “What is the centre of life amidst all these conflicting conditions surrounding us? Where is the middle ground to be found?” Religion became for him the great and vital question. He could not at first tear himself from the conventional forms, and though religious considerations grew in importance as he asked himself, over and over again, “What is religion? What does it signify to humanity?” he could not recognize the connecting link between the soul and an unknown spiritual source. It seemed to him that all he had learned of true religion from the men of his own class, had been torn away from its source and had hardened and withered away.

At this time he became interested in the lower classes. As a soldier in the Caucasus he learned to know their inner life and found in them something of the primeval, that had not been torn away from the first cause. His eyes opened to the fact that in the naive existence of these lower, inferior people of the soil, truth and reality must abide more than in the artificialities of the class to which he belonged.

Problem after problem confronted him, none of which he could solve. “Yes; now I have seen those who have departed from the truth, and have become hardened in the periphery. And I have sought a way to religious depths through the souls of primitive people: But the answer to my question founders on the fact that the so-called educated can never be understood nor be in harmony with this primitive state of the soul.” No answer could be found to the burning question. So on and on until the contrasts and contradictions in life become plain. By reading his War and Peace, and Anna Karenina it can be seen how everywhere, even though the artistic form is paramount, the longing to understand life in its contrasts, and most of all the contradictions of the human character, permeate these works.

In later life, after he had become the great moral writer, he said: “The endeavour to portray a character ideally and soulfully created, yet in harmony with reality, has cost me untold misery, and I know that many of my contemporaries have had the same experience.”

It troubled him that such contradictions exist between that which one recognizes as the ideal and that which actually appears; for order and peace should reign in the world. This disturbed him as long as he was artistically active.

Tolstoy was not simply the objective onlooker all this time. He had been in the midst of life. He had experienced all these things, and could feel the intimate pricks of conscience, the inner reproaches that come to all who suddenly realize themselves to have been born into a certain class, and consequently under an obligation to conform to existing customs. It seemed inconsistent to criticize them. Such personalities are often driven to the verge of suicide by the turmoil in their minds.

Infinitely more can be learnt by introspection than by criticism of externalities. As from within outwards the horizon of Tolstoy broadened, until from the keen observation of his nearest surroundings he reached the broad plain where he overlooked the whole evolution of mankind, he saw to how wide and universal an extent the great and pure religious impulses of humanity had degenerated.

Then in all its depth, and in all its strength, the great impulse which was given to the world through Jesus Christ appeared to Tolstoy. But at its side also appeared the great Roman world of the Caesars which made Christianity subservient to power, representing only the outward form which had failed to save humanity and had become a mystery to men. And so his criticisms and his opinions became harsh and warped—and they are surely harsh enough.

It was most difficult for him to understand the contradictions in humanity. On the one side tremendous wealth; on the other dire poverty which resulted in the deplorable stunting of the soul’s life, so that humanity, through restriction of spiritual opportunities, could not find its way to spiritual wisdom specially to that which can be found in the original Christian teaching to which it must eventually penetrate.

Thus this comprehensive problem confronted him, this contrast between the luxury of the ruling classes and the spiritual and mental oppression of the masses. Experience of this problem ripened into a conviction, and he developed into a critic more penetrating perhaps than any before him—a critic who does not tire of describing things as they are, and of doing so in such a way as to impress us with their horror. It is natural to judge his attitude towards life from the trend of his contemplations. He said he would have liked to write a fairy tale with the following contents:

“One woman, having had a very bad encounter with another woman, disliked her intensely and wished to do her the most atrocious wrong. Accordingly she consulted a sorcerer, and acting upon his advice stole a child from her enemy. The sorcerer assured her that if she could take the child, who was born in great poverty, and place it in a home of wealth she could thus fully accomplish her revenge. This she was successful in doing. The child was adopted. It was taken care of according to the manner of the rich—spoiled and pampered. The woman had not expected this development, and was very angry. She went back to the seer to complain that he had given her wrong advice, and had betrayed her. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘you have done the worst one could do to an enemy. When this child develops further and his conscience is awakened to an inner contrast with the outer world, he will know that all he longs for must be in another world: but he will not be able to find it. He will say, “The manner in which I have been brought up has robbed me of the ambition and determination to seek and follow the way which leads to the underlying causes of existence.”’

This results in intense suffering for the developing man. Tolstoy understands the soul torture of such an experience, and appreciates the temptation to suicide created by this inward unrest and uncertainty. This illustration reveals his attitude toward the social order of things.

Now to consider Carnegie, who was the child of a master-weaver. So long as the big factories did not exist the father was able to find work. In the midst of this prosperity Carnegie spent his infancy. Then through the growth of the large factory his father found himself out of work, and was obliged to emigrate from Scotland to America. Only through the most strenuous efforts was he able to provide the absolute necessities of life. The boy was obliged to work in a factory, and as he relates his experiences we recognize in the description the same groundwork, the same depths, that are to be found in the soul experiences of Tolstoy. Carnegie describes what an event it was, his first-earned dollar. He has since become one of the richest men of the day, one who is actually obliged to seek ways and means of using his millions; and he is wont to say, with characteristic frankness: “None of my income has ever given me such a keen satisfaction as those first dollars.”

He worked in the same way for some time to support his family; but something lived within him like a hidden power, shaping his life so that he became a “self-made” man. This brought him supreme satisfaction. Even as a boy of twelve he felt himself fast becoming a man, for he who can earn his own living is a man. This was the thought of his soul. Then he went on to another factory, where he was employed in the office, and later became telegraph boy and earned more. He tells us: “A telegraph boy was obliged to memorise all addresses. I was afraid of losing my position, so I learned every name on the streets.” So once more his position was self-made. Then he stole into the office before hours, with other messenger boys, to practice telegraphy.

There his highest ideal was to become an operator, and he soon achieved it. Then his happiness was increased by finding a friend who lent him a book every Saturday. How eagerly he looked for each new book! Soon followed events of vital importance to him. A high official advised him to take shares in a certain company and thus advance his prospects. By sacrifice and thrift he accumulated the necessary five hundred dollars. Previous to this time had had used all his energy to support those dependent upon him, and he found it possible to make this investment largely through the economies of his mother.

This purchase of ten shares of stock was an event of the greatest importance, for upon the receipt of the first dividends it seemed to come to him, as the solution of a problem, that money makes money. The meaning of capital became clear to him, and this understanding meant the same to him as the working out of any difficult problem to a deep thinker. Before this time money had seemed only the compensation for hard work. Here it is most interesting to observe the result of such an experience upon such a character. From that time he was alert to every opportunity for making money. With the invention of the sleeping-coach Carnegie immediately became interested in it. Thus step by step he seemed to learn to understand and profit by the signs of the times.

The old custom of building bridges of wood was abandoned in favour of iron and steel construction. Of the opportunity offered by this change Carnegie took advantage, becoming richer and richer, until he was known as the “Steel King.” Then moral obligation faced him, and with it the questions, “What is my duty? How shall I distribute this wealth so that it may best fulfil its mission?”

That which Tolstoy experienced does not exist for Carnegie—there is no criticism of life, but instead an acceptance of life’s conditions as they are. What appeared to Tolstoy as utterly in-consistent, Carnegie regarded as natural. Looking back far into ancient times, we find princes living in the most primitive conditions, differing very little from their subjects in their mode of life. No luxury, no poverty, in our acceptance of those terms. Therefore we feel they did not know the things wealth brings, and there was no difference between rich and poor. From this primitive life everything has developed. Stronger and stronger become the contrasts. “It is well,” Carnegie says, “that beside the hut stands the palace, for there is much they should hold in common.”

We must understand his limitations. What struck him forcibly was the personal, brotherly feeling between master and servant under earlier conditions. Our relations have now become impersonal. The employer stands face to face with the employee without recognizing him, without knowing any of his needs. In this way hatred develops. But as it is so, it must be accepted. Carnegie’s view is an absolute endorsement of our outward daily life.

Penetrating more deeply we see that Carnegie is a keen, sharp, practical thinker of his kind, and that he stands in the centre of industrial life knowing all the different channels into which capital flows: therefore he has developed a wise and a sound judgment. It cannot be denied that this man has endeavoured to solve the problem of right living, and there is something in him which persuades us that he experiences a satisfaction with life impossible to Tolstoy.

His practical morality brings up this question: “How must this life be shaped so that that which has arisen of necessity shall have meaning and sense? Old conditions have brought about the custom of inherited wealth. Is this still possible under our present conditions, when capital of necessity produces capital?” he asks himself sharply. He studies life with keen interest and says, “No; it cannot go on in this way.” After considering all sides carefully, he comes to the peculiar and characteristic conclusion that when the rich man regards himself as the distributor of accumulated wealth, for the benefit of humanity, then and then only has his life any significance. He says to himself: “I must not only earn money, not only support my family and relatives, but in so far as I have used my mental powers and forces to bring it together, pouring into my work all my capabilities, this must be turned to the benefit of mankind.” This then is his code, that man, while adapting his powers to the conditions of this age, should earn as much money as possible, but not leave any; he should use it all for the improvement of humanity.

Therefore, “to die rich, dishonours,” is characteristic of Carnegie’s view of life. He says it is honourable at one’s death to leave nothing. Naturally this is not meant pedantically, because the daughter must inherit enough to live upon; but, radically expressed, “to become rich is fate, but to die rich is dishonour.” An honourable man to Carnegie is the one who “makes an end,” completes a life, leaving no uncertainty concerning that which his ability has brought together.

We must recognise the difference between these two characters—Tolstoy and Carnegie. The latter himself feels it and has commented on it in this manner: “Count Tolstoy wishes to carry us back again to Christ; but it is in a way that does not fit in with our present manner of living. Instead of leading us back to Christ, he should demonstrate what Christ would advise man to do under present conditions.’ In the sentence before quoted, “To die rich, dishonours,” Carnegie finds the true stamp of Christian thought. And it is evident that he believes Christ would say that he, not Tolstoy, is right.

We see in all this that Carnegie is a noble man, with a progressive, not an indolent, nature, unlike the many who, with little thought, accept things as they find them. He has sought, in many ways, to solve the problem of the distribution of wealth.

Is it not wonderful that life presents such marked contrasts as those afforded by these two strong personalities who, with the same objective point, pursue such very different courses? To understand this is truly most difficult for some minds. It is not at all marvellous that, on hearing Tolstoy preaching his lofty ideals, some will feel, “Oh, my soul responds to that!” and will sense the uplifting influence. It must be remembered, however, that life has a practical side, and he who is not an abstract dreamer, but in a truly realistic and earnest spirit tries to follow Carnegie’s train of thought, must admit that he is right too.

This shows, too, how impossible it is for the man who gives himself up to the practical side of life to acknowledge the greatest ideal, or to believe in its fulfilment.

Tolstoy succeeds in making what he believes is an absolute defence of the original Christian religion. He criticizes all that has appeared from time to time in the guise of Christianity; he has hoped to find the great impulse, or foundation, of real Christianity. In the simplest way he puts before us this impulse as it appears to him. And when a man understands this impulse, it is clear that he has within himself a spark of the Infinite, the eternal world-illuminating spirit of God. Another conviction is that in this spark is the germ of man’s immortality, and that with this understanding he cannot fail to seek for the higher and deeper nature throughout the whole of humanity. From this comprehension he knows that within himself is the real man, who cannot fail to overcome all that is base and unworthy within his nature. He devotes himself to the cultivation of the spiritual or higher self which lives eternally, the Christ.

How would a man, I will not say Carnegie, but one who considers things from his point of view, regard the philosophy of Tolstoy’s Christianity? He would say: “Oh, it is grand, magnificent, to live in Christ. The Christ within is one’s Self; but under our present conditions such a thing is impossible. How could civic affairs be conducted in accordance with these strict Christian requirements?”

Although the question is not put before the other side in a corresponding way, Tolstoy gives as definite an answer as possible, saying, “What will happen to the outward order of things pertaining to state and historical events is beyond my knowledge; but I am positive that humanity must live in accordance with the true Christian doctrine.” So, for him, the words, “The kingdom of God is within you,” expand into a deep, significant certainty that man may reach the heights, that he may know the Holy of Holies. This certainty, that the soul can know the truth about this or that, is to him a fact. We see in no other character of our time such a strong faith in the inner man, and such a firm belief that through this faith the outward results must eventually be good. For this reason scarcely any one else has professed such a view of the world with such personal, individual sympathy and such conviction as Tolstoy.

Carnegie reasons: “What relations must men sustain one to another?” And: ‘It is not good to give to beggars promiscuously, because it is apt to foster laziness. It is necessary to know the exact needs of those whom one helps. Really, one should help only those who are willing to work.” This is the basis of his philanthropy. He says he knows very well that the man who gives simply to rid himself of the beggar causes more havoc than the miser who gives nothing. We shall not judge in this matter; we are only characterizing.

On the other hand, let us consider Tolstoy. He meets a friend. This man has a great affection for his fellow men, and Tolstoy sees in him a wonderful new birth. Some one robs this friend; sacks of things are stolen, but one sack is left behind. What does the friend do? He does not prosecute the robbers, but carries them the remaining sack, saying, “You certainly would not have taken them had you not needed them.” This Tolstoy understands perfectly, and he be-comes his friend’s admirer. So much for the different ways of looking upon the parasites of society. These men are human brothers. The differences of opinion are the results of the different attitudes of soul. It must be admitted that Tolstoy is not only a hard critic, but having grasped the source of human certainty he has reached a remarkable point in the development of his soul. Herein begins what is foremost in his greatness, shining out for all who can appreciate it.

One result of his strong convictions, that calls forth admiration, is his attitude towards the value of science to the present generation. Because of his ability to look into the souls of men he could see through the vain endeavours and methods of our worldly sciences. Certainly it is easy to understand the teachings of physical and material sciences, and to follow and to realize all that they demonstrate. But what so-called science cannot do is to answer the questions: “How are these different physical and chemical processes united to life?” and “What is life?” So we face the deep scientific problem, the problem of life, and attempt to understand and to solve it.

It is significant to note Tolstoy’s remarks on the attitude of our western science in regard to the riddle of life. “People, who in the name of modern science endeavour to solve this riddle, seem to me like men trying to recognize the different species and habits of trees in this manner. Standing in the midst of the trees they do not even look at them, but taking a glass they gaze at a distant hill, upon which they agree should grow the kind of tree they are endeavouring to understand. So appear to me those who, instead of seeking in their own souls the solution of this problem of life, make instruments, create methods, and try to analyze that which exists in nature around them; more than ever they fail to see what life is.”

Through this comparison Tolstoy reveals what he understands and feels upon these questions. A careful study of his point of view shows that what he has written on the problem of life is of more value than whole libraries of western Europe which treat it from the modern scientific standpoint.

It is good to realize the value of such soul-experiences as Tolstoy’s, and his experience of the certitude of the Spirit is of great importance. We can admire Tolstoy’s way of solving in five lines that which our modern scientific methods fail to solve with long, complicated processes of thought, in whole books. Tolstoy shows great concentration in this power of expressing these great solutions in a few magical strokes, and making great problems intelligible in a few words rather than in the prolix, so-called scientific, philosophical treatises of many modern writers.

Tolstoy stands unique in the depth of his soul-character, and only when this is realised can we comprehend the spiritual reasons for the coming of such a man as he on one side, and on the other such a man as Carnegie—for the latter in his way is as important for his generation. To understand more fully the spiritual sources which lead on the one hand to Tolstoy and on the other to Carnegie, we should regard them from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

The spiritual discoverer sees in the progress of humanity something quite different from that seen by the ordinary man. As the Spiritual Scientist sees in the man standing before him a being of four parts—sees in the physical body the instrument of higher spiritual forces, and behind this the etheric body, the astral body, and the I, or ego—so he sees behind what appears as social order in human life as folk or race or family, the spiritual reality. To-day the “spirit of the people” or the “spirit of the times” has no real meaning. What does he think who speaks of an English, German, French or American “spirit of the people”? Truly, as a rule, only the sum-ming up of so many human beings. To the average mind they are the reality, but the spirit of the people is an abstraction.

There is little realisation that that which appears outwardly as so many human beings is the expression of a spiritual reality, exactly as the human body is the expression of an etheric body, an astral body, and the ego. Humanity has lost what it once possessed—the faculty of being able to see such realities. An old friend of mine, a good apostle of Aristotle, tried to make clear to his class how the spirit can be made manifest in the sense-perceptible. By a simple example Knauer—for it was he—made it clear how spirit exists in matter by saying: “Look at a wolf. He eats, we will say, during his whole life nothing but lambs, and then consists of lamb’s material. However, he does not become a lamb. It is not the nature of the food that is significant, but the fact that in the wolf is living something spiritual which builds and holds together its material form. This is the Real—something which must be recognized or else all study of the outer world is vain.

Examine as man may the outward, material world, if he does not probe to the spiritual he does not come to the source of all life. So it is with the terms “spirit of the people” or “spirit of the times.” For the spiritual discoverer, in the development of Christianity there lives the spiritual reality, not simply an abstract condition. For the spiritual discoverer the sum of humanity is not only that which can be observed in the physical world; behind this lives something spiritual. And for him there is a spirituality, not a bare, unsubstantial abstraction, in the development of Christianity. Beside the Christ is the spirit of Christianity, which is real. This spiritual reality works in a wonderful and subtle way, well illustrated by the following. A peasant once lived who divided his crop. One part he used, and the other he saved as seed, which bore a new crop. This is an illustration which leads us to a law ruling human development; and which proceeds in this way. At certain times are born great impulses which must be sown broadcast. A spiritual impulse, as that of Christianity, given at a certain time, then finds its way to the outer world, taking on this or that form; but perhaps as the outer part of a tree dries up and forms the bark, so the form becomes dry and dies away. These outer forms are bound to die out. And be the impulse ever so strong and fruitful, as surely as it penetrates into the outer world it must disappear like the seed that was used.

Now just as the peasant held something back, so must some part of the spiritual impulse remain, as if flowing along underground channels. Suddenly with primal force this reappears, bringing a fresh impetus to the development of mankind. It is then that a personality appears in whom the impulse, which has been ripening for centuries, is manifested. Such individualities always appear in direct contrast to their surroundings. They must be in great contrast because the surrounding world has become hardened. They are usually inclined to disregard their environment entirely. Seen from a spiritual standpoint, Tolstoy is such a personality; one in whom the Christian impulse is manifest.

These things happen in a forceful way, to break through the shell, and exert a far-reaching influence. Their origin appears wholly radical, and their effects illuminate the world. Such is the law which gives us such seemingly one-sided personalities as Tolstoy. On the other hand, we must expect the contrasting personalities who are not connected with the central stream but wholly absorbed within the peripheral working of the world. Such a person is Carnegie.

Carnegie can look out and over the circle, can think out the best way for humanity; but he does not see that which as spirit pulsates through human life. Tolstoy does, because he seeks so earnestly the inner certainty, the Kingdom of God, in the individual soul. He can do so because in him is personified that true stream which is below the surface bearing itself onwards and unconnected with such material things as may be inherited.

We have physical manifestations but the onlooker does not realize the spiritual within them. We have the spiritual that springs with great strength out of the innermost being of a person, but the onlooker does not understand how this can make itself felt in the world. More and more will humanity find these contrasts and, if another spiritual stream did not appear to reflect again the deep, underlying, spiritual sources making them manifest in the material world, we could not follow Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science leads us into the very depths of spiritual life. It not only traces spiritual life in those powerful impulses which do not unite with deed and fact, it also seeks for it in the concrete, and therefore understands how the spiritual flows into the material. It thus bridges the apparent chasm between the spiritual and material, finding in this way the point of view which brings contrasts into harmony.

Today we wish to learn to understand, from a spiritual point of view, two contrasting personal-ities. Spiritual Science is not only called upon to preach outward tolerance, but also to find that inner light which can penetrate with admiration into the soul of one demonstrating the great Im-pulse that emanates from the spiritual consciousness. This to-day seems improbable if not im-possible and on the whole radical, because it crowds into so small a space that which in the future will be spread far and wide, and which will then present a very different aspect. This Anthroposophy can realize. It can look also with objective eyes upon the present, and the personality of Carnegie, and appreciate him. Life is not a one-sided affair. Life is many sided, and can be appreciated in all its richness only when the great contrasts are fully understood. Bad indeed it would be if the various colours and tones could not be seen as parts of an artistic whole.

Human evolution demands the crystalization of one or the other of these opposites, and so it must be; but with this hope, that mankind may not be lost in the midst of life. There must be a central religion, or Welt-Anschauung, which must solve the many complex problems which now appear so full of contradictions. When Anthroposophy works with this aim in view it will evolve full harmony. Outward harmony can only be the reflection of the inner or soul harmony. And when Anthroposophy shall have accomplished this aim, her true place in modern culture, she will have found that which she is seeking to establish. Anthroposophy desires no theoretical proofs, no speculation; her aim is to prove and demonstrate the truth of her statements in life itself. When she will see the light which she has shed upon life reflected back to her in inner harmony in spite of all contradictions, then she will realize the establishment of her fundamental principles.

{This follows immediately after the lecture.}

TOLSTOY AND THE FUTURE

In Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on the Apocalypse of John, given at Nuremberg in June 1908, he spoke in Lecture 7 of the sixth post-Atlantean epoch, which follows our own, and took Tolstoy as an example of a man in whom the culture of the future age can already be seen.

These lectures, which are intended to be objective, are far, far removed from any party spirit. But you may compare objectively what is attained as science and philosophy in the European West with what appeared in the East, let us say in Tolstoy. One does not need to be a follower of Tolstoy, but one thing is true; in a book such as Tolstoy’s On Life you may read one page, if you understand how to read it, and compare it with whole libraries in Western Europe. And you may then say the following: In Western Europe one makes spiritual culture with the intellect; one chisels out certain details and puts them together to form something that is supposed to make the world comprehensible, and the achievements of Western Europe civilization in this respect will never be surpassed. But if you understand such a book as Tolstoy’s On Life, you will often find condensed into ten lines what in these Western European libraries it takes thirty volumes to say. Tolstoy says something with elemental force, and in a few lines of his there is the same amount of energy as is assembled in thirty such volumes. Here one must be able to judge what comes forth from the depths of the spirit, what has a spiritual foundation and what has not. Just as over-ripe cultures contain something that is drying up and withering, so do rising cultures contain within them fresh life and new energy. Tolstoy is a premature flower of such a culture, one that came far too soon to be fully developed. Hence he has all the faults of an untimely birth. His grotesque and unfounded presentations of many Western European things, all that he brings forward in the way of foolish judgment, show that great personalities have the faults of their virtues and that great cleverness has the folly of its wisdom.

There has been a basic theme to everything we have been considering here in recent times. Again and again the point has been made that when any work is undertaken or any proposal made in connection with the anthroposophical movement proper regard must be paid to the gravity of the present situation. In principle everything I have said so far has been in accord with that basic theme. It should also help more and more of our members to come to feel this in their souls. We will continue along these lines. Today I want above all to refer to something that can help us to find the right inner attitude, as it were, to the spiritual-scientific movement that has anthroposophy for its goal.

There has now been scientific evidence that Western culture is in a decline—you know about the book by Oswald Spengler.⁴¹ How do people regard the search for truth within this culture, irrespective of the degree to which they even admit to this? People who imagine they have both feet firmly on the ground, considering themselves to be eminently practical people, regard the search for the truth as something theoretical and not as a real deed accomplished by the soul. It is essential for us today to come to the realization that the search for truth is a deed accomplished by the human soul. We must come to realize that when we gain insight this is no mere theory, no individual point of view, but an actual deed infused with will impulses, a deed in the total context of the evolution of the earth and of humankind.

To begin with let me use a more methodological approach to show the way recognition of the truth must be seen as a deed, using a fact from cultural history as an example. I have frequently spoken of two streams going in opposite directions in the life of the human soul. One of these is the abstract mystical stream, the other the abstract materialistic stream. The latter has developed with the evolution of science over the last three or four centuries. Basically it has entered into all areas that play a role today in the progress of human evolution. The traditional religious creeds hardly play a role in the real progress of human evolution the way they are presented nowadays. They could however play a role in furthering the decline of Western culture.

It if were a matter, for instance, of bringing Spengler's idea of the decline of the West to full realization, the traditional religious faiths officially represented by the Jesuits, by positive Protestantism and so on, would be able to do their part. They would be of no account, however, for progressive evolution. As I have said on a number of occasions, the materialistic stream is clearly in evidence even in people who themselves are quite unaware of this. Characteristically, and it is something we must keep in mind, even the theosophical school was affected by materialism in certain areas when it went by the title ‘theosophical school’. The descriptions given of the human etheric and astral bodies in those circles, where these bodies were merely said to be more subtle forms of matter, with people imagining some kind of mist or cloud, surely were nothing more or less than materialism in spiritual guise. Spiritism is of course materialism most heavily disguised as something spiritual, for it speaks of the spirit when in fact its aims are merely to prove the material existence of the spirit, to present it in material form. Materialism has eaten its way into everything spread about by way of popular literature, above all in popular books and journals where people are informed as to what is ‘true’; it is present in everything that is spread about like this, irrespective of whether it comes from Catholic or Protestant sources. This materialism on the one hand relates to the progress made in culture. It must be taken into account and taken positively into consideration. Traditional historical elements like the religious confessions must of course attack anything that is new; they must fight intensely against anything that is new. This, however, does not have to be taken into serious account when we form our ideas of the present, for it goes in the direction of decline. Materialism on the other hand produces the very things we ought to know about in the present time, though they are of course presented in a materialistic way, in materialistic interpretation. If we wish to share in the work that brings progress in cultural and intellectual life we must know what materialistic anatomy, materialistic physiology, materialistic biology and the sociology of the present age have brought to light. We must be fully informed about these things and out of this very knowledge gain the power to transform materialistic knowledge, the materialistic way of thinking, into spiritual knowledge. It is therefore of definite value in the present time to give full consideration to what materialism has to offer. We cannot transform, say, the Catholic philosophy of the Middle Ages the way some people imagine. This can only be transformed with the aid of Thomism, as I have shown in Dornach,⁴² though it then transforms itself. Materialism can be metamorphosed into an inner spiritual life. Anthroposophists therefore have no reason at all to despise the things that materialism has to give. We have to reckon with materialism. Anthroposophy cannot be evolved out of a blue haze, it must be evolved by people who are alive in and part of modern life, a life that in the first instance is a materialistic one.

The moment we wish to see materialism in the light of the true progress of humankind we must develop a particular basic feeling, the very feeling that many people of the present age, and above all academics of the present age, do not have. This is the feeling that everything immediately around us in the world we perceive with the senses, everything our eyes see, our ears hear and so on, is not real and that we should not look for reality in that direction. We must develop the feeling that it is utterly mistaken to look for atoms and molecules in the world we perceive around us and to consider them to be real, or even commemorative coin. Some scientists are particularly proud to say that they do not take atoms and molecules to be real but use them as ideograms, ideal points in space. It is immaterial, however, if you assume atoms to be physical or ideal points. What matters is whether you take a living comprehension of spiritual entities as your starting point or whether you consider the idea of such living comprehension an abomination and base yourself entirely on what may be gained in the material world. This applies also to atoms seen as points where forces are located. As soon as you base yourself on atomistic ideas you find yourself in a materialism that must lead to doom. We can only deal properly with the world we perceive through the senses if we treat it as a phenomenon, as a form of manifestation. Matter is not even present in the things we perceive through the senses. We must therefore develop the feeling—we can do this thanks to the findings reported in the anthroposophical literature—that when we use our eyes and look out at the whole starry firmament, the cloud formations, the contents of the three kingdoms (mineral, plant and animal) and also the fourth kingdom, the human kingdom, we must not look for anything material in the things that come to us through sensory perception. Matter is not behind any of them! All we perceive are phenomena like the phenomenon of the rainbow, for example, though they may appear more solid than a rainbow. No one should consider a rainbow to have some kind of outer reality—like a solid bridge with its span in seven colours—but see it only as a phenomenon. In the same way we should regard all the things we encounter through our senses as phenomena, however solid they may appear. A rock crystal can of course be taken hold of, whilst in the case of the rainbow we could not take hold of anything. Yet although it may affect our sense of touch, it should still be called a phenomenon. We must not allow our fantasy to create some kind of physical reality, in spite of the view of nature that is generally taken today, a view that is following the wrong path. The 'physical' phenomena we come across therefore are definitely not material phenomena, are not the reality of matter. They are mere phenomena; they come and go out of another reality that we cannot comprehend unless we are able to conceive of it in the spirit. That is the feeling we must evolve—not to look for matter in the outer world.

The real goal of anthroposophical development is missed above all by people who despise outer materiality, people who say: ‘The things we perceive in an outer way are mere matter; we must rise above such things!’ That is quite wrong. The things we perceive outside are not material, we cannot look to them to find the world of matter. We simply do not find matter in the world that impresses itself on the senses. You will come to see this if you read what our anthroposophical literature has to say, and take it in the right spirit.

You then need to develop this feeling further. Here we come to aspects that people find highly uncomfortable today because they come very close to the experience we know can be had with the Guardian of the Threshold. They are uncomfortable; yet unless we enter into them we will make no progress in inner development. We have to go through inevitable discomfort if we are to get from theory to reality. The search for truth must be based on facts. Anyone who thinks matter can be found in the world which we call the material world—the world we perceive with the senses—is mistaken, and the error involves more than mere theory. There are people who think that because others say it is 'matter' it really is matter; this kind of word-cleverness is in vogue nowadays. If anyone thinks it is enough just to say: ‘It Is wrong to look for matter in the world we perceive with the senses’, they cannot be said to be speaking out of spiritual science working towards anthroposophy. Spiritual science does not consist in correcting other people's theories. Spiritual science must make the search for truth a deed. It must be a search for knowledge based on strong will impulses, that is, it must enter into the facts even where it merely makes definitions or explains things. And this is where the situation gets uncomfortable.

It is easy to say to someone that they are wrong in thinking that matter is to be found within the outside world, which we perceive with the senses, and to tell them to change their views. That is just talking theory. To accept theories, to oppose theories, to correct them—all that is theoretical talk. Spiritual science cannot in all reality be satisfied with this. The essential thing is to develop our sensibilities to a point where we perceive that someone caught up in materialistic views of the material world has a thoroughly unhealthy organism. We must progress from purely logical definition to a definition that takes hold of realities, in this case the constitution of the human individual. We must become convinced that it is not merely wrong logic to say that matter is to be found in the world we perceive with the senses, but that anyone who considers that what his senses perceive is physical substance is truly on the road to constitutional feeblemindedness. We must perceive that it is sickness to be materialistic in that sense.

We want our ideas to take hold of reality. We cannot do so whilst we continue to think in theories. Everybody supposes that they only need to have good instruction to change their views. Spiritual science always demands that we are alive as we develop and that we restore ourselves to health where we have been materialistic in the above sense, since a departure from the right way means sickness, the road to feeblemindedness.

At this point things come very close to the insights to be gained in meeting the Guardian of the Threshold. When we encounter the Guardian of the Threshold and thus enter into worlds other than the physical world--worlds that add something new to the physical world—all theory comes to an end, the intellectual mists clear and reality begins, with every word saturated with reality. Then we can no longer say that someone is expressing correct or incorrect views. We have to say that they express their views out of a sick or a healthy mind. Then we encounter reality. Nor can we say that someone should correct their views. Instead we must say: ‘If you are on the road to sickness, to feeblemindedness, you must change course and develop a strong, healthy mind again.’ You see it is not enough to correct the so-called philosophies that spread their mists about. For anyone wishing to become a spiritual scientist it is essential to go through a change that is a very real process, and not to be satisfied with something that is intellectual, logical or theoretical. The gravity of the present situation is such that the pathological nature of an intellectual view of the world must be vividly apparent to us.

An attempt has been made to outline one particular aspect, to characterize in the light of reality the materialistic aspect of our cultural life today. The other aspect, the polar opposite of this, is the mystical approach. Mysticism is the refuge of many people who are dissatisfied With materialism. They find that materialism is not right and therefore feel they must follow a different philosophy, a different path in their search for truth than the paths followed by materialism. People then try to develop by following an inner path and to find the spirit along that path. I have frequently spoken of mysticism as a spiritual stream that has the same right to exist in its one-sidedness as materialism has, providing one perceives this one-sidedness. I have spoken of mysticism as a kind of reaction against the materialism which has developed in the American and European civilizations over the last centuries. I have referred to this a number of times, also in the pamphlet published during the war that was also sent to the men at the front.⁴³ This mystical stream must be considered in more detail, again without any of the theorizing that is so common. When it comes to mysticism, people think that by withdrawing from outer life and entering deeply into their inner life they will find the spark of which Meister Eckhart spoke.⁴⁴ They think they will come upon the revelation of the true spirit that cannot be found in the outer material world. Mystics do however tend to be real materialists. Taking the opposite route, mystics mostly are harsh people and out-and-out materialists. They start to shout as soon as the material world is mentioned, considering themselves superior to such things—as has often been said, they feel they are above such things. The point however is that we must not merely theorize but go into the reality. The point is that we must look for the reality behind those mystical endeavours. It is important to realize what comes to life in us when we become mystics, what is active in us when we become mystics. You can find out about it from the anthroposophical literature. We have to say that this is the very soil where physical matter is to be found. We find materiality active in us when we become mystics. Consider even the most sublime mystic—what is he bringing into play in his soul? He brings into play things that boil and bubble in his metabolism, however refined and subtle this metabolism may be. Matter as such is to be found within the human skin, and not in the outside world that impresses us through the senses. We come upon physical matter when we allow things ignited in the metabolism to arise within us. Look at the way Meister Eckhart spoke of God with such depth and conviction. He actually told how he had scrupulously brought to awareness what was bubbling and boiling in his metabolism. It seemed to him to work towards the central heart and there to become transformed into something that could be perceived as a spark of the divine self in the human being. That is the small flame metabolism ignites in the heart.

The true nature of physical matter is thus found by following the path of mysticism. The genuine fruits of Goetheanism must be raised to a higher philosophy of life. In the same way we must clearly understand that the fruits of mysticism must be considered to gain an interpretation of activity in the material sphere. We do not discover material processes in our chemical laboratories. When a chemist is at work in the laboratory, the processes taking place in the retort are external phenomena, just as a rainbow is an external phenomenon. That, too, is phenomenon and has no real materiality to it. We learn about real materiality when we see the bubbling and boiling of the processes that go on inside our skin ignite the way a stearin candle ignites to burn with a flame. That is where materiality has to be sought, and we only see mysticism in its right light when we realize that all the inner experiences mysticism provides in its one-sideness are material effects; true materiality is to be sought in there. We must not look for physical matter by analyzing chemical processes. We must look for physical matter in every organic form that goes through its complex chemism and physiology inside the human skin. Mysticism gives us the solution to the riddle of physical matter. Mysticism however only gives us the solution to the riddle of physical matter. We must not reinterpret the inner materiality of the human organism to the effect, for instance, that when we see a burning candle we say: 'That cannot be the fruit of something inherent in the candle. There is a tiny spirit inside that candle and this spirit produces the flame.' That would be nonsense of course. It is also nonsense to look for the reality of the spirit in the experiences of a mystic.

It is necessary to arrive at a very definite idea, even if this is difficult. This is a threshold truth. We do not get far with what can be achieved in mysticism, for there we are dealing with phenomena that are like opiates, we are given up to our egotistical desires that allow themselves to be defined as anything but the materialistic aspects of our own inner processes. The bewildering multitude of phenomena surrounding us in the world of the senses does not allow us to go so far as to realize that in fact none of it has any materiality. Let us consider what we are actually seeing when we look at a distant planet, say, or a fixed star out there in space. What are we actually seeing? We do not see the green plant cover of the ground, the cloud formations, brown or grey earth and so on that we see around us on this earth. The stars and even the moon are too far distant for that. Everything that lives out there on those alien heavenly bodies has an inner aspect, has material processes that have been transformed. What we see through the telescope are the material processes active in the highest form of existence on the star in question. In the same way, if that other star, let us say the moon, were to look at us through a telescope, would it see our plants, animals and so on? No, the earth is far too far away for that. Pointing a telescope at the earth the moon would be looking into your stomachs, hearts and so on. That is the content which shines forth into the cosmos. The human kingdom is the highest on earth and because of this someone looking from outside would see what goes on inside human skins. When these things which are visible to distant stars become ignited in our own inner awareness they are the things mystics experience.

So you see that anyone seriously devoted to the anthroposophical view will have to penetrate this second, equally uncomfortable threshold truth that it is mysticism which teaches us what matter is on earth. We cannot know anything about even the simplest of earthly forces if we merely look at the outside world. Just open a book on physics. You know it discusses gravitation, earthly gravity. It always includes the comment, however, that it is impossible to know the true nature of gravity. People are in fact rather pleased with themselves when they explain that the essential nature of gravity is not known.

How can we get to know the nature of the force that makes the chalk fall down when I let go of it? The force called gravity can be understood as follows. At a certain point in life, perhaps after the thirtieth year or even earlier—it depends on how kindly destiny deals with us—we can make a discovery when we observe ourselves in the light of spiritual science, rather than by the usual methods of observation. The methods of spiritual science do to some extent introduce us to the methods of genuine self-observation. About the thirty-second year, therefore, we can make a discovery. Observing ourselves not in the abstract way of mystics but genuinely, we shall achieve genuine self-observation; for instance by noting that living from the thirty-fifth to the fortieth year, say, we have changed at the organic level. Some will note that their hair has turned grey; it also happens nowadays that men grow bald. We find we have changed. Unless however we have gained the ability to observe ourselves we shall have no experience of these changes, we shall not have inward experience of what happens with these changes. The experience can be gained if people apply to themselves what it says in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.⁴⁵ From about the thirty-second year onwards we have the experience that the body has to be carried differently, that it becomes heavier. That is our inward experience of gravity, of gravitation. It has to be experienced inwardly.

None of the wishy-washy things talked about in mysticism are as important as a concrete fact like this, the inner experience of growing heavier. You cannot gain this experience if some person stands here and lets a stone drop from his hand. You do not observe the gravitational pull by watching a stone drop, for stones have no real materiality. You must observe yourself, this time looking not into space but into time, that is, the way you experience things before and after. We must progress from experience in space to experience in time Things never to be found in the world of the senses must be gained through inward experience. They are the second element belonging to reality.

Experiencing the outer world of the senses we have truth but no knowledge. Experiencing inwardly in a abstract mystical way we have merely knowledge and no truth, for we are under an illusion concerning the basic phenomenon of inner life; inward experience being the flickering flames of material processes. Anyone looking for materiality in the outside world is interpreting the world in an ahrimanic way. Someone else may merely look for truth in an abstract way within himself; he or she is interpreting the world in a luciferic way. Genuine spiritual science in the light of anthroposophy holds the balance between the two, with truth and knowledge interweaving. We must look for truth at one extreme and knowledge at the other and become aware that living realities become polar opposites when knowledge is brought into truth and truth into knowledge. Then the search for truth becomes a real deed. Then something is happening. We are not merely producing logical definitions or correcting our views, but something is happening when human beings endeavour to gain inner experience of knowledge and look for the truth outside them, endeavouring also to let each enter into the other.

This has to be understood in the present age. The present age must understand that human beings must hold the balance between the two extremes, between the ahrimanic and the luciferic poles. People always tend to go in one direction. In the Trinity Group⁴⁶ in Dornach the luciferic element is above and the ahrimanic below. The Christ is in the middle, holding the balance. These things can be presented as ideas, can be made into the essence of ideas. They then become truth and knowledge. It is also possible to represent them in art, but then we have to forget about mere ideas and seek to find them—in line, in form, in configuration. Then it becomes the Trinity Group in Dornach, for instance. The whole is of the spirit, however.

Mysticism is one-sided and so is materialism. We must know that the two have to be interwoven and we must be alive in our doing' knowing that the true inwardness of the human being is to be found in being alive in one's doing. Our age wants to be one-sided and embrace materialism and this means that it is indeed on the road to feeblemindedness. I have shown that we must not be content with theories but must know in truth and reality that materialism shows itself to be what it is—a road to feeblemindedness—as soon as we meet the Guardian of the Threshold. We must aim for a state of health, and not merely disprove things in order to arrive at something else. The opposite extreme is abstract mysticism. We should be able to develop the feeling that in reality it is the road to infantilism—to put it bluntly, to childishness—a condition appropriate only for small infants. A child as yet untouched by the world, living entirely in physical materiality, in the processes of its physical organs, is exactly the type of the mystic, though the mystic will have the same experiences at a later stage than a child. They will of course feel different, those experiences, but an infant also experiences this concentration of organic activity in the heart. Sensing this concentration it will kick its legs in the air and wave its arms about and we can see how this peripheral activity is the opposite to the concentration of activity in the heart. If people remain childish all their lives, if they are too lazy to take in the things that only materialism can give, they reject outer materiality; it means nothing to them, they see it as something low that must be overcome. And then they kick their legs in the air and in doing so produce their mysticism. That is the threshold truth, the unpalatable threshold truth. Everything that is abstract and mystical, inducing a feeling of self-gratification when people concern themselves with mysticism nowadays, with things that make them lick their lips when they appear in print, though in reality they are the equivalent of kicking one's legs in the air in one's thoughts—all that is infantile. It has to be clearly understood that whereas materialism leads to feeblemindedness, abstract mysticism leads to infantilism, to childishness. True life is found when we find the balance, the equilibrium, between materialism and mysticism.

Again it is rather difficult to do this, and things really get uncomfortable. When you want to balance the scales you must not despise anything that is present in excess on one side and upsetting the balance. You must really try to put into both scales what is needed to maintain equilibrium. In the same way you should not despise anything that takes you into the sphere of matter, saying to yourself that it will cause feeblemindedness. Quite the contrary: anyone wishing to enter into things must step boldly into reality, saying to himself: 'I will have to follow the path that would lead to feeblemindedness if I were one-sided in my pursuit; but I am armed against it. I am also armed against remaining one-sidedly on the other path; I retain what is necessary from childhood days but do not remain a child.' That is how the balance must be sought between materialism and mysticism. That is a true sense of life. The sense of life holds the balance between feeblemindedness and childishness. Anyone who cannot be bothered to see these things clearly will not be able to enter into reality. People Only grow feebleminded if they fail to note that normal people have to overcome feeblemindedness day by day, hour by hour. Feeblemindedness is a constant threat and we only remain human by remaining childish, i.e. inspired. Anyone holding on to childishness in the right measure is a genius. We are geniuses only to the extent to which we have held on to childishness into our thirties; but this childishness must be properly counterbalanced. Thus we have to say that we are all in danger—how shall I put it—of becoming geniuses or remaining childish infants. It could go one way or the other.

As soon as we come close to threshold truths, our ordinary ways of expressing ourselves no longer work; things that normally are quite separate blend into each other at this point. All words acquire a different meaning, and we might say—it would be quite amusing to represent this in a painting or sculpture—‘Here is the threshold of the spiritual world, with one individual on one side and one on the other; one is active in the spiritual sphere, the other in the material world, and they are yelling at each other. The one who is in the spiritual world yells: “Childishness!” The other yells across from the material world “Sheer genius!” ’Just as a tree looks different when seen from another point of view so things look different depending on whether we look at them from the spiritual point of view or out of materialism. From the spiritual point of view the genius of someone who has retained the ways of a child, forming ideas in play, has to be called childishness, we must see it as childishness when we are on the spiritual side. Childishness is regarded in a different way from that point of view. There we know that human beings descend from the spiritual world, that they come to live in a physical body; we see that a child is still lacking in skills, is still undeveloped, but we also see the most sublime spirituality alive in that child.

It has caused considerable annoyance to some people—that numskull Dessoir,⁴⁷ for example—that in a small work I published. Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity,⁴⁸ I have shown that the wisdom involved in giving shape and form to the brain of a child is far greater than the wisdom human individuals are able to produce in later life. Numskulls like Dessoir cannot grasp this. For them, the full range of wisdom is what they write in their books. The thing is, however, that when we say 'childishness' from the spiritual point of view we perceive how the human spirit has descended as a ray of the divine spirit, and that it was fully developed when it did so. It entered into a human body that was still undeveloped, taking hold of it, working it, with the result that after just a few months the brain has become something different, and the whole body is something different in the seventh and fourteenth year of life, and so on. Childishness is not a term of abuse, therefore, for childishness is seen to be the descent of the spirit into the physical world, a first taking hold of the body, a stage where one is still a child, still in a human condition where the head has not yet been cleared of the spirit. That will happen as the rest of the body develops, for this develops fastest, whilst the head contains far more spirit. That is the image we have when we speak of childishness from the spiritual point of view. The head of a child is full of spirit and—this is an unpalatable truth—as we get older the spirit gets less and less, our heads become more and more petrified. A child still has a great deal of the spirit. This gradually evaporates. I may be permitted to use the term 'evaporate' in the sense that the spirit evaporates from the head down into the rest of the organism. So you see I am speaking of something most sublime when I speak of childishness as it is seen from beyond the threshold. If I speak of childishness from the earthly point of view it means that one has failed to progress. The language of the earth and that of heaven are different, alas, and it is part of the tragedy of our age that people do not even want to understand the language of heaven. Since it has become customary to speak in the most earthly terms possible from the pulpit it is no longer possible for people to understand the language of heaven.

It then can easily happen, when one has something to say within a certain context—expressing it out of that context, of course, and having prepared the way before saying the words that come from beyond the threshold, words to the effect that the entities of the spiritual world evaporate downwards—that the following may occur. Let me present a picture to you of something that really happened. It may happen, then, that someone writes: ‘Steiner says things evaporate in a downward and not an upward direction.’ Some professor of anatomy⁴⁹ gets hold of this and reads it out to an audience which he himself has prepared by asking them to bring children's trumpets and rattles when someone is going to talk about genuine anthroposophy. So a lecture on anthroposophy is given. Then the professor has the word and reads out something like this, having somehow got hold of it, and the students use the trumpets and rattles they have brought along to produce the kind of scientific argument that has become customary in those circles. This is something that really happened in Goettingen the other day. Have a look at the supplement to the recent issue of our Threefold Order journal.⁵⁰ You will find it there.

These are serious times in which we live and on Friday I want to continue in the vein in which I started today, when I characterized the true face of materialism for you on the one side and that of mysticism on the other. I will then show you what we are called on to do. We are not called today to gather in sectarian groups, but to come alive and intervene in what goes on in life, bringing anthroposophical impulses into the world of the present cultural life. If we understand what the present age asks of us we cannot remain one-sided materialists or mystics, we must take the road to reality. I have tried to characterize this in the pamphlet. Mr Molt took the trouble to put into print for the men at the front, so that they might learn something of the anthroposophical spirit. We must always keep In mind that these are serious times in which we live and that we shall only feel able to cope if we are open to the approach of something that properly speaking cannot even be given a name, using the old forms of speech, but imposes the necessity to find new forms of speech if the truth of our age is to be found. The search for knowledge must go beyond mere rumination, it must become an active deed. Then humankind will not slither into the doom of the Western world, for we shall find the upward path again. As long as materialism continues to use the symbols of childishness—those trumpets and rattles—to rebut anthroposophy, and mysticism makes use of materialism, dressing up utterly material processes as something spiritual, we shall slither into the doom of the Western world at full tilt. It is not a question of ruminating but of really doing something.

• 41. Spengler, Oswald, German historic writer. Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West, C.F. Atkinson tr.) Munich, vol. 1, 1918, vol. 2, 1922.
• 42. Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino. 3 lectures given in Dornach on 22-24 May 1920. GA 74. English translation: The Redemption of Thinking. A.P. Shepherd, M.R. Nicoll tr. London: Hodder & Stoughton 1956.
• 43. Durch den Geist zur Wirklichkeits-Erkenntnis der Menschenrätsel: Philosophie und Anthroposophie. Vier Marchen (aus den Mysteriendramen). Anthroposophisicher Seelenkalender. Der Seelen Erwachen, 7. und 8. Bild. [Discovering the reality of the riddles of human nature through the spirit. Philosophy and Anthroposophy. Four tales (from the Mystery Plays). Calendar of the Soul. The Soul's Awakening, scenes 7 and 8]. Berlin 1918.
• 44. TN. Eckhart, Johannes, known as Meister Eckhart, German mystic.
• 45. Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten? 1904. GA 10. English translation: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. G. Metaxa tr., D.S. Osmond, C. Davy rev. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1976.
• 46. Trinity Group: a sculpture in wood generally referred to as the Group Sculpture at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. It shows the Representative of Humanity between Lucifer and Ahriman.
• 47. Dessoir, Max. Vom Jenseits der Seele. Die Geheimwissenschaften in kritischer Betrachtung (From the beyond of the soul. A critical assessment of the occult sciences). S. 254 ff. Stuttgart 1917.
• 48. Die geistige Fahrung des Menschen und der Menschheit, 1910. GA 15. English translation: The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity. H.B. Monges tr. New York: Anthroposophical Press 1970.
• 49. Prof. Hugo Fuchs, Goettingen. See also Rudolf Steiner, ‘Ein paar Worte zum Fuchs-Angriff’ (A few words on the attack made by Fuchs), in Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus 2. Jahrg. Nr. 5 (Aug. 1920); reprinted in Aufsätze zur Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus and zur Zeitlage 1915-1921 GA 24.
• 50. Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus 2. Jahrg. Nr. 4, Beilage (Juli 1920).

[ 2 ] The building of the Goetheanum became necessary at a time when the anthroposophical movement had expanded to such an extent that it needed its own space. According to the whole nature of the anthroposophical movement, it could not be a question of having a building for its purposes constructed in this or that style. A movement which merely expresses itself in ideas and maxims can be wrapped up in any desired form, but not so a spiritual movement which is predisposed from the outset to let its currents flow into the whole of cultural life. The anthroposophical movement wants its impulses to flow into the artistic, religious and social spheres as well as into the scientific. When it speaks, its words, its ideas, are to come from the whole human being, and these ideas are to be only the outer language for experienced spiritual reality. But this experience of spiritual reality, of spiritual being, can also express itself in artistic forms, in outer social life, etc.

It had to be so, that in a place where that which stands behind the anthroposophical movement resounds in thoughts, resounds in words and ideas, is also revealed in the forms which surround the listeners, in the paintings which speak down from the walls.

[ 3 ] This is how it has always been when a civilisation, a culture wanted to manifest itself in the world. The content of such a culture does not form one-sidedly, but forms a cosmic or human totality. And the individual fields, science, art, etc., appear only as the individual members of such a totality, just as in an organism the individual members appear as born out of the totality of the organism.

Therefore, the anthroposophical movement had to create its own artistic style, just as it had to create a certain way of expressing itself in ideas. [ 4 ] The latter is still little considered today. It is, for example, necessary that anthroposophical spiritual-science should be expressed in a different way from what has hitherto been customarily contained in human civilisation.

Anthroposophy, for example, must in many respects depart from the principle, still habitually held today, of rigidly, one-sidedly, adopting a single point of view. Today, people are still often a materialist or a spiritualist, a realist or an idealist, and so on. For an unprejudiced, complete world-view this only means that when someone says “I am a materialist”, they are expressing just one side of reality, when someone says “I am a spiritualist”, they are expressing another side of reality. And anthroposophy requires all-sidedness. One is a materialist for material processes, a spiritualist for the spiritual, an idealist for the ideal, a realist for the real, and so on. Just as a tree, when seen from different standpoints, is always the same tree, but the representations of it are quite different, so the world can be represented differently from the most diverse points of view. [ 5 ] Therefore, in the field of anthroposophy, one must simply take this path when considering some spiritual or material aspect of reality. One then chooses a point of view from which to illuminate it, one feels and thereby shows a one-sidedness, but one then characterises the same thing from the opposite point of view. So that it is often necessary—let us say—to begin a lecture by speaking from the one side, and then to let the style of the lecture flow over into a characterisation using the converse forms of thought.

But this can also be necessary in an individual sentence! [ 6 ] And something else is necessary for the anthroposophical world-view. A world-view which adheres to the outer, naturalistic aspect, it can preferably work subjectively in, let us say, for example, one which is juxtaposed to it. Anthroposophy must make many things fluid, which are otherwise presented with rigid outlines, so that the sentence becomes elastic, inwardly mobile.

One then experiences that people call this style "terrible" because they have not got used to the fact that a particular spirituality also demands a particular form of expression. [ 7 ] However, it also happens, and this may perhaps be said, that from some quarters, spiritual-scientific content is taken up but clothed in the stylistic form which people are accustomed to today. Then, of course, it looks like a person wearing clothes that do not fit. Such presentations of anthroposophical content, which look like a person wearing ill-fitting clothes, are not even very rare today.

But all of this is only a sign that with anthroposophy something is to be created which is not only a new instance, a new standpoint, but which is a new, complete world-conception.

[ 8 ] And this is connected with the fact that the style, the artistic, architectural, painting and sculptural style, which had to be used in the Goetheanum, had to stand out from what had hitherto existed in the world in terms of style. In accordance with the fact that anthroposophy expresses the spiritual content of the present, which must represent progress in comparison with the spiritual content of earlier times, it was necessary to transform the old architectural styles, which were based on geometry, symmetry, a certain regularity, in short, on that which has a mathematical character, into an organic architectural style, a style which passes from the geometric-dynamic into the organic-living.

[ 9 ] I can well understand that those who feel firmly rooted in the older styles of architecture, and who see in these older styles something which they once had brought to a certain understanding, feel that what is now departing in such a radical way from everything they were accustomed to before is dilettantish. I can fully understand that. But we had to take the risk of transforming the more mathematical-dynamic style into an organic-living style.

This may still have happened as imperfectly as possible today, but a beginning had to be made. And it is as an expression of these efforts that the "Goetheanum" confronts you.

[ 10 ] Whoever approaches the "Goetheanum" from any direction will already find in its outer form that it is, without falling into abstract symbolism or arid allegory, a revelation of the particular spiritual life which wants to realise itself here. This spiritual life is more concerned with the human being as an expression of the world, a revelation of the world, than earlier stages of our human civilisation have been. This is expressed in the way the building is divided into two parts.

[ 11 ] In our present age, the human being is more dependent on sensory impressions than was the case in earlier times. In Greece, for example, human beings still had a life that perceived thoughts in the external world in the same way as we perceive only colours or sounds today, or sensory impressions in general. Just as we see red today, for example, the Greek still saw a thought expressing itself. The Greek did not have the feeling that the thought was something that they formed in their inner being, that they experienced in their inner being as separate from external reality. The separation of the human being, and with it the increase in the individuality of the human being, has progressed in the course of human evolution.

I explained this in the first chapter of my "Riddles of Philosophy". And so, it was quite natural—as I said, without symbolism, without allegorising—to perceive the building as something in two parts: as one part that contains within itself that which the human being experiences more when turned inwards, that which the human being experiences when contemplatively turned inwards, and the other part which the human being experiences when turned outward towards the world. This complete architectural idea of Dornach is not somehow thought out, symbolised, or spun from groundless thoughts, but is purely felt. It had to become so, this building, if it was thought and felt as that which should be in it. Entirely in accordance with the natural principle which I have already characterised on another occasion during these days. Just as the nutshell gets its form from the same forces which formed the nut inside, just as one can only feel that the nutshell corresponds to the nut that is inside it, so also this shell had to be the sheath for what pulsates here as art, as knowledge.

I have often used another comparison that looks more trivial, but I did not mean it trivially. I said, the building in Dornach must be like what they call a Gugelhupf mould in Vienna, pardon the expression. A Gugelhupf is a special kind of cake, a baked cake that has a special shape, baked from flour and eggs and many other beautiful things. And it has to be baked in a mould. This mould must be formed in a very specific way, because it is precisely this mould that gives the Gugelhupf its shape. So, there must always be a lovely Gugelhupf mould around the cake: that is, it must be there in the first place. The cake is baked in it, so the mould must be conceived and felt in such a way that the right thing can be baked.

Anthroposophy strives to bring into a living flow the ideas which are more adapted to the fixed forms of nature, and thus to bring into a living flow the mechanical-geometric style of architecture. Therefore, when you enter the building and look at its various areas, you will find everywhere that the attempt has been made to continue the geometric-symmetrical design in such a way that organic forms or forms reminiscent of organic forms are present everywhere.

First go to the main door, you will find that there is something like an organic form above the door. This organic form is not felt in a naturalistic way, by reproducing this or that organic thing, but is based on a living surrender to organic creation in general.

One cannot, as mere naturalists do, obtain a stylistic form by imitating leaf-like, flower-like, horn-like or eye-like forms, but by bringing oneself, with one's own soul-life, into such an inner movement as corresponds to the creation of the organic. Then, when one erects a building, which of course is not a plant or an animal, then, when the whole is conceived from the organic-living, natural forms do not arise, but forms that remind one of the natural, and which nowhere imitate the natural, but which remind one of the same.

And when you have entered the building, then go through the gallery, you will find certain forms which are intended to serve as heating elements. These forms are shaped in such a way that you have the feeling that they are growing out of the earth, that there is a living growth force in them, something that is not a plant, not an animal, but something that is growing, something organic. That takes shape. That even takes shape in such a dual form. It is something like beings speaking to each other, and their mutual relationship is also expressed.

All of this, by itself, creates according to the principle of Goethean metamorphosis, which was first created by Goethe in order to gain a cognitive overview of the organic. The organic is such that it repeats certain forms, but it does not repeat them in the same way. Goethe expresses this in such a way that in the living-organic the individual organs, let us say the leaves of a plant from the bottom up into the flower, the stamens, the pistils, and into the fruit organs, are according to the idea the same, but in their outer forms, appear in the most varied ways.

When one delves into the living, one does indeed have to form things in such a way that something which is only taken hold of spiritually, ideally, can, in its external shape, form itself in the most manifold ways. This, in turn, can be led up into the artistic, whereas Goethe first of all developed it cognitively to comprehend the organs, and must be led up into the artistic if the geometric, symmetrical, dynamic style of architecture is to be transferred into the organic style of architecture. The essential thing in such an organic style of architecture is that the whole is not only a unity through the repetition of the individual parts, but is also a unity as a whole. This means that each individual element that is there, must be as it can only be in that place.

Just think, my dear guests, your earlobe—a small organ on you, it can only be at that place where it appears on the organism. It cannot be anywhere else on the organism. But it also cannot be formed in any other way than it is there. This earlobe could not be where the big toe is now, nor could it be shaped here like the big toe. In an organism, each element is in its place and can only be shaped in the way it is shaped in that place.

You will find this adhered to in this building. Wherever you look, you will feel (certainly, individual things are still imperfect, but this is the idea of the building) that the place for each individual thing is only found out of the whole and it can only be in this place.

If you look at the balustrades of the staircase with their curves, you will see that the curves are formed in a quite definite way where the building opens outwards, where nothing can be held in place, so to speak, by the forces; on the other hand, the forms dam up towards the building, they contract, as is also quite the case with the organic.

Therefore, the venture had to be undertaken to replace the columns and pillars with something organic in design. So, you see the attempt: in the staircase you see the balustrades supported by organic forms that appear as supports, which in turn are not modelled on anything natural, but which are found out of the architectural idea itself. And each individual thickening, each individual thinning, then again, the circumference of such a pillar-like structure are absolutely conceived in their size in the sense of the whole, and again conceived in such a way as they must be in their place.

I can understand that something like the two organically formed pillars in the concrete porch still seem strange to those who are not used to such things. A critic once went into this building and found it strange that such a thing should be placed there. He could only think: something must have been copied!—There is nothing imitated at all, the whole thing is just formed out of the architectural idea through original feeling. Nothing at all is copied. But the critic, who prefers to stick to the old, does not like to get involved in this creative-productive process. And so, it occurred to him: this must be an elephant's foot. But it seems that with one eye he saw an elephant's foot out there, but with the other eye it didn't seem like an elephant's foot, because as an elephant's foot it's too small for the building. What is too small for something appears rickety in the organic, and that is why he said with a strange inner contradiction: one sees "rickety elephant feet" in the anteroom!

The lower part of the building is made of concrete. Even today, when building in concrete, it is necessary to first find the forms out of the concrete material. This is something that is of the utmost importance for artistic creation: that one must build out of the feeling of the material, out of the feeling for the material. You have to build differently out of wood than out of any stone material. And of course, you have to create differently out of concrete than you would out of marble.

When you form sculpturally and you form out of stone, you have to consider, for example, that which is raised in the form. When you work out of the stone, you have to work out the elevations, the convexities in particular. If you are shaping the eyes of a sculptural figure of a human being, and you have stone as your material, then direct your attention to the elevations, to the convexities, and work the whole eye out of the convexities. If you make a figure in wood, you cannot proceed in this way, then you must direct your attention everywhere to the depressions, to the concavities, and you must, as it were, carve out what is becoming deeper from the wood. This must be out of feeling. It must come from the feeling for the material.

For concrete, one must find very particular forms. Our friends the Großheintz, provided us with the site for this building, and the house that is built outside for Dr Großheintz and his family is made of concrete. For this house, this very special concrete style had first to be used, as it still can today, given the imperfections. Perhaps it is precisely in such a building that one can see the struggle for an architectural style, for an artistic style out of the material.

This aspiration was therefore the basis for the lower part of the building, which is made of concrete. The upper part is made of wood. When you go up the stairs, you enter the anteroom. And here you can already see how the ceiling and the side walls are formed differently from what you were used to. And I would like to mention that, in accordance with this new architectural style, the details have also been given a different meaning than in previous styles. This is expressed, for example, in the treatment of the wall.

What is a wall in buildings of the past? That which closes off to the outside. Here the wall does not close off to the outside, here the wall becomes, to a certain extent, transparent to feeling, it does not close off, but opens feeling to the vastness of the world. There is a profound difference between the formation of the wall as we have been accustomed to it up to now and the formation of the wall here. Everywhere else, the formation of walls closes you off from the world. But here you should have the feeling that you are not closed off. Just as you can see through glass, you feel artistically through the forms that are artistically created, and you feel in harmony with the whole cosmos.

We were therefore able to use artificial lighting for the entire building. One might have the feeling that compared to the open buildings of Greece, something like this, which reflects artificial lighting, is like a closed off cave. Well, that may be, but that is due to the conditions of modern life. We are not within the culture of ancient Greece.

But if on the one hand, as is always the case in anthroposophy, one accepts our present civilisation, if in this way one relates quite positively to our present civilisation, then one must in turn also draw on all the consequences of this civilisation. That is why the walls here do not close off, but open one in the spirit to the whole cosmos. Even the paintings on the ceilings should not be such that they merely shine inwards with what they express in their colours, so that one merely has a painted ceiling that tells one something inwards. That should not be. Such a ceiling is first thought of in this way: there is the ceiling, there is the human being. It is painted in such a way that what is painted confronts you. That is not the case here. Here the colour is placed on the wall for the purpose of looking through the painting and having a connection with the whole cosmos. This is carried through to the physical form. You can see it in the windows that close off the building down here.

These windows are designed in such a way that they are created from single-coloured glass panes according to a method that one could call glass engraving: a single-coloured glass pane, from which the form is carved out with a diamond bit. This sheet of glass, when it is finished and placed somewhere, is of course not a work of art, any more than a score is a work of art. Only when it is put in its right place and the light of the sun shines through, then the work of art is there. Only with outer nature, with the outer world, does it make sense.

And so, it is with all the details here: they only have meaning together with the whole world, with the totality of the world. There is no need to ramble on in thought, interpreting this or that in this or, that way. One should feel, completely naturally, naively, then one will find one's way best here in this building. Because that's how the whole thing is felt. Better still than to speak of the architectural idea of Dornach, I could speak of the architectural feeling of Dornach.

It has been said many times: "Up there on the Dornach hill, there is a building with all kinds of symbols.” There is not a single symbol here. Everything is poured out in artistic forms, everything is felt, nothing is thought. However, all kinds of symbols live in the imagination of some people. Yes, I could also imagine that some anthroposophists, who still have some theosophical airs about them, have even been annoyed by the fact that there is no symbolism here at all, that nothing symbolic can be spun from fantastic thoughts here, but that everything is to be understood in a purely artistic way.

It was precisely on this occasion that the real way in which the anthroposophical impulse streams into art had to be shown. First of all, a movement of this kind, which leads to the spiritual, is naturally predisposed, as is the case with sectarian movements, to seek a meaning, an inner meaning in everything.

You experience the most amazing things there. We have performed mystery plays in Munich, in which characters appear, created characters, which one should understand as they walk across the stage. I was asked whether this character in these plays meant the etheric body, another manas, another buddhi. Yes, there are even treatises that have emerged from the theosophical movement, where "Hamlet" is interpreted in such a way that the individual characters, Hamlet himself—mean this or that: one character is the etheric body, another the astral body, another manas, another buddhi. Please forgive me for not being able to explain this in detail with regard to Hamlet, for I have never been able to really read through such a treatise.

And so, it was naturally also something unfortunate that one came into the various anthroposophical working groups where there were still theosophical airs and graces, and one found all kinds of symbolic designs, black crosses with seven red splotches, which were supposed to represent roses, trafficked all around. One imagined there was something great about it! The whole thing was enough to drive one crazy! But these are—one might say—the dross that first brings forth a movement. That's what it's all about, that real artistic feeling came out of all this dross, that something was attempted in which there is nothing at all of a pale symbolism, of an empty allegory, but where at least the attempt is made to shape everything artistically.

It is precisely the artistic that then becomes natural. You can see that in these columns. Column capitals are usually constructed according to the principle of geometric repetition. Column capitals usually repeat themselves. An organic style of architecture does not allow this. How did these column capitals, the architraves above them and the plinths, come about? They came about through the real incorporation of the principle of organic growth.

Here at the entrance—the simplest capital: a form is attempted that descends from above, another form that comes up to meet it. But all this is not thought out, but every surface, every line of the form is felt. And if one advances from the first column to the second column, and looks at the capital: it is the same feeling translated into the artistic, to which one must devote oneself to the sense of Goethean metamorphosis, when one has the simply formed leaves at the bottom of a plant and must find the transition to the leaves somewhat higher up. It reshapes itself, metamorphoses itself.

But if you look at these capitals, you will see that they really represent artistically that which appears so distinctly in abstract thoughts in the modern worldview: evolution, development. The second capital develops from the first, and so on.

But one peculiarity confronts you. If you look at the successive capitals, it contradicts the abstract idea of evolution, as it is often expressed. You will also find in Herbert Spencer, for example, the idea of evolution expressed in such a way that the first simply differentiates, then integrates again. But that is not how it is. That contradicts the natural course of evolution. Whoever delves into natural evolution will find that evolution rises to certain complicated forms, then again becomes simple, and the perfect is not that which is the most complicated, but the simple into which the complicated has again been transformed.

If I am to represent this in a simple way, I would have to represent it as follows: The middle form is the more complicated, the last form is the most perfect. You can see this, for example, in the evolution of the eye. The eyes of the lower animals are relatively simple, undifferentiated. In the middle series of animals, you find very complicated eyes, with the blade process and the fan inside the eye. These organs are again dissolved inside the human eye: the human eye is more perfect than that of the lower, the middle animal stage, but again more simplified. That which is in the middle stage is also spiritually within in the simplified form, but the perfect stage is again simplified for external observation. This simplification, however, is such that, as is the case with the capitals of the columns, with the architraves above, one feels in the simple that it has become, that it has been infused with that which was complicated.

I did not arrive at this design—if I may make this remark—when I worked out the model of this building, by trying to reproduce this abstract thought, which I have just expressed, externally in a symbolic way, but I arrived at it by surrendering myself to the creative forces of nature and trying to form something out of the same creative forces from which nature itself shapes. And that is how these forms came into being.

The most important thing that one encounters in the process is this: one creates quite naïve forms out of feeling. When they are finished, they show you all kinds of things that you did not intend to put into them at the beginning, just as natural forms show you all kinds of things that you discover in them. If, for example, you take the simple forms of base and capital there, and you accordingly make them somewhat elastic, then you can put the convexity of the first form into the concave part here. What is convex there is concave here, what is concave there is convex here. So that I later concluded—I did not intend it—that in terms of convexity and concavity the first column corresponds to the seventh column, the second column to the sixth column, the third column to the fifth column, and the middle one stands for itself.

That is precisely what is characteristic of artistic creation: that what one initially has in the mind is not everything that one then puts into the object. One is actually outside of oneself when creating artistically. One has only a little of what the creative forces are in one's consciousness. You create with the little that is alive, which then goes into the material. But what emerges surprises you, because you don't actually create alone, because you create together with the productive forces of the cosmos.

And purely out of feeling, the individual parts then acquire the character by which they fit into the whole, just as the members of an organism fit into the totality of the organism.

Look at this lectern here. You must feel, when you look at it, that it is a continuation of what proceeds from the mouth as the spoken word: there the words come down to you, but these forms say the same thing.

And again, if you take the columns as they are leaning here and think further about their form, if you combine them here: then the combination again becomes what stands here as a lectern. On the one hand, it leans towards the auditorium, on the other hand, it is a conclusion of what is present in the auditorium. The individual forms are conceived on this basis. However, the geometric-mathematical style of older forms is thereby transformed into a spatial-musical quality. But that, in turn, means something for human evolution, that the geometrical gradually passes over into the musical, so that the musical also confronts us in space.

However, if one wants to grasp this idea in its full livingness, one must not attach too much importance to the fact that the musical can be expressed in mathematical formulae. As a one-sided abstract scholar, one can be delighted when, let us say, a sequence of tones can be expressed by their mathematically calculated pitches and tonal ratios; one can feel that one has only now translated it into real knowledge. One can also feel it differently. One can also feel that when one has transferred the musical experience into the mathematical, one has buried the music, and that one finally has the corpse of the musical in the mathematical formulae.

These things must really be taken seriously here. The cognitive must be lifted up into artistic experience. Only by attempting this could these forms come about.

This Goetheanum is already felt to accord in many ways with Goethean impulses, but not according to the Goethean impulses that died with Goethe in 1832 within the physical world, but according to the impulses of that Goethe who is still lives today. Not as he is, however, according to the sense of ordinary Goethe scholars, but he is truly the reality of Goethe. For today's Goethe scholars, the very name "Goetheanum" is an abomination. One can understand that. The most one can do is to reply in private that everything that exists today as the "Goethe-Bund" and the "Goethe-Gesellschaft" is in turn—well, in private, you don't have to bring it out in the open—quite fatal to you. But something should be felt here of what Goethe meant when he travelled to Italy, out of a deep longing to find more intimate artistic impulses, to find the real essence of art. After looking at the works of art he saw in Italy, still feeling the after-effects of the Greek artistic principle, he wrote to his friends in Weimar: After what I see here in the works of art, I believe I have discovered the secret of Greek artistic creation. The Greeks followed the same laws in their artistic creation that nature itself follows.—And the pure abstract philosophy, which to his delight he encountered in Weimar through Herder, from the works of Spinoza, e.g. from the work "God" by Spinoza, this spiritual, essential quality in the world, this is what Goethe felt when he was confronted with the ideal works of art, and he wrote to his friends: There is necessity, there is God. And among his sayings we find the characteristic one: To whom nature reveals her open secrets, feels a deep longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.

That which appears in forms can be the same for a completely contemplated artistic impulse as that which expresses itself in thoughts. Only then the thoughts must be full of life and the forms must breathe spirit.

If ever a difficult book was worth every minute of effort it requires, this is it—all of it, not just the parts already published as The Case For Anthroposophy.

Rudolf Steiner's own words, spoken in Dornach on February 4,1923 shortly after the burning of the first Goetheanum, set the tone:

In the first essay of my book Riddles of the Soul, I reiterate that a person bound to contemporary civilization believes that we confront all kinds of insurmountable limits to our ability to know. Such a person feels relief at this. His relief, however, only indicates a desire not to wake up. He wants to remain asleep. But anyone who in a modem sense wants to enter the spiritual world must begin to grapple with inner soul tasks at precisely the spot where the other person sets limits to knowledge. And as he begins to grapple with the ideas arising at this borderland, there opens up for him gradually, in stages, a view of the spiritual world. One must in fact take what anthroposophy offers in the way it is meant.

Take this first essay of Riddles of the Soul. Its content may be imperfectly expressed, but one can certainly discover in it the intention with which it was written! Its purpose is to awaken the realization: If I stop where modern civilization stops, then the world is actually boarded up for me. From natural science I try to go further. There come the barriers. There the world is boarded up for me.

The content of this first essay of Riddles of the Soul is an effort to knock away those boards with spades. When we feel that we are working with spades to knock away the planks that have boarded up the world for centuries, when we consider the words to be spades, then we arrive at the soul-spiritual realm.

Most people have the unconscious feeling that an essay like the first one in Riddles of the Soul is written with a pen from which ink flows. But it is not written with a pen. It is written with soul spades, which want to rip away the planks that board up the world, i.e., which want to clear away the limitations of natural science, but want to do so with inner work of the soul. The reader must participate in this activation of the soul, however, when reading an essay such as this.

In addendum 6 on page 131 of this book, Rudolf Steiner describes for the first time his thirty-year-long work in relating the three soul forces of thinking, feeling, and willing to the three systems of the body: the nervous, rhythmical, and metabolic. In the same section we are shown why he believed the theoretical division into sensory and motor nerves to be so harmful.

The essay on Max Dessoir challenges us to experience the subtlety and exactitude required of a spiritually striving modem person. As Rudolf Steiner states on page 54, “the thorough permeating of concepts with consciousness is necessary if these concepts are to have a relation to the genuine spiritual world.”

W.L.

Born in Austria in 1861, Rudolf Steiner received recognition as a scholar when he was invited to edit the Kürschner edition of the natural scientific writings of Goethe. In 1891 Steiner received his Ph.D. at the University of Rostock. He then began his work as a lecturer. From the turn of the century until his death in 1925, he delivered well over 6000 lectures on the Science of Spirit, or Anthroposophy.

The lectures of Rudolf Steiner dealt with such fundamental matters as the being of man, the nature and purpose of freedom, the meaning of evolution, man's relation to nature, and the life after death and before birth. On these and similar subjects, Steiner had unexpectedly new, inspiring and thought-provoking things to say. Through a study of the transcripts of lectures like those contained in this book, one can come to a clear, reasonable, comprehensive understanding of the human being and his place in the universe.

In all his years of writing and lecturing, Steiner made no appeal to emotionalism or sectarianism in his readers or hearers. His profound respect for the freedom of every man shines through everything he produced. The slightest compulsion or persuasion he considered an affront to the dignity and ability of the human being. Therefore he confined himself to objective statements in his writing and speaking, leaving his readers and hearers entirely free to reject or accept his words. He addressed the healthy, sound judgment and good will in each person, confident of the response in those who come to meet his ideas with the willingness to understand them.

Among the many activities springing from the work of Rudolf Steiner are the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association which aims at improved nutrition resulting from methods of agriculture outlined by Rudolf Steiner; the art of Eurythmy, created and described by him as “visible speech and visible song;” the medical and pharmaceutical work carried out by the Clinical and Therapeutical Institute at Arlesheim, Switzerland, with related institutions in other countries; the Homes for the education and care of mentally retarded children; and new directions for work in such fields as Mathematics, Physics, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Drama, Speech Formation, Social Studies, Astronomy, Economics and Psychology.

The success of Rudolf Steiner Education (sometimes referred to as Waldorf Education) has proven the correctness of Steiner's concept of the way to prepare the child for his or her eventual role as a resourceful, creative, responsible member of modern adult society.

The transcripts of Rudolf Steiner's many lectures on a wide variety of subjects are a storehouse of spiritual knowledge as it can become fruitful in many fields of modern life. However, Steiner himself stressed that his lectures were not intended for print, and are not a substitute for what he expressed in his written works on the Science of Spirit or Anthroposophy. Therefore, if the reader finds the following lectures of interest, or if they arouse questions and points upon which he wishes further clarification, he is certain to find the latter in the fundamental books included in the series of Major Writings of Rudolf Steiner listed at the end of the present volume.

—The Publishers

Born in Austria in 1861, Rudolf Steiner received recognition as a scholar when he was invited to edit the Kürschner edition of the natural scientific writings of Goethe. In 1891 Steiner received his Ph.D. at the University of Rostock. He then began his work as a lecturer. From the turn of the century until his death in 1925, he delivered well over 6000 lectures on the Science of Spirit, or Anthroposophy.

The lectures of Rudolf Steiner dealt with such fundamental matters as the being of man, the nature and purpose of freedom, the meaning of evolution, man's relation to nature, and the life after death and before birth. On these and similar subjects, Steiner had unexpectedly new, inspiring and thought-provoking things to say. Through a study of the transcripts of lectures like those contained in this book, one can come to a clear, reasonable, comprehensive understanding of the human being and his place in the universe.

In all his years of writing and lecturing, Steiner made no appeal to emotionalism or sectarianism in his readers or hearers. His profound respect for the freedom of every man shines through everything he produced. The slightest compulsion or persuasion he considered an affront to the dignity and ability of the human being. Therefore he confined himself to objective statements in his writing and speaking, leaving his readers and hearers entirely free to reject or accept his words. He addressed the healthy, sound judgment and good will in each person, confident of the response in those who come to meet his ideas with the willingness to understand them.

Among the many activities springing from the work of Rudolf Steiner are the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association which aims at improved nutrition resulting from methods of agriculture outlined by Rudolf Steiner; the art of Eurythmy, created and described by him as “visible speech and visible song;” the medical and pharmaceutical work carried out by the Clinical and Therapeutical Institute of Arlesheim, Switzerland, with related institutions in other countries; the Homes for the education and care of mentally retarded children; and new directions for work in such fields as Mathematics, Physics, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Drama, Speech Formation, Social Studies, Astronomy, Economics and Psychology.

The success of Rudolf Steiner Education (sometimes referred to as Waldorf Education) has proven the correctness of Steiner's concept of the way to prepare the child for his or her eventual role as a resourceful, creative, responsible member of modern adult society.

The transcripts of Rudolf Steiner's many lectures on a wide variety of subjects are a storehouse of spiritual knowledge as it can become fruitful in many fields of modern life. However, Steiner himself stressed that his lectures were not intended for print, and are not a substitute for what he expressed in his written works on the Science of Spirit or Anthroposophy. Therefore, if the reader finds the following lectures of interest, or if they arouse questions and points upon which he wishes further clarification, he is certain to find the latter in the fundamental books included in the series of Major Writings of Rudolf Steiner listed at the end of the present volume.

The Publishers

Rudolf Steiner: Dearly beloved! What I have to say in these introductory words will, of course, differ somewhat from the usual format of these evenings for the simple reason that I have, so to speak, turned up out of the blue and it is therefore not possible to immediately continue where we left off last time. So perhaps today the focus will have to be on the discussion itself, in which I ask you to participate in large numbers.

When we began here in Stuttgart ten months ago to popularize the ideas underlying the threefold social order, this undertaking was conceived entirely in the context of the events of the time. We, as members of the Central European state, spiritual and economic communities, were facing all those questions that had to be raised from the point of view of how we, as people of Central Europe, who were, let us say it dryly, “the defeated” at that time, should behave. And here the view had to be taken that - in view of the terrible experiences, not so much the events of the war as the outcome of the war, which, of course in a different way, are no less terrible than the events of the war themselves - understanding would have to be awakened in a sufficiently large number of people for those ideas of a social reorganization that could have led to a reconstruction of European affairs precisely from the circle of the defeated.

When you are dealing with the propagation of some idea or other, you very often hear the word that these are far-reaching ideas. It is said that one can perhaps hope that such far-reaching ideas will be realized in the distant future – and depending on one's greater or lesser optimism, longer or shorter periods of time are then given – one can only work towards humanity approaching such ideals and so on. But at the beginning of our work, the situation did not really challenge the ideas that were moving in this direction. What was meant at that time was that the next necessity was to create understanding in as many minds as possible for the impulse of the threefold social order: for an independent spiritual life, for an independent state or legal life and for an independent economic life. It was hoped that the bitter events could have brought this understanding to people. But it has been shown that at the time when it was necessary, this understanding could not actually be brought forth in a sufficiently large number of people — for reasons that should not be touched upon further today. And today the question is rightly being raised from many sides: Can this idea of threefold order actually be cultivated in the same way as before? Have we not already progressed too far in the dismantling of our economic life?

However, anyone who understands the workings of today's economy cannot simply — I deliberately say “not simply” — answer this question in the negative. For, let us put forward the hypothesis that at the time when we began our work last April, if a sufficiently large number of people had been willing to help — and could certainly have brought about a change in circumstances — we would have actually had the necessary success: then, of course, our economic life would be on a completely different footing today. It may seem presumptuous of me to say so, but it is true. And the various articles that have appeared in our threefolding newspaper can serve as proof of what I have just said.

If we, who are working on the continuation of the threefold social order ideas in a narrower circle, nevertheless firmly believe that the work must continue, we are also thoroughly convinced on the other hand that the path that has just been taken – to convince a sufficiently large number of souls of the necessity of threefolding – that this path cannot lead quickly enough to success today. Therefore, we must think today of immediately practical undertakings, the form of which is to be presented to our immediate contemporaries in the near future. We must think of achieving our goal through certain institutions that can replace what would have been achieved through the collaboration of a sufficiently large number of convinced people. We must at least attempt to create model institutions, through economic institutions, by means of which it will be seen that our ideas can be practically realized in such economic institutions. These can then be emulated in the sense that people will believe the facts, which they previously refused to believe despite our convincing words. On the other hand, these model institutions will actually be able to have such economic consequences that some of the economic servitude that has already occurred can be redressed. Indeed, a large number of people in this Central Europe have come to the point where they do not care where their profits come from. They allow the victors to give them directives and even the material documents, if only it makes it possible for them to make corresponding profits. The way in which some people in some circles today are thinking of helping themselves economically in Central Europe is downright shameful. The idea is to create practical institutions from the threefold idea itself, which can provide the proof - even under the already quite difficult conditions - that this threefold idea is not utopian but practical.

You see, when we started our work, we were often asked: Yes, can you give us practical points of view for individual institutions? How should this or that be done? — The person who raised such a question usually completely disregarded the fact that it could not be a matter of maintaining one or the other institution, which had just proved its uselessness, by giving good advice, but that it was a matter of bringing about a complete social reconstruction through transformation on a large scale, through which the individual institutions would then have been supported. For this, it would not have taken advice on this or that, but rather a broad realization of the ideas, that is, by a sufficiently large number of people – because ultimately all institutions are made by people.

So today we are faced with a kind of change of direction that has truly not been brought about by our believing that we have been mistaken in our ideas. Ideas of this kind must always take into account the phenomena of the time. And if humanity does not respond to these phenomena, then the ideas must change, must at least take a different course. This is how we have pointed out that our not-so-old threefolding movement actually already has a story that is very much rooted in today's conditions and speaks volumes – a story that might perhaps be instructive for some people after all, if they would only pay attention to it.

I would like to illustrate what I have just said with an example: anyone who takes on the book “The Key Points of the Social Question”, as it was written a year ago, based on the economic explanations, will find certain considerations on the organization of economic life, which should acquire a certain necessary independence, which must not be dependent in the future on state institutions, state administrations, which must be thoroughly based on its own foundations, and which must be built up from its own foundations on the principle of associations. Of course, I can only give a few points of view today, but perhaps the discussion will provide more.

What then should be the actual purpose of such associations in economic life? The purpose of these associations should be that first of all, professional circles that are somehow related, that must work together objectively, and that manage their economic affairs completely freely and independently, without being subject to any state administration, should come together. And then these associations of professional circles should in turn associate with the corresponding consumers, so that what occurs as exchange between the related professional circles, but then also between the producer and consumer circles, is in turn united in associations. What arises from the free movement of economic associations should take the place of today's economic administration.

Of course, this network of economic institutions also includes everything that otherwise works in the legal and political spheres, and in the sphere of spiritual life. Spiritual life as such stands independently on its own feet, but those who are active in spiritual life must eat, drink and clothe themselves; they must therefore in turn form economic corporations of their own, which as such must be incorporated into the economic body, associating themselves in the economic body with those corporations that can serve their interests. The same must be done with the corporation of those people who are involved in state life. Thus, everything that is human in the social organism will be included in economic life, just as everything human that belongs to the social organism is included in the other two links, in state life and spiritual life. It is only that people are included in the three links of the social organism from different points of view. What matters is that the social organism is not structured according to estates, but according to points of view, and that every person is represented in every part of the social organism with their interests.

What can be achieved through such an economic life based on the principle of association? - What can be achieved is the elimination of the damage that has gradually arisen from the production methods of the last few centuries, especially the 19th century, from economic life and thus from human life in general. These damages are first experienced by man today in his own body, I would like to say. They have arisen because in the course of the more recent centuries, other conditions have arisen from the earlier conditions in relation to production in economic life.

If you look back to the period from the 17th to the 18th century, you will find that the way in which production took place is still to some extent connected with the people and their organization itself. You can see that in those days, when prices were set, they were dependent not on those factors on which they depend solely today, but, for example, on the abilities of the people, namely, for example, on the extent to which a person is able to work for so many hours a day on this or that production with a certain devotion and joy. The price was therefore determined by the extent to which the person had grown together with his production. Today, however, this is only the case in certain branches of intellectual life. If someone writes a book, you cannot dictate how many hours of the day he should work and set a wage for so many hours of the day. If, for example, an eight-hour working day were introduced for book writing, something beautiful would come of it, because it could very easily be that you should work for eight hours and get a wage for it, but that you should not get any ideas for four hours through three weekdays. Just as there is an intimate bond between human abilities, between the human spiritual organization and the products produced, so it was also the case for many more material branches - yes, the further we go back in human development, for all material branches. It is only in more recent times that the bond between the product and the producer has been broken. Looked at as a whole, it is basically utter nonsense to want to maintain this separation of the product from the producer. In individual branches of production, this can be blatantly obvious. Take, for example, the manufacture of books, considered purely economically. Books have to be written; this cannot be subjected to the laws of remuneration as represented, for example, by today's Social Democracy for the world of production. But books have to be printed, and the person who types them can indeed rely on the principles of today's social democracy, on the union principle. Because for typesetting, nothing more needs to be invented; there is no need for an intimate bond between producer and production. But if you go back to the sources, you will find everywhere that precisely the work for which you do not need such a bond would not even exist if it were not for the work on which all this external work depends. If the master builder were not there, all the wage laborers who build the houses could not work. If the book writer were not there, the typesetter could not set type for books. These are trains of thought that are not employed today, but they must be taken as a basis in the most eminent sense in economic considerations.

I could not go into detail about all the life experiences that have been incorporated into the “Key Points”, because they are, of course, intended for thinking readers. And I can assure you that it is still quite useful today to do a little thinking when reading a book and not always say: This is so difficult to understand, you have to think, it should have been written much more popularly. — But through the articles in our threefolding newspaper, which illuminate the same events from the most diverse points of view, this bond between producer and production has been loosened more and more. And only because in recent times, under the influence of the materialistic way of thinking, attention has been focused on the mode of production and not on the condition and ability of the producer, has the view even arisen among abstract, socialist agitators and thinkers that production as such is the one thing that dominates the whole of history, the whole of human life. This view arose because, in fact, through modern technology and certain other social conditions, a domination of the product over the producing people has occurred. So that one can say: While in the past, until about three centuries ago, much else was still dominant for people, in social life the economic person has since become the one who appears decisive today – the economic person and the economic process. People like Renner, for example, who even managed to become Austrian Chancellor, have indeed stated that there should be no more talk of “homo sapiens”, who haunted people's minds in the last centuries, but that n could only be talked about “homo oeconomicus” - that is the only reality. But since the 19th century, because things in reality undergo transformations according to their own laws, not even homo economicus, the economic man, the economic process, has remained decisive, but we can say: roughly from around 1810 - to set a starting point - the banker has become the dominant man. And more than one might think, in the economic life of the civilized world during the 19th century, the banker, the moneychanger, the one who actually merely administers the money, has become dominant. All the events that have occurred since that time are more or less subject to the influence of this historical change: in the economic context, the economic man and the economic process have gradually become the banker, the moneychanger, the lender above all, and the public social process has become the financial administration, the money administration.

Now, however, money has very definite characteristics. Money is a representative of various things, but money as such is the same. I can acquire a sum of money by selling a piece of music – a spiritual product. Or I can acquire a sum of money by selling boots. The sum of money can always be the same, but what I sell can be very different. As a result, money takes on a certain abstract character in relation to the real process of life. And so, under the influence of the world banking system, the obliteration of the concrete interactions in human social intercourse, the obliteration of the concrete interactions [between product and producer, and there arose] the intercourse of mere representatives, of money.

This, however, has very definite consequences. It has the consequence that the three most essential components of our economic process – land, means of production and means of consumption – which, by their very nature, are involved in the economic process in very different ways, are not only conceptually, but actually, placed under the same power and treated in the same way. For someone who is only concerned with acquiring or managing a certain amount of money may be indifferent as to whether this sum of money represents land or means of production, that is, machines or the like that serve for other productions but have been made by people, or whether it represents consumer goods, immediate articles of use. What matters is only that he receives a certain sum of money for something, or that, if he has it, it bears interest, no matter from what. The idea had to increasingly come to the fore that the interests one has in the individual products and branches of production are extinguished and replaced by the abstract interest in capital, which extinguishes all these differentiations, that is, in money capital. But that leads to very specific things.

Let's take land, for example. Land is not just something arbitrary, but is situated in a particular place and has a relationship to the people of that place, and the people of that place also have interests in this land that can be described as moral interests, as interests of a spiritual kind. For example, it may be an important point for the general interests of culture and humanity that a certain product be planted on this land. I will draw a somewhat radical picture of the circumstances. They are not so radical in ordinary life, but the essential thing can be shown with it. Anyone who has grown together with the land through their entire life circumstances will have an insight into how, let us say, the production of this or that from the land is connected with the entire life circumstances. They have gained their experiences in being together with the land. Questions can be important for this, questions that can only be judged if one has grown together with the local conditions of an area.

You can only gain such knowledge through experience. You can now fully appreciate that it is beneficial for the general human condition when a piece of land is utilized in a certain way, but only yields a certain result from this utilization. These considerations immediately disappear when the principle of monetary capitalism takes the place of the people associated with the land. In this case, it is a matter of land simply passing from one hand to the other as a commodity. But the person who simply acquires land by spending money is only interested in seeing that the money yields interest in the appropriate way. An abstract principle is imposed on everything that used to be a concrete human interest. And the person in question, who only has the interest of money, wonders whether, under the circumstances that the other person, who has grown together with the land, recognizes as necessary, the matter will yield enough for him; if not, then the land must be used for something else. In this way, the necessary human relationships are destroyed only from the point of view of monetary capitalism.

And so the aspects of monetary capitalism have been applied to all human relationships. In economics, they have distracted people from what can only arise when people are connected to production, connected to land, and connected to the products of consumption that circulate among people in some area. This was certainly present in earlier centuries. This has already disappeared under the influence of the economic man, but mostly under the influence of the banker in the 19th century. While until about 1810 the national economy was dependent on the traders and the industrialists, in the 19th century the traders and the industrialists, even if they did not admit it, essentially became dependent on the national and international money economy, on the bankers.

You can only be driven completely into economic egoism by this kind of money economy. But this kind of money economy should not be confused, as often happens today, with mere capitalism. Mere capitalism – you will find this explained in more detail in my Key Points – is meant to make it possible for only those who are capable of using large amounts of capital, whether in the form of the means of production or of money, the representative of the means of production, to grow together with production. And they should only remain connected to it as long as they can use their abilities in the service of production. This bare capitalism is absolutely necessary for the modern national economy, and to rail against it is nonsense. To abolish it would mean undermining the entire modern national economy. It is essential that we look at reality, that we see the difference, for example, that the administration of a large complex of land, in which the combination of forest and land may be necessary can be necessary, will mean one thing in the hands of a capable person and another if someone separates the forest and the land, then parcelled out the land into small holdings and the like. This can be good for certain areas, but in others it would ruin the national economy. Everywhere it depends on the specific circumstances. And we must finally find our way back to the specific circumstances.

But this [lack of concreteness] is not only evident in the national economy, in the individual economy, but is becoming more and more evident in the international economic system. It is quite clear to anyone who studies the matter that people, even if they are capitalists, when they are left to their own devices and supply certain branches of production according to their abilities, do not interfere with each other, but on the contrary work in each other's hands. The real problem only begins when people in some way outgrow their ties to the branches of production. I will give just one example of where this has become particularly apparent under the influence of the monetary economy of the 19th and 20th centuries: in the formation of trusts and cartels. Let us assume that a number of branches of production join together to form a trust, a cartel. What is the consequence?

A trust or cartel must have some purpose, and it is obvious that people make more profit through the trust than they would without it. But they can only do that if they create monopoly prices, that is, if they sell above the usual competitive prices that would be formed. So you have to create the possibility of raising prices, that is, agreeing on prices that are above the usual competitive prices. Yes, such prices can be created, they have been created in many cases. But it did not come to [healthy] production. You see, you can't produce in a healthy way under the influence of this kind of profit. If you don't want to create a mismatch with the costs of the facilities, which would be far too expensive if you only produced what you produce above the competitive price, then you have to produce so much more that the costs for the machines and the entire facility are covered, and you have to produce so much more that you would produce if you only got the competitive price. But you can only sell as much as you sell at monopoly prices. Because if you were to produce at competitive prices, you would have to sell a lot more and therefore also produce a lot more than you sell at monopoly prices. That is an economic experience: you sell less when you sell at monopoly prices, but you cannot produce less because otherwise production will not pay for itself. What is the consequence? You have to go to the neighboring country and get your sales there; you sell below the cost of production. But now you are entering into international competition. This international competition has played an enormous role. If you only take into account the fixing of the price caused by the monetary economy, you create competition that would otherwise not be there by selling differently: in the immediate sales area [above the cost of production] and in the neighboring country below the cost of production. You can do that; if you only calculate accordingly, you will even make more, but you will harm the corresponding producer groups in the neighboring country. If you look for the causes of the moods that led to the causes of war in the West, you will find the causes in these things. Then we will find what a huge step lies in the [social] damage on the way from capitalism to trust formation, to cartel formation, to monopolization by cartels. The capitalist as such, who produces at competitive prices, never has an interest in protective tariffs. The protective tariff is also something that has played a role in the causes of war. There you have the damage done by the monetary economy in international life. All this is so clear to anyone who studies modern economic life that there is actually nothing that can be said against it. The question must therefore necessarily arise: how do we get beyond these damages? There is no other way to get beyond the damages than to reconnect the human being with the product, to once again directly establish the bond between the human being and production.

This is the aim of the economic idea of social threefolding: what used to exist between the individual human being and production as a bond under very different circumstances can only be brought about today by the fact that those who produce in the same way connect with each other and those who are united by profession in turn join together in circles, in associations, with the other branches of production and the corresponding consumers. In this way the associations, the united people, will know how to set production in motion, and not just the money that flows over production as something homogeneous. But this could in turn bring about in a very essential way that which only a prosperous economy makes possible for humanity.

You see, it was necessary for someone to take a good look at reality today, because all the socio-economic stuff that has been talked about in recent times is basically said without looking at reality. Of course, individual people have made apt remarks about one thing or another. But most of what has been said, and especially all that under the influence of which modern world capitalism on the one hand and wage-slavery on the other have developed, this cancer of modern life, has come about because people have no longer really looked into the lawful context of economic life, and because they no longer saw – while living as a human being in economic life – how the. because money has obliterated everything. But when the associations are there, it will be clear and obvious how one thing or another must be produced. Then the person who has something to produce will receive customers through the people who are in the appropriate associations, and it will be discussed and determined whether so much of this or that can be produced. Without the enforced economy of Moellendorff's loquacity, something can arise; because one person is taught by the other in free exchange, everything can be organized so that consumption is truly the decisive factor for all.

This was the point of the idea of threefold social order: to speak to humanity from the full reality. Because people are so unaccustomed to approaching reality in the present, that is why it is so difficult to understand the matter; people are unaccustomed to approaching reality. What do people understand of economic life as a whole? The architect understands something of building, the master carpenter of carpentry, the shoemaker of shoemaking, the barber of cutting beards, everyone understands something of the corresponding economic activity with which he is connected. But all that these “practitioners of life” somehow know about economic life is only connected with their own and not with that of others. That is why it is so abstract. It was necessary to speak to humanity from the real context of the whole of social life. Because people have become unaccustomed to using the experiences of life as a guide, they regard as utopian precisely that which is born out of reality. But that is why this idea of social threefolding is recognized as the counter-image to all utopia, as something that is born out of real life and can therefore be applied to real life. And that is the only thing that matters: that people should understand these things. Then everyone, whatever their background, will understand the idea of the threefold social order, especially if they understand the connection between their production and the world's overall economic process. This idea of the threefold social order does not shy away from close scrutiny by those who understand something of economic life through their whole relationship to life. But today not many people understand anything about economic life or social life at all; they let themselves drift and are best off when they do not need to participate in any kind of decision-making about the social order, but when the government takes care of it for them. That is why people come up with such complicated ideas that they regard what is real in life as utopian. Of course, the situation today is somewhat obscured by the fact that the Western powers have fought for and won the opportunity not to come up to date. What is demanded today in the idea of threefolding is demanded by the times. This is the point that human development has reached today. The victory of the Western powers means nothing more than a reprieve to remain under the old social conditions. The Western Powers can afford this luxury; they have fought for it. But the Central Powers cannot afford this luxury; they are dependent on satisfying the demands of the time. If they satisfy them, it will have an effect on the whole world. If they do not satisfy them, they will perish.

This must be stated quite clearly today, because today it is an either/or situation. That is why it is so frivolous when clever people keep saying, for example, “Now there will be a disagreement between the French and the English.” The English do not want to conclude a militaristic alliance with the French out of their old traditions; they also do not want to grant any loans; they also do not completely agree with the intentions of the French regarding the Rhine border, and so on. This is the continuation of what had such a devastating effect during the war and before the war. There was always speculation: Now the enemies are once again at odds; perhaps we can make a separate peace with someone. With this diplomacy, they have finally managed to have almost the whole world against them. If people of this caliber continue to corrupt people's ideas and continue to speculate that the French and the English are once again at odds, then that is a pipe dream; it is not a grasp of reality. It is a continuation of the old diplomatic way of thinking, which Czernin described so well in his book, in which he demands that the extraordinary importance of diplomats must be recognized. But the extraordinary importance of diplomats consisted in their being able to move in the appropriate salons, observing the mood there and then writing long letters about this mood and so on. During the war, this was continued very nicely, as far as one could, only there one judged the mood more on secret paths. The catastrophe of the war was partly caused by this assessment of the mood before the war. And now people are starting to speculate in the same way again. But when people wake up, they will see that in reality they have only managed to sit between two chairs themselves. There is talk of a deep gulf opening up between the French and the English; the clever people are talking about it today. When people wake up, they will see that this gulf is indeed there, but people agree that they themselves are sitting in the middle of the deep gulf. The impulse for the threefold social organism is based on the realization that this way of thinking, which is so disastrous for humanity, must give way to a way of thinking that is in line with reality. And when this is understood, people will turn to this threefold social organism with an inner necessity.

After Rudolf Steiner's introductory words, the discussion was opened; various personalities spoke:

Georg Herberg believes that in view of the price increases in recent years - as an example, he cites the price of a ton of iron, which used to cost 13 marks but now costs 1700 marks - it is necessary to take a closer look at the price problem. In doing so, the opposite pole of consumers, that is, the producers, must be considered.

Before the actual discussion begins, Siegfried Dorfner would like to draw the attention of those present to three fundamental facts that could be seen as typical of the whole situation in the work of threefolding: firstly, party leaders had been invited for this evening; however, they are not present. Secondly, when they do come, they usually remain silent in the discussions; there are no speakers. Thirdly, the attitude of followers of anthroposophy is very often: “I like anthroposophy, but not the threefold social order.” And so the lack of success of the whole threefold social order efforts is not surprising. Carl Unger would like to come back to the above and points out the importance of trusts in today's economic life. The example of iron was mentioned; there one must assume that one was dealing with a steel trust in this area. The German sugar factories also have a similar monopoly position; there are an infinite number of beet fields in Germany, but the price is inflated compared to this large supply.

Walter Johannes Stein believes that the situation in the German sugar industry points to a very central problem, to the relationship between land and the means of production in general. The question arises, for example, of whether a cow is a means of production or whether it belongs to the land. But the matter becomes even more complicated when the cow is finally slaughtered; whether it then does not take on the character of a commodity. So he asks Rudolf Steiner to explain in more detail the relationship between land, means of production and goods.

Rudolf Steiner: My dear friends! Regarding the distinction between land and the means of production, the essential thing is that land is limited, it is not elastic, and in a certain sense it cannot be increased, while the means of production, which themselves arise through human labor, can be increased, and by increasing the means of production, production can in turn be increased.

Now, when making such distinctions, it is often necessary to start from different points of view. By distinguishing land from the means of production, one designates what is there first and has not been made by human hands as “land”. From the point of view of the political economist, a cow, which man by his labor does not himself manufacture, simply belongs to “land and soil” as long as it is not slaughtered; when it is slaughtered, it is of course a commodity. But then it appears in a very specific way on the commodity market, and we are dealing with two facts: firstly, the fact that it is withdrawn from the productive power of the land, and secondly, the fact that it appears as a commodity; in a sense, the cow is a marginal product. Such marginal products are everywhere. But the point is to, so to speak, hold on to what you have in mind by using the terms that can be taken from the respective characteristic representative.

Is that not so? In the economic process, we are dealing, firstly, with what is necessary for production but cannot itself be produced. This includes land itself and a number of other things; we simply summarize this under “land”. Secondly, everything that serves to produce something else but must first be produced itself, such as machines, is part of the economic process. In the context of the national economy, the process of working, the labor that must be used to produce the means of production, does not apply to land. This is the essential economic point: the labor equivalent is only a valid way of looking at the means of production until the means of production are actually ready for use in production. At the moment the means of production are available, they are actually integrated into the economic process in exactly the same way as land. As long as one is working on the means of production and has to make use of the national economy in order to be able to work on the means of production, a distinction must be made between how the means of production and land are placed in the national economy. At the moment when the means of production are finished, they are subject to the same economic category as land. As long as I still have to fabricate the locomotive, I have to assess the economic process in which the fabrication of the locomotive takes place differently than in the moment when it is finished. When it [as a finished means of production] is on the rails and is moved by people for further production, it is just as much a part of the economic process as land. The difficulty in the distinction is that the finished means of production actually falls under the same category as land. What labor has to be expended to create a means of production is the essential thing, and that is added to the means of production and is lacking in land. Of course, this is connected with the following. If land were elastic, it could be increased. It would either have to grow by itself or people would have to produce it. But I do not want to discuss this question further. The fact that land is available to a certain extent is what distinguishes it from the means of production. It can only be used to a greater or lesser extent, which makes it similar to the means of production.

Now, of course, we must also consider the third element, the actual commodity. It is characterized by the fact that it is consumed. In the economic process, this makes it something essentially different from the means of production, which itself is not directly consumed, but only worn out. Thus, a commodity is also something different from land, which also serves little for consumption, but at most needs to be improved, and so on.

Thus, these three things are to be distinguished as essentially different in the economic process: 1. land, which [exists] without human labor having been expended on it; 2. the means of production, which begins when human labor has been used; both – land and means of production – are not there for immediate consumption; 3. the commodity, which is there for immediate consumption.

But you see, the thing is that the whole thing is also a question of time. Because the moment you think about the fact that means of production, for example of a mechanical nature, are used up within a certain time, the moment you do that, the means of production appear to you as a commodity – only as a commodity that takes a longer time to be used up. When you make distinctions in life, these distinctions tend to be highly inconvenient; they are never such that you can make a strict division. You have to remain flexible on these issues. Because in fact, the means of production also have a commodity character to a certain extent. Land does not have this commodity character, which the means of production can have, in the same way, which is why you have to make a stricter distinction there. It is nonsense to apply the concept of the commodity to land from a purely monetary-capitalist point of view. So you see, if you apply something in reality, you cannot stop at abstract concepts. That is something that people who read the “Key Aspects of the Social Question” raise as an objection: they want nicely boxed terms. Then what they read is nice for them; then you know after reading half a page what you have read. In reality, however, a means of production can only be grasped if one knows: it is not consumed at first, but if one uses it over a longer period of time, it is the same as a commodity. So you have to keep in mind that the means of production has both the property of being consumed and of not being consumed, and the concept must correspond to that.

We need to have flexible concepts. People today do not want that; they want nested concepts. They do not want to think their way out into reality at all. Otherwise, things like this could not arise: people saying, for example, “I like anthroposophy quite well, but I don't want to know anything about threefold social order.” Those who speak in this way are rather like someone who says, “Yes, I am interested in the spiritual, but this spiritual must not encroach on the political; this spiritual must be independent of the political.” Yes, my dear friends, that is precisely what the threefold social order seeks to achieve. But because the spiritual is nowhere independent today, it is an illusion to believe that you can only be interested in the spiritual. In order for your abstract ideal to become concrete, so that you have something to take an interest in that is not influenced by politics, threefolding must first conquer such a field, so that there is a field in which one does not need to take an interest in politics. Threefolding is fighting for precisely that in which sleepy souls want to feel at home, but only have it as an illusion. These sleepy souls, oh, how we would like to wake them up! They feel so tremendously at ease when they are inwardly mystics, when they grasp the whole world inwardly, when they discover God in their own soul and thereby become such perfect human beings! But this inwardness has value only when it steps out into life. I would like to know if it has any value when, in this day and age, when everything is in a rush and the world is on fire, people cannot find their way to have their say in public affairs. That is a nice interest in anthroposophy, which only wants to be interested in anthroposophy and does not even find the opportunity to have a say in what anthroposophy wants to inspire. Those anthroposophists who are only interested in anthroposophy and not in what can become of anthroposophy in relation to life are like a person who is charitable only with his mouth, but otherwise quickly closes his pockets when he should really be charitable. Therefore, what is found in people who only want to take an interest in anthroposophy in their own way is anthroposophical chatter. But the reality of anthroposophy is what is transferred into life.

Afterwards, a discussion about the future work on threefolding with the leaders of the local groups takes place. There are three main questions for discussion. First: Is it permissible to compromise? Second: Should one participate in the elections? Third: In what form should propaganda for the threefolding idea be carried out?

Paul Kretschmar, from Cologne, argues that one should try to influence the existing works council and parliament. The newspapers would play a not insignificant role in this regard. One would therefore have to form a kind of journalistic office to write articles for trade journals. It was also important to train competent speakers; these would have to be able to rely on a kind of primer on the threefold order, similar to the way Damaschke had published a brooch. It was also necessary to found a publishing house to effectively support newspaper propaganda. Basically, even participation in the elections should be considered.

Mr. Klug, also from Cologne, warns against participation in the elections that is completely independent. At most, it is debatable whether it would be possible to proceed together with other independent parties. Furthermore, it would be important to discuss whether consumer associations could be formed.

Hermann Heisler believes that a kind of “Catechism of Threefolding” is really needed; this should provide a guide to how threefolding can be introduced into practical life, especially into economic life. In the present situation, three questions arise in particular. Firstly, how could threefolding, if it were actually realized in Central Europe, counteract the expected European famine? Secondly, what goal must be given to the working class now? Thirdly, how far can one go in the practical events of the political parties and profess the objectives of threefolding?

Siegfried Dorfner is convinced that the best way to propagate the threefold order is to leave the party.

Walter Conradt believes that, as far as the treatment of the press is concerned, it must be assumed that a decentralization of opinions has occurred on the other side. As for the treatment of the proletarian party, however, the events of the last year – especially in connection with the “poster mission” – have shown that the proletariat has been “moved” for a year, so it can no longer be counted on for the time being.

Richard Seebohm says that it has certainly happened that a newspaper has addressed individual questions, but one should not forget that even if state supervision has now been lifted, the newspapers are still under the control of industry. And it should not be overlooked that there are also threefoldingers who do not want to have anything to do with anthroposophy. For these reasons, it is important to stand behind the existing threefolding newspaper.

Paul Kretschmar mentions the Cologne “Generalanzeiger”, in which articles on threefolding could certainly be accommodated.

Ernst Uehli mentioned a foreign friend who had confirmed to him that the press could not be won over for big ideas; in general, it could be said that the idea of threefolding was much criticized in the newspapers. The pursuit of true “humanity” and the press could not be reconciled, as the German philosopher Karl Christian Planck had already established.

Emil Molt points out that the Federation for Threefolding intends to conduct a course for agitators — a course for speakers — under the direction of Rudolf Steiner.

After the discussion, Rudolf Steiner is asked to comment on the various questions raised, despite the late hour.

Rudolf Steiner: Dearly beloved attendees! First of all, I would just like to say that I will be obliged to speak in brief hints, and I ask you to take this into account. So the individual questions asked can no longer be discussed in detail. Perhaps we can do that next time.

First of all, we want to pick out the relatively most important question, the question:

How would the threefold social order work in the context of the coming European famine?

I would like to say, although it may seem strange to some, that there is a completely different question behind this one that makes answering difficult. But in general, the following must apply to this question. Isn't it true that, say, ten years ago, the world did not have what is called a famine, at least not what can and probably will come as famine in the near future, since souls sleep. But we must consider the following, however simple and primitive they may appear: there are no fewer raw materials in the ground than there were ten years ago; there are no fewer fields than there were ten years ago; and there are essentially no fewer human workers than there were ten years ago – millions have perished in the war, but not only as producers, but also as consumers. So in general, the economic possibilities and conditions are exactly the same as they were ten years ago.

It was perhaps eight weeks ago when a letter written by the well-known politician, the Russian Prince Kropotkin, was published in the newspapers, in which he made two curious statements. One is that he is now working on an ethics - interesting that he is now beginning to write an ethics. The other message is that there is now only one thing that is being delivered from the West to Russia: food, bread. Of course, it is easiest when there is no bread to take it from the side where it is available. Well, other people also have such views sometimes. A fortnight ago I received a letter from a lawyer and notary in central Germany. The letter sounded very much like a lawyer and notary, for it was coarse and stupid. But it also said that you can't lure a dog out from behind the stove with some kind of idealism, that it's a matter of fighting for the naked loaf.

Now, you see, everything I have just explained does not take into account the simplest and most primitive. Because if you take that into account, you will know that it is only a matter of getting people to organize in such a way that it can and will be done from the antecedents that exist now as they did ten years ago. This will certainly not be achieved if people are fobbed off with either what the old “Czernine” regard as state and popular wisdom, or the old “Bethmänner”, written with or without h, nor what the old Social Democrats, this particular kind of “negative Bethmänner”, suggest; but what matters is that people are given goals again, that they see what we are working towards. And that can be given through the movement of threefolding. What matters is not to say what many people say today, even if it is relatively correct: We will not have a famine or we can overcome it if people work again. Yes, if! But when people face the hopelessness of work that arises from the old programs and old machinations, then they do not want to work. But if you bring something to humanity that ignites, so that people see something ahead of them that can lead them to a dignified existence, [then they will want to work], and then bread will also be able to be produced. This is an important prerequisite for making bread: trust in humanity. If we do not gain this trust, then famine will come with certainty. But in order for trust to arise, threefolding is necessary. I can only hint at this in this context. But if you pursue this thought, you will see that famine can essentially only be prevented by propagating threefolding. However, one necessity exists: that this idea of threefolding must take root in as many minds as possible, so that these minds do not fall for anything that is just a continuation of the old system. This continuation of the old system is becoming very, very widespread – only in a seemingly new form. Because, you see, on certain sides today it is as if the leading personalities had set themselves the task of bringing about famine. Today, all kinds of prices are rising in an incredible way. But prices only make sense if they are relative to each other. The prices of the most important foodstuffs are being artificially kept down today. I am not saying that they should go up, but they must not be disproportionate to the prices of other things. This disproportion prevents anyone from wanting to devote themselves to the production of raw products, of food, in the near future. The production of a famine has thus become a government measure. This must be seen through.

Secondly, it must be emphasized that this is indeed an international issue and the question can be raised:

Can anything be achieved in Central Europe alone by introducing the threefold order – or whatever it is called?

I must refer you to what I have written in the threefolding newspaper, and I have done so repeatedly and from a wide variety of perspectives: if only people would really pluck up the courage to propagate the threefolding, even under the most unfavorable conditions, even during a famine – that would have an effect if people in the western or eastern regions could see something positive being done by us.

So today we still stand on the same position as the world did when the peace offer was sent out to the world in 1916, where phrase after phrase was used, but nothing concrete was said before the world. Just try it out and see how it would work in international life if you came up with something that has hand and foot, that has substance and content like the idea of the threefold social organism. At present, we see how, for example, British statesmen in particular are becoming more and more afraid from week to week of what is happening in Germany. It is actually something highly unfamiliar to them. And because they cannot make head or tail of it, they are seized with fear that something worse than Bolshevism could arise here than in Russia. But if they knew Bauer, Ebert and Noske better, it would even be a good remedy for their fear. Because the truth is that nothing is happening here, that in reality month after month passes without anything happening. Just imagine what it would mean for international life if something substantial were to come out of Central Europe. Only when one is clear about these things can one approach such a question as how threefolding will work in the event of a famine; in relation to everything else, that is not the question. It is true that only the threefold order is capable of bringing about an organization in which work will be done again and trust can be restored. Then famine can be prevented.

In order to be effective internationally, however, the idea of threefolding must take root in people's minds. Then I would not be worried that it will not work in international relations. As long as negotiations are conducted only out of chauvinism, no progress will be made. If something of significance were invented here in Central Europe, it would gain international recognition. If sound ideas take hold here, international barriers will fall away by themselves; for people will act according to their interests and take what is good where they can find it.

And I wanted to give you a few more suggestions on the newspaper question: I do not want to deny that some of what has been said is very important. And it will be commendable if one or the other of our friends gets an article published in some newspaper or another. But the essential thing remains that just as little can be achieved by crawling to the parties, little can be achieved by crawling to the other newspapers. It can be done, but it is actually the same thing, only in a different color. I do not criticize it; I am quite in agreement when it happens. But I would see the positive side in our friends promoting our newspaper, our threefolding newspaper, as much as possible. You may say: That is all very well, but the newspapers in which we want to place articles are only available to people who already subscribe to them. They have to subscribe to them in addition. Not all of them will do it, but a number of them will. Then we will be able to transform the threefolding newspaper into a daily newspaper. Only then will we be able to publish the articles we want to publish; then it will be effective. So the point is to work so hard for the threefolding newspaper, which is still a weekly paper, that it can be converted into a daily paper through its own earnings. Then we won't have to “crawl” to the others; that's what matters. Why shouldn't it be possible to put something that is of such eminent importance on its own two feet!

Then various other points were made. Regarding participation in the elections, I would just like to say the following: Of course, in abstracto one can certainly say that participating in the election and entering parliament and working there supports the present state. - You can't say that just like that. I don't even want to speak so strongly for or against; whether or not to participate in the election depends on the various specific circumstances. But if you take a strict view of threefolding, it is not entirely right in principle not to participate in parliament. The right thing to do in principle, consistently thought out in terms of threefolding, would be to participate in the elections, have as many people elected as can be elected, enter parliament and obstruct all questions relating to intellectual and economic life. That would be consistently thought out in terms of threefolding. The point is to separate off the middle part, the life of the state. This can only be achieved if the other parts on the left and right are discarded. The only way to do this is to actually get elected, enter and practice obstruction in all that is negotiated and decided in the fields of intellectual and economic life. That would be a consistent way of thinking in terms of the threefold social organism. This idea is something that must be thought through consistently and can also be thought through consistently in relation to concrete circumstances, because it is derived from reality. — That would be to say in relation to the most important questions.

Regarding the new goal that should now be given to the workers, I have to say that, based on my experiences with the works councils, it seems to me to be more of an academic question. The question will have to be approached differently; [we have to ask] whether such a goal should be set at all. The question of the works council has been raised. Every possible effort has been made to get the works councils going. The workers have promised all sorts of things and kept none of them. At first they turned up at the meetings, then they stopped coming. The same thing would happen again with the next new goals if they were carried into the current workers' organizations.

Dear attendees!

It is my task today to speak about the place that is to be a center of activity for everything that can radiate from the work in which you have participated here in such a deeply satisfying way over the last eight days. I may say in a deeply satisfying way, for the reason that you will believe me when I say that I am connected with this work in the deepest sense and therefore may express the deepest satisfaction about the course of this congress.

Now, my dear attendees, the Goetheanum is, so to speak, a physical manifestation of that which, in the most diverse ways and in the most diverse fields, would like to emerge as the result of anthroposophical spiritual science in the world. When it first emerged in the world, anthroposophy naturally did not immediately have its own place of activity, and it could not even be thought of, not even remotely, to build a place of activity for it. After about a decade of activity, a number of people who believed in the anthroposophical worldview came up with the idea of creating such a center for anthroposophy. The idea had initially come from the impressions gained from the performance of the mystery plays, which we started in Munich in 1910. It struck a number of our friends how unsuitable the architecture of an ordinary theater, such as we had to use to stage the mysteries at the time, is for what is actually artistically intended by anthroposophy.

And so the plan arose to found a kind of college for anthroposophy. The first attempt was to build in Munich. Land had already been acquired in Munich. But now the question was that precisely because anthroposophical spiritual science wants to be what has been spoken of here again in these days, the same could not be said for such a building as is otherwise the case. You have a society or an association, as you will, that has set itself some goal and believes it needs its own building. You get in touch with some master builder, an architect, and receive his suggestions. The building is constructed in the antique, Renaissance, Gothic style or similar, and then the events of the respective association or society are held in such a building.

Those who are thoroughly connected with their own soul life, as it should be, with an anthroposophical worldview, can never agree to such an outward agreement for a framework, for a wrapping of that which is to be created through anthroposophy. Because it has been emphasized over and over again: Anthroposophy is, on the one hand, a science of the spirit, of the supersensible, arising from the deepest sources of human knowledge. But it is not a theory, it is not a sum of abstractions, it is not something about the world and about life; it becomes, as it develops, life itself, it takes hold of the deepest inner impulses of the whole, of the full human being, and pursues everything from the inner being of this full human being, whatever it can be for him. In this way, it not only stimulates the impulses for scientific research, but also for artistic creation.

Not as if out of the true anthroposophical spirit – I have already mentioned this in my evening lectures – not as if out of this spirit an allegorizing or symbolizing art wanted to arise; that would not be art at all. Not ideas are to be transformed into symbolic or allegorical forms. No, anthroposophical spiritual knowledge penetrates into the depths of the human soul and takes its origin from sources that can flow into the world in other currents than in the field of the presentation of ideas. And so the one stream of the presentation of ideas arises as the one, and the other stream, the stream of artistic creation, in addition to many others, from the same source. But it is not about the translation of spiritual science into art or into sham art, but rather about an elementary, very original, I would say, expression of the artistic. In Dornach today, one can see how nothing symbolic or allegorical is striven for, but how what is intended to be art is conceived as art and created out of the artistic.

I would like to express myself with an image: if the relationship between the anthroposophical worldview and art is really as I have just described it, then this anthroposophical worldview must not allow itself to be built a place from the outside, in some style that for the Greek, for the Renaissance, for the Gothic worldview. Instead, the anthroposophical worldview must be housed in a building that has arisen out of the most original impulses of anthroposophy. Then the matter must be such that, for example, speaking takes place from the podium, singing or reciting or acting in eurythmy takes place on the stage, and so on; that which emerges in this way to the people must, so to speak, be the one language, and the other language must be the building forms, must be the architecture that envelops that which wants to reveal itself within the space. Anthroposophy must not accept a style from outside; Anthroposophy itself, being intimately related to the artistic, must appear as a creator of style.

This is what was there, I would like to say, with the same inner spiritual necessity as - now I would like to express myself through an image - as the nutshell cannot be different in its formation, in its design, than it is. The nut fruit and also the nutshell arise from the same lawfulness, from the same forms and life forces. He who sees the one can judge the other. This must also be the case with the structure for the anthroposophical world view. Therefore, what was to become the style for such a structure could arise out of all that was alive in the ideas of anthroposophy.

It is understandable that this met with resistance at first from all those who cling to the old, who cannot imagine that the development of humanity can only come about through the constant emergence of new and new metamorphoses of human labor, human creativity and human insight, and so – and I emphasize this – it was not the police or the government that rejected us at first, but the art world rejected our styles for Munich. It is not our fault that the building was not built in Munich, where it was originally intended to be. Of course, in the end people grew tired of submitting, I might say, to the yoke of what would have been dictated to them from the old ways of thinking. Those who knew what kind of architectural style must arise from the anthroposophical worldview were not allowed to have their wings broken.

And so it happened that through the donation of a friend, our project on the hill near Basel, in Dornach, in the northwestern corner of Switzerland, could be realized, and that the foundation stone could be laid in the fall of 1913. Of course, we fell into the most difficult period of Western cultural development. But we have at least already come so far that a whole series of university courses have been held in the building since last fall, which is still far from completion.

Now I would like to characterize in just a few words how that which lives in anthroposophy has poured out into an architectural style. That, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely the essence of anthroposophical research, of anthroposophical knowledge: that the concepts, that the whole forms of knowledge live, unfold in free activity, and this led, I would like to say, in a very elementary, naive way, to transferring the old architectural styles, which are based on the geometric, symmetrical, mechanical-static, into the organic. And so the previous architectural styles are, I would like to say, external images of that which can live in the static, in the carrying, in the load-bearing and in the symmetrical, in the geometric.

Of course, the Dornach building and my words here are not a criticism – it would be foolish towards these architectural styles – but it is a matter of drawing on progress. In this case, it could only consist of the geometric, the symmetrical, the static being transferred into something that, in all its forms of expression, in all its formation, also represents the organic, just as the inorganic is otherwise represented in architectural styles. I am well aware, esteemed attendees, of all the objections that can be raised against such a thing; but it had to be done at some point, based on the fundamental impulses of an anthroposophical attitude. There had to be a building idea that is lived and woven through the contemplation of the organic.

And consider what that actually means in terms of the human body itself. Take the smallest organ, perhaps it will be most illustrative. Please take your earlobe, a very small organ, it has a certain shape and size. If you feel the whole meaning of the human organic structure, feel it artistically, then you will say to yourself: firstly, this earlobe could not be in any other place in the human organism than where it is, and secondly,

in the place where it is, it could not be other than it is. The same had to be achieved with all the individual forms in the construction of the Goetheanum. One had to connect inwardly with the metamorphosing formative forces that otherwise live in the organic, and one had to experience what must of course be observed as the basis for every building idea: the geometric, the symmetrical, the static. One had to experience this through what can be experienced in this way in harmony with organic creation. Every single shape, every door, every window, every column, every detail [of this building] had to be individually felt. And the whole, in turn, had to be the one that, as a unified organic building idea, could absorb these individual organic building elements.

One difficulty arose from the fact that the matter was initially conceived for Munich in such a way that, in fact, only interior design would have been considered in the main. The building was to be surrounded by houses that anthroposophical members wanted to acquire, so that the exterior architecture would have been of little consequence. When the building had to be moved to Dornach, the space available was a completely open field on a hill, on a Jura hill, in a Jura configuration. There were unobstructed views in all directions and a clear view of the building. The mountain formations were there, and the whole thing had to be adapted to them. Since the interior design could not be changed much due to the haste with which I promoted the matter at the time, it was necessary to design the exterior in accordance with the finished interior. That is the thing that still leaves me somewhat dissatisfied today, because the person who will fully appreciate the whole can already see a certain discrepancy between the exterior and the interior design. However, every effort has been made to overcome the difficulties as far as possible. And in such a matter, basically only something incomplete can be created in the first attempt. But that is also the only reason for the Dornach building, to start a new architectural style, which cannot arise from any other foundations than those that can be made at all for modern civilized life from the knowledge of the spirit of the world.

The way the Goetheanum presents itself to the observer when approaching from afar is connected with the overall task: one is dealing with something that arises in the depths of the human soul, be it art or science, and that the person who has fathomed it has a duty to communicate to others. We are dealing with something that comes from the bottom of the heart, with something that is taken from the whole soul by someone who truly understands. This can be felt. And it may be demanded of the one who can feel it that this is now translated into contemplation. As I said, nothing should be thought up, no idea should be cast into form. But what I have just hinted at can be felt, can be experienced inwardly, this relationship of an intimate unity to a receptive other unity and the union of the two. By feeling this, it arose for me quite naturally only in contemplation, not as an allegory or as symbolism, a double-domed building, designed in such a way that two domed spaces met in a segment of a circle. And it seems to me that in this form of construction one can feel everything that a soul can feel in relation to anthroposophy and the world, as it must actually be felt as the ideal relationship, as the blissful relationship. And I believe that, just by looking at the outer form, one can feel this when approaching the hill at Dornach, just as one feels the inner necessity of the form of the nutshell compared to the form of the nut fruit; one can feel that there is something in the two juxtaposed domes of a large and a smaller dome structure that should be explored in the most intimate way, and yet at the same time wants to openly communicate with the world. That is what is expressed first in the external forms that I will take the liberty of showing you.

Yes, please, now the first picture (Fig. 5).

You see, dear attendees, here is the road that leads to the west side of the building. The building is a concrete structure down to the upper terrace. From here on, it is a wooden structure. You first enter the concrete structure. In the concrete structure - we will see later - is stored. Then you go up the stairs and come to a foyer and from there to the actual auditorium. You can see here in this motif how an attempt has been made to transfer the otherwise existing forms of construction, which, as I said, are based on the purely geometric, symmetrical, static or dynamic, into organic forms, but not in a naturalistic sense, not in such a way that natural forms would have been imitated. No one can ask what something depicts, just as one cannot ask what a plant leaf or a human ear depicts. It is something that has its inner form of life and vitality and life force within itself; something that justifies itself through its own form and its own unfolding of life.

When you create such a form, you do not feel that you are imitating something, but rather you feel, as a human soul, inwardly connected to that which lives metamorphosing in the plant from leaf to flower to fruit, shaping and reshaping everything, if I may use this Goethean expression. And that is what we have here, not something copied, but something formed in such a way that is otherwise only formed in the organic world. Those who then see the building itself may perhaps be able to see how we have tried to sense artistically from the material all around. It was rather difficult – I will have to come back to this later – to find forms for the concrete, a new material.

The next picture (Fig. 6): You can see the entrance to the west portal again. Here you go in, here left and right up, then you enter a vestibule, then the actual auditorium. The second, smaller dome is now completely covered by the larger dome of the auditorium. All the individual such secondary forms are in complete harmony, and in fact in organic harmony with the larger forms.

The next picture (Fig. 7): Here you can see the building from the southwest side; here the entrance, here the west portal; here the south side, here a transverse building, which we will see in more detail; here the entrance from the south side. You can see how this main form reappears here in some window forms, but actually in such a way that the main form is formed quite differently than the window forms. It is really the case that, when designing in this architectural style, one has to form organic shapes in such a way that, let us say, at the bottom of the plant there is an entire unnotched leaf, further up the leaf is notched, becomes of a very different shape, then in the sepal again something else. One must have the possibility, so to speak, to slip with one's feeling through all the possible forms that arise within, which are quite different according to external sensuality, but are inwardly spiritual and yet quite the same.

Here the large dome, there the small one. One of the issues, for example, was to find the right roofing for this building. The building had to appear as a unified whole, and, I would say, fate brought it about: While I was still occupied with the idea of building, I had to undertake a lecture tour in Norway, from Kristiania to Bergen, and from a train I saw the wonderful slate quarries of Voss. And just as this Voss slate presented itself to me in brilliant sunlight at the time, I said to myself at that moment: this belongs to the covering of this building. And indeed, a certain necessity for it will be felt by anyone who comes to Dornach and sees the wonderful grey-blue of this slate, shining and radiant in the sunlight.

The next picture (Fig. 8): Here you see the building from the south side. I emphasize, here would be the entrance, here is the side wing, as there is one on each side of the building. Here are the storerooms for the equipment, dressing rooms for performances, here the dome of the stage area. This is where the two domes meet. And it is precisely at the point where they meet that these side wings are located.

The next picture (Fig. 2): Here we have the construction from the northeast, and you can see the stage area, the dressing room, the storage room, [the large dome partially covered by the small dome]. Here is the so-called boiler house, which is completely made of concrete, and it is perhaps the one that is most [challenged by individuals], and that is because, firstly, an attempt was made to find a form out of the concrete material with a real sense of the material, but then to find a form in the way that is only possible for utility buildings. The lighting and firing systems had to be accommodated in it. It was important to see what the whole thing looked like and how it would appear. That was the nut to crack, so to speak, and the concrete shell had to be built around it according to the same principles. And I tried to think it through to the point where the whole shape of this building is only complete when the smoke comes out here, when it is in full operation. The shapes of the smoke clouds actually belong to the whole shape.

The next picture (Fig. 3) offers a completely different view. There is a small domed structure nearby that had to be built for a reason that I will explain later. This composition of a building with two domes is intended to be another metamorphosis. Here the domes are intertwined, intersecting, while there they are separate, on the adjoining building. But this then means that all the details of the structure had to be designed differently.

The next picture (Fig. 20): Here you can see the floor plan. Here is the entrance; below that would be the room for storing clothes. Here are the stairs. You go up these stairs and come into the vestibule, which we will see in a moment. Now you enter the auditorium. Here is the space below the organ, which is slightly elevated, with the other musical instruments. Here are the rows of benches for about a thousand spectators, here on each side are seven columns. These seven columns are, as we shall see, only symmetrical in relation to the only axis of symmetry that the whole building has, and which runs from west to east. The whole building is symmetrical in relation to this west-east direction, so that the capital of the second and third column is not a geometric repetition of the first column, but the capitals are progressive, metamorphosing forms from the first to the seventh column, and only this column is symmetrical with this one, the second with the second here and so on, so only symmetrical in relation to the one axis of symmetry. The rest in the course of this axis of symmetry is perceived in organically progressive transformation.

The next picture (Fig. 21): Here is an average in accordance with the axis of symmetry. Here are the storerooms, the stage rooms, the smaller domed room, the large domed room, here is the floor of the auditorium rising, here the entrance, here then the anteroom, here you come in, put your things down here, here is the staircase. You come into the anteroom here and go into the auditorium under the organ here.

The next picture (Figure 22): Here I have taken the liberty of showing you the model, cut in the same section as the one I have just shown you. This is the first model of the structure, which I made in Dornach during the winter of 1913–1914, partly out of wood and partly out of wax. The structure was then built according to this model. The model contains the essential building idea.

The next picture (Fig. 10): Here we have the west portal, the main entrance, seen in more detail.

The next picture (Fig. 12) shows a detail. If you approach from the south side, you will see a similar detail here. You saw it earlier at the building itself. But here you see a concrete house, the house of the friend who provided us with the land back then. An attempt has been made to design this house as a concrete mold for the residential building in the style that it must have next to the building.

The next picture (Fig. 13): This is a side wing. You can see here the window forms in more detail, that is, the forms that the main form, which is on the west portal, takes on in metamorphosis. The next picture (Fig. 11): Here is such a metamorphosis of the main form above the west portal at one of the side entrances.

The next image (Fig. 14): Here, isolated so that it can be seen better, is a motif of one of the side entrances, and the concrete walkway, a gallery, a terrace.

The next picture (Fig. 23): Imagine, dear attendees, that you have now gone down through the gate in the concrete building that I have often pointed out to you. You enter; here are the stairs leading up to the auditorium, here is the stairwell. You see, I have dared to replace the usual pillars or columns with something that is organically designed, and in such a way that, artistically speaking, it can only be in the overall organism of the building as it is, tapering outwards with reference to its curves towards the gate, where it has little to bear, bracing itself here, as a muscle braces itself where it has to bear, because here the whole weight of the building rests. But it was not attempted to make it out of thoughts, so that one can say that something is meant to express something. It does not express anything other than, for example, the human thigh expresses in its architectural structure. It expresses itself, that is, what it is for the organism as a whole. And one must have the feeling that it cannot be otherwise.

Of course, when people with habitual ways of thinking approach something like this, their desire to ridicule is stirred up. And since they can usually only think in a naturalistic way, they don't really know what to imagine by it. It seems organic to them, but they can only imagine the organic in naturalistic terms, as an imitation. Then along came an obviously very clever critic who noticed, as it seems, that it represents a certain strength. It has to bear weight, it has to represent a certain strength. But since he can only think in naturalistic terms, an elephant's foot occurred to him. But then again, it seems to him that something of an artistic-critical conscience has arisen, and he felt that it does not look like an elephant's foot. But now he already has this idea of the elephant's foot, it was already on his mind. He thought, but it must be an elephant foot. But now it was not as thick and clumsy as an elephant foot, and he thought it was rachitic, and now, in order to do justice to both these impressions, he said it was a “rachitic elephant foot”.

The next picture (Fig. 24): You see, at this point I felt how it must be for someone who enters our auditorium via these stairs. They must, so to speak, receive the feeling that Inside, my spiritual powers will be balanced by spiritual insight. Now, the whole feeling was realized for me in such a way that I had to make three such perpendicular forms, which stand perpendicular in the three directions of space. Believe it or not, it is still true: only when I had already done it in this way, when I had the model, did it occur to me that it reminds me of the three semicircular canals that are perpendicular in the ear and that, when injured, cause people to faint. One must unite one's own experiences of the soul with the sense of the creative forces of nature, then one discovers things that are by no means – I must keep saying it – symbolic or allegorical, but that come entirely from artistic feeling and yet have an inner necessity in themselves.

It is true that I actually prefer it when what I say about the building tonight is not expressed at all, but only felt when looking at the building, because the building should speak for itself. I don't really like talking about the building the way I am doing tonight. But not everyone can see the building over and over again; in art, one speaks of artistic works, and so perhaps one may try to talk about the building through a surrogate.

The next picture (Fig. 23): you can see here the staircase that was only hinted at there, here the form just discussed, here the “rachitic elephant foot”. You can see here, for example, this curve. I hope that whoever enters the building will feel the necessity of these forms at this point from the sense and view of the entire building.

The next picture (Fig. 26): Here you see a concrete mold – formed out of the wood above, it is somewhat different – for a radiator cover. This is also a form that arises from the feeling of saying to yourself, what do I have to put in front of a radiator, which grows out of nature like an organic thing, but which does not bring it to life, only the conclusion is for a radiator.

The next picture (Fig. 27): Now we have gone up the stairs and are here in the anteroom, which is only the anteroom, which is already quite in the area of timber construction. Here you see a column, and quite distinct from the sense of space in this place, you see this one column capital with its various curves, which reach out in the most diverse ways in the most varied directions in space, formed out of the sense of space itself. When you come to Dornach, I would ask you to see that in this room which is perhaps most clearly visible because it is the simplest. You will see that the whole thing is carved out of wood and it must be said again and again wherever there is an opportunity, that friends have devotedly worked for many years to bring about this building, because all of it is carved by hand after very crude carpentry work, all of it is carved by hand by our friends themselves, including this wall, which is individually designed in a variety of curves in different directions.

What I would particularly ask you to see is precisely the treatment of the wall. The whole building idea of Dornach resulted from the fact that the wall had to be conceived differently than one has been accustomed to, always thinking of walls. Walls are something final and limiting for the old architectural styles. Here they are not, here the thought should not arise: when you are inside the Dornach building, you are in a closed room. This thought should not arise. You come in and you should feel all the walls as if they were designed in an artistic way that actually makes the walls artistically transparent, so that you feel inside as if the wall does not close you off, but through its own form, which artistically makes the wall transparent, connects you with all the secrets of the macrocosm, allows you to look out, to look out inwardly, spiritually and soulfully into the vastness of the world.

The next picture (Fig. 28): We have entered through the space below the organ, are standing in the auditorium, looking back and see here, somewhat elevated, the organ space.

The next picture (Fig. 30): But this is not yet the finished organ motif, rather it is the model, which you can see here is still unfinished. The framing of the organ should also be developed in such a way that one has the feeling that the organ has not been placed in some corner or on some side, but that one has the feeling that the organ grows out of the whole organic structure as a necessary element. This motif would then have to be added later, in keeping with the height of the organ pipes. That was the first wax-wood model.

The next picture (Fig. 29): Here is the organ motif, here you enter. This is directly above the organ. These are the two columns to the right and left of the axis of symmetry. There you can see the sequence of columns. This sequence of columns with the architrave-like structure above it, I was already able to show in the first model earlier. But here I may draw attention to the fact that you see here the simplest capital motif; now the following capital motif is somewhat more complicated, the third again more complicated and so on. It is the case that the same formative forces, the same formative maxims that can be seen in nature, ascending the plant stem, metamorphosing the leaves, are at work here. The leaves are outwardly different in shape, but inwardly, in the sense of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis, they are ideally or spiritually the same.

If you now feel this form, descending, this ascending, but not in thought, but in artistic contemplation, and then connect with the creative forces of nature in such a way that you can really can deduce one from the other in the same way that the next plant leaf, which is shaped differently, emerges from the previous one, then you get these following forms; but, as I said, they are meant artistically. And it follows from this that it is actually of no particular value to focus attention on only one capital; what is important is that each capital emerges from the one that precedes it. For it is precisely this living transformation of one into the other that brings life to the building. And the same applies to the architraves.

I might say that you make some astonishing artistic discoveries. When I had designed the capitals according to the same principles as the advancing bases and architraves, I was able to follow a line of development. The idea of development has become a central tenet of modern knowledge. But one has – just look at this in the works of Herbert Spencer or others who have developed the idea of development in an abstract form, not in an inwardly living form – one has always believed that development progresses in such a way that first there is the primitive, simple form, then comes the complicated and so on and more and more complicated, and the last form is the most complicated. You can think that up if you think abstractly, but you can't express it artistically. If you express it artistically, the most complicated form is in the middle, then it becomes simpler again. One is simply pushed by artistic feeling to ascend to a middle most complicated form, and then to pass into the simpler one.

Then, however, one comes to realize that nature itself does it that way. The human eye is indeed the most perfect in the series of living beings, but not the most complicated. In its simplification, it no longer has the organs, for example, the fan and the xiphoid process, which are found in certain animals that have less perfect but more complicated intermediate forms of eyes. That is what I would particularly like to emphasize here.

Nebulous mystics, people who want to ramble on about everything, naturally ask: Why are there seven pillars on each side? There is no other answer to that than: Why are there seven colors in the rainbow, seven tones and the octave as a repetition of the prime in the tone scale? It is an inner necessity. And precisely when one feels this inner necessity quite objectively, then one does not lapse into nebulous mysticism. That something was done in nebulous mysticism in the Dornach building is simply a calumny.

The next picture (Fig. 33): Here I present to you – here the organ motif – the two first forms, the simplest with the architrave motifs above them. I will now show the following in such a way that I always show a column, then this column together with the next, then the next in turn together with the next, and so on, so that you can see how the lively sense of progression from one column capital to the next and from one architrave motif to the next takes place.

The next picture (Fig. 34): Here, then, the first column, isolated, leaning down, rising up, but the whole thing sensed in its polyhedral spherical form.

The next picture (Fig. 35): The first and second columns, progressing from a simpler motif to a more complicated one, as well as with the motifs above them.

The next picture (Fig. 36): The next is the second column by itself. The next picture (Fig. 37): The second and third columns continue. The next picture (Fig. 38): The third column by itself.

The next picture (Fig. 39): the third and fourth columns. It is becoming even more complicated, and from these motifs one gets one such that any observer will believe that it was actually conceived as a single entity. However much it may seem familiar to you, if you have heard anything about mysticism – I hope not in a mystically nebulous way – it is simply obtained here by a metamorphic transformation of this motif. You can see it here, I would say, already in the forms.

The next picture (Fig. 40): This is the column still by itself, which was the fourth here.

The next picture (Fig. 41): Here you have the column that we just had. From this, then, by simply letting this motif continue to grow through metamorphosis, not by actually only developing this motif, this motif emerges. I believe that someone who had formed this concept intellectually, not emotionally, would have placed the same motif here [on the architrave above the fourth column] over the motif [on the fifth capital]. This did not occur to me because here [on the capital] I am dealing with columns in which the motifs that enclose a polyhedral shape can be felt. These motifs arise differently than those [of the architraves], where the surfaces are mounted; there they are distributed differently in space, and can only be understood from a sense of space.

The next image (Fig. 42): This [fifth] column on its own. It looks like a caduceus, but is simply the metamorphosis of the previous chapter.

The next picture (Fig. 43): This column and the one that emerges from its metamorphosis. When you have arrived at this most complicated one, the motif simply wants to become simpler again. It discards certain complications, it becomes more perfect, but simpler.

The next image (Fig. 44): This is the [sixth] column capital by itself.

The next picture (Fig. 45): So it has jumped over from one side to the other, it is this motif and then it becomes this through transformation.

The next picture (Fig. 46): This is the last motif.

The next picture (Fig. 47): Here you have the last column of the auditorium, here is the slit between the auditorium and the stage, here is the first stage column. Here you can see into the stage area. Here is the dome of the stage area seen from the inside. It is still equipped with scaffolding. It is under construction.

The next image (Fig. 48): I will now take the liberty of showing the metamorphosis of the pedestal figures in quick succession, so that it does not take us too long. You will see how one pedestal motif – for the columns of the auditorium – develops into the other.

The next picture (Fig. 49): So it gets more complicated. The next picture (Fig. 50): The third pedestal.

The next picture (Fig. 51): Next picture. The metamorphosis advances in this way. It is always the case with this metamorphosis, when it is felt through, that it tends to slope downwards again and new forms arise, expanding. The necessity for further development can only be felt artistically, not speculated upon.

The next picture (Fig. 52): The fifth base motif. The next picture (Fig. 53): The sixth motif. The next picture (Fig. 54). The seventh motif.

The next picture (Fig. 55): Here you can see into the stage area from the auditorium. This is the painting of the small dome, below it the stage area. The auditorium would then be here. You can see here into the small stage area from the auditorium facing east. This is the end of the auditorium. It is a motif; here the auditorium, then comes the curtain, which then belongs to the small stage area. It is the conclusion to the east. Below it will be the nine-and-a-half-meter-high wooden group, which I will talk about later, covered here by a wooden roof, which, in its various forms, synthesizes everything that is distributed over the other forms of the capitals and architraves.

I would also like to show some columns from the small domed room, i.e. the stage area. These columns are made according to the same principle, but because of the small size of the room, because of the whole complex, the capital forms are different again, but they are asymmetrical in relation to the west-east axis.

The next picture (Fig. 58): Another column from the small domed room. The next picture (Fig. 59): Yet another. The next picture (Fig. 60): Yet another.

The next image (Fig. 57): Once again, the view from the auditorium into the small domed room. Here are the columns of the stage area. Performances will take place here. I have redesigned the bases of these columns in the small domed room as twelve seats. This was possible because this room can also be used as a meeting room. And because a meeting of twelve people was not intended to be mystical, but arose from the overall architecture.

The next picture (Fig. 67): Here you can see what I just called the roofing. The columns of the small domed room would be here. Carved out of the wooden wall in various forms, these forms synthetically summarize the others. Below that is the nine-and-a-half-meter-high wooden group (Fig. 93).

Now I come to the painting of the small dome. In this small dome, what must be aimed for in painting is gradually, perhaps, already achieved, despite all imperfections, not in the sense of artistic perfection, but in the sense of artistic intention. In one of my mystery dramas, I have a character suggest how painting should actually develop, so that gradually one no longer seeks the pictorial motif from the drawing, from the forms, but that one seeks it from the color and color harmony. That is how I had the character express it, that “form becomes the work of color”.

Now, since everything depends on the color in this painting of the small dome, it cannot be shown in these black-and-white afterimages, what is meant. But I think you can gain something from the fact that you might feel that something is wrong with these reproductions, that what you see is actually nonsense. And this feeling that it is actually nonsense is just an expression of the fact that one actually feels the necessity, it must be created from the color everywhere. And the human form, no matter how individualized it is, is thoroughly felt from the color.

The next picture (Fig. 72): Here this child, which – here would be the first column, the other column of the auditorium here, here the curtain, here this orange-reddish-yellowish child painted – which stretches out its hands and its gaze towards this fist figure [Fig. 70]. Of course one can see a fist-like figure; but for the person painting, what matters is the blue bruise and how it relates to the other spots, that is, to the orange-yellow spots and so on. The colors represent a whole world, a cosmos in itself, with something creative in it; one can extract the form from what the colors speak to one another in the universe. It is the conversation of color, the color word, the creative color word. If one really feels all this artistically, then, just as the world is rightly described as emerging from the word, human, superhuman, and subhuman figures arise from color as it intensifies into the color word.

The next picture (Fig. 70): This is where the child would be, here the only word in the entire structure, here a kind of fist figure emerging out of the blue. As I said, the feeling arises from the color, and we are transported to the sixteenth century, to the culture of the sixteenth century. It is the dawning of that culture which we ourselves still carry within us in our spiritual life, the culture that rushes towards abstract knowledge. Those who do not experience it as it is largely experienced today by people, but who experience it with the whole, with the whole human being, feel the Faustian struggle within our modern knowledge. This Faustian struggle has led to the fact that only in recent times has man come to the full feeling of the I, and now of the unformed, inartistically written I, which is experienced darkly within. What can be borne is only that which one has in knowledge, when one feels it out of the fullness of the human being in the proximity of the child; for that which we will see in a moment, what is painted here, is linked from the brownish blackness below the fist, it is linked to the danger of modern knowledge for those who feel from the fullness, it is linked to death, because our knowledge only delivers the dead to us. And whoever not only thinks through theoretically, but inwardly experiences that our concepts themselves are corpses as concepts, always feels death standing beside him out of the Faustian striving, and so he longs for birth, which shows itself on the other side in the child.

The next picture (Fig. 71): Below Faust – here it would be Faust – [Death] is taken out of the black-brownish area.

The next picture (Fig. 73): Here the fist figure is merged out of the blue as a larger area, here the child, stretching out its hands, arms, and gaze, with Death below. Above it, a kind of inspirer, as these figures, which have been tried to be created out of colors, always represent - one can feel that, it is always initiated quite instinctively from the color harmony - the initiates, who receive the secrets of the world from inspirers. Here, then, is Faust, and above him is his inspirer.

The next picture (Fig. 74): This is the inspirer of Faust; below it, Faust would be taken out of the blue, yellowish, reddish colors.

The next image (Fig. 75): A Greek figure as you go further into the dome. Here there would be Faust with his inspirer, here a Greek figure with the inspirer above.

The next picture (Fig. 76): The inspirer; yellow and yellowish-white, sunny like an Apollo countenance, here below somewhat like an Athena countenance; but all this is drawn from the color word.

The next picture (Fig. 77): These are inspirers, spiritual beings that do not incarnate in the flesh, but who have an inspiring effect on those who live on earth in the flesh as human beings.

The next image (Fig. 78): An Egyptian person, inspired by the two preceding ones. An Egyptian initiate, brought out of the brownish-bluish-blackish coloration.

The next picture (Fig. 79): We are moving more and more towards the east, towards the center of the dome, so to speak. Here below is a type of human being that lived as an intellectual being in the whole zone from Persia north of the Black Sea in ancient times, and then developed in Central Europe in the Germanic being; here, in the arms of the child, is the aging human being who carries within himself the memory of the boy.

The ambivalence, the dualism that manifests itself in the Germanic nature when it becomes knowledge, reveals itself, precisely in this Germanic nature, always reveals itself by confronting powers: the Luciferic, which you see here, taken out of the yellowish-reddish, the Ahrimanic taken out of the brownish-yellowish. The Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, we shall see again later in the central figure, they are the two essential ingredients of the human being. Man can only be understood as a kind of state of equilibrium, which must be continually striven for, but which is continually in danger of falling out of itself, of falling towards what would present itself on one side, and on the other side, if the extremes were to develop one-sidedly. This is what man would be like if he had only a heart and no intellect. Then the rest of the human form would adapt to what the heart makes of the human being. This is how man would look if he only had reason and no heart: the Ahrimanic, ossified in himself.

This secret of human existence can be expressed in three ways: physically, psychologically and spiritually. In the luciferic form, which man does not become, but which he contains latently within him, towards which he always strives as towards one side of his nature, what is expressed is that which develops into pleurisy, which constantly places man in danger of fever. On the other hand, man carries within himself the forces of aging; he is always in danger; in morbid cases he succumbs to the physiological pathology of sclerosis, calcification. Between these two states man lives.

Here dualism is depicted, as it does not yet extend to the complete interpenetration of forms, in a kind of physiology that extends down to the animal kingdom, a kind of centaur. But then, something like this has been done before. I have just tried to reproduce the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson in these figures, so that what is contemporary, what was particularly annoying in this period, is also immortalized to some extent.

The next picture (Fig. 81): Here we see the ahrimanic figure just discussed; that is, what the human being tends towards: physiologically in sclerosis, in calcification; psychologically, it is all that in man tends towards pedantry, towards moral intellectualism, and so on; spiritually, all that is actually most alive when man awakens and returns to his physical being.

The next picture (Fig. 82): the Luciferic figure all to itself. I have just discussed it physiologically. The psychic — that which drives people to enthusiasm, to wanting to go beyond themselves with their heads, so to speak, to falling into mysticism, into false theosophy — is something that can be found particularly in mystics and mystical societies. People are often in this mood of enthusiasm, of soulfulness, so that they are always half a meter above their physical head with their soul head, and with a certain inner arrogance - I have already spoken of this - they would then like to look down on their fellow human beings. Spiritually, this is the human being in the moment of falling asleep, of dreaming. These forces, to which the human being tends one-sidedly, are strongest in the moment of falling asleep, while the others, the Ahrimanic ones, are strongest in the moment of waking up.

The next picture (Fig. 82): The Germanic initiator, above him Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. He is holding the child by the arm, shining next to his dark figure.

The next picture (Fig. 83): Here we are already quite close to the eastern side of the small dome. Here is the Russian man, who actually always has his own shadow beside him. The one who sees spiritually actually always sees a real Russian twice, because the Russian always has the second man, the other, the double, with him spiritually. This is something that will only develop in the future; now it is rushing towards destruction, devastation and ruin. But out of this terrible devastation, out of this murder of human civilization, the good core of Russian-ness will one day develop. As here the Germanic has been shown, here is the Russian. Here the inspirer, out of the blue.

The next picture (Fig. 84): Here, if you note this point, you will find above the Russian – there is only one, as I said – the inspiring stars, above which there is a kind of cloud that forms the centaur, which, via the stars from the cosmos, stimulates that which is still present in the Russian today in an embryonic state of soul and spirit.

The next picture (Fig. 85): I will show you that from the other side in a moment. So over here [far right of the image] would be what I have just shown. Here is the actual central motif [directly to the right of the image], and here is the same inspiring angel from the north side; but it is created out of the orange and then, accordingly, this centaur figure. Below, there is again the one Russian who appears in two.

The next picture (Fig. 86): We are now in the middle. Here you see the Russian and here the inspiring blue angel and here the orange one, here in the middle the representative of humanity. Those who feel can feel the Christ in him. He stands there as the representative of human equilibrium; from his right side he sends out the rays of love, which, like serpents, entwine the ahrimanic form – that is, the sclerotic, pedantic, materialistic-intellectual human being; here above is the luciferic figure, which is physiologically, psychologically and spiritually what I have indicated.

This will be in the far east. This is painted on the inside of the dome, and below it, though differently designed, as it must be for the sculpture, is the nine-and-a-half-meter-high wooden group, which also has the Representative of Humanity in the center, who brings balance between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic.

It so happened that the famous and influential Frohnmeyer wrote a pamphlet, a defamatory pamphlet about anthroposophy, and in this pamphlet he makes the monstrous claim that “when one comes to Dornach, one can see, as Steiner claims, that this is what the Christ looked like in objective reality.” I don't say to anyone else that I see him that way and don't impose him dogmatically on anyone, but I could only shape him as I saw him, he is the one who walked in Palestine according to my vision. Above that is the Luciferic-Ahrimanic.

Frohnmeyer now says that he depicts a Christ there as objective, who has Luciferian traits above and animalistic traits below. He [supposedly] saw it that way. Lucifer is above, the Christ is shaped entirely humanly, below is Ahriman, here is still a piece of wood, it is not yet finished in the wood. But someone writes it down who doesn't feel the slightest obligation to research the truth, just as in the other case, as Mr. Kolisko told it today, someone writes down the objective untruth and then apologizes by saying that he didn't have time to research the truth.

Pastor Frohnmeyer was confronted with the matter. He then said that he had not seen it himself, but had copied it from another pastor, and since it had already appeared a long time ago, he simply believed he could copy it. We did, in fact, send a correction from Dornach, but it was not included. This is how things are spread today; it is the level of conscientiousness with which people work today. But one must keep saying: what should a theology look like that is shaped only in this way? The person in question was also a lecturer at the University of Basel.

The next picture (Fig. 87): the figure of Lucifer in itself – here the figure of Christ would be underneath – this has been brought out of the red.

The next picture (Fig. 88): the Ahrimanic figure by itself. You see here the head, which is as it should be in a being that has only intellect and no powers of the heart.

The next picture (Fig. 90): the painted representative of humanity, the Christ.

The next picture (Fig. 91): Here is my original model of the plastic Christ, seen in profile, who is thus a wooden figure. And in the middle again this Representative of Humanity; above it, repeated twice, the Luciferic figure; below it, twice, the Ahrimanic figure. And then, on the side, an elemental being growing out of the rock, which I will show you in illustrations so that you can see how asymmetry has been attempted in the Dornach sculpture. The next picture (Fig. 92) is my original model for the Christ of the wooden figure. The asymmetry is taken so far that, because the left arm is directed upwards and the right downwards, and the whole figure, not just the face, should have physiognomy, the whole figure should be soul, that the held-up arm on the left corresponds to the forehead, and the held-down arm corresponds to the forehead. This asymmetry, which is only subtly hinted at in humans, has been attempted here. Such things had to be dared because the sensual should not be imitated, but on the contrary, the spiritual, concrete [forming] behind the sensual should be observed, which underlies the sensual formation.

The next picture (Fig. 98): This is a piece [of the execution model]. Here would be Christ. Here is Lucifer, who aspires to the right hand of Christ. Here is this being, growing out of the rock as an elementary being in complete asymmetry. You see, here it is attempted to overcome the usual way of composing. Usually, one composes figures that one puts together. Here, the whole group, which consists of a series of figures, is conceived as a unit, and the individual figures are taken out of the whole down to their fingers, noses, eyes and eyebrows, so that, of course, when the left is at the top, an asymmetry results, but one that is taken from the life of the whole.

The next picture (Fig. 101): once again the striving Lucifer. Here would be the second Luciferian figure, here the Christ figure.

The next picture (Fig. 99): This is my original Ahriman-Mephistopheles model. Mephistopheles is, of course, only a later metamorphosis of Ahriman, who signifies physiologically, psychologically and spiritually what I have said. This model underlies all the Ahriman figures. It was originally designed by me for the wood group in 1915.

The next picture (Fig. 106): Now I come back to showing you this heating house, here in profile, so to speak, since I have already told you how it came about. It is often perceived as annoying; but people do not consider what would be there if one had not tried to shape something out of the concrete material, out of this brittle material, which might be more perfect later on. There would be a red chimney here! I wonder if it would be more beautiful in reality.

The next picture (Fig. 107): the boiler house, seen from the front. As I said, it is only when the smoke comes out that you feel a certain necessity for these outgrowths.

The next picture (Fig. 103): This is the house that was built nearby, the glass house that is now used as a construction office. Some eurythmy practice rooms are inside. It had to be built originally because the glass windows for the building were cut inside it. These glass windows came about in such a way that what is otherwise only artistically executed – that the wall is artistically transparent – is formed in these glass windows right down to the physical level. The motif that had been specified was engraved with a diamond pencil from monochrome glass panes by friends who worked on it for years with tremendous dedication and devotion. This had to be done first in this house. The glass panes are large and a separate studio building had to be erected for this purpose. But it is designed entirely in the style of the whole. Two domes, standing apart from each other, determine the very different shape of the building up to the gate; the whole asymmetry, so down to the stairs, everything is individualized. Those who come here will see that the lock and the door handle are individually designed.

The next picture (Fig. 104): the gate lifted out. The staircase individualized so that it can only be as it is at this location. Here (Fig. 105) the lock, which also returns in various metamorphoses on the building, then the gate.

The next picture (Fig. 112): Here you see a sample of windows, engraved out of a [same-colored] glass pane. One could allegorize and symbolize many things from these colors; but what the person who feels the matter artistically likes best is to simply stand in front of it and let this whole interplay of the light color tone with the dark color tone take effect on them because the interplay – the glass panes are, after all, arranged in succession in different colors – this entire play of colors undulates in the building, but in such a way that it does not make anyone nervous, but on the contrary = as has been attempted – has a healing effect.

The next picture (Fig. 110): other motifs. Such Ahrimanic figures, scratched out.

Now, dear attendees, that was what I took the liberty of bringing to you as a single image from this Goetheanum in Dornach. It is precisely the place where we should find the center of what has been cultivated here for a week, through this week, which was actually dedicated to Goethe's name, Goethe's essence and Goethe's work. And everything that the Goetheanum stands for should be dedicated to this. Perhaps it will have emerged from what I dared to say in the course of these discussions, that what wants to come before the world in anthroposophy can work both artistically and cognitively.

Unfortunately, we are not yet finished; a great deal of effort and, in particular, a great deal of sacrifice from our friends is still needed; unfortunately, it cannot come from the central states at the moment because of the currency difficulties. The sacrifice of other friends is needed if the building is to be completed. It cannot be completed otherwise than by this spirit of sacrifice being renewed. But it must be said that for a long time this spirit of sacrifice has been revealed in the most beautiful, significant and understanding way for Dornach. And from the feeling of the cultural significance of our cause, we cannot thank enough – I would say, from the genius of this anthroposophical sense, we cannot thank enough – those who have been able to possess this spirit of sacrifice. May it continue to exist so that Dornach does not remain a torso, but can be completed.

In the past week, a worthy and beautiful contribution has been made by our friends in Stuttgart and those who have joined them, and this is also intended to serve Dornach; and since I do not belong to the organizing committee, but am only an invited guest, it will not out of place if I also include myself – one knows how much effort a congress committee has, how it has to consider all the details and the big picture and prepare them over a long period of time – to express my heartfelt thanks to this committee, even now that we are at the end of this event.

And then, we must indeed consider, my dear attendees, what calls are going out into the world today. Everywhere we hear, in the broadest circles, the ethical needs - if only in words - of what, in deepest reality, spiritual science wants to bring to the world. Do we not hear everywhere the yearning and speak of world brotherhood, which is to come about through all kinds of world covenants in the most diverse areas of life, but unfortunately out of the old? World brotherhood is sought; it is believed that this or that external event could lead to it.

But, my dear attendees, this world brotherhood cannot be found unless one has the deepest conviction that it actually exists, but is hidden for our time in the deepest subconscious depths of the human soul. But that is where it must be sought. That which is in the depths of the human soul must be sought and realized in the outer life, in social life. Then there will be world brotherhood, then this world brotherhood will be able to create the outer institutions that belong to it. But this world brotherhood cannot be brought about through external institutions. This world brotherhood, however, can only be found if man searches his deepest inner being in the spirit, at the point where his own being is bound together with the world spirit.

Knowledge and art, so they should arise from anthroposophical attitude and anthroposophical insight, as we tried to show in this week. Then, when knowledge and art emerge from human spirituality, which experiences world spirituality within itself, then this experience will also be a deeply religious one, one that will arise in man, entirely in the spirit of Goetheanism, that Goetheanism that sought in Goethe himself the harmony of the three most ideal fruits of life: science, art and religion.

If these fruits of life are there, then social life can also flourish for the benefit of humanity. If we speak less of the religious, it is perhaps precisely out of true religious experience, out of that religious experience that arises when science is sought in a spiritual way, art in a spiritual way.

And in this sense, esteemed attendees, the conclusion may well sound as the beginning sounded! Our dear friend Uehli began with Goethe, and may this event end with Goethe, with his words, through which he expressed his attitude towards science, art and religion; for he said what can also be our motto, which only must be developed further, in accordance with the insight that we do not have before us the Goethe who died in 1832, but the one who has developed with the world, whom we want to serve with his further education and development. But as a shining motto, everything that comes out of this work in the spirit of Goetheanism will be able to draw on what lies in his words, with which this event should come to an end:

He who possesses science and art also has religion
He who does not possess both, may have religion