The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1909 was the year when Rudolf Steiner published Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment and completed An Outline of Occult Science, the sequel to his important book Theosophy, which had appeared in 1904. These three works, along with the earlier The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894), contain the nucleus of Steiner's anthroposophical thought.

The eleven lectures translated in this book were also given in 1909 and have been taken from the first half of a volume of lectures published in German under the title Das Prinzip der spirituellen Ökonomie im Zusammenhang mit Wiederverkörperungsfragen. Ein Aspekt der geistigen Führung der Menschheit (Rudolf Steiner Verlag: Dornach, Switzerland, 1979). The titles of this German volume and its component lectures are not by Rudolf Steiner but were assigned later on the basis of expressions used by him. Inasmuch as individual lectures in the German language have been published individually, their titles go back to the Complete Edition (CE) of Steiner's works begun by Marie Steiner. Steiner himself first spoke about the “principle of spiritual economy” in Berlin in 1908 when he was already working on his book An Outline of Occult Science.

The theme “spiritual economy” is directly related to Steiner's investigations about “the spiritual guidance of human beings and humanity” and later lectures dealing with karma. The eleven lectures translated in this book and the ten lectures translated and published under the title Esoteric Rosicrucianism (Anthroposophic Press: Spring Valley, N.Y., 1978) occupy a special place in Rudolf Steiner's work because the aspect stressed in the two volumes is not presented in this fashion elsewhere in the Complete Edition.

The Anthroposophical Society was founded as a separate organization in 1912, but Steiner did not actively guide it until 1923, two years before his death. At the time when the following lectures were given, Rudolf Steiner was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society and was using the terms “theosophy” and “theosophical,” but always in the sense of the anthroposophical spiritual science presented by him from the beginning. He suggested later that these designations be replaced by “anthroposophy,” “spiritual science,” “ anthroposophical,” or “spiritual scientific.”

As the excerpt from his autobiography printed at the end of this book indicates, Rudolf Steiner directed his lectures largely to individuals who were somewhat familiar with the rudiments of anthroposphical teachings and who joined him in the struggle and labor. Then, as he listened “to the pulsations in the soul-life of the members,” the form of a lecture began to emerge. This process—admirable in itself—is problematic for the translator of Steiner's lectures because the style, syntax, and choice of words were intended to involve the souls of a listening, and not a reading, audience in a process of discovery.

Another problem facing the translator is the fact that most of the lectures collected were originally transcribed from Steiner's shorthand notes by different individuals and that the quality or completeness of these transcriptions differs considerably. Most can be considered nearly literal transcriptions of the spoken word, but in this book there seems to be gaps in the fourth, fifth, and ninth lectures. The reader should take into consideration that these three lectures were extracted from lecture cycles whose transcription was of insufficient quality to warrant their publication as a whole. The three seemingly incomplete lectures mentioned above were included in the present collection because they contain important details relevant to the subject matter and are not mentioned in other lectures. Finally, although the sixth lecture, given at the dedication ceremony of the Francis of Assisi Branch, seems repetitive and somewhat tedious, it too offers insights that add to the understanding of the theme.

Given these special circumstances I have tried to grasp the connotative quality of words, phrases, and sentences as Steiner used them in his probing, searching manner and render them in an English form that is simultaneously comprehensible and suggestive to a modern American speaker. Ultimately, however, such an attempt must not be considered more than an approximation of the author's original sense and a confirmation of Wilhelm von Humbolt's dictum that “all understanding is also a misunderstanding.”

The translation of some words in this book may require an explanation. Throughout the eleven lectures I have endeavored to translate the German word Mensch, which has a masculine grammatical gender, not with “man” and in the plural with “men,” but with “human being,” choosing “human beings” when the repeated use of the reflexive pronouns “himself” and “herself” would seem awkward. I employed this practice in deference to modern female readers and because I wanted to dispel even the slightest hint of a mistaken notion arising from the use of “man” or “men” that human evolution and the reincarnation of the human soul applies primarily to males. One of the few exceptions to this practice is the rendering of Geistesmensch or Geistmensch as “spirit man,” because “spirit human being” would sound awkward.

I capitalized Spiritual Science, an approximation of the German word Geisteswissenschaft, because I wanted to give the term greater prominence in a text that abounds with words related to spirit and because I consider it a proper noun that designates systematic anthroposophical thought and spiritual activity. At no place in the lectures does Rudolf Steiner use the word Geisteswissenschaft in its more widely known academic meaning of “humanities” or “liberal arts.”

Furthermore, I rendered Ätherleib as “etheric body,” rather than the “ether body” preferred by some translators because the word “ether” may conjure up distracting connotations in the minds of some and also because adjectival consistency of the term with the related concepts “physical” and “astral” (body) seemed to be desirable. On the other hand, I was reluctant to, but finally did, choose “ego” for German Ich, which in English can mean “I” or “self.” Steiner once described the ego as “that which says ‘I’ to itself,” but once, in the first lecture of the present book, he uses both Ich and “ego” to designate the same entity in different physical bodies. I felt that even though the current use of “ego" in psychology and popular speech can conjure up imprecise and misleading feelings, it is nevertheless a term to which many modern American readers ascribe a soul quality. Whenever Steiner uses the word Ich, which I have rendered in these lectures with “ego,” it should be understood to mean the fourth body or principle with which the human being has been endowed—the other three being the physical, the etheric, and the astral bodies.

The few footnotes that were deemed necessary to provide some background information to the reader not familiar with certain historical personalities or contexts have been placed at the end of the book. Although I am sympathetic to the argument that the constant flipping of pages in search of a footnote can be distracting, I felt that the overriding concern should be that the reader gets a sense of the uninterrupted flow of thoughts with which Rudolf Steiner managed to involve his audience in the substance and dynamics of his presentations.

The lectures presented in this book touch on the very core of Rudolf Steiner's teachings and visions, according to which four basic facts govern human evolution from prehistoric times to the present. First, humanity has evolved as a result of the dialectics between forces and counterforces in the spiritual world. Second, earthly lives are repeated in a variety of spiritual ways, and valuable components are preserved for later use. Third, evolutionary forces have changed human consciousness, and new soul qualities are developed at certain intervals. Finally, the Mystery of Golgotha is the centerpiece of human evolution, but the influence of Christ-Impulse was manifest long before the birth of Jesus and can be observed in individualities such as Buddha, Zarathustra, and Moses.

Anthroposophy is not a religion—it goes beyond that—but its totality is subsumed under Rudolf Steiner's Christology. The reader will encounter recurring questions in these lectures—sometimes in a fresh combination, sometimes in a slightly different context, always thought provoking. For example, What is Spiritual Science and what can it do for us? What is human thought from a spiritual scientific point of view? How can it be that the Event at Golgotha is the centerpiece of all human evolution? Who was the Christ from an anthroposphical perspective, and how did the Christ-Impulse evolve? Why do the teachings of Zarathustra and Buddha constitute a transition in human consciousness and what, from an anthroposophical perspective, is the fundamental difference between the Buddhist and the Christian interpretation of life? How has the etheric body of Shem been preserved in all the Hebrew people? In what way does spiritual economy provide for certain etheric and astral bodies to remain active for the benefit of humanity, and what is the function of an avatar? Finally, why are we in the modern era, destined to undergo the complete unfolding of the ego?

It was Steiner's firm belief that his listeners or readers should never follow the teachings of anthroposophy blindly, but that they would have to struggle to find answers and new questions about the origin and the destiny of humanity. The seriousness of such a struggle gradually gives comfort to the human soul, and it is hoped that reading these lectures will have the same effect.

Peter Mollenhauer
Southern Methodist University

with leading German members and Rudolf Steiner

Minutes by Karl Schubert

Teacher Rudolf Meyer, Berlin, asks whether it would be right to hold the planned international conference in Berlin. He asks Dr. Steiner for guidelines.

Dr. Steiner: Is it necessary that we allow a change to occur through the catastrophe, other than that we are even more zealous than we were? I think this misfortune is something that happened independently of us, so we don't need to think about how we should do things differently than we have done so far. The only question that arises is: how will the building be rebuilt? I cannot imagine that the working method outside should be different.

Rudolf Meyer asks whether the congress should be postponed.

Dr. Steiner: The question is whether there is a possibility of achieving something on an international scale. It is questionable whether the international aspect can have any great significance in Berlin. I believe that a congress in Berlin will not be international. Do you have reasons for this other than financial ones? Not many people will come to Berlin from the western and southern countries; it is also not certain whether many people will come from Austria. Therefore, I ask: Do you have a particular interest in the Berlin congress having a truly international character?

Rudolf Meyer answers that Goethe represented a supranational soul and spiritual life.

Dr. Steiner: You won't achieve this by fostering a better understanding of Goethe in Berlin. You'd be better off going somewhere else. Not Berlin. If you talk about it in Berlin, it's likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. Goethe is not a reason to hold an international congress in Berlin. Would the English be receptive if they were invited to Berlin? If you say in Berlin that Goethe is a great man, people will not tolerate it. But if you could say it in Paris! Formally, you can make the congress international, but it would be good not to count on it working. Whether it is a congress or something else is not the point. Such a gathering, if it grasps its task correctly, could be extraordinarily important for Germany, because the Germans have every reason to educate themselves a little. In the 'name' one can allow the internationality to appear; it will hardly be possible to translate this into reality.

Dr. Unger says a few things that are not noted.

Rudolf Meyer: The building in Dornach is going ahead. The German friends will economize in order to make the [mystery] plays possible!

Dr. Steiner: I do not think it is desirable for our German friends to save, because it does not help. No matter how much they save, it means little in Dornach, while it may mean something in Berlin. If the Germans save 30,000,000 marks, that is 17,000 francs.

Dr. Unger: Perhaps we could hold a conference elsewhere.

Dr. Steiner: We lack the strength in the western countries. In Germany we have the personalities, but the conditions are terrible. We hardly have the strength for the western countries that would enable us to hold a conference. The building up of Dornach is much more concrete. The Anthroposophical Society in the western countries needs to be built up before one can think of doing anything. Whether it is financially possible or not, I do not know. A guarantee fund through a collection is a questionable matter. If it does not remain a guarantee fund, it is just a questionable matter. Is it the case that not enough people will come to Berlin in Germany?

Dr. Kolisko: It is hardly possible financially.

Dr. Steiner: If that is the case, then it is difficult to hold a comprehensive conference. Emil Leinhas: Perhaps a conference as a School of Spiritual Science event?

The following spoke: Mrs. Eljakim and Dr. Stein (not noted).

Dr. Steiner: What we might face here is an attempt to actually establish what anthroposophy is in the world. This would consist of the three courses, warmth, optics and astronomy, being further elaborated and this work being made available. Things have developed to such an extent that these courses have been locked away, so that now people are approaching me from all sides and want me to give them permission to read these courses. It would do the necessary work on them. That was intended from the beginning. Things that are defective show themselves in symptoms. For example, a paper by Theberath was announced at a public conference. Theberath did not appear. These things are not acceptable, otherwise the verdict is: What do they want to do with science!

Dr. Stein: You shouldn't have a congress; you have to work first!

Dr. Steiner: But we are working! We have counted how many scientists we have. Surely something very nice can be worked out from that. I have only counted those who are in some position with us. Those who have the opportunity to work experimentally with us have been counted.

Dr. Kolisko: The congress is impossible for financial reasons.

Dr. von Heydebrand: It is difficult to speak publicly in Prussia about 'international' matters.

Rudolf Meyer: It is not in the spirit of our friends in Berlin to hold a congress without Dr. Steiner.

Albert Steffen: There is concern about the lack of security and the possibility of riots. I have been asked to take this into consideration.

Dr. Steiner: This is only a temporary situation. But for me the first question is this: if I give lectures in Germany now, there is such a commotion that the lectures would stop being attended altogether for ever. Naturally, various things have been considered; I myself can do nothing but take aim at the noise. But that is something that will not suffice; above all, because all possible currents are mixed up. One must believe that under the present circumstances, the opposition to anthroposophy will increase immeasurably if things continue like this. There could be no clearer sign of the growth of the opposition than the burning of this building. The opposition grows with each passing week.

The inner consolidation and positivization of the Society would be necessary. It is not enough to criticize the mischief that is happening outside. If one continues to do so, the opposition will only grow. All those ventures that aim to show our opponents their own face only make the opposition more fierce. The opposition has grown because we have made many enemies in response to mere criticism. As long as we do not succeed in consolidating society, these conditions will not change.

Dr. Hahn speaks (not noted).

Dr. Steiner: I have given specific examples of this. They show that it is necessary to intensify the reception of positive anthroposophical work within our society. Things are happening in our society that, if they happened elsewhere, would actually establish something far-reaching: with us, they are allowed to pass by. But if things are treated the way this positive work has been treated, then there is no understanding within our society for what I call the inner consolidation of our society. What has been achieved in society must be recognized by society. Otherwise, it is no wonder that conditions develop as they have developed. We are going around the bush. We have to call a spade a spade!

In principle, a congress in Stockholm, Copenhagen or Kr istiania (Oslo) would be a good thing for anthroposophy, from a purely theoretical point of view. But the question is whether this is financially desirable at the moment, given the current circumstances, when we need to take care of the structure.

However, Dr. von Heydebrand has raised an important question. This question has led me to say that we cannot approach the matter from the rear. It was different when the Anthroposophical Society had a different position. Now we have to take the defense against our opponents seriously; we have to understand that. This understanding is not there. And then one might hear talk about whether something new is needed. One can always talk about what is needed. But one does not think of taking this as an important question, that Theberath announces a lecture and then does not appear. I also mentioned the treatment of Mrs. Kolisko's work. It is not possible to let things go, not to take care of things! This is how we put the movement on a dead track. By dealing with the atomic question, for example, we are putting the matter on a dead track.

The opposition does not slumber. The only way to deal with it is through the positive achievements of society. The fact that scientists have emerged in recent years means that society must begin with what wants to continue outwardly. But if we go about it in such a way that we do not accommodate our own work, we will never consolidate society. It is necessary to create conditions in society itself that make it possible for achievements to support each other. The situation with the Koliskoschen brochure is ruining society.

[ 1 ] Whoever would form a just estimate of Anthroposophy and the relation it bears to the evolution of the Spiritual soul, must look ever and again at the particular constitution of mind among civilized humanity, which began with the rise of the natural sciences and reached its culmination in the nineteenth century.

[ 2 ] Let him but place the peculiar character of this age before his soul's eye, and compare it with that of earlier ages. At all times during mankind's conscious evolution, Knowledge was regarded as being that which brings Man together with the world of Spirit. Whatever a man was in relation to the Spirit, that he ascribed to Knowledge. In Art, as in Religion, Knowledge lived.

[ 3 ] A change came with the first dawning gleams of the Age of Consciousness. Knowledge now began no more to concern itself with a great part of human soul-life. It was bent upon investigating the kind of relation which Man develops towards external existence when he directs his senses and his reasoning mind on to the world of ‘Nature.’ But it refused any longer to concern itself with the relations which Man develops towards the Spirit-world when he makes the same use of his inner faculties of perception as he does of his outer senses.

[ 4 ] Thus it came about of necessity that the spiritual life of Man became linked, not with the Knowing of the present age, but with the Knowledge of past ages—with Tradition.

[ 5 ] A split came into Man's soul-life; it fell into two. Before him was Nature-knowledge on the one side, striving ever further and further afield, unfolding its powers in the actual and living present. On the other side was the inner life, with its feeling-experience of a relation to the Spirit-world that once, in olden times, had been fed from a corresponding fount of knowledge. From this feeling-experience there gradually faded away all understanding as to how, in olden times, the corresponding knowledge had come about. Men possessed the tradition, but no longer the way by which the truths handed down by tradition had been known. They could only believe in the tradition.

[ 6 ] Anyone who considered the spiritual situation with a perfectly calm and luminous mind, about the middle of the nineteenth century, could not but have said to himself: “Humanity has reached a point when the only knowledge which it still thinks itself capable of developing has nothing to do with the spirit. Whatever it is possible to know about the spirit, mankind in former times was able to discover to-day the capacity for such discovery has gone from the human soul.”

[ 7 ] In all its force and bearings, however, people did not place the situation thus clearly before the mind's eye. They confined themselves to saying, “Knowledge simply does not reach to the spiritual world; the spiritual world can only be an object of Faith.”

[ 8 ] It may shed some light on the matter, if we look back into the times when Grecian wisdom was forced to yield place to the Christianized Roman world. When the last schools of Greek Philosophy were closed by the Roman emperor, the last treasures too of ancient spiritual learnings wandered away from the soil on which henceforth the European spirit developed its life and thought. They found connection with the Academy of Gondi Shapur, in Asia. This was one of the places where, owing to the deeds of Alexander, the tradition of the ancient learning had remained preserved in the East. In the form which Aristotle had been able to give it, this ancient learning was still living there.

[ 9 ] It was caught however in the tide of that eastern stream which one may name Arabism. Arabism is, in one aspect of its character, a premature development of the Spiritual Soul. Through a soul-life working prematurely in the direction of the Spiritual Soul, Arabism afforded the opportunity for a spiritual wave to pour itself from Asia through this channel over Africa, Southern Europe, Western Europe,—and so to fill certain members of European humanity with an intellectualism which ought only to have come later. Southern and Western Europe received, in the seventh and eighth centuries, spiritual impulses which should really not have come until the age of the Spiritual Soul.

[ 10 ] This spiritual wave could awaken the intellectual life in Man, but not that deeper level of experience by which the soul enters into the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] And so, when Man was exercising his faculties of knowledge in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, he could only go down to a depth of soul not deep enough for him to light upon the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] The Arabism by which European spiritual life was invaded kept human souls in their life of Knowledge back from the spiritual world. Prematurely, it brought into action that intellect which can only take hold of external Nature.

[ 13 ] And this Arabism proved very powerful. Upon whomsoever it laid its grasp, an inward and for the most part all-unconscious arrogance began to take hold of this person's soul. He felt the power of intellectualism, but did not feel the inability of the mere intellect to penetrate into reality. So he abandoned himself to that external reality which comes of its own accord to men and works upon their senses. He never thought of taking any step towards the spiritual reality.

[ 14 ] This was the situation with which the spiritual life of the Middle Ages was faced. It had inherited the mighty traditions of the spirit-world; but all its soul-life was so steeped in intellectualism through—one might say—the covert influence of Arabism, that knowledge found no access to the sources whence the inherited traditions, after all, drew their substance.

[ 15 ] Thenceforth, from the early Middle Ages on, there was a constant struggle between what was instinctively felt in men's minds as a link with the Spirit, and the form which Thought had assumed under Arabism.

[ 16 ] Men felt within them the world of ideas. To their inner life it was an immediate reality. But they could not find in their souls the power to experience, within the Ideas, the living Spirit.

Thus arose the Realist philosophy, which felt a reality in the Ideas, but could not find this reality. This Realist philosophy heard in the Idea-world the speech of the Cosmic Word, but was not able to understand its language.

[ 17 ] The Nominalist philosophy, on the other hand, contended that since the speech was not understandable it was not there at all. For Nominalism, the world of Ideas was only a collection of formulae in the human soul, without root in any spiritual reality.

[ 18 ] What was here surging in these two opposing currents, lived on into the nineteenth century. Nominalism became the scientific school of thought, for the knowledge of the natural world. From external data of the sense-world it built up a grand conceptual structure, but it reduced to nothing all insight into the inner being of the world of Ideas. ‘Realism’ lived a dead existence. It knew of the reality of the world of Ideas, but could not attain to it in living and perceptive knowledge.

[ 19 ] Men will however attain to it when Anthroposophy finds the way to a living experience of the Spirit in the Ideas. Side by side with the Nominalism of the natural sciences must stand a Realism truly advanced and developed, bringing a way of knowledge which shows that the knowledge of spiritual things has not died out in mankind, but can rise anew from new-opened sources in the human soul, and flow once more through human evolution.

Leading Thoughts

[ 20 ] Anyone who turns the eyes of his soul upon the course of human evolution in the age of Natural Science, is met at first sight by a gloomy prospect. Splendid is the growth of Man's knowledge in respect to all things of the external world. But there comes over him, in return, a peculiar form of consciousness, as though a knowledge of the spiritual world had ceased to be possible at all.

[ 21 ] It seems as though such Knowledge could only have been possessed by men in olden times, and as though with regard to the spiritual world people must simply remain content to accept the old traditions and make them an object of Belief.

[ 22 ] From the resulting uncertainty during the Middle Ages concerning Man's relation to the spiritual world, there arose on the one hand a disbelief in the real spirit-content of Ideas—represented by Nominalism, of which the modern scientific view of Nature is a continuation—and on the other hand, as a knowledge of the reality of Ideas, Realism, which, however can only find its fulfillment in Anthroposophy.

[ 1 ] To gain a true appreciation of Anthroposophy in relation to the development of the Spiritual Soul, we must turn our gaze again and again to the particular mental condition of civilised mankind which began with the blossoming forth of the Natural Sciences and reached its climax in the nineteenth century.

[ 2 ] One should place the character of this age vividly before the soul's eye, comparing it with that of preceding ages. In all ages of the conscious evolution of mankind, Knowledge was regarded as that which brings man to the world of Spirit. To Knowledge, man ascribed whatever relationship to Spirit he possessed. Art and Religion were none other than the living life of Knowledge.

[ 3 ] All this became different when the age of the Spiritual Soul began to dawn. With a very great part of the life of the human soul, Knowledge now concerned itself no more. Henceforth, it sought to investigate that relation to existence which man unfolds when he directs his senses and his intellectual judgement to the world of ‘Nature.’ It no longer wanted to concern itself with that which man unfolds as a relation to the world of Spirit, when he uses—not his outer senses—but his inner power of perception.

[ 4 ] Thus there arose the necessity to connect the spiritual life of man, not with any living present Knowledge, but with Knowledge gained in the past—with Tradition.

[ 5 ] The life of the human soul was rent in twain. On the one hand there stood before man the new science of Nature, striving ever onward and unfolding in the living present. On the other side there was the experience of a relation to the spiritual world, for which the corresponding Knowledge had arisen in the ages past. All understanding of how the Knowledge, corresponding to this side of human experience, had been gained in ages past, was gradually lost. Men possessed the Tradition, but they had lost the way by which the truths of Tradition had been known—discovered. All they could do now was to believe in the Tradition.

[ 6 ] A man who had consciously reflected on the spiritual situation, say about the middle of the nineteenth century, would have been bound to admit: mankind has come to a point where it no longer feels itself capable of evolving any Knowledge, beyond that science which does not concern itself with the Spirit. Whatever can be known about the Spirit, a humanity of earlier ages was able to investigate and discover, but the human soul has lost the faculty for such discovery.

[ 7 ] But men did not place before themselves the full bearing of what was taking place. They were content to say: Knowledge simply does not reach out into the spiritual world. The spiritual world can only be an object of Faith.

[ 8 ] To gain some light upon these facts of modern history, let us look back into the time when the old Grecian wisdom had to retreat before the power of Rome, when Rome had accepted Christianity. When the last Greek Schools of the Philosophers were closed by the Roman Emperor, the last custodians of the ancient Knowledge too departed from the regions in which European spiritual life was henceforth to evolve. They found a haven in the Academy of Gondishapur in Asia, to which they now became attached. This was one of the centres of learning in the East where through the deeds of Alexander the tradition of the ancient Knowledge had been preserved.

[ 9 ] The ancient Knowledge was living on there in the form which Aristotle had been able to give to it. But in the Academy of Gondishapur it was also taken hold of by that Oriental spiritual stream which we may describe as Arabism. Arabism in one aspect of its nature, is a premature unfolding of the Spiritual Soul. Through the soul-life working prematurely in the direction of the Spiritual Soul, the possibility was given in Arabism for a spiritual wave to go forth, extending over Africa to southern and western Europe, and filling certain of the men of Europe with an intellectualism that should not properly have come until a later stage. In the seventh and eighth centuries, southern and western Europe received spiritual impulses which ought to have come only in the age of the Spiritual Soul.

[ 10 ] This spiritual wave was able to awaken the intellectual life in man, but not the deeper founts of experience whereby the soul penetrates into the world of Spirit.

[ 11 ] And now, when in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries man exercised his faculty of Knowledge, he could but reach down to those levels of the soul where he did not yet impinge upon the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] Arabism, entering into the spiritual life of Europe, held back the souls of men, in Knowledge, from the Spirit-world. Prematurely it brought that intellect into activity which was only able to apprehend the outer world of Nature.

[ 13 ] This Arabism proved very powerful indeed. Whosoever was taken hold of by it, was seized by an inward—though for the most part quite unconscious—pride. He felt the power of intellectualism, but not the impotence of intellect by itself to penetrate into Reality. Thus he gave himself up to the externally given Reality of the senses, which places itself before the human being of its own accord. And it did not even occur to him to approach the spiritual Reality.

[ 14 ] The spiritual life of the Middle Ages found itself face to face with this position. It possessed the sublime Traditions about the spiritual world. But the soul-life was intellectually so impregnated by the hidden influence of Arabism, that medieval Knowledge found no access to the sources from which the contents of the great Tradition had after all proceeded.

[ 15 ] Thus from the early Middle Ages onwards, that which men felt instinctively within them as a connection with the Spirit, was battling with Thought in the form that this had assumed under Arabism.

[ 16 ] Man felt the world of Ideas within him; he experienced it as something real. But he could not find the power in his soul to experience, in the Ideas, the Spirit. Thus arose Realism, feeling the reality in the Ideas and yet unable to discover it. In the world of the Ideas, Realism heard the speaking of the Cosmic Word, but it could not understand the speech. [ 17 ] And Nominalism in opposition to it, seeing that the speech could not be understood, denied that there was any speech at all. For Nominalism, the world of Ideas was but a multitude of formulae within the human soul-rooted in no Reality of Spirit.

[ 18 ] What lived and surged in these two currents, worked on into the nineteenth century. Nominalism became the mode of thought of Natural Science, which built up an imposing conceptual system of the outer world of sense, but destroyed the last relics of insight into the nature of the world of Ideas. Realism lived a dead existence. It knew still of the reality of the world of Ideas, but had no living Knowledge with which to reach it.

[ 19 ] But man will reach it when Anthroposophy finds the way from the Ideas to the living experience of Spirit in the Ideas. In Realism truly carried forward, there will arise—side by side with the Nominalism of Natural Science—a path of Knowledge which will prove that the science of the Spiritual, far from being, extinguished in mankind, can enter into human evolution once again, springing forth from newly-opened sources in the soul of man.

(March, 1925)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with regard to the foregoing study: The apparent Extinction of Spirit-Knowledge in Modern Time)

[ 20 ] 177. Looking with the eye of the soul upon the evolution of mankind in the Age of Science, a sorrowful perspective opens up before us to begin with. Splendid grew the knowledge of mankind with respect to all that constitutes the outer world. On the other hand there arose a feeling as though a knowledge of the spiritual world were no longer possible at all.

[ 21 ] 178. It seems as though such knowledge had only been possessed by men of ancient times, and man must now rest content—in all that concerns the spiritual world—simply to receive the old traditions, making these an object of Faith.

[ 22 ] 179. From the resulting uncertainty, arising in the Middle Ages as to man's relation to the spiritual world, Nominalism and Realism proceeded. Nominalism is unbelief in the real Spirit-content of man's Ideas; we have its continuation in the modern scientific view of Nature. Realism is well aware of the reality of the Ideas, yet it can only find its fulfilment in Anthroposophy.

[ 1 ] The decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the appearance on the scene of peoples from the East—the great migrations—are a phenomenon of history to which the attention of true research must again and again be turned. For the present day still contains many an after-effect of these catastrophic happenings.

[ 2 ] A true understanding of these events is impossible to merely exoteric history. For we must look into the souls of the human beings who took part in these migrations and witnessed the downfall of the Roman Empire.

[ 3 ] Ancient Greece and Rome flourished in the epoch of human evolution when the Intellectual or Mind-Soul was unfolding. Indeed the Greeks and Romans were most essentially the bearers of this unfolding process. But in the Greek and Roman peoples the evolving of this stage of the soul did not contain the seed from out of which the Spiritual Soul could truly have developed. All the contents of soul and spirit, latent in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, blossomed forth luxuriantly in the life of ancient Greece and Rome. But Greece and Rome were unable, out of their own inherent powers, to pass on to the new stage of the Spiritual Soul.

[ 4 ] The stage of the Spiritual Soul did, of course, appear none the less. But the Spiritual Soul was as something implanted from without into the character of the Greek or Roman—something that did really not proceed out of the personality.

[ 5 ] The connection with and severance from the Divine Spiritual Beings, of which we have said so much in these studies, takes place with varying intensity in the course of succeeding ages. In olden times, it was a power entering into human evolution with the impulse of a mighty living process. In the Greek and Roman experience of the first Christian centuries it was a feebler power—but it still existed. While he was unfolding the fullness of the Intellectual or Mind Soul within him, the Greek or Roman felt—unconsciously, but with no less deep a meaning for his soul—a loosening or severance from the Divine-Spiritual nature and a growing independence of the human. But this ceased in the first Christian centuries. The early dawn of the Spiritual Soul was felt as a renewed union, a closer connection with the Divine-Spiritual. Men evolved back again, from a greater to a lesser degree of independence of soul. Nor could they receive the Christian content into the human Spiritual Soul, for they were unable to receive the Spiritual Soul itself into their human being.

[ 6 ] Thus they came to regard the Christian content as something given to them from outside—from the spiritual outer world—not as something with which they could become united through their own faculties of Knowledge.

[ 7 ] But it was different with the peoples coming from the North-East, who now entered on the scene of history. They had passed through the stage of the Intellectual or Mind Soul in a condition which, to them, conveyed a feeling of dependence on the spiritual world. They only began to feel something of human independence when, with the beginnings of Christianity, the earliest forces of the Spiritual Soul were dawning.

In them the Spiritual Soul appeared as something deeply bound up with the human being. They felt a glad sense of unfolding force within them when the Spiritual Soul was stirring into life.

[ 8 ] It was into this new-springing life of the dawning Spiritual Soul that the Christian content entered in these peoples. They felt the Christian content as something springing to life within their souls, not as something given from outside.

[ 9 ] Such was the mood in which these peoples approached the Roman Empire and all that was connected with it. Such was the mood of Arianism in contrast to Athanasianism. It was a deep inner conflict in world-historical evolution.

[ 10] In the Spiritual Soul of the Greek and Roman, external as it was to man, there worked, to begin with, the Divine Spiritual essence, not uniting fully with the earthly life, but raying into it from without. And in the Spiritual Soul of the Franks, the Germanic tribes, etc., which was only just dawning into life, such of the Divine-Spiritual as was able to unite with mankind worked as yet but feebly.

[ 11 ] To begin with, the Christian content living in the Spiritual Soul that hovered over man grew and expanded in outer life. On the other hand, that Christian content which was united with the human soul, remained as an inner urge, an impulse within the human being waiting for future development—for a development which can only take place when a certain stage has been attained in the unfolding of the Spiritual Soul.

[ 12 ] In the time from the first Christian centuries until the evolutionary epoch of the Spiritual Soul, the dominant spiritual life was a Spirit-content hovering above mankind—a content with which man was quite unable to unite himself in Knowledge. He therefore united with it in an outward way. He ‘explained’ it, and pondered on the question: how, and why, and to what degree the faculties of the soul were insufficient to bring about the full union with it in Knowledge. Thus he distinguished the realm into which Knowledge can penetrate, from that into which it cannot. It became the proper thing to renounce the exercise of those faculties of soul which rise with Knowledge into the spiritual world. And at length the time approached—the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—in which the forces of the soul that inclined towards the Spirit were diverted from the Spiritual altogether, so far as active Knowledge was concerned. Men began to live their conscious life in those forces of the soul only, which are directed to the sense-perceptible.

[ 13 ] Blunt indeed became the powers of Knowledge for spiritual things—most of all in the eighteenth century.

[ 14 ] The thinkers of humanity now lost the spiritual content from their Ideas. In the Idealism of the first half of the nineteenth century, the Spirit-empty Ideas themselves are represented as the creative substance of the world. Thus Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Or again, they point to a Supersensible which vanishes into thin air because it is bereft of Spirit. Thus Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and others. The Ideas are dead when they no longer seek the living Spirit.

[ 15 ] There is no escaping the fact, lost was the sense of spiritual vision for the things of the Spirit. [ 16 ] A ‘continuation’ of the old life of spiritual Knowledge is impossible. With the Spiritual Soul unfolding within him, man's faculties of soul must strive onward to reach their new union with the Spirit-world, a union elementary, immediate and living. Anthroposophy would fain be such a striving.

[ 17 ] In the spiritual life of this age, it is just the leading personalities who to begin with do not know what Anthroposophy intends. Wide circles of people who follow in their wake are thereby kept away from Anthroposophy. The leading people of today live in a soul-content which in the course of time has grown altogether unaccustomed to use the spiritual forces. For them, it is as though one would call upon a man having an organ paralysed, to use it. Paralysed were the higher faculties of Knowledge from the sixteenth into the latter half of the nineteenth century. And mankind remained utterly unconscious of the fact; indeed, the one-sided application of Knowledge-powers directed to the outer world of sense was regarded as a sign of special progress.

(March, 1925)

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with reference to the foregoing study: Historic Cataclysms at the Dawn of the Spiritual Soul)

[ 18 ] 180. The Greeks and Romans were the peoples predestined by their very nature for the unfolding of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. They developed this stage of the soul to perfection. But they did not bear within them the seeds of a direct, unbroken progress to the Spiritual Soul. Their soul-life went under in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul.

[ 19 ] 181. In the time from the origin of Christianity until the age of the unfolding of the Spiritual Soul, a world of the Spirit was holding sway which did not unite with the forces of the human soul. The latter contrived to ‘explain’ the world of the Spirit, but they could not experience it in living consciousness.

[ 20 ] 182. The peoples advancing from the North-East in the great migrations, encroaching on the Roman Empire, took hold of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul more in the inner life of feeling. Meanwhile, imbedded in this element of feeling, the Spiritual Soul was evolving within their souls. The inner life of these peoples was waiting for the present time, when the re-union of the soul with the world of the Spirit is fully possible once more.

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

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

The Theosophical Society (Adyar Madras Headquarter)

Dear Friends!

The members of the “Besant Branch” and all members of the Theosophical Society present in Berlin are hereby requested to come to the weekly meeting in Berlin Wilmersdorf, Motz-Straße No. 17, every Monday at 8 p.m.

Friends of the Theosophical Society who have not become members of the Theosophical Society can be admitted to these meetings upon purchase of a six-month ticket for 5 marks or a year-long ticket for 9 marks.

We request that friends of the Theosophical Society who are temporarily present in Berlin inquire with the undersigned secretary, Miss v. Sivers, about participating.

The Secretary: Marie von Sivers.
The Chairman: Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

The Theosophical Society (Headquarters Madras) German Section.

To the esteemed members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society.

Dear Friends!

The undersigned takes the liberty of inviting you to the eighth regular General Assembly, which will take place in Berlin on October 23, 24 and 25, 1909.

The proceedings will be as follows:

Saturday, October 23: 2 p.m. (Geisbergstraße 2): Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner on anthroposophy. 6 p.m. (Motzstraße 17): ordinary board meeting. In the evening, a corresponding free get-together at Geisbergstraße 2.

Sunday, October 24: The business part of the program will take place at 10 a.m. (Geisbergstraße 2) with the following agenda:

1. Opening of the meeting and welcoming address by the Secretary General.

2. Reports of the Secretary General, Secretary, Treasurer, Secretary and Auditors.

3. Motions from the floor.

4. Reports from the representatives of the branches.

5. Miscellaneous.

On Sunday, October 24, at 4 p.m. (Geisbergstraße 2), there will be a factual-theosophical part with the following program:

1. Free lectures and discussions by members.

2. Free informal discussion.

The factual and theosophical part will be continued on Monday, October 25, at 10 a.m.

Proposals for the General Assembly and registrations from individual members for lectures and addresses etc. on Sunday afternoon and Monday are requested (to be sent to the address of the Secretary General) by October 20, 1909.

During the General Assembly, Dr. Rudolf Steiner will give four lectures on anthroposophy (the first on Saturday, October 23, at 2 p.m., see above. The other three will be a continuation of the first).

On Monday, October 25, at 8 p.m., a lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner will take place at the Berlin Besant Branch (Geisbergstraße 2) on the “Sphere of the Bodhisattvas”, to which all members of the section are invited.

On Thursday and Friday, October 21 and 22, Dr. Rudolf Steiner will give two lectures at the Architektenhaus (Berlin, Wilhelmstraße 92/93) at 8 p.m. on: The Mission of Wrath (The Chained Prometheus) (on October 21): The Mission of Truth (Goethe's Pandora in the Light of Spiritual Science) (on October 22).

On October 28 and 29, the two lectures will take place in the architects' house: The Mission of Devotion. The Human Character.

Members are requested to notify the General Assembly of their attendance immediately upon receipt of this invitation to Frl. Marie von Sivers, Berlin W[ilmersdorf], Motzstraße 17, as this time the General Assembly is expected to be well attended and space may need to be provided.

Hoping to welcome as many of our dear members as possible on the days mentioned above,

The Theosophical greeting,

The Secretary General:
Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

Notes from the lecture

People who live in abstract concepts and have no particular inclination to engage with spiritual life in its reality very often talk about there being a transitional period here or there when discussing the process of human development. The spiritual researcher cannot be so generous with the words “we live in a transitional period”. Those who really observe spiritual life must know that such times of transition come, and those where the course of development proceeds more evenly. In this sense, we can indeed say that we live in a spiritual transition period. Some of what takes place in it will be the subject of our consideration today.

Every development, whether it be the evolution of the individual between birth and death or the evolution of the planets, always has currents within it; it does not proceed in a straight line. Even in the life of the individual we must distinguish between two currents. In the education of the child you can already find one of these currents. This is described in the booklet 'The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science' and also in the second part of 'Occult Science, an Outline of the Principles of the Science of the Spirit', which has just been published. Actually, the human being experiences several births. First, the physical birth. Only what we call the physical body is born. Until then, it was enveloped in the physical mother's body. This first state lasts until the age of seven. Until then, he is surrounded by the etheric sheath. Now, until about sexual maturity, the human being also frees himself from this sheath, and then the astral body is born. At the age of twenty-one, the I is born.

If we observe this development, we can say that it takes place in every human being according to certain laws. Certain rules can be followed, which are given in that little book, “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”, and it is beneficial if they are followed. But now we come to what is individual for each person: this is an inner current that runs parallel to the first current. The second current proceeds within the first. This second current includes everything from previous lives, from one's own experiences. The difference between the outer and inner currents of development can be recognized in every person, especially in people with significant character traits.

Petöfi is a Hungarian poet. His fellow countrymen saw something very special in him. His Hungarian identity is expressed in his lyrical poems. You get to know Magyar will, feeling and thinking from them. If you look into this in more detail, you learn that his name was not Petöfi at all, but that his father was Serbian and his mother Croatian. There was nothing Magyar in him. What was not Hungarian built up in him: that was the external development. Then there is the inner development, which reflects what is there from previous lives: Hungarian in essence.

Another example is the German painter Asmus Carstens. He had an overwhelming urge to paint. If you have the opportunity to see the things he created, you will say: These are the things of someone who can't paint at all. But his individuality is in his pictures. He wanted to learn painting from a famous painter, but when the painter went out, he was supposed to operate the coach box. He didn't want that and left. He then went to a wine merchant to learn his trade and had to wash barrels. He then came to Copenhagen. There he was not accepted at the academy because he was too old. He never learned how to paint, had no sense of color, but what he did create has become something significant in art. This is an example of such cases, where there is such a special urge from previous lives, but the outer development is not favorable for it.

We must apply such results of spiritual research in life if we want to approach life correctly, otherwise life could prove that we would have missed something. For example: some individuality enters life. It is predestined to accomplish something. But we fail to educate their bodies properly. In the seventeenth or eighteenth year, when crises occur, it becomes apparent that the coverings are not properly formed: the astral body is not formed with the instincts and desires; the etheric body is not formed with the corresponding skills and habits. Then the outer and inner development do not coincide. In milder cases, people lose their inner balance; but a complete disruption of the soul life can also occur. If something like this happens in the crisis years, it is due to nothing more than the non-harmonization of the various currents.

We must supply the human ego with concepts and understanding for life: habits for the etheric body, concepts for the astral body. What comes over from the previous life must develop freely.

In the great evolution of humanity, we can see how the two currents of development merge. The souls that are now embodied here were previously embodied in the other epochs: in the Greco-Latin, Egyptian, Persian, Indian. The world was different when your souls looked up at the venerable pyramids. If the earth were always the same, then the incarnations would serve no purpose. They make sense because something different occurs each time.

Now it could be that one or two or three lives would not have been properly utilized, for example in the Egyptian-Babylonian period. Then something would have been missed that could never be recovered. Inner development runs like a thread through the outer life, through what we can learn from the outer life. Thus a disharmony can also occur between the outer and inner currents of development. Now one could say: What you are telling us is somewhat distressing; it could be that we have neglected something that we can never make up for. First spiritual science brings us enlightenment, and now we can no longer make up for it. But it is not like that. Until now, people were not at all able to choose and neglect freely and independently. Only now does the time begin when souls can miss something. That is why spiritual science is only coming now, so that people can hear what they can miss, to see how people burden themselves with guilt when they miss something. That is why spiritual science is being proclaimed now, because humanity needs it now.

The human soul with its abilities was not always as it is today. In the past, people had an old, dim clairvoyance. The waking states were not as developed in ancient times as they are today. Objects were surrounded by an ether aura. Between waking and sleeping, people lived in the spiritual worlds and were there among spiritual-divine beings. In those days, people knew that spiritual worlds existed not only from hearsay but from experience. The further back we go, the more we see man in this spiritual world. The gates of this spiritual world then gradually closed on him. One can indicate such points in time quite accurately. A saying goes that nature does not make leaps. This saying is very inaccurate and inappropriate. Where a green leaf becomes a flower, there is a leap, and so it is.

Just as we can indicate the exact point of transition from green leaf to flower, so we can indicate the time when clairvoyance ceased. Of course it happened gradually, but on average it stopped at a certain time. This point in time can be indicated as 3101 BC. At that time people discarded their old clairvoyance. Before that time there was still a dim clairvoyance present, like a memory of an even older clairvoyance. In that early age people really saw clearly into the spiritual world. And there was an even earlier time when people regarded the physical as something highly insignificant. That was the golden age. This was followed by the silver age, in which people also saw into the spiritual worlds. Then came the iron age, in which people had a memory of the old clairvoyance, and then - starting in 3101 - the next age, our age, in which the gates of the spiritual world closed.

Krita Yuga is the first, the golden age; the second, 'Treta Yuga, the silver; the third, Dvapara Yuga, the bronze; the fourth, Kali Yuga, also called the dark age, beginning in the year 3101 BC. Within the dark age, we must find that which could not be anywhere else: 3000 years after the beginning of this age, we find the event of Golgotha.

Humanity could no longer ascend to the gods. Therefore, a god had to descend. This is what happened with the Christ event. The human ego could only live out itself in the Kali Yuga. Therefore, the event of Golgotha had to take place here. The destinies that can be told with earthly words were those of Christ Jesus. When initiates ascended to the spiritual world in the past, it had to be expressed in spiritual words. That is why it is not understood today. Because this God led an earthly life, it was possible to speak of Him in earthly words. That was also a time of transition. This cannot be expressed more clearly than in the words: Change your soul's disposition, for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near to you. The understanding, the connection with the Kingdom of Heaven, can only be found within oneself. You can no longer find it beyond your earthly self, but heaven has come right up to your self. “Blessed are they who are poor in spirit” also points to this. In the past, the spirit was given to them. Now people have become poor. They can now only find the spirit in their own self.

It is a childish notion to say that Christ or John the Baptist proclaimed a kingdom that was to return after a thousand years. It should only be hinted that we should enter the kingdom through our own self. Such a special time is here again today. It could be that this time would be slept through.

The Latin historian Tacitus does not speak of the Christians as of something significant, but rather as of a new sect. It was said in Rome that in a remote street there was a new sect whose leader was a certain Jesus. How important an aspect can be overlooked! Just as the time of the former transition was important, we are now in a transition period that may not be quite as important, but it is still important. Humanity is acquiring new abilities. These abilities must be applied to increasingly identify the Christ.

In 1899, the Kali Yuga had expired. New powers are developing in people, but not only those that can be gained in occult training, as it is written in “Occult Science”. In the coming decades, some people will say that they see people quite differently. Science will no longer be enough for them. People will gradually see the etheric body. Some people will foresee and predict this and that, connections and so on. This will gradually emerge.

Two things can now happen. Let us assume that anthroposophy had never existed, never said that it could explain something like this. Then people would say: those who see something like this are insane — and would put them in insane asylums. Or anthroposophy is lucky and finds its way into people's hearts. So we have two developmental currents again: These abilities, just described, develop in the outer human current; but our individuality must grow into these abilities. The human ego must learn to understand what it actually is that is developing.

It is not at all necessary that what is now being proclaimed by anthroposophy as prophecy should also be believed and heeded. And if it does not come to what was prophesied, then people would say: You see, it was just a fantasy. — 'But, only those people do not understand it, the development went as it should not have gone. Humanity would wither and freeze.

The Christ has only once lived in a physical body. When people in the pre-Christian era were able to see into the spiritual worlds, they were told: There is something else, a spiritual, that is not yet visible today, but a time will come when this will be seen, and then a time will come when this great spirit will live in the physical body. A person who knew about this lived in Palestine, but he did not recognize the Christ. Yet when he clairvoyantly recognized the Christ in the etheric body, he recognized that what he had known was to come had been fulfilled. Then he knew that the Christ had lived. That was the event of Damascus.

In his etheric body, the Christ can always be found by the clairvoyant consciousness. When this further development of humanity occurs, people will experience the event of Damascus. The abilities occur with the expiration of the Kali Yuga. And the ability to experience the event of Damascus occurs in the years 1930 to 1940. And if one does not go past this point in time blindly, then one will be able to speak of a coming to Christ. That is what is called in the occult schools: the return of Christ. Then an age will come that will last 2500 years. More and more people will live their way up to the Christ through the anthroposophical view. In the first half of the 20th century, the return of Christ will be able to occur. Deepened and further developed, Christianity will become that.

We may say today what was said then: Change your soul's disposition so that you may find the Kingdom of Heaven, which is drawing near! Care must be taken that this time does not pass unrecognized.

It will also work through Christ for those who pass through physical death between now and then. Those who die around 1920 will be able to understand in devachan what is happening here at that time, but only if they have acquired an understanding of it in their earthly life and have prepared themselves for it.

What has now been said will be said even more often in the next ten years, so that time will not pass unused. It must also be heard by those who are so steeped in materialism that they can only think that Christ can only reappear in a physical body. False messiahs will arise around the middle of the twentieth century who will tell people that they are Christ. And true anthroposophy will know that they are not, that only materialistic ideas are at play. So it is important for anthroposophists to know that spiritual life must be there.

We live in an important transitional epoch, we can say. Times are running fast. The Kali Yuga lasted 5000 years. The next epoch will last 2500 years.

The coming together with the Christ is what is now imminent. The Christ will not descend to humanity, but humanity will ascend to the Christ.

A teacher asks if the school should set up a public first-aid station since bandages and so forth would then be cheaper.

Dr. Steiner: I think we will have to buy those things by the case ourselves. Without doubt, it would be desirable if we had a room where we could take the children. On the other hand, it would not be so desirable if people from outside mixed in with that. There is no real value in that. It is good to have Dr. Kolisko here. The faculty should take care of that. Obviously, this can’t happen a couple of times every day, but with three hundred children, minor things will happen where we need a bandaging room we can sterilize and disinfect. Perhaps something will happen once a week, and it will be sufficient if we have a room. I think it is important that we have a doctor on the faculty, but the more we can close ourselves off from the outer world, the better it is. We should try to obtain bandaging material cheaply.

I had thought that there would be a number of questions. As I already said, we have generally made great progress. In the first year it was apparent that you struggled with the subject matter, but you made progress in all areas. What is important though, is what kind of progress you made and that in the coming years we work more with those ideas that are consistent with and related to the Waldorf School. I believe that progress lies in what the students have learned, as well as what the teachers have slowly discovered about how to treat the students. Everything has progressed, even the pranksters. The pranksters have become strong pranksters, but that doesn’t hurt anything. That is simply a side effect. Many have even become better behaved, more cultivated, more intellectual. That is very good and hurts nothing.

In my opinion, we must put more value upon psychology in the future. We must work with psychology. You should not understand that as abstractly or theoretically as it may appear. That might look as though we wanted to analyze the children. When we become accustomed to understanding the children psychologically, we will slowly find a relationship to them that results purely from our activity. That understanding of the children will not remain as a mere recognition, but will become another relationship if you really try to understand them. There is still much we need to catch up on in creating a proper relationship to the children. We need to be clear that when so much depends upon personal activities, as it does here, an intensive analytical understanding of the children is necessary. Then things that have occurred in the past will no longer happen.

It is difficulty to characterize individual cases, but that is not necessary. We should act psychologically. If you think about that, you will discover what I mean. I don’t so much mean that the children must achieve this or that, but that you ask yourselves what the children can achieve in accordance with their psychological makeup. Always work from the standpoint of the children. You can change individual behavior only if you really try to understand children in their different variations. Each child is interesting.

Miss Lang showed me a prankster, B.N. She had cried terribly, but today she skipped school again. That is interesting, and we will have to study it. I cannot promise she will keep her word. It may last for years. I can imagine that she spent some time with tightrope walkers; that is certainly a reason for being interested in her, isn’t it? If you create expectations about what a child is, you can easily define things. However, you can achieve a genuine psychological understanding of a child only through intense study. One of my thoughts is that we should consider learning to understand the children as one of the main things in the first year. We should never assume they must be one way or another.

There is something else that strongly disturbs me in nearly all classes. We should continually strive to integrate anthroposophy organically in the instruction. That truly enlivens the children’s strengths. Just the way that you, Dr. von Heydebrand, have done in anthropology and you, Dr. Stein, have done in history. That is something that is present intuitively with many of you. You cannot do eurythmy without Anthroposophy. You need to try to bring Anthroposophy into your teaching without teaching anything theoretical.

In my opinion, you include a great deal of Anthroposophy when you attempt, and that is the ideal, to bring what we call rhythm into your work. For instance, when you try to connect what the students learn in music, singing, and eurythmy with handwork. That has an extremely positive effect on the children. I would recommend that you read Karl Bücher’s book Work and Rhythm. We should have this book. All work is based upon musical work, threshing, blacksmithing, plastering. Today, you hardly hear that anymore. But if you had gone out into the country at an earlier time and listened to the threshing, you would have heard the flails swinging in rhythm. I think we can bring that into our work. That is what I mean when I talk about bringing the spirit into it. You will find that principle in Work and Rhythm, even though he states it rather pedantically.

Of course, I am also carrying the question about the end of school, about the closing ceremony. I definitely think it should include a certain amount of festivities. Today is the twenty-third, and I will not be able to attend. I simply cannot be there, though I surely would like to be. We need to begin the summer holidays on time. In my opinion, the teachers have done enough, and they will collapse otherwise. I would really like to be at the closing ceremony. Each teacher should give a short speech. Perhaps Mr. Baumann would be kind enough to take care of the musical part. Perhaps you could write something that could be presented through eurythmy, not a normal eurythmy presentation, but something that represents the close of school. It would be really wonderful if we could do that. Begin with a eurythmy presentation accompanied by music. Then go on into a musical presentation alone and close with eurythmy again. I would suggest your composition be connected with the closing of school. Perhaps Miss Röhrle could do something with two or three of the older girls. Then we must have something, and this is very important to me, that is a kind of speech about life, to let the children go and to receive them again. Something that has a connection with the children’s leaving school and their return.

Someone had written on a blackboard, “The sky is blue, the weather is nice, we want to go for a walk, dear teacher.” Dr. Steiner was rather angry about that.

Dr. Steiner: You haven’t seen that? Sometimes when the weather is too hot, you can let the children go. I don’t think it would be right to close earlier, though. I am not in favor of letting the children go as long as we can keep them here. We let them go earlier than we really should. We can, of course, make it easier for the children, but only when it is too warm. It would almost be better if we kept them and took them some place, but stayed with them. Don’t you think it is better when the children go to kindergarten. The longer we have them, the better it is. In that way, we can have the children who do not yet go to school. Right now we can generally take the children only when they begin elementary school. When the age of imitation ends, then we can begin. It would be nice if we could bring something into the child’s education during the first seven years. We will have to have something for the earlier years, later is less important.

Some people want some temporary school buildings, but I think we should discuss that in detail after school has closed. It is settled in general, but, nevertheless, we need to discuss it. There are some things we need to decide that cannot wait until after school has begun. We must expand the singing class, and we need a teacher for it. There are many other things we need to discuss if we have an additional grade. We must also carefully consider who will take over the first grade. We cannot assume that Stockmeyer’s and Stein’s work will cease. These are all things we need to discuss at an early enough time. For those reasons, I will have to be here when school ends unless something significant hinders that. I will probably need to be away only for four to six days. Today is too early.

How should we handle those children who arrive too late? I had to wait today as I came into the school. Three girls were coming in. They simply went in, not the least disturbed that they were late. The person I was walking with said to me, “It seems quite all right with them that they are late.” So, what do we do with the children who come late?

A teacher: Have them come a quarter of an hour earlier.

Dr. Steiner: Then we run the danger that they don’t come at all. We must avoid under all circumstances giving them a punishment we cannot carry out. We may never place ourselves in a situation where we may have to relent in a disciplinary decision. If we say that a child must come earlier, then we must enforce that. We must order the child to come earlier. The girls today were in the seventh or eighth grade. We lose all control the minute we look away. We will find ourselves on a downward path and will continue to slide. With punishment, we cannot relent. It is better to let it go. Under certain circumstances, it can lead to the opposite of what we want, with the children forming a group among themselves and saying, “Today I come late, tomorrow, you.” I don’t think that would work, because it would make us somewhat laughable. Of course, it’s just laziness. Having the children come earlier is not so good; it would be better if they stayed a quarter of an hour longer. That is something the children do not like.

Have you tried that to see if it works? If a child comes ten minutes late, having him or her stand for a half hour. If they have to stand three times as long, they will certainly think about every minute. Let them stand there uncomfortably. Your boy rubs the back of his head on the wall and amuses himself with all kinds of things. I think that in such cases, when there is some punishment connected with the misbehavior, you can be particularly effective if you allow them to stand in some uncomfortable place. The older children will then be careful that they do not come too late. We could also buy a number of little sheds, and then they will not come too late as a group. They may even get some cramps in their legs. We could have the sheds built in the shop class.

A teacher: What should we do if a teacher comes too late?

Dr. Steiner: Then we will have the children put the teacher in the pen. It is important, though, that we differentiate in such things. I would not punish the children as severely in winter as in summer. The moment the children notice there is some reason for the disciplinary action, they will agree to it. In the winter, we could discipline them less intensively and have them stand only twice as long. We need to stir them up. There are some who are inattentive. The industrious children will hardly come too late.

A teacher asks about the windows.

Dr. Steiner: Sometimes, when you go by, you want to climb in yourself. We will need to put some mesh up, so that they can’t climb in.

Concerning F.R. in the fourth grade.

Dr. Steiner: That is a very difficult case. If he leaves school, that will be a real problem, something not particularly desirable. On the other hand, he should not suffer. We should not serve our school on a silver platter to the school he next attends. There will certainly be teachers there who will happily hear that someone comes to them saying he could not stand it here. Tomorrow, I will take a look to see what we can do. This is a very difficult situation.

Here, we have the question of whether to try a parallel class. Right now, there is hardly anything else we can do other than place him in the previous or the following grade. I definitely do not want him in the previous class, so he would then go in your class in the next higher grade. I don’t think there is any other solution, but that will cause considerable upset with the children. We will need to do it in such a way that it appears to be an exception. We will have to think about how we will handle this. It would be a bad story if people knew we did this for personal reasons. Of course, we also run the danger that the children will say, “Well, he got out, we could also try.” What should we do with such a boy though, if we do not want to send him away? Perhaps I will visit the class tomorrow. He is actually not the problem. That is something he inherited, and it has a continuous effect upon him. It is something in the family. It would be best if we could help him past that hurdle. Perhaps he might even become a really good person. He is certainly enthusiastic about eurythmy and singing, he simply does not want the normal class instruction. He finds it horrible. Then there are other things that people take too seriously. He took five marks, but only in fun. You can reach him, he just needs a certain kind of objective treatment because everything at home is so subjective. We have all tried that. His father is a person like the teacher who says when a child is excited, “I will teach you what being relaxed is, I’ll show you what relaxed is.” That is how his father is.

We cannot allow him to remain in the fourth grade. We would run the danger that he would jump overboard, and that would certainly not be pleasant. I still recall a very horrible situation. At that time, I was at an engineering school.7 The janitor’s son was very ambitious. A teacher who was very hot tempered grabbed him by the scruff and walloped him. The boy left the class. He knew from his father where the cyanide was; he took it and poisoned himself. After that, the teacher became red when someone left the class during the period. (Speaking to Dr. von Heydebrand) I only mention all this because he will be coming to you in the fifth grade. He does not belong in the fourth grade. We made an error there.

Act psychologically! We must study the children’s feelings.

A teacher asks about lace making and embroidery.

A teacher: Should we have school on Peter and Paul’s Day?

Dr. Steiner: We can take the day off. “Peter and Paul is always quite lazy.”

The following was also noted.

Bad teeth, the cause lies in the soul/spirit.

Connection between eurythmy and the formation of teeth.

Handwork. Knitting develops good teeth. The children gain dexterity through knitting.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to propose that we begin today with the disciplinary problems.

A teacher: F.R. threw a stone at another student and hit him on the head. He has been suspended.

Dr. Steiner: I do not agree with the proposal that was made to deal with this problem. It would look as though we thought we could have a strong effect upon such boys by dealing with them in a way that is something of a caricature. We actually know only from what other students have said how bad the situation was. Now, however, things are better. We can hardly do more than require F.R. to appear before a committee or perhaps the entire faculty over Easter, and then we can question him. I would like to speak with him then, also. Has his father reacted?

A teacher: The father has given up leaving him at school.

Dr. Steiner: I think we should decide that I will speak to F.R. when I come. The situation is, of course, not good, but I would not recommend expelling him. He always behaves well after you speak with him, and that lasts for a time. There is always a reason when he behaves like that, but afterward he is sorry.

A teacher speaks about a girl, S.F., in sixth grade. She ran away from the people she was living with and tried to walk to where her mother lives, a long distance away. The police found her while she was walking there. Dr. Steiner received a letter from her uncle mentioning that the housemother had spoken deprecatingly about the girl.

Dr. Steiner: Are we simply here to marvel at all the good children? Children are not the way we would like to have them. This whole situation shows only that Mrs. N., her housemother, doesn’t know how to handle her. It is quite clear she hasn’t the least idea about how to handle the girl. Our task is to educate children, and not to judge how good or bad they are. This situation shows that we should not send any more children to live with Mrs. N. Her uncle has certainly maintained a good attitude. Of course, it would make someone angry when such things are said about a child. To call her a whore is so silly that I am at a loss for words. We cannot allow Mrs. N. to mix into our affairs here. The girl has a very good character. Physically, she is not quite normal and is a little smaller than she should be. All these things show that she needs to be treated carefully. We should just leave things as they are with her and simply tell her that after Easter she will be moved to a better home. It would also be good if we wrote to her uncle and told him that we do not agree with Mrs. N.’s behavior. We still do not have sufficient contact with the children here. Although we are very careful with our methods, we should not simply leave the children to themselves. They need contact with the faculty. With the methods we use, we cannot, as a faculty, live in Olympian heights, above the private situations of the children. The children also need a little human contact with the faculty.

A teacher reports about N.N. who had stolen something and had behaved very poorly.

Dr. Steiner: His is a difficult case. We need to remember that no father is present. His mother, who has always been a rather unfortunate woman with no inner fortitude, hangs onto the boy. She does not know what to do and has always been disturbed by every message she receives from Stuttgart. She also did not know whether she had enough money to leave him here. With her, all this insecurity is constitutional. She is quite unstable psychologically. That is clear from the fact that she is now here in an insane asylum. That is something that could have just as easily occurred earlier. She may well return to her earlier situation.

This woman’s entire psychological makeup was transferred from her astral body into the boy’s etheric body. He has absorbed it organically, so that his behavior is a genuine picture of his mother’s psychological situation. In the astral body, it is only an insecurity in making decisions, in not knowing what to do. With him, it results in a desire to show off. Take, for instance, one of the worst cases, when he acted shamelessly in front of a window. His mother’s psychological situation remains in the realm of judgment, so that allowing her soul to be seen in a shameless way is a psychological illness. With the boy, it has gone into physical exhibitionism. Here you can see how heredity actually proceeds. The things that exist in the parents’ souls can be seen in the physical bodies of the next generation. That is something that is known medically.

It is quite clear to me that it is important for us to treat this boy with good intentions until he reaches the age of eighteen or nineteen, when his conscience will speak. First, he needs to properly integrate the part of his I from his previous incarnation that is the basis of his conscience. It is not yet properly integrated, so his conscience does not play the same role as conscience does in others who are further along. He experiments with all kinds of things. People always experiment with their higher self when their lower self does not yet contain what keeps them firm and strong. This will last until he reaches eighteen or nineteen. You need to treat him with good intentions, or you will have it on your own conscience that you allowed him to be corrupted; and what develops in that way will remain corrupted. He is really very talented, but his talent and his moral constitution are not developing at the same rate. Today, he has an organic moral insanity. We need to carry such children past a certain age through our well-intentioned behavior without approving of what they do. Conscious theft was not at all present in the case where they hid some money, and so forth. Keep him in the remedial class; that will be good for him. We should continue to treat him in the same way.

The situation with his mother is much more unpleasant for us as anthroposophists. Her coming to the place she had always dreamed of certainly caused her present situation. She had always dreamed about Stuttgart.

We have other situations that are a result of current events and the effects of German nationalism upon the school. I have already been told about them. I do not feel that this trend began with one boy alone. The question is whether the boys do this just because they have too much time on their hands, or whether they belong to some group. This situation is difficult to understand. You can do something positive here only by undertaking things that would tend to include these boys and girls. Recall for a moment that nationalism does not need to play a very large role at that age. What attracts them is all the fanfare. They have the impression that our Waldorf teachers sit at home on Sundays making long faces down to their waists and meditating and so forth. The preacher is something else, again. “What kind of people are these, anyway?” If we do nothing about that, the problem could increase, under certain circumstances. The impression that the faculty sits on Olympic thrones has spread too far.

You can do something else to counter that. Of course, you don’t need to do everything yourself, but you could support Dr. X. so that the children have something to do. I thought it was a very good idea to carefully choose a number of our younger people from the Society and ask them to undertake some trips with the students. Surely even Waldorf School teachers could learn something from that about what is needed to arrange such things. Otherwise, the perception of your sitting on an Olympic throne will remain. Of course, the first responsibility of the faculty will always be leadership of the school, but you should still do something like that. These nationalistic things could have a far-reaching impact—we might end up with a corps of ruffians. I am not so afraid of the attitude as I am of the children turning into ruffians. If the students know we are together with them, they will not be caught by such things.

This also played a major role in the debates we had in Dornach about founding a youth section. Somehow, we must find a way within the Youth Section to create some kind of counterforce against all these other movements. You need only think about the youth groups within Freemasonry that use nationalistic aspirations everywhere. Here, under the careful guidance of the faculty, we must find a way to bring the youth movement into a healthy whole. Here, everything is still much too individual, too atomized. Our faculty needs to counter the general principle in Stuttgart of never working together, always working separately. A teacher asks about the upcoming final examinations.

Dr. Steiner: The children in the twelfth grade have written that they wish to speak with me. I can do that only when I am here Tuesday for the conference. I would like you to tell the whole class that.

In general, I think the results of the final examination have shown unequivocally that everything we have discussed is still true. It would, of course, have been better had we been able to add a special class and keep the Waldorf School pure of anything foreign to it. Everything we discussed in that regard is still the same and should not be changed. Nevertheless, the statistics seem to indicate that the poor results were due to the fact that the students were unable to solve problems for themselves because they were used to solving them as a group. You know it is very useful to have the children work together, and we have also seen that the class gives a better impression when they speak together than when they speak individually. We were somewhat short on time, but it seems you did not have the students work enough on solving problems alone. They did not understand that properly and were thus shocked by tasks to be solved alone. I have the impression that you overdid what is good about speaking together. For example, if a few were causing some trouble, you quickly changed to having them all speak together. It has become a habit to work only with the class as a whole. You did not make the transition into working with the children individually. That seems to me to be the essence of what was missing. We should have no illusions: The results gave a very unfavorable impression of our school to people outside. We succeeded in bringing only five of the nine students who took the test through, and they just barely succeeded. What will happen now with those who did not take the final examination or who failed it? When I am here on Wednesday, we need to discuss all these things with the twelfth-grade teachers.

A teacher requests some guidelines for the pedagogical conference to be held at Easter in Stuttgart.

Dr. Steiner: The basis of the Vorstand’s decision about the conference was that the conference should express the significance of the Waldorf School within all of modern education and that we should clearly demonstrate the importance of the Waldorf School principle. In other words, you should say here and there why the Waldorf School and its methods are necessary. Such a presentation gives people the opportunity to notice the difference between Waldorf School pedagogy and other reform movements. Another perspective is that we can demonstrate what we have said to the youth movement in our letters to the newsletter.

The second letter to young members says that human beings presently do not do at all well to be born as children. It is really the case that now, when human beings are born as children, they are pushed into an educational method that totally neglects them and requires them to be old. It does not matter whether someone tells me about the content of today’s civilization when I am eighteen or when I am seventy-five. It sounds just the same, whether I hear it at eighteen or at seventy-five. That is either true or not. It can be proven or refuted logically. It is valid or not. You can grow beyond such a situation only after eighteen, so you might need to decide not to come into a child’s body at all, but instead to be born as an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old body. Only then would things work.

An initiate from an earlier time, if born today, could not be an initiate again if he or she had to go through our present-day schools. I discussed that in Dornach in my lectures about the Garibaldi incarnation. He was an initiate, but his earlier initiation could appear only after he became separated from the world, a practical revolutionary. Garibaldi is only one example of how people today cannot express what exists within them. We must give children back their childhood. That is one task of the Waldorf School. Today’s youth are old.

We received a number of replies from young people in Dornach following the announcement of the Youth Section. They were all very honestly meant. The main thing I noticed was how old even the youth in Dornach are. They speak about old things, they cannot be young. They want to be young, but know that only in their subconscious. What has gone into their heads is mostly old. They are so clever, so complete. Young people must be able to be brash, but everything they say is so reasonable, so thought out, not at all spontaneous. I am happiest when spontaneous things happen; they may be unpleasant, but I like them best. What we spoke about at a youth meeting in Dornach a short time ago was so well thought out that it could have been said by professors. I made a joke about something, and they took it seriously. They have put on a cloak of thoughtfulness, which is ill-fitting at every point. You can see that in the way they speak. You feel very much like a child when today’s youth speak.

Regarding such things, you should express the responsibility of the Waldorf School to today’s youth with some enthusiasm at the Easter conference. We should not simply give clever lectures; we need some enthusiasm. We need to have some wisdom about how we speak of the relationship of the Anthroposophical Society to the school so that we do not offend people. We do not want them to say that we have been able to accomplish what we wanted since the beginning of the school, namely, an anthroposophical school. We need to show them that we have extended anthroposophy in order to do the things that are genuinely human. We need to show them that anthroposophy is appropriate for presenting something genuinely human, but we must do that individually. We should not give too strong an impression that we are lecturing about anthroposophy. We should show how we use anthroposophical truth in the school, not lecture abstractly about anthroposophy. That is the perspective we had at the time. The board of directors in Dornach follows such things with great interest. They want to be informed by everyone and to work on everything, but we need to round off some rough edges. The letters in the newsletter will, over time, discuss all aspects of anthroposophy.

The people in Bern are not asking the Waldorf School teachers for detailed lectures at the Easter pedagogical course. What they want are introductory remarks that will lead to discussions as they are usually held.

A teacher asks whether the present two eighth-grade classes should be combined in the ninth grade.

Dr. Steiner: We need a third fifth grade class more than a second ninth-grade class. We could combine them. The children are fourteen or fifteen years old. You should be able to keep them under control. It is difficult to find an appropriate teacher, though I have tried. We can discuss the whole thing later.

A teacher asks whether it would be better pedagogically if the upper grades also had one class teacher for the whole time, like the lower grades.

Dr. Steiner: We cannot do what is necessary simply by having one class teacher, if that teacher does not do what is really necessary. What we need is that everyone concerned with the upper grades wants to do what is necessary. I do not believe it is very important to have a single class teacher. If we all want a better relationship with the children, I do not see why we would need to restrict it.

A teacher asks about a possible summer camp in Transylvania.

Dr. Steiner: That may be possible, but I find it difficult to imagine how. The situation there is quite different. It is very much in the East. You can have some strange experiences there. I went to a lecture in Hermannstadt in the winter of 1888-89. When I arrived in Budapest, I was unable to make my connection. I had to travel via Szegedin and arrived at about two in the afternoon in Mediaš. I was told I would have to remain there for some time. I went into a coffee house in town where you had to scrape the dirt away with a knife. A number of players came in. There was something Vulcan- like and stormy in their astral bodies; they were somehow all tangled together. Everything went on with a great deal of activity and enthusiasm. The room was next to a pigsty and there was a horrible smell. You can get into such situations in that region, so we would have to protect the children from such experiences. Everyone gets bitten by all kinds of insects as well.

There had been some difficulties with Mr. Z., one of the teachers.

Dr. Steiner: I had the impression we should offer Mr. Z. a vacation to give him an opportunity to collect himself. My impression was that he needed some rest. The question now is to what extent we can still keep him in school. If he intensely felt how he is, we might be able to keep him. X. says he is unstable. We really can’t do anything other than send him on a vacation and bring him back again.

Concerning the entire matter, I would like to say that it seems to me that we must direct our attention toward not allowing such things as discussions with the students to develop. Where would we be if we had more discussions where the students can complain about the teachers? We cannot allow that. It was already very bad in the other case, which resulted in our expelling the students. Now, it is coming up again—a few students come and want to discuss things with the teachers. We cannot allow that. Z. does do all these things, but we cannot allow the students to undermine the authority of the teacher. That would result in the students judging the teachers, which is really terrible. Students sitting as judges over the teachers. We have to avoid that. Of course, one teacher yells at them more and another less, one is more creative, another less. However, we really cannot take such discussions seriously, where the students put the teacher before a tribunal. That doesn’t work. Were that to occur, what would happen is what they once proposed, that the teachers no longer give grades, but the students grade the teachers each week. After Easter, we have to see if we can have him work only in the lower grades. There is not much more we can do.

I fear Z. will always fall into such things. He will need to feel that behaving that way does not work, but that will take a longer time. You need to make the situation clear to him and tell him we may have to send him on a permanent vacation. He is a real cross to bear, but on the other hand, he is a good person. He did not find the right connection, and that has happened here also. A time may come when we can no longer keep him in school, but now we need to give him an opportunity to correct his behavior. I fear, though, he will not take it up.

In such cases, there is generally nothing to do but hope the person finds a friend and makes a connection, and that the friend can then help the person out of such childishness. In a certain way, everything he does is rather childish. In spite of his talents, he has remained a child in a certain area. He is at the same stage as the students, and that causes everything else.

His living conditions seem to be horrible, but I do not see the connection between his behavior and his living conditions. Others could have even worse living conditions and still not come up with the idea of doing such things in school. I feel sorry for him. He needs to find a friend, but has not done that. He would then have some support. There is no other way of helping such people. Apparently, he has nowhere to turn. It was perhaps a karmic mistake that he came into the faculty. If he found someone he belongs with, what I said would probably occur. I do not think, however, that there is anyone within the faculty that Z. could befriend. It is, perhaps, something like it was with Hölderlin, but not as bad.