The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Anthroposophical Society was founded on December 28th 1912 in Cologne, German, with about 3000 members. By 1923, the international growth of of the Anthroposophical Society made restructuring necessary. This restructuring took place during the Christmas Conference in 1923.

The General Anthroposophical Society is, “an association of people whose will it is to nurture the life of the soul, both in the individual and in human society, on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world.” The Society is public, without political agenda or religious affiliation. Its activity is seen today in independent national societies and initiatives throughout the world, with members from all cultures and continents.

The aim of the Society, the School of Spiritual Science and the Goetheanum is to make a spiritually based contribution to the life of humanity in the world of today and tomorrow.

This text is from a pamphlet printed by the Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain.

1. The Anthroposophical Society is a union of human beings who desire to further the life of the soul—both in the individual and in human society—on the basis of a true knowledge of the Spiritual World.
2. The persons gathered at the Goetheanum, Dornach, at Christmas, 1923—both the individuals who were present and the groups which were represented—form the foundation of the Society. They are convinced that there is in existence at the present time a real Science of the Spiritual World—discovered and elaborated for years past, and, in important particulars, already published. They hold, moreover, that the civilisation of to-day needs the cultivation of such a science. This is to be the task of the Anthroposophical Society. It will endeavour to fulfil the task by centering its activities on the spiritual science of Anthroposophy cultivated in the Goetheanum at Dornach, with all that results from it for human brotherhood, for moral and religious life, and for the artistic and cultural life in humanity.¹
3. The persons gathered together at Dornach in founding the Anthroposophical Society recognise and support the view of those responsible at the Goetheanum (represented by the Executive formed at the Foundation Meeting) in the following particulars:—“The Anthroposophy pursued in the Goetheanum leads to results which can be of assistance to every human being—without distinction of nation, social standing or religion—acting as an incentive in spiritual life. These results can in a real sense give rise to a social life based on brotherly love. The possibility of making them one's own and founding life upon them depends on no special degree of learning or education, but alone on a free, unbiased human nature. The researches, however, which lead to them, and the power of competent judgment on the results of research, are subject to a spiritual-scientific training which must be acquired step by step. The results are in their way no less exact than those of Natural Science; and when like these they attain general recognition, they will bring about a like progress in all spheres of life—not only in the spiritual but in the practical domain.”
4. The Anthroposophical Society is an entirely public organisation, and in no sense a secret society. Without distinction of nationality, social standing, religion, scientific or artistic conviction, any person feeling the existence of such an institution as the School of Spiritual Science—the Goetheanum in Dornach—to be justified, can become a member of the Society. The Anthroposophical Society is averse to any kind of sectarian tendency. Politics it does not consider to be among its tasks.

5. The Anthroposophical Society looks upon the School of Spiritual Science at Dornach as the centre of its work. This School will be composed of three classes. Members of the Society will—at their request—be admitted to the School after a period of membership to be determined in each case by those responsible at the Goetheanum. They thus gain entrance to the first class of the School of Spiritual Science. Applicants will be received into the second or third class respectively when those responsible at the Goetheanum deem them ripe for admission.
6. Every member of the Anthroposophical Society has the right to participate—under conditions to be announced in each case by the Executive—in all lectures, demonstrations and meetings of any kind arranged by the Society.
7. The establishment of the School of Spiritual Science is, to begin with, in the hands of Rudolf Steiner, who will appoint his collaborators and his eventful successor.
8. All publications of the Society will be open to the public as are those of other public societies.² The same will apply to the publications of the School of Spiritual Science; but in regard to these works, those responsible for the School reserve the right from the outset to deny the validity of opinions unsupported by the proper qualifications, namely by the training of which the works themselves are the outcome. In this sense, and as is customary in the recognised scientific world, they will admit the validity of no judgment which is not based on the requisite preliminary studies. The publications of the School of Spiritual Science will therefore contain the following notice:—“Printed in Manuscript for the members of the School of Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, Class ... No person is held qualified to form a judgment on the contents of these works, who has not acquired—through the School itself or in an equivalent manner recognised by the School—the requisite preliminary knowledge. Other opinions will be disregarded; the authors decline to take them as a basis for discussion.”
9. The object of the Anthroposophical Society will be the furtherance of spiritual research; that of the School of Spiritual Science the actual pursuit of such research. A dogmatic position in any sphere whatsoever shall be excluded from the Anthroposophical Society.
10. At the beginning of each year the Anthroposophical Society shall hold an annual General Meeting, when the Executive shall submit a full report and balance-sheet. The Agenda shall be issued by the Executive together with the invitation to all members six weeks before the meeting. The Executive may summon emergency General Meetings and fix the Agenda for such Meetings. Invitations to such Meetings shall be sent to members three weeks in advance. Motions by individual members or groups of members shall be sent in a week before the date of a General Meeting.
11. The members of the Society may join together in smaller or larger groups, on any geographical or other basis of activity. The seat of the Anthroposophical Society is at the Goetheanum, whence the Executive shall communicate to the members or groups of members what it considers to be the task of the Society. The Executive enters into communication with the officials elected or appointed by the several Groups. The admission of members is in the hands of the Groups; the forms of admission shall, however, be submitted to the Executive at Dornach for signature, the Executive signing them in confidence to the officials of the Groups. As a general rule every member shall join a Group. Only those who find it quite impossible to enter a Group should apply for admission at Dornach as individual members.
12. The subscription shall be fixed by the several Groups; each Group shall, however, send 12s. (twelve shillings) annually per member to the headquarters of the Society at the Goetheanum.
13. Each working Group formulates its own Statutes, but these must not be incompatible with the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society.
14. The organ of the Society is the “Goetheanum” Weekly, which shall for this purpose issue a Supplement containing the official communications of the Society. This enlarged edition of the “Goetheanum” will be supplied to members of the Anthroposophical Society only.
15. The Foundation Executive of the Society will be as follows:—

    First President: Dr. Rudolf Steiner.
    Second President: Albert Steffen.
    Recorder: Dr. Ita Wegman.
    Members of Executive: Frau Marie Steiner,
    Members of Executive: Dr. Elisabeth Vreede.
    Hon. Secretary and Treas: Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth.

• 1. The Society is continuous with the Anthroposophical Society founded in 1912. With the same objects in view which were then defined, the intention is, however, to create a fresh point of departure, in keeping with the true spirit of the time.
• 2. The conditions, too, whereby one enters into the training of this School, have been described in published works, and their publication will be continued.

My dear friends! You have come together this Christmas, some of you from distant places, to work in the Goetheanum on some matters in the field of spiritual science. At the outset of our considerations I would like to extend to you—especially the friends who have come from afar—our heartiest Christmas greetings. What I myself, occupied as I am with the most manifold tasks, will be able to offer you at this particular time can only be indications in one or another direction. Such indications as will be offered in my lectures, and in those of others, will, we hope, result in a harmony of feeling and thinking among those gathered together here in the Goetheanum. It is also my hope that those friends who are associated with the Goetheanum and more or less permanently residing here will warmly welcome those who have come from elsewhere. Through our working, thinking and feeling together, there will develop what must be the very soul of all endeavors at the Goetheanum; namely, our perceiving and working out of the spiritual life and essence of the world.

If this ideal increasingly becomes a reality, if the efforts of individuals interested in the anthroposophical world conception flow together in true social cooperation, in mutual give and take, then there will emerge what is intended to emerge at the Goetheanum. In this spirit, I extend the heartiest welcome to those friends who have come here from afar as well as to those residing more permanently in Dornach.

The indication that I shall try to give in this lecture course will not at first sight appear to be related to the thought and feeling of Christmas, yet inwardly, I believe, they are so related. In all that is to be achieved at the Goetheanum, we are striving toward the birth of something new, toward knowledge of the spirit, toward a feeling consecrated to the spirit, toward a will sustained by the spirit. This is in a sense the birth of a super-sensible spiritual element and, in a very real way, symbolizes the Christmas thought, the birth of that spiritual Being who produced a renewal of all human evolution upon earth. Therefore, our present studies are, after all, imbued with the character of a Christmas study.

Our aim in these lectures is to establish the moment in history when the scientific mode of thinking entered mankind's development. This does not conflict with what I have just said. If you remember what I described many years ago in my book Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age,¹ you will perceive my conviction that beneath the external trappings of scientific conceptions one can see the first beginnings of a new spirituality. My opinion, based on objective study, is that the scientific path taken by modern humanity was, if rightly understood, not erroneous but entirely proper. Moreover, if regarded in the right way, it bears within itself the seed of a new perception and a new spiritual activity of will. It is from this point of view that I would like to give these lectures. They will not aim at any kind of opposition to science. The aim and intent is instead to discover the seeds of spiritual life in the highly productive modern methods of scientific research. On many occasions I have pointed this out in various way. In lectures given at various times on various areas of natural scientific thinking,² I have given details of the path that I want to characterize in broader outline during the present lectures.

If we want to acquaint ourselves with the real meaning of scientific research in recent times and the mode of thinking that can and does underlie it, we must go back several centuries into the past. The essence of scientific thinking is easily misunderstood, if we look only at the immediate present. The actual nature of scientific research cannot be understood unless its development is traced through several centuries. We must go back to a point in time that I have often described as very significant in modern evolution; namely, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At that time, an altogether different form of thinking, which was still active through the Middle Ages, was supplanted by the dawn of the present-day mode of thought. As we look back into this dawn of the modern age, in which many memories of the past were still alive, we encounter a man in whom we can see, as it were, the whole transition from an earlier to a later form of thinking. He is Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus,³ (Nicholas of Cusa) a renowned churchman and one of the greatest thinkers of all time. He was born in 1401, the son of a boatman and vinegrower in the Rhine country of Western Germany, and died in 1464, a persecuted ecclesiastic.⁴ Though he may have understood himself quite well, Cusanus was a person who is in some respects extremely difficult for a modern student to comprehend.

Cusanus received his early education in the community that has been called “The Brethren of the Common Life.”⁵ There he absorbed his earliest impressions, which were of a peculiar kind. It is clear that Nicholas already possessed a certain amount of ambition as a boy, but this was tempered by an extraordinary gift for comprehending the needs of the social life of his time. In the community of the Brethren of the Common Life, persons were gathered together who were dissatisfied with the church institutions and with the monastic and religious orders that, though within the church, were to some degree in opposition to it.

In a manner of speaking, the Brethren of the Common Life were mystical revolutionaries. They wanted to attain what they regarded as their ideal purely by intensification of a life spent in peace and human brotherhood. They rejected any rulership based on power, such as was found in a most objectionable form in the official church at that time. They did not want to become estranged from the world as were members of monastic orders. They stressed physical cleanliness; they insisted that each one should faithfully and diligently perform his duty in external life and in his profession. They did not want to withdraw from the world. In a life devoted to genuine work they only wanted to withdraw from time to time into the depths of their souls. Alongside the external reality of life, which they acknowledged fully in a practical sense, they wanted to discover the depths and inwardness of religious and spiritual feeling. Theirs was a community that above all else cultivated human qualities in an atmosphere where a certain intimacy with God and contemplation of the spirit might abide. It was in this community—at Deventer in Holland—that Cusanus was educated. The majority of the members were people who, in rather narrow circles, fulfilled their duties, and sought in their quiet chambers for God and the spiritual world.

Cusanus, on the other hand, was by nature disposed to be active in outer life and, through the strength of will springing from his knowledge, to involve himself in organizing social life. Thus Cusanus soon felt impelled to leave the intimacy of life in the brotherhood and enter the outer world. At first, he accomplished this by studying jurisprudence. It must be borne in mind, however, that at that time—the early Fifteenth Century—the various sciences were less specialized and had many more points of contact than was the case later on.

So for a while Cusanus practiced law. His was an era, however, in which chaotic factors extended into all spheres of social life. He therefore soon wearied of his law practice and had himself ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He always put his whole heart into whatever he did, and so he now became a true priest of the Papal church. He worked in this capacity in the various clerical posts assigned to him, and he was particularly active at the Council of Basle (1431–1449).⁶ There he headed a minority whose ultimate aim it was to uphold the absolute power of the Holy See.⁷ The majority, consisting for the most part of bishops and cardinals from the West, were striving after a more democratic form, so to speak, of church administration. The pope, they thought, should be subordinated to the councils. This led to a schism in the Council. Those who followed Cusanus moved the seat of the Council to the South; the others remained in Basle and set up an anti-pope.⁸ Cusanus remained firm in his defense of an absolute papacy. With a little insight it is easy to imagine the feelings that impelled Cusanus to take this stand. He must have felt that whatever emerged from a majority could at best lead only to a somewhat sublimated form of the same chaos already existing in his day. What he wanted was a firm hand that would bring about law and order, though he did want firmness permeated with insight. When he was sent to Middle Europe later on, he made good this desire by upholding consolidation of the Papal church.⁹ He was therefore, as a matter of course, destined to become a cardinal of the Papal church of that time.

As I said earlier, Nicholas probably understood himself quite well, but a latter-day observer finds him hard to understand. This becomes particularly evident when we see this defender of absolute papal power traveling from place to place and—if the words he then spoke are taken at face value—fanatically upholding the papistical Christianity of the West against the impending danger of a Turkish invasion.¹⁰ On the one hand, Cusanus (who in all likelihood had already been made a cardinal by that time) spoke in flaming words against the infidels. In vehement terms he summoned Europe to unite in resistance to the Turkish threat from Asia. On the other hand, if we study a book that Cusanus probably composed¹¹ in the very midst of his inflammatory campaigns against the Turks, we find something strange. In the first place, Cusanus preaches in the most rousing manner against the imminent danger posed by the Turks, inciting all good men to defend themselves against this peril and thus save European civilization. But then Cusanus sits down at his desk and writes a treatise on how Christians and Jews, pagans and Moslems—provided they are rightly understood—can be brought to peaceful cooperation, to the worship and recognition of the one universal God; how in Christians, Jews, Moslems and heathens there dwells a common element that need only be discovered to create peace among mankind. Thus the most conciliatory sentiments in regard to religions and denominations flow from this man's quiet private chamber, while he publicly calls for war in the most fanatical words.

This is what makes it hard to understand a man like Nicholas Cusanus. Only real insight that age can make him comprehensible but he must be viewed in the context of the inner spiritual development of his time. No criticism is intended. We only want to see the external side of this man, with the furious activity that I have described, and then to see what was living in his soul. We simply want to place the two aspects side by side.

We can best observe what took place in Cusanus's mind if we study the mood he was in while returning from a mission to Constantinople¹² on the behalf of the Holy See. His task was to work for the reconciliation of the Western and Eastern churches. On his return voyage, when he was on the ship and looking at the stars, there arose in him the fundamental thought, the basic feeling, incorporated in the book that he published in 1440 under the title De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance).¹³

What is the mood of this book? Cardinal Cusanus had, of course, long since absorbed all the spiritual knowledge current in the Middle Ages. He was well versed also in what the medieval schools of Neo-Platonism and Neo-Aristotelianism had attained. He was also quite familiar with the way Thomas Aquinas had spoken of the spiritual worlds as though it were the most normal thing for human concepts to rise from sense perception to spirit perception. In addition to his mastery of medieval theology, he had a thorough knowledge of the mathematical conceptions accessible to men of that time. He was an exceptionally good mathematician. His soul, therefore, was filled on the one side with the desire to rise through theological concepts to the world of spirit that reveals itself to man as the divine and, on the other side, with all the inner discipline, rigor and confidence that come to a man who immerses himself in mathematics. Thus he was both a fervent and an accurate thinker.

When he was crossing the sea from Constantinople to the West and looking up at the starlit sky, his twofold soul mood characterized above revolved itself in the following feeling. Thenceforth, Cusanus conceived the deity as something lying outside human knowledge. He told himself: “We can live here on earth with our knowledge, with our concepts and thoughts. By means of these we can take hold of what surrounds us in the kingdom of nature. But these concepts grow ever more lame when we direct our gaze upward to what reveals itself as the divine.”

In Scholasticism, arising from quite another viewpoint, a gap had opened up between knowledge and revelation.¹⁴ This gap now became the deepest problem of Cusanus's soul, the most intimate concern of the heart. Repeatedly he sent through this course of reasoning, repeatedly he saw how thinking extends itself over everything surrounding man in nature; how it then tries to raise itself above this realm to the divinity of thoughts; and how, there, it becomes ever more tenuous until it finally completely dissipates into nothingness as it realizes that the divine lies beyond that void into which thinking has dissipated. Only if a man has developed (apart form this life in thought) sufficient fervent love to be capable of continuing further on this path that his though has traversed, only if love gains the lead over thought, then this love can attain the realm into which knowledge gained only by thinking cannot reach.

It therefore became a matter of deep concern for Cusanus to designate the actual divine realm as the dimension before which human thought grows lame and human knowledge is dispersed into nothingness. This was his docta ignorantia, his learned ignorance. Nicholas Cusanus felt that when erudition, knowledge, assumes in the noblest sense a state of renouncing itself at the instant when it thinks to attain the spirit, then it achieves its highest form, it becomes docta ignorantia. It was in this mood that Cusanus published his De Docta Ignorantia in 1440.

Let us leave Cusanus for the moment, and look into the lonely cell of a medieval mystic who preceded Cusanus. To the extent that this man has significance for spiritual science, I described him in my book on mysticism. He is Meister Eckhart,¹⁵ a man who was declared a heretic by the official church. There are many ways to study the writings of Meister Eckhart and one can delight in the fervor of his mysticism. It is perhaps most profoundly touching if, through repeated study, the reader comes upon a fundamental mood of Eckhart's soul.

I would like to describe it as follows. Though living earlier than Cusanus, Meister Eckhart too was imbued through and through with what medieval Christian theology sought as an ascent to the divine, to the spiritual world. When we study Meister Eckhart's writings, we can recognize Thomistic shades of thought in many of his lines. But each time Meister Eckhart's soul tries to rise from theological thinking to the actual spiritual world (with which it feels united,) it ends

By saying to itself that with all this thinking and theology it cannot penetrate to its innermost essence, to the divine inner spark. It tells itself: This thinking, this theology, these ideas, give me fragments of something here, there, everywhere. But none of these are anything like the spiritual divine spark in my own inner being. Therefore, I am excluded from all thoughts, feelings, and memories that fill my soul, from all knowledge of the world that I can absorb up to the highest level. I am excluded from it all, even though I am seeking the deepest nature of my own being. I am in nothingness when I seek this essence of myself. I have searched and searched. I traveled many paths, and they brought me many ideas and feelings, and on these paths I found much. I searched for my “I,” but before ever I found it, I fell into “nothingness” in this search for the “I,” although all the kingdoms of nature urged me to the search.

So, in his search for the self, Meister Eckhart felt that he had fallen into nothingness. This feeling evoked in this medieval mystic words that profoundly touch the heart and soul. They can be paraphrased thus: “I submerge myself in God's nothingness, and am eternally, through nothingness, through nothing, an I; through nothing, I become an I. In all eternity, I must etch the I from the ‘nothingness’ of God.”¹⁶ These are powerful words. Why did this urge for “nothing,” for finding that I in nothingness, resound in the innermost chamber of this mystic's heart, when he wanted to pass from seeking the world to seeking the I? Why? If we go back into earlier times, we find that in former ages it was possible, when the soul turned its gaze inward into itself, to behold the spirit shining forth within. This was still a heritage of primeval pneumatology, of which we shall speak later on. When Thomas Aquinas, for example, peered into the soul, he found within the soul a weaving, living spiritual element. Thomas Aquinas¹⁷ and his predecessors sought the essential ego not in the soul itself but in the spiritual dwelling in the soul. They looked through the soul into the spirit, and in the spirit they found their God-given I. And they said, or could have said: I penetrate into my inmost soul, gaze into the spirit, and in the spirit I find the I.—In the meantime, however, in humanity's forward development toward the realm of freedom, men had lost the ability to find the spirit when they looked inward into themselves.

An earlier figure such as John Scotus Erigena (810–880) would not have spoken as did Meister Eckhart. He would have said: I gaze into my being. When I have traversed all the paths that led me through the kingdoms of the outer world, then I discover the spirit in my inmost soul. Thereby, I find the “I” weaving and living in the soul. I sink myself as spirit into the Divine and discover “I.”

It was, alas, human destiny that the path that was still accessible to mankind in earlier centuries was no longer open in Meister Eckhart's time. Exploring along the same avenues as John Scotus Erigena or even Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart could not sink himself into God-the-Spirit, but only into the “nothingness” of the Divine, and from this “nothing” he had to take hold of the I. This shows that mankind could no longer see the spirit in inner vision. Meister Eckhart brought the I out of the naught through the deep fervor of his heart. His successor, Nicholas Cusanus,¹⁸ admits with complete candor: All thoughts and ideas that lead us in our exploration of the world become lame, become as nothing, when we would venture into the realm of spirit. The soul has lost the power to find the spirit realm in its inner being. So Cusanus says to himself: When I experience everything that theology can give me, I am led into this naught of human thinking. I must unite myself with what dwells in this nothingness in order to at least gain in the docta ignorantia the experience of the spirit.—Then, however, such knowledge, such perception, cannot be expressed in words. Man is rendered dumb when he has reached the point at which he can experience the spirit only through the docta ignorantia.

Thus Cusanus is the man who in his own personal development experiences the end of medieval theology and is driven to the docta ignorantia. He is, however, at the same time a skillful mathematician. He has the disciplined thinking that derives from the pursuit of mathematics. But he shies away, as it were, from applying his mathematical skills to the docta ignorantia. He approaches the docta ignorantia with all kinds of mathematical symbols and formulas, but he does this timidly, diffidently. He is always conscious of the fact that these are symbols derived from mathematics. He says to himself: Mathematics is the last remnant left to me from ancient knowledge. I cannot doubt its reliability as I can doubt that of theology, because I actually experience its reliability when I apprehend mathematics with my mind.—At the same time, his disappointment with theology is so great he dares not apply his mathematical skills in the field of the docta ignorantia except in the form of symbols.

This is the end of one epoch in human thinking. In his inner mood of soul, Cusanus was almost as much of a mathematician as was Descartes later on, but he dared not try to grasp with mathematics what appeared to him in the manner he described in his Docta Ignorantia He felt as though the spirit realm had withdrawn from mankind, had vanished increasingly into the distance, and was unattainable with human knowledge. Man must become ignorant in the innermost sense in order to unite himself in love with this realm of the spirit.

This mood pervades Cusanus's Docta Ignorantia published in 1440. In the development of Western civilization, men had once believed that they confronted the spirit-realm in close perspective. But then, this spirit realm became more and more remote from those men who observed it, and finally it vanished. The book of 1440 was a frank admission that the ordinary human comprehension of that time could no longer reach the remote perspectives into which the spirit realm has withdrawn. Mathematics, the most reliable of the sciences, dared to approach only with symbolic formulas what was no longer beheld by the soul. It was as though this spirit realm, receding further and further in perspective, had disappeared from European civilization. But from the opposite direction, another realm was coming increasingly into view. This was the realm of the sense world, which European civilization was beginning to observe and like. In 1440, Nicholas Cusanus applied mathematical thinking and mathematical knowledge to the vanishing spirit realm only by a timid use of symbols; but now Nicholas Copernicus boldly and firmly applied them to the outer sense world. In 1440 the Docta Ignorantia appeared with the admission that even with mathematics one can no longer behold the spirit realm. We must conceive the spirit realm as so far removed from human perception that even mathematics can approach it only with halting symbols; this is what Nicholas Cusanus said in 1440. “Conceive of mathematics as so powerful and reliable that it can force the sense world into mathematical formulas that are scientifically understandable.” This is what Nicholas Copernicus said to European civilization in 1543. In 1543 Copernicus published his De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies,) where the universe was depicted so boldly and rudely that it had to surrender itself to mathematical treatment.

One century lies between the two. During this century Western science was born. Earlier, it had been in an embryonic state. Whoever wants to understand what led to the birth of Western science, must understand this century that lies between the Docta Ignorantia and the De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. Even today, if we are to understand the true meaning of science, we must study the fructifications that occurred at that time in human soul life and the renunciations it had to experience. We must go back this far in time. If we want to have the right scientific attitude, we must begin there, and we must also briefly consider the embryonic state preceding Nicholas Cusanus. Only then can we really comprehend what science can accomplish for mankind and see how new spiritual life can blossom forth from it.

• 1 . Rudolf Steiner, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age (Blauvelt, NY: Steinerbooks, 1960) (formerly published as Eleven European Mystics).
• 2 . These include the three natural scientific courses held in Stuttgart: First First Scientific Lecture Course: Light Course (Forest Row, England: Steiner Schools Fellowship, 1977); Second Scientific Lecture Course: Warmth Course (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1981); and Das Verhältnis der verschiedenen naturwissenschaftlichen Gebiete sur Astronomie. (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag). The relationship between natural science and spiritual science is dealt with in The Boundaries of Natural Science (Spring Valley, NY, Anthroposophic Press, 1983).
• 3 . Nicholas Cusanus (Nicholas of Cusa), 1401–1464. Lawyer, churchman, philosopher, mathematician. Ordained priest between 1436–1440, Cardinal 1448. Bishop of Brixen, 1450. cf. chapter on Cusanus in Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age.
• 4 . Nicholas Cusanus was made Cardinal and named Bishop of Brixen in rapid succession. Though a stranger to Brixen he was named Bishop there directly by the Pope. This led to a protracted conflict with his diocese, during which the latter gathered behind the Duke of Tirol. Cusa was ambushed by the Duke, imprisoned, and forced into accepting a demeaning agreement. The Duke was excommunicated by the Pope and attacked by the Swiss Confederation. However, he was supported by German Counts and remained intransigent. Cusa died before the Emperor could resolve the conflict. The battles around him did not rob Cusa of his peace of mind, and he developed his philosophic, mathematical and theological insights, writing fifteen of his works during the time in Brixen.
• 5 . Brethren of Common Life (also of Good Will): Founded by Gerhart Groote around 1376. Brother-houses in Holland, Northern Germany, Italy and Portugal. Brought into the Catholic Church in the Fifteenth Century. Their schools taught under the strict observance of dogma.
• 6 . Council of Basel: 1431–1449. Called by Pope Martin V on July 23, 1431, the year of his death. This was the last of four reformatory councils with the aim of ending the division in the Church. There came a new rift in the Church.
• 7 . In 1437. This summarizes a long process: Cusanus entered the Council 1432 with the task from the Archdiocese of Trier to defend their Archbishop, whom they had chosen against the will of the Pope. Through the treatise De Concordantia Catholica (On Catholic Unity) which he distributed among the Council and which contained an exceptional survey of the decisions of the Councils and Decrees of the Church, he offered the advice welcome by the majority that the Common Council was beyond the Pope. Thus, he immediately became an important figure in the Council.
  
  Later, the Council majority and the history writings accused Cusanus of having changed his conviction. But Cusanus' deep understanding was ignored, which was rooted in his attitude and which comes to expression in the following words: “When a decision is made unanimously, then one can believe that it came from the Holy Spirit. It lies not in men's power to meet somewhere, and although they are so different from each other, they are able to come to a harmonious decision. It is God's work.” (From J.M. Duex, Der Deutsche Cardinal Nicolaus Von Cusa, Regensburg 1874, Bd. 2, s. 262, which has translated some of the most important of the De Concordantia Catholica. Cusanus must have experienced at the Council that his description of the meaning of a Council was not taken with interest, and he must have faced a decision that is mentioned in the lecture.
• 8 . Pope Eugene 4th was put down and Duke Amadeus of Savoy was set up as Pope Felix 5th in 1439. His resignation in 1449 caused the disbandment of the Council.
• 9 . From 1439–1448 Cusanus acted on the order of the Pope as “Hercules of the Eugenians” as an opponent called him. He went to worldly and churchly princes as well as to the “Reichstag,” and he tried to overcome the neutrality of the Germans about the split of churches, with complete success.
• 10. At the meetings of the princes, 1454, in Nuremberg, Regensburg, and Frankfurt after the invasion of Constantinople by the Turkish, Cusanus tried to motivate the princes to a crusade. After J. Hunnyadis' victory over the Turkish Army in front of Belgrade in 1456 Cusanus organized, at the same day he received the message, a festival of thanksgiving, and he spoke the following words: “Because the lower man can only enjoy life animal-like and physical, Satan who wants to destroy the Gospels in a fine way, intended the appearance of Muhammad who knows the Gospel and the Bible, to let him give the Gospel and Bible an animal-like, sensual meaning. In this way Satan taught Muhammad knowledge to let go forth the head of Malignity, the son of Ruin, and to be an enemy of the cross of Christ.” (From a sermon, “Landaus Invocalo Dominum,” partly translated by J.M. Duex A.A.O.S. 165). Further sermons against the Turks are known from October 28, and November 5 of the same year. (E. Varisteenberge, Le Cardinal Nicolas De Cues, Paris 1920, S. 231 F, and index of sermons s. 480), but this sermon seems to be available only in Latin.
  
  Cusanus himself announced his appointment as Cardinal with a short autobiographical note in which is written: Nicolas was made Cardinal secretly by Pope Eugene (Hist. Jahrbuch der Goerrers Gesellschaft 16.S.549).
• 11. De Pace Fidei (On the Peace of the Faiths), written in September 1453. “The horrible days of Constantinople ... had caused a deep feeling of sadness in the breast of a man who once had wandered through this region, and caused him to sink into deep contemplation, and he had a vision. In this sublime state, he particularly thinks about the differences of the religions of the world, and the possibility of their harmony. This harmony is, in his opinion, a basic condition for religious peace.” (Introduction to De Pace Fidei: Nach Duex A.A.O.S. 405).
• 12. Cusanus left Basel in May 1437 together with other representatives of the minority and traveled for the minority with the legation of the Pope to Constantinople to accompany the Greek Emperor and the heads of the Eastern Church to the Union Council in Ferrara. They arrived in February 1438 in Italy.
• 13. De Docta Ignorantia (The Learned Ignorance). Three books finished in February 1440.
• 14. See Rudolf Steiner, The Redemption of Thinking. (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1983).
• 15. Meister Eckhart: Hochheim by Gotha about 1260–before 1328, Cologne. Dominican, schoolmaster, German mystic. Preached in leading posts in orders and churches; taught in Paris, Strasbourg, Cologne. Main work: Opus Tripartius. Based on Scholasticism and writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. Copies of his sermons partly went around without his control. Meister Eckhart died, accused as heretic, during the trial. See chapter, “Meister Eckhart,” in Rudolf Steiner's Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age.
• 16. These lines cannot be made clear and simple because the German text plays at length on the words Nicht and Ich.
• 17. Thomas Aquinas: Castle Roccasecca in the Neopolitan region, about 1225–1274 Cloister Fossanuova. Dominican, scholar, churchman. In Cologne, student and friend of Albertus Magnus. Advocated the spiritual reality of general concepts. He directed the theological school in Rome from 1261–1267. There the studies of the Dominican; from 1268 onwards he is teaching in Naples and France. See Rudolf Steiner, The Redemption of Thinking and Riddles of Philosophy (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1973).
• 18. Nicholas Copernicus: Thorn 1473–1543 Frauenburg. Humanist, mathematician, astronomer, physician, lawyer. No publications during his life, with the exception of a translation. Finished his work on the heliocentric planetary system around 1507. Copernicus was already on his deathbed when his De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published. He dedicated it to Pope Paul III. His friend and publisher introduced it as a purely hypothetical, special scientific method of calculation. It thus slipped past the censor, until the third edition was banned in 1616/17. Not until 1822 was it accepted by the Catholic Church, cf. Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Man. (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1983).

Mantram at beginning of every lecture and repeated at the end of the lecture given on 28 November 1914:

Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mogen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.

Second Mantram spoken in all lectures except the first, and repeated at the end of the lecture given on 28 November 1914.
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wachter, Eure Schwingen mogen bringen

Unserer Seelen buttende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Spharenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.

Mantram given at the end of all lectures except on 1 September 1914, 28 November 1914 and 10 June 1915:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Lied Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht—
Lenken Seelen geistbewußt
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

Lecture given on 1 September 1914:

Quelle Blut,
Im Quellen wirke,
Regsamer Muskel
Rege die Keime,
Liebende Pflege
Wärmenden Herzens,
Sei heilender Hauch.

So lang du den Schmerz erfühlest.
Der mich meidet
Ist Christus unerkannt
Im Weltenwesen wirkend.
Denn schwach nur bleibet der Geist,
Wenn er allein im eignen Leibe
Des Leidesfühlens machtig ist.

Du, meines Erdenraumes Geist,
Enthülle deines Alters Licht
Der Christ-begabten Seele,
DaB strebend sie linden kann
Im Chor der Friedensspharen
Dich, tönend von Lob and Macht
Des Christ-ergebenen Menschensinns.⁸⁹

Lecture given on 22 February 1915:

In Weltenweiten will ich tragen
Mein fahlend Herz, daß warm es werde
Im Feuer heil'gen Kraftewirkens;

In Weltgedanken will ich weben
Das eigne Denken, daB klar es werde
Im Licht des ew'gen Werdelebens;

In Seelengriinde will ich tauchen
Ergebnes Sinne, daB stark es werde
Für Menschenwirkens wahre Ziele;

In Gottes Ruhe streb' ich so
Mit Lebenskämpfen und mit Sorgen
Mein Selbst zum htihern Selbst bereitend.

Nach arbeitsfreud'gem Frieden trachtend,
Erahnend Weltensein im Eigensein
Möcht' ich die Menschenpflicht erfiillen;

Erwartend leben darf ich dann
Entgegen meinem Seelensterne,
Der mir im Geistgebiet den Ort erteilt.

Altered last verse:

Erwartend leben darf ich dann
Entgegen meinem Schicksalssterne,
Der mir im Geistgebiet den Ort erteilt.

Du tratest unter uns,
Deines Wesens bewegte Sanftmut
Sprach aus definer Augen stiller Kraft—
Ruhe, die seelenvoll belebt,
Floß in den Wellen,
Mit denen deine Blicke
Zu Dingen und zu Menschen
Deines Innern Weben trugen.
Und es durchseelte dieses Wesen
Deine Stimme, die beredt
Durch des Wortes Art mehr
Als in dem Worte selbst
Offenbarte, was verborgen
In deiner schonen Seele weset,
Doch das hingebender Liebe
Teilnahmsvoller Menschen
Sich wortlos auch enthüllte:
Dies Wesen, das von edler, stiller Schönheit
Der Welten-Seelen-Schöpfung
Empfänglichem Empfinden kiindete.

Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend,
So betratest du das Feld,
Wo der Erde Geistesblüten
Durch die Kraft des Seelenseins
Sich dem Forschen zeigen möchten.

Lautrer Wahrheitsliebe Wesen
War dein Sehnen urverwandt;
Aus dem Geisteslicht zu schaffen,
War das ernste Lebensziel,
Dem du rastlos nachgestrebt.

Deine schönen Gaben pflegtest du
Urn der Geist-Erkenntnis hellen Weg,
Unbeirrt vom Welten-Widerspruch,
Als der Wahrheit treuer Diener
Sichern Schrittes hinzuwandeln.

Deine Geistorgane übtest du,
Daß sie tapfer and beharrlich
An des Weges beide Ränder
Dir den Irrtum drängten,
Und dir Raum far Wahrheit schufen.

Dir dein Selbst zur Offenbarung
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten,
Dass die Seelen-Sonnenkraft
Dir im Innern machtvoll strahle,
War dir Lebenssorg' und -freude.

Andre Sorgen, andre Freuden,
Sie benihrten deine Seele kaum,
Weil Erkenntnis dir als Licht,
Das dem Dasein Sinn verleiht,
Als des Lebens wahrer Wert er-schien.

Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend,
So betratest du das Feld,
Wo der Erde Geistesbliiten,
Durch die Kraft des Seelenseins,
Sich dem Forschen zeigen mochten.

Ein Verlust, der tief uns schmerzt,
So entschwindest du dem Feld,
Wo des Geistes Erdenkeime
In dem Scholl des Seelenseins,
Deinem Spharensinne reiften.

Fühle, wie wir liebend blicken
In die Höhen, die dich jetzt
Hin zu andrem Schaffen rufen,
Reiche den verlassnen Freunden
Deine Kraft aus Geistgebieten.

Höre unsrer Seelen Bitte
Im Vertrau'n dir nachgesandt:
Wir bedu-rfen zu dem Erdenwerk
Starker Kraft aus Geisteslanden
Die wir toten Freunden danken.

Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend,
Ein Verlust, der tief tins schmerzt:
LaB uns hoffen, daB du ferne-nah,
Unverloren unsrem Leben leuchtest,
Als ein Seelenstern im Geistbereich.

Verses 5 and 6 altered to:

Mir mein Selbst zur Offenbarung
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten,
Daß die Seelen-Sonnenkraft
Mir im Innern machtvoll strahle,
War mir Lebenssorg' und-freude.

Andre Sorgen, andre Freuden
Sie berührten meine Seele kaum;
Well Erkenntnis mir als Licht,
Das dem Dasein Sinn verleiht,
Als des Lebens wahrer Wert er-schien.

Lecture given on 2 March 1915:

Im Leuchtenden,
Da fühl' ich
Die Lebenskraft.
Der Tod hat mich
Vom Schlaf erweckt,
Vom Geistesschlaf.
Ich werde sein,
Und aus mir tun,
Was Leuchtekraft
In mir erstrahlt.

• 89. At a later date Rudolf Steiner changed the line ‘Dich. tönend von Lob and Macht’ to ‘Dich, tönend von Licht und Macht’ (‘Thee ringing with praise and power’ to ‘Thee ringing with light and power’). See Wahrspruchworte—Richtspruchworte. Dornach 1951 ( proposed GA 41).

at the beginning of the lecture

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

Berlin, December 24, 1903

Dearest Miss Scholl!

Warmest Christmas greetings to you three, ¹ And the news that you will receive the diplomas and the exegesis for “L.a.d.W.” [“Licht auf den Weg” – “Light on the Way”] on Saturday. Please be patient until then.

Kind regards,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner
Berlin W, Motzstrasse 17

• 1. Refers to Mathilde Scholl's friends and housemates, Maud and Eugen Künstler.

My dear friends!

You will gradually return home from your visit to the Goetheanum.

This time I could only be united with you here in spirit. Nevertheless, I hope that in your hearts the forces kindled by the Christmas Conference a year ago have received a new impulse.

Remembering this and fervently hoping for it, I send you my warmest greetings and most intense thoughts. Dr. I. Wegman, my friend and devoted nurse, does likewise.

Most sincerely
Rudolf Steiner

These lectures and documents from the summer and fall of 1915 were a response to a crisis in the Anthroposophical Society, a crisis Rudolf Steiner wanted the membership to be aware of.

In part, the crisis was caused by Alice Sprengel, a long-time student of Rudolf Steiner, and her reaction apparently provoked by the marriage of her spiritual teacher to Marie von Sivers. Her expectations, the exact nature of which is not quite clear, were connected to the important role she felt herself playing in the anthroposophical movement. Faced with the close working relationship and then the marriage of Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers in the winter of 1914, Alice Sprengel not only sent personal letters to both but also brought her disappointment and sense of abandonment to the attention of other members of the Anthroposophical Society.

She also had a close relationship to Heinrich and Gertrud Goesch, a couple whose interest in Rudolf Steiner's work was matched by an equally strong fascination with the then emerging psychoanalytical school of Freud. Influenced by Alice Sprengel and his own inner uncertainties, Heinrich Goesch accused Rudolf Steiner both privately and publicly of manipulating the membership of the Anthroposophical Society into a dependent status. As supposed mechanisms of such manipulation he mentioned Steiner's repeated failure to keep appointments and physical contact with members through shaking hands upon meeting.

Rudolf Steiner was understandably upset by both sets of accusations and even more so by the gossiping and dissension they caused among members of the Anthroposophical Society. He used these difficulties as an opportunity to address four important questions that are as relevant today as they were in 1915. The first, primarily discussed in Lectures One and Two, concerns the nature of the Anthroposophical Society and the responsibilities its members have to accept if they want to be true to spiritual science. The very clear, pragmatic manner in which these two lectures discuss this important issue makes them a valuable companion to the recently published The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the Anthroposophical Society, 1923/24.¹ The need for the members to move from a consumer orientation regarding spiritual teaching to a feeling of responsibility for it, the unique nature of the Anthroposophical Society as an earthly home for spiritual revelation, and the harm that irresponsible statements and actions can cause the Society are just a few of the important points covered. Steiner also takes a stand against the incessant gossiping and the mutual criticism among members as well as against their attempts to justify sexual infidelities by pointing to an incontrovertible "karma." Rudolf Steiner here urgently appeals to the members' sense of truth and exactitude as the basis for a healing and nurturing of the Anthroposophical Society.

The second question addressed, particularly in Lectures Three and Five, concerns the nature and conditions of spiritual seership. Steiner uses a discussion of Swedenborg's inability to understand the thoughts of certain spirit beings to make two fundamental points about spiritual cognition. The first is the difference between perception in the physical world and true spiritual seership. In the physical world we perceive objects outside of ourselves and take something of them into us through mental images. In the spiritual world "we no longer perceive but experience that we are being perceived, that the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies are observing us. This experience of being perceived and observed by the Angeloi and Archangeloi and other spiritual hierarchies is a total reversal of our former relationship to the physical world.”²

According to Steiner, Swedenborg did not achieve this reversal of perspective; therefore, his clairvoyance was limited, and he did not attain to full imaginative cognition.

Steiner links this difference in perspectives to that between clairvoyance achieved through the redirection of sexual energies and clairvoyance resulting from pure thinking. The latter leads to the experience that the transformed thinking activity of the human being, a thinking devoid of personal likes and dislikes, allows thoughts to appear as objective entities within the human soul. It thereby properly prepares the individual for spiritual seership. The transformation of sexual energies, on the other hand, keeps the individual tied to the physical and allows only a partial clairvoyance. Steiner therefore contends that a spiritual science and seership appropriate to our time rests not on a transformation of our instincts but on a conscious separation of the instinctual life from that of the mind and spirit.

The third issue discussed by Rudolf Steiner in these lectures is the nature of psychoanalysis as developed by Freud. While acknowledging the importance of the unconscious and the subconscious, Steiner is particularly critical of the theory of infantile sexuality. It should be noted that Steiner gave these lectures in 1915 and that both Adler and Jung broke with Freud over Freud's insistence on infantile sexuality as a primary interpretive framework for understanding psychological disturbances.³

Freudian psychology is discussed in Lectures Four and Five of this volume. They are an important supplement to the recently published lectures of Rudolf Steiner entitled Psychoanalysis and Spiritual Psychology.⁴ Of particular significance is Rudolf Steiner's treatment of the three main physiological functions of the human being—the nerve sense system, the rhythmic system, and the metabolic system—in their historical and spiritual evolution. His insistence that the metabolic system and the instinctual sexual life are the least spiritual aspects of the human being supports both his criticism of Freud and his basic view of spiritual development.

In reading both these lectures and those contained in Psychoanalysis and Spiritual Psychology, one can easily be led to reject much of the development of psychology in the twentieth century. Indeed the anti-psychological orientation of many students of Rudolf Steiner's work is quite pronounced. My own perspective is different. First, I see the development of modern psychology and psychiatry as co-existent with the end of what Rudolf Steiner refers to as “the Kali Yuga,” or dark age, in 1899. This means that however inadequate the evolution of psychological theories and practices has been in some respects, it has on the whole been a new and deepening exploration of the human soul and spirit. Here, I am in particular thinking of Jung in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections or of Viktor Frankl's logo-therapy or Assagioli's work. It seems to me that while there is much in modern psychology that is trivial and dangerous, there is also much that is worthwhile and helpful.

Students of Rudolf Steiner's work have the possibility to ask questions of appropriateness and relevance regarding different psychological schools, as David Black has done in “On the Nature of Psychology” in Towards.⁵ To see biophysical, behavioral, intrapsychic, and phenomenological schools of thought as addressing different levels of the human being, and to ask what spiritual science has to contribute to the evolving body of psychological and spiritual insight in the last decade of the twentieth century, is a more honest and, I believe, more helpful approach than to extend Steiner's early opposition to Freud and Jung into an unreflecting anti-psychological stance. Soul work and spirit work are intimately connected. The task of developing a more spiritual psychology is a vital task for the coming decades.

In Lecture Six, Steiner addresses the relation between love, mysticism, and spirituality. Particularly significant is his contention that the prevailing materialism of the time made it impossible for most people to conceive of a spiritual striving that did not have some erotic or sexual basis, albeit a very refined one. While Rudolf Steiner does acknowledge that this is sometimes the case, he again asserts the importance of spiritual science as a path of spiritual development for Western humanity in our time because of its reliance on the transformation of the individual's thinking.

As this volume also contains all of the correspondence regarding the difficulties in the Anthroposophical Society in 1915, readers will easily see the direct connection between the personal accusations leveled against Steiner and the lecture themes presented. The questions raised are basic ones for any modern spiritual movement that wants to contribute to individual freedom and a renewal of society. These lectures can lead members of the Anthroposophical Society to ponder their responsibilities toward the content of spiritual science, toward Rudolf Steiner, and toward their brothers and sisters in their striving. For outside observers these lectures constitute an insightful record of the social and psychological difficulties of a spiritual movement relying primarily on the insights and teachings of one individual.

However, the questions of love, sexuality, morality, and spiritual development are of immediate interest and of deep personal significance for all readers on their inner journey.

CHRISTOPHER SCHAEFER, PH.D.
Spring Valley, New York
February 1991

• 1. Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the Anthroposophical Society, 1923/24 (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1990).
• 2. See Lecture Three in this volume, pp. 43-44.
• 3. See I. Progoff, The Death and Rebirth of Psychology (New York: McGraw Hill, 1973).
• 4. Rudolf Steiner, Psychoanalysis and Spiritual Psychology (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1990).
• 5. Towards, 1 no. 7 (Winter 1980/81): 29-34.

[A full transcript of the proceedings conducted in Dutch is not available. However, Rudolf Steiner's various comments were recorded as follows:]

My dear friends! As far as I can understand the course of the proceedings with the help of the interpreters, a few words must now be said about the agenda.

It seems absolutely necessary to me that the decision that has just been taken be taken at the end of the negotiations. So I would like to propose to annul the solemn decision, to let the negotiations take place and then to consider whether the decision can be taken to found the Dutch Society.

Regarding the nature of the company to be established:

My dear friends! It seems to me that the next subject of the negotiations should be the constitution of the company, and in such a way that it can then lead to the decisions that consist of declaring the company to be established, electing the Secretary General, electing the Board of Directors, and so on. But we must also consider the reasons why we are entering into such negotiations at all, and how they should shape the content of today's negotiations.

You will know, my dear friends, that some time ago the idea arose of founding an International Anthroposophical Society with its center in Dornach. We have indeed experienced the deep pain at the beginning of this year of losing the center in Dornach on which we wanted to build everything that should happen in Dornach. But we also hope that with the help of our friends around the world, it will be possible to rebuild the Goetheanum in Dornach. I do not wish to dwell here on the depth of the pain that has befallen us because of the destruction of the Goetheanum, because today we want to devote ourselves to the positive business of the Anthroposophical Society. The very idea of founding an International Anthroposophical Society must surely fill us with hope, and we must reflect on its significance and implications.

At the beginning of today's conference, my dear friends, you heard a number of really quite significant discussions about individual areas of work within the Anthroposophical movement, for example about Dr. Zeylmans' intentions regarding the newly established clinic and about the efforts regarding the school here, which is also based on the model of the Waldorf school. In both institutions, I was able to take part in the work during these days, to my great satisfaction, even if the time was short but all the more heartfelt. I would just like to mention how Dr. Zeylmans has succeeded in an extraordinarily significant way in interesting a relatively large number of doctors in our modern medical efforts, after which I was then allowed to give two lectures on our medical movement at Dr. Zeylmans' institute [in GA 319]. This is an achievement that has been brought about by the field of our medical work, which really cannot be sufficiently recognized in the immediate present and which has a very great, an enormous significance.

The second is the school. A similar thing can be said about the school. As far as it was possible to ascertain during the two visits, the school is truly permeated by purposeful will and a very clever, understanding, wisdom-filled use of our educational content, as it is demanded by the anthroposophical movement. Purposefulness and a high degree of skill in our pedagogical field are what one encounters in this school. Devoted work and efficiency are what immediately strike one. If we consider the cultivation of eurythmy at the local school, which is particularly new for our school efforts, I can also express a deep, heartfelt satisfaction about this, because the matter is imbued with extraordinary devotion, willingness to make sacrifices and efficiency. All of this really does spread something over the whole school, however small it still is – hopefully it will grow – that is already instilling confidence.

And just by emphasizing something like that, my dear friends, I would like to add a few details that have caught my eye with regard to these things, as if in parentheses. You see, there has been talk about the alleged high cost of remedies. Yes, the thing is that the remedies have to cost just as much as is necessary to cover the costs of production, shipping and so on. This is healthier after all – one must also think of the social and financial health when it comes to medicine, otherwise one is inconsistent – it is much healthier to pay for the remedies as they must cost according to the production costs and so on, than to pay less for them and have a deficit; you would have to pay for that again if it is not to be paid from the moon. These would not be healthy conditions. These things must be taken into account in such a way that, in such cases, when the remedies are too expensive for one or the other, a fund is set up or something similar, from which these remedies are then paid for. Here, too, we must develop a kind of trust, we must place this trust in the insight of those who have to work for these remedies. This only in parenthesis.

All in all, however, what emerges with great clarity from the presentations by Mrs. Mulder and Dr. Zeylmans is this: wherever we begin with something that has a manageable content from the outset, that can be seen in limitation, it immediately becomes apparent that we are making progress, that we can work spiritually. So, you see, it is in the legitimate special areas of our anthroposophical movement.

We have seen how, in recent times, eurythmy has made tremendous progress, and I hope that this will also happen in the Netherlands. It is hardly possible for Dr. Steiner to even begin to satisfy all the requests that arise all over the world regarding the seeing of eurythmic art. Here too, during this conference, we have seen how what is really deeply needed in the anthroposophical movement, especially as eurythmy on the one hand and the school system on the other spread, has sparked interest in the art of speaking, declamation, and recitation, and actually demands that it be cultivated in an appropriate way. As I said, we see at the Clinical Institute and at the school that when we have substantial, manageable content, we also make progress.

Now, my dear friends, you see, all these individual efforts could not exist without the central effort, which remains the main thing: the anthroposophical movement itself. They all arise from it and must be nourished by it. We could gain a perfect model for the work of the Anthroposophical Society from the work of these individual endeavors.

We must be quite open and honest with one another. Imagine someone who at least wants to think professionally visits the school that has been founded here. He will pay attention everywhere to whether what permeates the art of education and teaching has the prospect of really helping children to move forward, of placing children in life in a way that meets the demands of the present time. It would never occur to him to say, “This is a cult school; you can't go along with that, they work in a cultish way.”

And let us move on to the Clinical Institute. Certainly, those who have heard these two lectures in the last few days will certainly disagree with one or the other, or perhaps with the whole, in a variety of ways; that does no harm, it must be so at the beginning of a movement; one must have confidence in what is the underlying force. But even if people may not agree with the details or the whole, none of the participants could have gained the impression that they were dealing with a medical sect. That was quite impossible. Nor would one be tempted to speak of sectarian eurythmy, sectarian recitation or sectarian declamation.

But now we ask ourselves whether the same applies to the central movement, insofar as it is centered in the Anthroposophical Society. Some people who come from outside get the impression of sectarianism, of what is permeated by all sorts of things, by fanaticism, by stubbornness, by abstract idealism, by vague mysticism and so on, by all sorts of things that smell to them like it smells in sectarian communities, spiritually and soulfully. I say this, of course, only because these things must be said, not because I want to make accusations and the like. I say it only to present, so to speak, the counter-tableau, the sectarian counter-tableau, because I want to emphasize: the way it is in these individual endeavors, which are so fruitful, is the way it should be in the Anthroposophical Society itself. There really should be an objective, a purely objective spirit within it, which as such is evident to the world.

This was the basis, my dear friends, for the idea of founding the International Anthroposophical Society from Dornach. Never have I understood something better within the Anthroposophical Society than when, for example, I was told — and I also see personalities here who repeatedly said something like this to me in the years I have been here: Yes, this Anthroposophical Society, it comes together in smaller circles and so on, but we need something else. We need, for example, a center in Dornach where everything that a member of the Anthroposophical Society should know, everything that should be of interest to them, is somehow indicated, perhaps through a journal or something else. This should then be available to the individual members. Until now, our fragmented and divided nature, due to the fact that one person could know nothing of the others, meant that we were a society that others could not know either. We were unable to meet this very legitimate demand. It is one of those demands that simply has to be met.

Recently, we have had two eminently significant discoveries in the field of science, let us say, for the sake of argument. I will just emphasize that. These are two biological discoveries about the spleen and about the effectiveness of the smallest entities. I do not want to go into this now, but it would be interesting to have a vote on the matter and for all those who have not yet heard of the significance of these scientific discoveries to stand up. We really need some way of finding out what is going on. An enormous amount is happening in the Anthroposophical Society, but the individual does not even have the opportunity to know about it. As I said, I felt this was a very justified demand. But all this can only be done if the society is there as it should be. Therefore, the decision was taken to form the international society in Dornach in such a way - and this is to happen in the coming Christmas days - that it can fulfill such tasks. So it is not just a matter of this Society having an external form, with, for example, standardized membership cards, registers of members, a central office where everyone has to pay, and so on. The International Anthroposophical Society should not just exist in an external formal way, but in an organic circulation of what happens in it. Just imagine, once it is there in this form, the International Anthroposophical Society, then countless difficulties that we have today will simply disappear.

However, such an international society can only be founded in Dornach if the individual national societies have first been established and send their delegates to Dornach. Then the International Anthroposophical Society can be founded out of the national societies. That was the reason why national societies were founded in various countries in my presence. In Sweden we have had one for a long time [since 1913]; in Norway one was founded during my stay [in May 1923]; the Swiss Anthroposophical Society and the English one have been founded. In Italy, an attempt has been made. The German Anthroposophical Society has been founded. The French Anthroposophical Society has been founded in a slightly different form, due to circumstances; it has been founded by my appointing Mlle. Sauerwein as General Secretary. So all these national societies have been founded, and I was able to count on the founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society during my presence here, which then, in turn, sends the delegates, who have been endowed with all possible wills of the entire society, to Dornach at Christmas. This then brings us to an International Anthroposophical Society that is finally doing real work.

Now, today, the first task at hand – in full awareness that the entire Anthroposophical Society must also bear the character that the individual endeavors, the school, medicine and so on, which were founded on this character, must also bear – is to that for once all other differences are left aside and that the Anthroposophical Society itself can be presented to the world in the right way. For this, of course, it is necessary that the leading personalities in the individual national societies are concerned with working as objectively as possible in their respective fields. It cannot be said that in the individual fields the leading personalities do not go beyond their subjective opinions. They enter into objective, meaningful work. But this must also happen in the field of anthroposophy as a whole. And so we must first come to an understanding about the statutes, the content of which must make it clear that the Anthroposophical Society can present itself to the world today in a completely non-sectarian way, as can the individual endeavors. We should also talk about the form and content of the Anthroposophical Society's work, so that this can be seen from the statutes. I am entirely in agreement with the one gentleman who spoke here about statutes or something like that. I too loathe the statutes; but that is not the point. One could of course simply agree on the conditions of the Anthroposophical Society, but statutes are necessary for the time being. I would like to say: if, for example, I myself were here among you as a Dutchman and if I were asked whether I wanted to become the General Secretary of the Dutch Society and let myself be elected now, I would say: yes, first I have to hear what this Society should become, what it should look like; only then will I be able to decide whether I want to accept the election or not. It is self-evident that one cannot first decide to found the Society and then elect the General Secretary – all this must come at the end of the negotiations.

So: first we have to talk about the content of the statutes, about how the Anthroposophical Society should present itself to the world; how it should show what it wants. This must be expressed in formulated sentences in the statutes. Only then can the election of the functionaries take place. First the constitution of the Society, then the election of the functionaries, because only then can the functionaries know whether they want to be elected.

During the discussion of the statutes, Rudolf Steiner speaks:

Perhaps I can be of some help if I say a few words about what I intend to present at Christmas in Dornach. Take your Article 2: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to be a community of people to cultivate genuine spiritual values of the present...” and so on. This may be modeled on the “Draft of the Principles of an Anthroposophical Society”. This draft was initially addressed to those personalities who were previously in the Theosophical Society and who were to decide to found an Anthroposophical Society. Anyone who thinks realistically always starts from the present circumstances. So you have to imagine the situation of the transition from the Theosophical to the Anthroposophical Society in 1912/13. The draft statutes were written as a guide, since statutes were to emerge from them. When one then draws up statutes that are to serve as a ready-made basis for those who are to join, one must avoid, in the sense of what I have taken the liberty of saying this morning, creating the impression of sectarianism. It is a vital question for the Anthroposophical Society that this be avoided. If you want to give a classic example of how to create the impression of a sect, then you do it by placing this Article 2 and this Article 3 in the statutes immediately after the name. But you can't do it that way in statutes. One must speak in statutes somewhat more worldly. Everyone is immediately offended when he finds such stylization: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to be a community of people...” and so on. Firstly, nothing is said with it, because everyone already considers those spiritual values to be the genuine spiritual values of the present that he recognizes. So, firstly, nothing special is said; but secondly, it gives the impression that one is a sect. You also have to consider: the Theosophical Society was a sect, and still is today; the Anthroposophical Society is not supposed to be one and cannot be one according to its entire content. So it is not surprising that the draft statutes at that time only gently and mildly work their way out of the sectarian spirit of the Theosophical Society.

But today we have progressed more than ten years since this draft was written. So I think it will be necessary to give these statutes - I have to use the word again - a more cosmopolitan style. I have not yet thought about it thoroughly, because I should not speak about it until Christmas. I always want to say things honestly. It is not right to say that it should first be discussed in Dornach and that it would be pointless to set everything down in writing. In Dornach, the individual national societies should come with fully completed statutes. So the right thing to do is to set out the statutes in detail right now.

I would suggest to you, but only in terms of direction, that you try to keep the style of the statutes along the lines of: “The Dutch Anthroposophical Society should have the task of cultivating a spiritual life in the way that was essentially considered correct by the founding meeting on November 18, 1923 in The Hague.” — That gives you a positive starting point. You say: We have an opinion today, and the Anthroposophical Society should be the society that carries this opinion forward. “The assembled personalities here are of the opinion that in the Anthroposophical Spiritual Science, which is already available to a large extent today, there is something that can have an even greater influence on the spiritual and physical sides of civilization and of the individual human life than the results of research into nature, of natural science, on the material and technical sides.” Then one would have to say, in parentheses: “Among these results, which will emerge from what is intended here, will be: real human cooperation in civilization in the sense of brotherhood; a real understanding of the externally differentiating world views that arise from each other; the acquisition of one's own, individual world view through the understanding of different religions and world views and a real understanding of the spiritual core in all beings and in all processes.

In this kind of way, one could say something in a worldly way, whereby no one would think that you are entering a sect, because it sounds like the way such things sound in other associations, for example in meetings of natural scientists. But the moment you tell people something that is already a theory, that moment gives the impression of sectarianism. It is already a theory to say: “Everyone who has a true interest...” and so on. There is already a whole range of dogmatism in it. Anyone reading this as an outsider must think: I am getting up to my ears in the water of sectarianism. — And that must be strictly avoided. Otherwise you will continue to experience that the anthroposophical movement can no longer be stopped, but that the Anthroposophical Society is no longer able to grasp what is contained in the anthroposophical movement. The Anthroposophical Societies often give the impression of being small sects to the world. That is not the anthroposophical movement.

In this way, I would like to recommend thinking about the matter. Of course, everything can be included, but the question is how to include it. The three points must be included; Mr. van Leer is right about that, but how they must be included. It must be formulated in such a way that no one can take offense at it, that it does not sound sectarian. Thus, Article 2 would be given.

Article 3 should be broadly formulated, so that in individual cases undesirable applicants can be deterred, but also so that not always precisely those people are deterred who would actually fit best into the Society. Today many people are really deterred from entering the Society by the fact that the boards of management approach them in a certain way. They cannot enter if they are treated with such admission requirements, as is often the case today. People do not put up with this, they simply do not join. It is not intended to criticize or to offend anyone, but I must say the following: introductory courses are held in which simply what is said in this or that book or cycle is repeated. Then someone comes along who, through his other life, has plenty of education that allows him to belong to us, and he is told: “Yes, but you have not taken an introductory course.” My dear friends, if a society can do such a thing, it will never grow as it should grow. I would like to orient the discussion in this direction now, not to be specific about what has been said.

The focus of Article 3 should be on the mode of admitting members, for membership. Article 2 should be worded in the way I have just characterized it, so that it has a cosmopolitan character. But Article 3 must then provide a certain direction for the whole character of the society. So there must be something in the statutes that can be used to determine who can become a member. But that too should be formulated in as tolerant, liberal and cosmopolitan a way as possible. All these are only suggestions, not even proposals. I attach great importance to the fact that everything in the statutes of the national societies does not come from me, but from the national societies themselves. I would only like to intervene and help if the discussion comes to a standstill.

I therefore believe that the statutes should naturally contain the following: “The endeavors characterized here have their center in everything that, in scientific, medical, artistic, or religious respects, emanates from the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, and can be linked to it.” If this paragraph is included in any version, then you, as the person of trust taking on the role of admitting members, have the right to turn away someone who says: I have aspirations to cultivate spiritual life, but I look at Dornach and see only dirt. — So a certain direction must be indicated. It is not enough to just say: admission is carried out by trusted individuals. — It cannot be left to mere arbitrariness. Such a paragraph should follow, and then one could say: Everyone who has an interest in the endeavours characterized here can apply for membership. Admission is granted in such and such a way — please choose the way the national societies consider right. The thinking should be along these lines, for one must say something in the statutes.

What is really important in such matters is the stylization. Consider what a difference it makes whether you use a personal name, as in Article 2, or whether you say, “The characterized aspirations have their center in all this...” and so on. There are many people who would never join a movement based on a name. They do not do it on principle. No one will be deterred by the passage just mentioned. We really have no use for anyone who is deterred by this version. We need to be aware of and take such things into account, otherwise we live outside of reality when we are making statutes.

Regarding the office of General Secretary:

The office of the General Secretary of the national societies is an extremely important office, and even if it were not so today, it should be. The General Secretary has two main responsibilities: firstly, to represent the Anthroposophical Society in his or her own country in its entirety in relation to its own members; secondly, to represent the national society to the leadership of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach. But there is a third, absolutely essential

Stenographic notes by Rudolf Steiner on page 1 “Provisional draft of the statutes of a Dutch Anthroposophical Society”.

The task of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society is to bring the results of the already existing anthroposophical spiritual science, which by its nature could have an even greater significance for life than the natural sciences, which are so fruitful for modern civilization, to bear in the world.

The Dutch Anthroposophical Society wants to develop its effectiveness in the sense that it corresponds to the gathering of its founders... [full stop in original]. These founders are aware of the already extensive results of anthroposophical spiritual science for the development of the more spiritual side of human civilization and of the individual human life.

Longhand additions in an unknown hand:

Community of the trusted personality of a group.

The representatives of the groups are appointed by the groups for at least a year.

--

if society is to flourish again. The Secretary General must become a well-known figure in the individual national societies, who is mentioned when the society is mentioned. It follows that he cannot be appointed for a short period of time, but that he should actually work for as long a period as possible. Today, you have elected Dr. Zeylmans as General Secretary, which, as it seems to me, should even become part of the statutes. Now, therefore, a corresponding paragraph in the statutes should first be found for this office of General Secretary. It should read something like the following: “The office of General Secretary is for an indefinite period and can only be terminated: 1. by his own resignation; 2. if the majority of the members of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society no longer agree with the General Secretary; 3. if an objection is raised by the leadership of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach.”

Regarding the relationship between the national societies and the international leadership of the Society:

It would be better to omit all the paragraphs and formulations about international leadership and so on. The national societies themselves must emerge from the statutes in some way. The national societies are formed before the founding of the international society in Dornach. This international society is only to be established on the basis of the national societies. Therefore, it should be clear from these statutes that the current founding meeting designates the executive council. And then, as with the general secretary, it must be stated how long the executive council remains. And something should be said about the expansion of the board. The current board is designated by the sovereign founding assembly, so there is no need for recognition of the international leadership. But then it could perhaps say: “The board can be co-opted; it can be expanded by an assembly of members, at which at least so-and-so many members are assembled with a majority of so-and-so much.” For all I care, you could also say, “The Executive Council can be extended by appointment by the existing Executive Council...” and so on: “The election or appointment of future Executive Council members is valid if no objection is raised by the international leadership in Dornach.” — It is my opinion that this would be a little too far-reaching, but if you want it, you can do it that way. In a sense, it is good if, once the international society is in place, the sense of belonging together is also expressed by the fact that the international leadership can veto an appointment, but that it has no positive right of co-determination. A right of objection is quite different from a positive right of co-determination.