The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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I count it a special honour to be able to speak among you on the connection between that spiritually scientific outlook on the world to which I have devoted my life's work, and the educational activity, to which your lives are devoted. Let me begin with two introductory remarks. The first is, that what I now intend to say to you will, of course, have to be clothed in apparently theoretic words and phrases, for the simple reason that words are necessary in order to set forth our thoughts. But I say expressly at the outset, that it is not meant theoretically. For I should speak on this present subject least of all, were it not for the fact that I have always devoted a part of my activity to practical educational work, and indeed to the whole educational culture of mankind. What I want to put forward is definitely intended in this sense: it is derived from actual practice.

The second thing I would like to observe by way of introduction is this: The Spiritual Science, which I am here representing, is itself very widely and vehemently controverted and attacked as yet. And for the very reason that I represent this Spiritual Science, I can understand it well, if many an objection is brought forward at this present stage to one or other of the things I have to say. For in effect, the method which is adopted by Spiritual Science is new and unaccustomed from the points of view that still hold sway in modern thought. But it may be that the very way in which we are endeavouring to make it a real force in life, endeavouring to introduce it in so eminently practical a sphere as mar -of education, will contribute something towards an understanding, a way of approach to Spiritual Science itself.

There is no sphere in life that lies remote from the activity and interests of education. To one who has to work as a teacher or educator, the human being is entrusted at an age when he may still develop into anything in the wide world. And only when the teacher, the educator, is imbued with the very warmest interest in the whole life and civilisation of humanity, only then can he pour forth all that is needed for the teaching, the education of the child.

In bringing forward the particular subject of Spiritual Science and Education, I have this special reason: At this very point of time. Spiritual Science is intended as an element of thought and spiritual culture, to unite and gather up again the diverse spiritual and intellectual interests of mankind which have drifted so far apart in recent centuries, particularly in the 19th century. Through Spiritual Science, it is possible to draw together again into a concrete conception of the universe, all those things that have become specialised, without however failing to meet the demands of expert and special knowledge.

And to-day there is a very real reason to consider the relation of the Spiritual Science here intended, to Education. For Education, too, has had its share of the overwhelming influence that modern Natural Science, with its attendant triumphs, has exercised on all human thought and activity. Applied as a method in the sphere of Natural Science itself, the natural-scientific way of thought has led to glorious results. But at the same time—far more so than the individual realises or is conscious of—this way of thought has gained influence on all our activities. And it has gained especial influence on that activity which I call the Art of Education. Now while in the nature of the case I cannot go into the foundations of Spiritual Science as such—which I have often done in lectures in this town—there is one thing I would like to point out by way of comparison. It concerns the peculiar relation of the natural-scientific method to human life.

Consider, for example, how' the human eye comes to be this miraculous instrument, whereby in a certain sphere of sense-perception we see the outer world. This wonderful' function is fulfilled by the human eye, inasmuch as its whole construction fits it to see the surrounding world, and—I speak by way of comparison—ever and always to forget itself in the act of seeing. I might put it in this way: We must entirely invert the observing point of view (which we can only do- approximately with external scientific methods), if we would investigate and really penetrate our instrument of external, sensely sight. In the very act of seeing, we can never at the same time look back into the nature of our eye.

We may apply this image to the natural-scientific method in its relation to life. The man of modern times has carefully and conscientiously developed the natural-scientific method, until, in its Natural Law's and scientific conceptions, it reflects a faithful and objective picture of the outer world. And in the process, man has so formed and moulded his underlying mood and attitude of soul, that in his scientific observation of the world he forgets his own human self; he forgets all those things that have direct and immediate connection with human life. So it has come about, that the more we have! developed in the sense of Natural Science, the less able have we become, with this our scientific method, to see the essence of Man himself, and all that has to do with Man.

Now Spiritual Science—working entirely in the Spirit of Natural Science, but in this very spirit transcending natural- scientific knowledge—Spiritual Science would add to Natural; Science, if I may put it so, that inversion of observation which leads back again to Man. This can only be accomplished by really entering on those processes of inner life which are described in my books on the attainment of higher knowledge, or more briefly indicated in the second part of my book on “Occult Science.” Those processes do actually carry man's soul-life beyond the sphere wherein it moves in ordinary life and thought, including even Natural Science. [See “The Way of Initiation” and its sequel “Initiation and its Results” (particulars on back cover of this booklet). Dr. Steiner's book, “An Outline of Occult Science” is, unfortunately, out of print at present.]

In order to find our way into the thought of Spiritual Science, we must needs have what I would call: Intellectual Modesty. Some time ago, in a public lecture in this town, I used a certain image to indicate what is needful in this respect. Consider a child of five. Suppose you place a volume of Goethe's poems in the child's hand. A whole world is contained within its pages. The child will take it in its hand, turn it this way and that, and perceive nothing of all that would speak to the human being from out this volume. But the child is capable of development; powers of soul are slumbering within the child; and in ten or twelve years it will really be able to draw from the book what lies within it. This is the attitude we need, if we are to find our way into the Spiritual Science of which I am speaking here. We must be able to say to ourselves: By developing his intellect, his method of observation and experiment ever so carefully, the human being is brought up to a certain stage and not beyond. From that stage onwards he must take his own development in hand; and then he will develop powers which were latent and slumbering before. Then he will become aware, how before this development he confronted external Nature (so far as its spiritual essence is concerned), and, most particularly, he confronted Man, as the five-year-old child confronts the book of Goethe's poetry. In essence and in principle, everything depends on our making up our minds to this attitude of intellectual modesty. It is the first thing that counts, if we would find our way into what I have here called “Spiritual Science.”

Through adopting special methods of thinking, feeling and willing—methods which aim at making our thought independent and at training our will—through making our life of thought and will ever more and more independent of the bodily instruments, we become able, as it were, to observe ourselves. We attain the faculty of observing the human being himself. And once we are able to observe the human being, then we can also observe the growing human being, the human being in process of becoming—and this is of extraordinary importance.

It is true that the spirit is much spoken of to-day; and independence of thought is spoken of as well. But Spiritual Science as we understand it cannot join this chorus. For, by a real development of inner life, it seeks the spiritual methods to grasp the spiritual reality in actual and concrete detail. It is not concerned with that spirit of which people 'talk in a vague and misty sense, which they think of as vaguely underlying all things. The Spiritual Science here intended enters into the spiritual being of man in detail. To-day we are to speak of the being of man in process of growth, development, becoming.

People will speak, it is true—in abstract and general terms, if I may put it so—of the human individuality and of its development. And they are rightly conscious that the educator, above all people, must reckon with the development of the human being as an individual. But I may draw your attention to the fact that educationalists of insight have clearly recognised, how little the natural-scientific development of modern times has enabled man to understand any real laws or stages in the evolution of the growing human being. I will give you two examples. The Vienna educationalist, Theodor Vogt, who was well-known m the last third of the 19th century, speaking from out of the reformed Herbartian conception that he represented, made the following remark. He said: In the science of history, in our conception of the historic life of mankind, we have by no means got so far, up to the present, as to recognise how mankind evolves. ... From the evolution of species, the Natural Scientist arrives at the embryological development of the individual human being. But we have no historic conception of humanity's evolution, from which, in this sense, we might deduce conceptions about the evolving child.—This view was repeated by the Jena educationalist, Rein. It culminates in the admission, that we do not yet possess any real methods of spiritual science, such as might enable us to indicate what really lies beneath the human being's development.

In effect, we must first awaken such faculties as those to which I have just alluded, and of the cultivation of which you may read in further detail in my books. Then only are we able to approach that riddle, which meets us with such wonder when we observe how from birth onwards something works itself out from within the human being, flowing into every gesture, working itself out most particularly through language, and through all the relations which the human being enters into with his environment. Nowadays the different types of human life are, as a rule, considered too externally, from points of view of external Physiology or Biology. They make themselves no picture of the whole human being, in whom that which is bodily, that which is of the soul, and that which is spiritual, are working inwardly together. Yet if we would sensibly educate and instruct a child, it is just such a picture of the child which we must make.

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Now one who, strengthened by the methods of Spiritual Science, observes the growing child, will discover, about that period of time when the change of teeth occurs—about the sixth ok; seventh year—a most significant break in the child's development. There is a constantly repeated proverb: “Nature makes no jumps.” Natura non facit saltus. That is true to a certain extent; but all these general ideas are after all one-sided. You can only penetrate their real truth, if you recognise them in their one-sidedness. For in effect Nature is continually making jumps. Take, for example, a growing plant. We can apply the proverb, “Nature makes no jumps.” Yet in the sense of Goethe's idea of metamorphosis we should have to say: “Although the green leaf of the plant is the same thing as the coloured petal, yet Nature makes a jump from the leaf to- the sepal of the calyx, from the sepal to the coloured petal, and again from the petal to the stamen.” We do not meet the reality of life if we abstractly apply the idea that Nature and Life make no jumps at all. And so it is especially in man. Man's life flows by without discontinuity, and yet, in the sense here indicated, there are discontinuities everywhere.

There is a significant break in the life of the child about the sixth or seventh year. Something enters the human organism, that penetrates it through and through. Of this, modern physiology has as yet no real conception. Outwardly, the change of teeth takes place; but something is also taking place in the spiritual and. soul-being of the child. Until this point of time, man is essentially an imitative being. His Constitution of soul and body is such that he gives himself up entirely to his surroundings. He feels his way into his surroundings; from the very centre of his will his development is such, that the lines of force, and rays of force, of his will are exactly modelled on that which is taking place in his environment. Far more important than all that we bring to the child, in this age of life, by way of admonition and correction, is the way in which we ourselves behave in the child's presence.

In real life, the intangible, imponderable elements are far more effective than what we observe externally and clearly. So it is with regard to the child's impulse to imitate. It is not only tin- gross external behaviour of the human being that matters. In every tone of voice, in every gesture, in everything the educator does in the child's presence during this period of life, lies something to which the child adapts itself.

Far more than we know, we human beings are the external impress of our thoughts. We pay little heed, in ordinary life, to the way we move our hand. Yet the way we move our hand is a faithful expression of the peculiar constitution of our soul, of the whole mood and attunement of our inner life. In the developed- soul-life of the grown-up human being, little attention is paid to the connection between the stride of the legs, the gesture of the hands, the expression of the face, and that which lies, within the soul as a deep impulse of wi)I and feeling. But the child lives its way right into these imponderable things of life. It. is no exaggeration to say: If a man most inwardly endeavours to be a good man in the presence of a child before the age of seven; if he endeavours to be sound in every way, if he conscientiously resolves to make no allowances for himself even in his inner life, in thoughts and feelings that he does not outwardly express—then, through the intangible, imponderable things of life, he works most powerfully upon the child.

In this connection there are many things still to be observed, things which, if I may so express myself, “lie between the lines.” We have become enmeshed in a more materialistic way of life, especially as regards life's more intimate and finer aspects. And so we have grown accustomed to pay little attention to these things. Yet it is only when they are rightly observed and estimated once again, that a certain impulse will enter into our educational thought and practice—an impulse that is very badly needed, especially in an age which claims to be a social age, an age of social thought.

There are certain experiences in life, which we cannot rightly estimate unless we take into account these real observations of the soul- and spiritual-life within the human being. I am referring to actual facts of experience. For instance, a father comes to you in some consternation and says: “What am I to do? My child has been stealing.” It is of course very natural for the father to be concerned about it.

But now you look into the matter more closely. You ask,

How did it happen?

The child simply went to the drawer and took out some money.

What did the child do with the money?

Well, it bought some sweets for its playmates.

Then it did not even steal for selfish reasons?

And so at length you are able to say: “Now look, the child did not steal at all. There is no question of its having stolen. Day after day the child saw its mother go to the drawer and take, out money. It thought that was the right thing to do and imitated it. The child's action was simply the outcome of the impulse which is predominant in this early age—the impulse to imitation.” Bearing in mind that this imitative impulse is the most powerful force in this first stage of childhood, we may guide the child rightly in this sense. We may direct its attention to actions, whose influence will be powerful at this stage and permanent in its effect. And rye must be fully aware that at this period of the child's life exhortations and admonitions are as yet of no assistance. It is only what works on the will, that really helps.

Now this peculiar constitution of the human being lasts until the point of time when that remarkable period, is reached physiologically—when, if I may put it so, the hardening principle makes its final onset and crystallises the permanent teeth from out of the human organism. To look into that process by the methods of Spiritual Science and see what lies beneath it. in the growing organism when this final period is reached, when the change of teeth takes place, is extraordinarily interesting. But it is still more important to follow what I just now described, namely, the spiritual psychical development that goes parallel with this Organic change, and that still takes its start from imitation.

About the seventh year a very distinct change begins to make itself felt in the spiritual and soul-nature of the child. With this change a new faculty bursts in upon the young child, a faculty of reacting to different things. Previously the eye was intent to imitate, the ear was intent to imitate. But now the child begins to listen to what goes out from grown up people as expressions of opinions, judgments, and points of view. The impulse to imitate becomes transformed into devotion to authority. Now I know that many people to-day will particularly disapprove if we emphasise the principle of authority as an important factor in education. Nevertheless, if one is out to represent the facts with open mind and serious purpose, one cannot go by programmes nor by catchwords; one must be guided simply and solely by empirical knowledge, by experience. And it must be observed how much it means for a child, to be guided by a teacher or educator, man or woman, to whom the child looks up with reverence, who becomes for the child a natural and accepted authority. It is of the very greatest significance for the growth of the human being, that at this age he will accept this or that thought as his own, because it is the thought of the grown-up man or woman whom he reveres; that he will live into a certain way of feeling, because it is their way of feeling, because in effect there is a real growing together between the young developing human being and the mature one. We should only know how much it means for the whole after life of man, if in this period of life—between the change of teeth about the sixth or seventh year, and that last great change that comes at the time of puberty in the fourteenth or fifteenth year—he had the good fortune (I use this word deliberately) to be really able to give himself up to a natural and accepted authority.

But we must not stop at the abstract generalisation; we must enter more deeply into this most important period of life—the period which begins about the sixth or seventh year and ends with puberty. The child is now taken from its home—educated or spoilt through the principle of imitation—and handed over to the school. The most important things for after life are to be done with the child during this time. Here indeed it is right to say, that not only every year but every month in the child's development should be penetrated and investigated with diligent care by the teacher or the educator. Not only in general terms—but as well as may be, even in teaching large numbers at a time, each succeeding month and year should thus be studied and observed in every individual child's development. As the child enters school, and until about the ninth year, we see the imitative impulse still working on alongside the impulse of devotion to authority, which is already making itself felt. And if we can rightly observe the working together of these two fundamental forces in the evolving human being, I hen the full and living result of such observation will provide the true basis for the method of teaching and for the curriculum.

This question came upon me very strongly during the present year, when the new “Waldorf School” had to be instituted in Stuttgart. By the sympathetic co-operation of our friend Emil Molt, we were in a position to found this school in connection with the Stuttgart firm, “The Waldorf-Astoria Cod' The Waldorf School is in the fullest sense of the word a unitary school, i.e., a school without distinction of class, a school for the whole people. [For further particulars of the Waldorf School, see Numbers 1, 2 and 5 in Volume I of the “Threefold Commonwealth” fortnightly (price 3d. each), and also Volume I, Number 2 of the bi-monthly magazine “Anthroposophy” (price 1/-). To be obtained from the Publishers of this booklet. The Waldorf School is a “unitary” school in that it makes no distinction of Class. About 500 boys and girls, between the ages of 6 and 14, or 6 and 19, are educated there; and among them the children of manual workers and of the “educated classes” are represented in fairly even proportion. They all receive the same education, up to the time when they leave school, which varies according to their future vocation and the wishes of their parents.] In its whole plan and method, and in the arrangement of the subjects, it proceeds from the impulse that Spiritual Science can give towards an Art of Education. During last September I had the privilege of giving a course of training for the group of teachers whom I had selected for this school. At that time, all these questions came upon me in a very vivid way. What I am now endeavouring to say to you is in its essential features an extract of what was given to those teachers in the training course. For they were to direct and carry on a school, founded on principles of Spiritual Science and on the social needs of this time—a real people's school, on a basis of unity.

Now in effect not only the method of instruction, but the curriculum, the arrangement of subjects, the definite aim of the teacher, can be drawn from a living observation of the evolving human being. So, for example, we shall find much in the young child's life, even after the sixth or seventh year, that still proceeds from the peculiar will-nature which alone could make it possible for the child to have so powerful an impulse to imitation. As a matter of fact, the intellect develops very much later, and it develops from out of the will. The intimate relationship which exists between the one human being—the grown-up teacher, for example—and the other human being—the growing child—this intimate relationship finds expression as a relationship from will to will. Hence in this first year of elementary school we can best approach the child if we are in a position to work upon the will in the right way. But that is just the question—How can we best work upon the will?

We can not work on the will by laying too' much stress, at this early stage, on external perception and observation—by directing the child's attention too much to the external material world. But we can very effectively approach the will if we permeate our educational work in these first years with a certain artistic, aesthetic element. And it is really possible to start front the artistic and aesthetic in our educational methods. It is not necessary to begin with reading and writing lessons, where there is no real connection between the instruction given and the forces which are coming- outwards from the soul-centre of the child. Our modern written and printed signs are in reality very far removed from the original. Look back to the early forms of writing, not among “primitive” peoples, but in so highly evolved a civilisation as that of ancient Egypt, for example. You will see how at that time, writing was thoroughly artistic in its form and nature. But in the course time this artistic element gradually became worn, down and polished away. Our written signs have become mere conventional symbols. And it is possible to go back to the immediate, elementary understanding, which man still has for that which later on became our modern writing.

In other words, instead of teaching writing in an abstract way, we can begin with a kind of drawing-writing lesson. I do not mean anything that is arbitrarily thought-out. But from the real artistic sense of the human being it is possible to form, artistically, what afterwards becomes transformed, as the child grows and develops, into the abstract signs of writing. You begin with a kind of drawing-writing or writing- drawing, and you enlarge its sphere so as to include real elements of plastic art, painting and modelling. A true psychologist will know, that what is brought to the child in this way" does not merely grasp the head—it grasps the whole human being. In effect, things of an intellectual colouring, things which are permeated by the intellect only, and by convention most particularly, like the' ordinary printed or written letters, do only grasp the head, part of man. But if we steep our early teaching of these subjects in an. artistic element, then, we grasp the whole human being. Therefore, a future pedagogy will endeavour to derive the intellectual element, and objective teaching of external things, object- lesson teaching also, from something that is artistic in character at the outset.

It is just when we approach the child artistically, that we are best able to consider the interplay of the principle of authority and the imitative principle. For in the artistic there lives something of imitation; and there also lives in it something which passes directly from the subjective man to the subjective man. Anything that is to work in an artistic way must pass through the subjective nature of man. As a human being, with your own deep inner nature, you confront the child quite differently if what you, are teaching is first steeped in an artistic quality. For there you are pouring something real and substantial into yourself as well, something that must appear to you yourself as a natural and unquestioned authority. Then you will not appear with the stamp of a merely external conventional culture; but that which is poured into you brings you near to the child in a human way, as one human being to another. Under the influence of this artistic education it will come about quite of its own accord: the child will live and grow into a natural and unquestioning acceptance of the authority of the person who is teaching him and. educating him.

This again may bring it home to us, that spirit must hold sway in education. For instruction of this kind can only be given by one who allows spirit to permeate and fill his teaching; Spirit must hold sway in our whole treatment of our teaching work, and we ourselves must fully live in all that we have to convey to the child. Here 1 am touching on another of the intangible things in the teacher's life. It is very easy, it seems to come quite as a matter of course, for the teacher as he confronts the child to appear to himself as the superior and intelligent person, compared with the simple ingenuous nature of the child. But the effects of this on our teaching work are of very great significance. I will give you a concrete example, one which I have already mentioned in other connections, in my lectures here. Suppose I want to give the child, a conception of the immortality of the human soul. I take an example, a picture of it, adapting myself to the child-like spirit. I draw the child's attention, in a real nature-lesson, to the chrysalis and the butterfly emerging from it. And now I explain to the child: Look, just as the butterfly rests in the chrysalis, invisible to- the external eye, so your immortal soul rests in your body. Just as the butterfly comes out from the chrysalis, so when you go through the gate of death, your immortal soul rises out of your body into another world. And as the butterfly enters an entirely new world when it emerges from the chrysalis, so the world into which you enter, when you rise out of the body, is a very different world from this one.

Now it is perfectly possible to think out an image like this with one's intellect. And as an “intelligent person,” while one teaches it to the child, one does not quite like to believe in it oneself. But that has its effect in education and in teaching. For by one of the intangible facts of life, through mysterious forces that work from hidden soul to hidden soul, the child, only really accepts from me what I, as teacher, believe in myself.

In effect, Spiritual Science does lead us to this point. If we have Spiritual Science, we do not merely take this picture of the butterfly and the chrysalis as a cleverly thought- out comparison, but we perceive: This picture has been placed in Nature by the divine creative powers, not merely to symbolise the immortality of the soul for the edification of man, but because, at a lower stage, the same thing is actually happening when the butterfly leaves the chrysalis, as happens when the immortal soul leaves the human body. We can raise ourselves to the point of believing in this picture as fully and directly as we should desire the child to believe in it. And if a living and powerful belief flows through the soul of the educator in this way, then will he work well upon the child. Then, his working through authority will be no disadvantage, but a great and significant advantage to the child.

In pointing out such things as this, we must continually be drawing attention to the fact that human life is a single whole, a connected thing. What we implant in the human being when he is yet a child will often re-appear only in very much later years as strength and conviction and efficiency of life. And it generally escapes our notice, because, when it does appear, it appears transformed. Suppose, for example, that we succeed in awakening in the child a faculty of feeling that is very necessary: I mean, the power of reverence. We succeed in awakening in the child the mood of prayer and reverence for what is divine in all the world. He who has learned to observe life's connections, knows that this mood of prayer rc-appears in later life transformed. It has undergone a metamorphosis, and we must only be able to recognise it in its re-appearance. For it has become transformed into that inner power of soul whereby the human being is able to influence other human beings beneficially, with an influence of blessing. No one who has not learned to pray in childhood, will in old age have that power of soul which passes over as an influence of blessing, in advice and exhortation, nay, often in the very gesture and expression of the human being, to children or to younger people. By transitions which generally remain unnoticed, by hidden metamorphoses, what we receive as an influence of grace and blessing in childhood transforms itself in a riper age of life into the power to give blessing.

In this way every conceivable force in life becomes transformed. Unless we observe these connections, unless we draw our art of education from a full, broad, whole view of life, a view that is filled with spiritual light, education will not be able to perform its task—to work with the evolving forces of the human being instead of working against them.

When the human being has reached about the ninth year of life, a new stage is entered once again—-it is not so distinct a change this time as that about the seventh year, yet it is clearly noticeable. The after-workings of the imitative impulse gradually disappear, and something enters in the growing child which can be observed most intimately if one has the will to see it. It is a peculiar relation of the child to its own ego, to its own “I.” Now of course a certain inner soul- relationship to the ego begins at a very much earlier stage. It begins in every human being at the earliest point to which ill alter life he can remember back. About this point of time, the child ceases to say “Charlie wants that” or “Mary wants that,” and begins to say “I want that.” In later life we remember hack up to this point; and for the normal human being what lies before it vanishes completely, as a rule. It is at this point that the ego enters the inner soul-life of the human being. But it does not yet fully enter the spiritual or mental life.

It is an essentially spiritual or mental experience of “I,” that first becomes manifest in the inner life of the human being about the ninth year, or between the ninth and tenth years (all these indications are approximate), Men who were keen observers of the soul have sometimes pointed out this great and significant moment in human life. Jean Paul tells us how he can remember, quite distinctly: As a very young boy he was standing in the courtyard of his parents' house, just in front of the barn (so clearly does he describe the scene), when suddenly there awoke in him the consciousness of “I.” He tells us, he will never forget that moment, when for the first time he looked into the hidden Holy of Holies of the human soul.

Such a transformation takes place about the ninth year of life, distinctly in some, less distinctly in others. And this point of time is extraordinarily important from the point of view of education and of teaching. If by this time we have succeeded in awakening in the young child those feelings, if we have succeeded in cultivating those directions of the will, which we call religious and moral, and which we can draw out in all our teaching work, then we need only be good observers of children, and we can let our authority work in this period of life—as we see it approach—in such a way that the religious feelings we prepared and kindled in the preceding period are now made firm and steadfast in the young child's soul. Tor the power of the human being to look up, with true and honest reverence from his inmost soul, to the Divine and Spiritual that permeates and ensouls the world, this period of childhood is most decisive. And in this period especially, lie who by spiritual perception can go out into the young child's life, will be guided, intuitively as it were, to find the right words and the right rules of conduct.

In its true nature, education is an artistic thing. We must approach the child, not with a normal educational science, but with an Art of Education. Even as the artist masters his substances and his materials and knows them well and intimately, so he who permeates himself with spiritual vision knows the symptoms which arise about the ninth year of life, when the human being inwardly deepens, when the ego- consciousness becomes a thing of the spirit—whereas previously it was of the soul. Whereas his previous method of teaching and education was to start from the subjective nature of the child, so now the teacher and educator will transform this into a more objective way of treating things. If we can perceive this moment rightly, we shall know what is necessary in this respect. Thus, in the case of external Nature-lessons, observation of Nature, things of Natural Science, we shall know, that before this moment these things should be brought to the child only by way of stories and fairy-tales and parables. All things of Nature should be dealt with by comparison with human qualities. In short, one should not separate the human being at this stage from his environment in Nature. About the ninth year, at the moment when the' ego awakens, the human being performs this separation of his own accord. Then he becomes ready to compare the phenomena of Nature and their relation to one another in an objective way. But before this moment in the child's life, we should not begin with external, objective descriptions of what goes on in Nature, in man's environment. Rather should we ourselves develop an accurate sense, a keen spiritual instinct, to perceive this important transformation when it comes.

* * *

Another such transformation takes place about the eleventh or twelfth year. While the principle of authority still holds sway over the child's life, something that will not appear in full development till after puberty already begins to radiate into it. It is, what afterwards becomes the independent power of judgment. After puberty, we have to work in all our teaching and education by appealing to the child's own power of judgment. But that which takes shape after puberty as the power of independent judgment, is already active in. the child at an earlier stage, working its way into the age of authority from the eleventh year onwards. Here again, if we rightly perceive what is happening in the soul-nature of the child., we can observe how at this moment the child begins to develop new interests. Its interest would be great, even before Ibis time, in Nature lessons, and descriptions, properly adapted, from Natural Science and Natural History. But a real power of comprehending physical phenomena, of understanding even the simplest conceptions of Physics, does not develop until about the eleventh or twelfth year. And when I say, a real power of understanding physical phenomena and physical conceptions, 1 know the exact scope and bearing of my statement.

There can be no real art of education without this perception of the inner laws and stages of development underlying human life. The Art of Education requires to be adapted to what is growing and developing outwards and upwards in the human being. From the real inner development of the child, we should read and learn and so derive the right curriculum, the planed teaching, the whole objective of our teaching work. What we teach, and how we teach it, all this should flow from a knowledge of the human being. But we shall gain no knowledge of the human being until we are in a position to guide cur attention and our whole world-outlook towards the spiritual—the spiritual realities that underlie the external facts of this world of the senses. Then too, it will be very clear that the intangible imponderable things of life play a real part, above all in the Art of Education.

Our modern education has evolved, without our always being fully conscious of it, from underlying scientific points of view. Thus, we have come to lay great value on lessons that centre round external objects, external objective vision. Now I do not want you to take what I am saying as though it were intended polemically or critically or by way of condemnation ex cathedra. That is by no means the case. What I want to do, is to describe the part which Spiritual Science can play in developing an educational art for the present and for the immediate future. If we have emphasised external objective methods of instruction overmuch, the reason lies, at bottom, in those habits of thought which arise from the methods and points of view of Natural Science. Now I say expressly, at the proper age of childhood and for the right subjects it is justified and good to teach the child in this external and objective way. But it is no less important to ask, whether everything that has to be communicated to the growing child can really flow from objective perception, whether it must not rather pass by another way, namely, from the soul of the teacher or educator into the soul of the child. And this is the very thing that needs to be pointed out: there are. such other ways, apart from the way of external, objective perception.

Thus, I indicated as an all-pervading principle between (be change of teeth and the age of puberty, the principle nl authority. That something is living in the teacher as an opinion or a way of feeling, this should be the reason why the child accepts this opinion or way of feeling as its own. And in. the whole way the teacher confronts the child, there must be something which works intangibly. There must in effect be something, which flows out from a knowledge and perception of life as a single whole, something which flows from the living interest that such a knowledge of life will kindle. I indicated the significance of this, when I said that what we develop in the age of childhood will often reappear, metamorphosed' and transformed, only in the grownup human being, nay, even in old age.

There is one thing we fail to observe if we carry the principle of external objective instruction to an extreme. We can, of course, bring ourselves down to the child's level of understanding. We can restrict ourselves and endeavour to place before the child only what it can see and observe and really grasp—or, at least, what we imagine it can grasp. But in carrying this principle to an extreme, we fail to observe an important law of life, which may be thus described: It is a very source of strength and power in life, if, let us say, in his 35th year a man becomes able to say to himself: “As a child you once heard this thing or that from your teacher or from the person who was educating you. You took it up into your memory and kept it there. Why did you store it in memory? Because you loved the teacher as an authority; because the teacher's personality stood before you in such a way that it was clear to you:—If he holds that belief, then you too must take it into yourself. Such was your instinctive attitude. And now you suddenly see a light; now you have become ready to understand it. You accepted it out of love for him who was your authority; and now by a full power of maturity, you recall it once again, and you recognise it in a new way. Now only do you understand it.”

Anyone who smiles at the idea of such a source of strength in after life, lacks living interest in what is real in human life. He does not know that man's life is a single whole, where all things are inter-connected. That is why he cannot rightly value how much it means, not to stop at ordinary objective lessons (which within limits are perfectly justified), but rather to sink into¹ the child's soul many things that may afterwards return into its life, from stage to stage of maturity.

Why is it that we meet so many, many people to-day, inwardly broken in their lives? Why is it that our heart must bleed, when we look out over vast territories where there are great tasks to perform, where men and women walk through life, seemingly crippled and paralysed before these tasks? It is because, in educating the children as they grew up into life, attention was not paid to the development of those inner forces that are a. powerful support to man in after years, enabling him to take his stand firmly in the world.

Such things have to be taken into account, if we would pass from a mere Natural Science of pedagogy to a real Art of Education. Education is a thing for mankind as a whole. For that very reason it must become an Art, which the teacher and educator applies and exercises individually. There are certain inner connections which we must perceive if we would truly penetrate what is so often said instinctively, without being clearly understood. For example, the demand is quite rightly being voiced that education should not be merely intellectual. People say that it does not so much matter for the growing man to receive knowledge and information; what matters, they say, is that the element of will in him should be developed, that he should become skilful and strong, and so forth. Certainly, this is a right demand; but the point is that such a demand cannot be met by setting up general principles and norms and standards. It can only be met when we are able to enter into the real stages and periods of the human being's evolution, in concrete detail.

We must know that it is the artistic and aesthetic that inspires the human will. We must find the way, to bring the artistic and aesthetic to bear on the child's life of will. And we must not seek any merely external way of approach to the will; we must not think of it merely in the sense of external Physiology or Biology. But we must seek to pass through the element of soul and spiritual life which is most particularly expressed in childhood. Many things will yet have to be permeated with soul and spirit. In our Waldorf School in Stuttgart, we have for the first time attempted to transform gymnastics and physical exercises, which in their method and organic force have generally been based on physiological considerations, into a kind of Eurhythmic Art. What you can now see almost any Saturday or Sunday in the performances of Eurhythme at Dornach, is of course intended, in the first place, as a special form of art. It is a form of art using as its instrument the human organism itself, with all its inner possibilities of movement. But while it is intended as a form of art, it also affords the possibility of permeating with soul and spirit those movements of the human being which are ordinarily developed into the more purely physiological physical exercises. When this is done, the movements that the human being executes will not merely be determined by the idea of working, in such and such a way, on such and such muscles or groups of muscles. But they will flow naturally, from each inner motive- of the soul into the muscular movement, the movement of the limbs. And we, who represent the spiritualisation of life from the point of view of Spiritual Science, are convinced that Eurhythme will become a thing of great importance, for Education on the one hand, and on the other hand for Health. For in it we are seeking the sound and natural and healthy relationship which must obtain, between the inner life and feeling and experience of the soul, and that which can evolve as movement in the human being as a whole. Thus, what is generally sought for through an external Physiology or through other external considerations, is now to be sought for through the perception of man as being permeated by soul and spirit. [For further information about Eurhythme (not to be confused with other forms of art known in England as “Eurhythme” see “The Threefold Commonwealth” fortnightly, Volume I, Numbers 2, 5 and 6. Demonstrations are given and classes arranged in London and other parts of Britain. For particulars, apply to the Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in London.]

Thus, in the first years of elementary school, the whole principle of teaching must be saturated with the different arts, in order to work upon the will. And most particularly; that part of education which is generally thought of as an education of the will—gymnastics and physical exercises—must now be permeated with soul and spirit. But that which is soul and spirit in man must first be recognised, in its real scope, in its potentialities, in its concrete manifestation.

So again, we must recognise the connection between two faculties of the human soul—a connection which has not yet been properly discovered by modern Psychology, for in effect modern Psychology is out of touch with Spiritual Science. If we can look objectively into that important period of change which I described as occurring about the ninth year, we shall see how at that moment a very peculiar thing is happening, on the one hand, in the child's faculties of feeling, in its life of feeling. The child grows more deeply inward. New shades of feeling make their appearance. It is as though the inner soul-life were becoming more independent, in its whole feeling of the outer world of Nature. On the other hand, something else is taking place, which will only be noticed if one can observe the soul really intimately. It is certainly true, as Jean Paul observed and stated in a very penetrating epigram, that we learn more in the first three years of our life than in the three years we spend at the University. In the first three years, our memory is still working organically, and for actual life we learn far more. But about the ninth year a peculiar relationship a relationship which plays more into the conscious H/c comes about between the life of peeling and the tile of memory. These things must be seen; for those who cannot see them, they are simply non-existent.

Now, it we can really perceive these intimate relationships between the life of feeling and the memory, and if we rightly cultivate and nurture them, we find in them the right aspect for all that part of our leaching work in which a special appeal has to be made to the child's memory. As a matter of fact, appealing to the memory we ought always at the same time to appeal to the life of feeling. Particularly in our History lessons, in all stories from History, we shall find just the right shades of colouring in the way to tell the story, if we know that everything that is meant to be memorised should be permeated, as we give it out, by something that plays over into the life of feeling—the life of feeling, which at this age has grown more independent. And if we recognise these connections in life, we shall rightly place our History lesson in relation to the whole plan and curriculum. In this way also, we shall gain a correct view of historic culture in general.

Through all that primarily works upon the memory, we shall at the same time influence the life of feeling; just as we began, through artistic elements, to work upon the life of will. Then, after this period in life, we shall gradually find it possible to let the intellectual element work it way out through the elements of will and feeling. If we do not proceed in this way—if in our teaching and educating work we do not rightly develop the intellectual element from out of the elements of will and feeling—then we are working against, not with, the evolving forces of the human being.

You will have seen from the whole tenor of this lecture that in outlining the relation between Spiritual Science and the Art of Education the real point is that we so apply our Spiritual Science that it becomes a knowledge and perception of man. And in the process, we ourselves gain something from Spiritual Science which .passes into our will, just as everything which has in it the germ of art passes over into the will of man. Thus, we get away from a pedagogic science as a mere science of norms and general principles which always has its definite answers ready to hand: “Such and such should be the methods of education.” But we transplant, into our own human being, something that must live within our will—a permeation of will with spiritual life- in order that we may work, from our will, into the evolving forces of the child. In the sense of Spiritual Science, the Art of Education must rest on a true and effective knowledge of man. The evolving man—man in process of becoming—is then for us a sacred riddle, which we desire to solve afresh every day and every hour. If we enter the service of mankind in this spirit with our Art of Education, then we shall be serving human life from out of the interests of human life itself.—In conclusion, I should like to draw your attention once again to the points of view from which we started.

The teacher or educator has to do with the human being in that age, when there must be implanted in human nature and drawn forth from human nature, all those potentialities which will work themselves out through the remainder of the human being's life. There is, therefore, no sphere of life, which ought not somehow to concern and touch the person 1 whose task it is to teach, to educate. But it is only those who learn to understand life from the spirit, who can understand it. To form and mould human life, is only possible for those who—to use Goethe's expression—are able spiritually to form il. And it is this which seems to me important above all things in the present day: that that formative influence on life, which is exercised through education, may itself be moulded according to the spirit, and ever more according to the spirit.

Let me repeat, it is not for purposes of criticism or laying clown the law that these words have been spoken here to-day. It is, because in ail modesty we opine that Spiritual Science, with those very points of knowledge that it gains on the nature of man, and hence on the nature of evolving man, can be of service to the Art of Education. We are convinced of its power to bring fountains of fresh strength to the Educational Art. And this is just what Spiritual Science would do and be. It would take its part in life, not as a strange doctrine or from a lofty distance, but as a real ferment of life, to saturate every single faculty and task of man. It is in this sense that I endeavour to speak on the most varied spheres of life, to influence and work into the most varied spheres of life, from the point of view of Spiritual Science. If to-day I have spoken on the relation of Spiritual Science to Education, you must not put it down to any immodest presumption on my part. You must ascribe it to the firm conviction, that if we in our time would work in life in accordance with the spirit, very serious investigation and penetration into spiritual realities will yet be necessary—necessary above all in this our time. You must ascribe it to the honest and upright desire, for Spiritual Science to take its share in every sphere of life, arid particularly in that sphere, so wonderful, so great, so full of meaning—the formative instruction and education of man himself.

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The First World War was entering into its fourth year when Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures in Dornach near Basle in Switzerland. Within sound of the battle front and sight of the flashes of cannon Eire at night, people from different countries, including the combatant nations, were working together in Dornach to build the First Goetheanum. These lectures clearly show the Spirit of the movement which was to be given a home in that building.

1917 was also the year of the Russian Revolution. The configuration which the world was to have for the next seventy years or more was beginning to emerge. Steiner, and others who were working with him, had made tremendous efforts to present his ideas of a threefold social order to leading politicians in Germany and Austria, in the hope that their realization would bring positive developments for the future. These efforts failed.

Having worked and lectured in Dornach in January of that year, Steiner went to continue his work in Germany, returning to Dornach on 28 September to resume his lecturing activity with the first of the lectures in this volume on 29 September. This was also the time when he worked with Edith Maryon on the large sculpture showing the Representative of Man between the Opposing Powers. At the same time he was working on the further development of eurythmy, on productions of Parts 1 and 2 of Faust at the Goetheanum, and from November on the ceiling painting in the building's small dorre.

1917 was also the year when Steiner formulated the idea of the threefold nature of the human organism which is fundamental to anthroposophy.

The lectures in this volume give insight into the factors which had brought the catastrophe of war on humanity, factors which evidently are still in Operation today, three-quarters of a century later. We are shown a way ahead and encouraged, whoever and wherever we may be, to take up the challenge which continues to face humanity. Steiner had stern words to say on occasion, and his obedience to the need for truthfulness shines through everything he had to say. In several of the lectures, he spoke of the desperate need for a new approach to education, going into the subject in some detail. Two years later, in response to The Driving Forces Behind Europe's requests made to him, he was to initiate Waldorf education, which has since become a world-wide movement.

Anna Meuss

Today, an endless number of what could be called social programs or the like are buzzing through the air, truly challenged more than at any other time by all the forces at work in the present that are leading to destruction. There is no lack of proposals as to how a new structure might be developed out of this destruction. Nevertheless, when the idea of the threefold social order, urged on by the needs of the time, seeks to assert itself among these various proposals, it is primarily because of the realization that that the idea of the threefold social organism has something to offer which, if one grasps its inner essence, cannot be equated with programmatic proposals or social ideals in the abstract sense. What I would like to present to you here is thoroughly imbued with the realization that today there is a great danger for all such things to fall into utopianism. One need only think of how, basically, even if it is not yet sufficiently noticed here or there in the European world, everything that was thought to be established in the traditional economic, legal, and intellectual order is subject to a certain process of destruction, and how this process of destruction has become all too clear in the course of the last four to five years of horror for European civilization.

In such times, one cannot build on this or that that is already there and has retained its reality. After all, the most firmly established institutions have, so to speak, been reduced to absurdity by recent years. And so it is obvious that we have to build on a completely new foundation. Man can only do this by building from the foundation of thought, and it soon becomes apparent that the foundations that make a solid structure possible are not easy to find. For at first one seems to have no point of reference at all as to whether what one wants to translate into reality from one's thoughts can somehow be justified in this reality. And anything that cannot show and prove from the outset, through its content, that it can be fully realized, is utopian.

The idea of the threefold social order seeks to avoid the danger of utopianism by not actually setting up anything that could be called a social philosophy , what is called a social program, but that it wants to point to a special way in which people can work together in public life so that the forces of destruction can be countered by forces of new construction, of new development.

I would like to say that what the others indicate should happen, according to the idea of threefolding, should only arise when such cooperation between people and groups of people can take place, which is what the idea of threefolding of the social organism seeks to express. When one stands on this ground, one does not take the standpoint that one is somehow omniscient, that one is a prophet who can indicate how this or that institution should turn out in the future for the benefit of humanity, but one only wants to call upon the judgment of those who have something to say in such a way that, through the cooperation of people, this judgment can also become objective reality.

The inspiration for this idea of the threefold social organism actually goes back a long way for the person speaking to you today. It is rooted in decades of life experience relating to the social conditions in the most diverse areas of Europe, but especially in Central Europe and those parts of Central Europe that, through their fate in the last great war catastrophe, show how what had previously been the social structure of humanity, of civilized humanity in Europe, is striving towards something new, and is unable to cope with the forces that, I would say, are moving from the depths of humanity to the surface today. If one looks impartially at historical life, especially in the last third of the 19th century, in the years of the 20th century that preceded 1914, one can clearly see how that to which one adheres so dogmatically, which one still regards today, even though it has been shaken in many areas of Europe, as something that should not be shaken, such as the unified state, which has gradually taken hold of all areas of public life for three to four centuries, is no longer up to its task in the face of certain great demands of humanity, how it is not capable of simultaneously encompassing intellectual life, state-political or legal life in the narrower or even in the broader sense, and economic life. Therefore, for those who were last concerned with the idea of the threefold order, the idea arose to start precisely there and raise the question: what form must the state, which has so far been regarded as a necessary unity, take in relation to the three main spheres of human life, in relation to the spiritual sphere, to the legal-political sphere and to the economic sphere? And now, before I proceed to a kind of justification, I would first like to take the liberty of presenting to you a brief sketch of how the cooperation of people should be conceived so that the tasks that arise for people from these three main areas of life can now really be mastered from within the social structure.

In summary, the life of these three areas has only taken place in the last three to four centuries. You only need to remember — to cite one example — how, with the “development of medieval conditions into modern ones, schools, up to the universities, were not founded by the state, but by church communities or other communities, which had their development alongside the beginnings of state life. It was only in the course of the last three or four centuries that the view arose that the unified state must also extend its power, for example, to schools, universities and the like. Likewise, one can say that economic life was also supported by corporations founded on economic impulses; it was led by those personalities who formed associations only out of economic motives. And it was only in the course of the last three or four centuries that the state extended its power over economic life, so that this combination of spiritual, legal and economic life is something that has only come about in its full significance in modern times, although it has of course shown itself earlier here and there, because everything in the historical life of mankind announces itself in advance.

In contrast to this, the idea of the threefold social order seeks to place each of these three fields on its own ground. It starts from the assumption that a certain impulse has, in the course of modern history, risen with an inner necessity, I would say again, from the depths of human feeling and sensing to the surface of historical becoming. And that is – one cannot deny it, I believe, even if one is still so biased – that in public life, despite everything that is emerging today, the most powerful impulse is after democracy. This impulse occurs as something elementary in the development of humanity. One can say: just as in the individual human being of a certain epoch of his life, let us say, sexual maturity occurs, so in the development of European humanity, preparing since the 15th century, the tendency towards democracy emerges.

If we try to identify the essential element in the various forms demanded for the democratic coexistence of people, it ultimately turns out to be this – at least it emerges as the only reasonable possibility – that the affairs of the state should be managed by the cooperation and joint judgment of all people of legal age , who in this cooperation and in this joint judgment are regarded as equals, so that everyone stands as an equal in relation to the other, with equal rights in his judgment, with equal rights in the contribution he has to make to social life, and also equal in everything he has to demand from this social life. This is the abstract democratic demand. In the modern history of humanity, it becomes concrete through the fact that it is connected with the most important feelings and impulses. One can also say that this democratic tendency has found its way into the state structures of Europe in the most diverse ways, fighting against that which has emerged from feudal and other social orders. The democratic tendency has more or less pushed its way into the old-established forms. But the urge to do so has left its mark on modern history. Since the States could not avoid adding the democratic force to their former powers in some way, even if some, I might say, only did so for the sake of appearances, they also extended this democratic principle to the fields of intellectual and economic life.

But now, as a result, a significant contradiction in public life as a whole has emerged in the development of modern humanity. The one who is serious and honest about realizing the democratic impulse must actually notice this inner contradiction in modern public life. It is the contradiction that I would like to characterize in the following way: spiritual life, up to its most important part, school life, cannot develop out of anything other than the abilities of human beings, which are quite individually different from one another. The moment one wants to extend the levelling influence of democracy to that which wants to flourish and thrive in the individual form of the adult, the moment spiritual life must always suffer in some way, must always feel oppressed in some way. Therefore, I believe that anyone who is truly serious about the democratic tendency, who says that democracy must be everywhere in public life, must say: Then one must exclude from all that all mature people decide upon as equals that which truly not all mature people as equals can have an appropriate judgment about. By pursuing this thought to its ultimate consequences, by also checking whether you have really taken into account everything that comes into question, you will come to the conclusion that, precisely when you strive for the democratization of modern state life, you have to extract the whole intellectual life from this state life, from the political-legal life.

The spiritual life must be placed on its own ground. It must be placed so firmly on its own ground that those who teach, for example, from the lowest school to the highest levels of education, are at the same time the administrators of the education and teaching system, and that the administration of the education and teaching system is connected with the entire spiritual life of a social organism, whatever it may be. Only when one — and I would like to speak specifically here — makes the person who teaches at school responsible for both tasks, and only when one creates institutions in such a way that the person who works in the spiritual life , especially if he is teaching and educating, has nothing to do with anyone other than other teachers and educators. If the entire spiritual organism is an independent unit built upon itself, then all the forces inherent in humanity can truly be unleashed in the realm of spiritual life, and spiritual life can develop to its full fruition. This seems to indicate, at least in some kind of abstract form, the necessity of separating intellectual life, which must be built on its own principles and impulses, from everything that is absorbed in democracy.

But just as intellectual life must be separated from mere state life, economic life must also be separated from it. Admittedly, this is an area in which one finds fewer opponents today than in intellectual life. In the sphere of intellectual life, especially in the field of education, it has become customary during the last three or four hundred years to regard as enlightened only those who recognize the superiority of the State over education, and who cannot imagine that it would be possible to restore the independence of intellectual life without lapsing into clericalism or something of that kind.

In the economic sphere the situation is basically similar. While spiritual life is concerned with that which is inherent in man as an ability, which must be developed freely, which, so to speak, man carries into this physical existence through his birth, economic life is concerned with that which must be built on experience, which must be built from that into which one grows by being absorbed in a particular economic field with one's professional activity. Therefore, what comes from democratic life cannot be decisive in economic life, but only what comes from professional and factual foundations.

How can these professional and factual foundations be given to economic life? Actually, not through any kind of corporation, through any kind of organization that is so beloved today, but solely through what I would like to call associations. So that associations are formed by people who immerse themselves in their professions and become truly knowledgeable and skilled in the field of economic life. Not that people are organized, but that they join together according to objective criteria, as they arise from the individual economic sectors, from the relationship between producers and consumers, from the relationship between professional and economic sectors. A certain law even emerges here – you can read about the details in my writings – as to how large such associations may be, how they should be organized, and how they become harmful when they become too large, and how they become harmful when they become too small. It is perfectly possible to found an economic life by building it on such associations, by basing everything that is achieved in the social structure through the purely economic impulse of such associations on the purely material and technical. In a sense, everyone knows whom to turn to for this or that, if they know that they are linked to the other in one way or another through the social structure of associations, and that they have to guide their product through a chain of associations in such and such a way.

Of course, since I have to speak briefly here, I can only sketch out the principles of the matter. And so, I would like to say, the spiritual life must develop independently out of its own forces, in that those who achieve it are at the same time the administrators; likewise, the economic life must develop out of its own perspectives, in that those who are active in the economic life join together according to the principles of the economic life. If economic life is independent, then that which can only be based on the equal judgment of all mature human beings will arise as the content of the third link in the social organism, the actual state community.

I know very well that many people are truly frightened when one speaks to them of this threefold social organism, which is said to be necessary for the future. But this is only because people usually think that the state should be split into three parts. How should these three parts then work together? The truth is that unity is maintained precisely because these three parts are brought to their full development in the way I have only been able to sketch out, because the human being as a unity is present in all three parts. He participates in some way in the spiritual organism. If he has children, he is interested in the spiritual organism through the school. With his spiritual interests, he is somehow involved in the spiritual organism. He carries what he has received from the spiritual organism into this democratic state, since he is a participating adult in the democratic state, in his deeds, in his life. But what public law, public security, public welfare and so on is, which concerns every adult, is developed on the basis of the unified state. And with the constitutions of the soul, which are developed there in the direct interrelationship from person to person, one enters again into economic life in one's special field, in which one is linked through various associations in which one is active. One carries what one has gained from spiritual life, from public life, into this economic life, fertilizes it through it, maintains it, brings justice and spiritual fertilization into this economic life. The human being himself forms the unity between what is not the division into estates.

I have often been told that this would be a return to what in ancient Greece included the nourishing, defending and teaching classes. Such an objection only shows how superficially such things are often viewed today. For it is not a matter of a division of people themselves, not of a division into classes, but of the external life being divided into three in its institutions. It is precisely because man is part of such a tripartite social organism that all estates can cease to exist and true democracy can come about. I would say that the development of modern states points to this with an inner necessity for anyone who is unprejudiced.

Do we not see that, on the one hand, they have to take account of the necessary impulse towards democracy, but then, on the other hand, allow democracy to be corrupted by the fact that, as a matter of course, the able will always have more weight in the democratic life of the state than the less able? In matters where ability is important, this is entirely justified, for example in the intellectual sphere. On the other hand, the actual democratic state must be kept free and pure from such overpowering influences of particularly capable personalities, because there must be an area according to the basic demand of modern humanity in which only that which is equally valid for all people who have come of age is asserted.

The economic field shows particularly well how impossible it is to allow what man acquires through his special development as an ability in economic life to have an effect. He may acquire economic supremacy through it. But it must not become a social supremacy. It will not become one only because that which is economic power, which remains within economic life, cannot possibly become a political or legal supremacy. All the factors that have led to the caricature of the so-called social question would be overcome if people were willing to accept that economic life would be placed on its own ground and that democratic state life could, in turn, be placed honestly and sincerely on its own ground. The development of newer states shows how necessary it is for humanity to turn to such principles. And so, in addition to the historical impulses that one must take up in order to be pointed to this idea of the threefold social order, allow me to characterize the two subjective sources from which this impulse has arisen for me over many years.

The first source is that, with spiritual-scientific knowledge, which I have chosen to represent my view of life, one can inform oneself about certain developmental conditions of humanity differently than from the currently prevailing materialistic-scientific worldview. This currently prevailing materialistic-scientific worldview cannot actually lead to a real understanding of the historical development of humanity, because what we call “history” today is basically more or less a fable convenante. We make history today - and then want to learn something from this history for the social and political tasks of the present - in such a way that we imagine that what follows in human development is always the effect of the preceding, this preceding in turn the effect of a preceding and so on. A truly appropriate comparison of the whole development of humanity with the development of the individual human being, one that is not based merely on analogies, could heal one from this error.

When I see the individual develop, I have to say: What occurs in the first years of life, in the middle years of life, at the end of life, that does not present itself in such a way that I can speak of cause and effect. I cannot truly say that a person who turns thirty-five only experiences organically what is the effect of what he experienced at twenty or twenty-five, but we see as man develops, we see certain developmental impulses and developmental forces arise from his organism, from his entire organic being and nature, which show themselves to be particularly effective at certain periods of time.

Thus, for each individual, there are life epochs: When the second dentition appears, at around seven years of age, we find that the child's entire soul life changes. Before, the child imitated; now it becomes one who needs to come under a certain authority and to follow the judgments of people. Again, at puberty, a transformation of the soul life clearly begins. This transformation of the soul life can also be observed in later epochs, if only we have an organ for it.

For the individual human being, it is not just a matter of cause and effect, but of developmental forces shooting up from the depths of his being. And if you study history properly, you will find – to cite just one example – such a turning point in the development of all civilized modern humanity around the middle of the 14th or 15th century. There we find precisely that transition which, out of the elementary necessity of development, actually gave rise to modern humanity with its demands. Oh, there is a great difference between what man has regarded as the right way for himself to live a dignified life since that fifteenth century and what the man of the Middle Ages regarded as such.

The story of the soul – which we have not actually pursued – as it can arise from spiritual science, of which our building in Dornach is a representation, leads one to see what I have called the democratic principle as something that occurs in modern humanity in the same way as one sees the qualities that occur in the individual human being, say, at the age of sexual maturity. By taking into account the fact that modern humanity is quite different and that the developmental principles of the whole of humanity, as well as of the individual, must be taken into account, it becomes clear that democracy is something that cannot be opposed. , but that, because democracy is something that springs from the most elementary human nature, the social organism must be tripartite so that what can be democratically ordered comes into its own in the development of humanity. That is one thing, this spiritual-scientific view of the developmental impulses of humanity. The other is the observation of the facts of the life of nations.

I can only give you a few examples here. But it is still interesting to see from individual examples the impossibility of the newer unitary state structures coming out of their unity to form a truly viable social structure. It is only necessary to refer to a few examples to show this. You will understand that, as a non-Swiss, I do not mention Switzerland as an obvious example. I need only mention that what has already occurred to such a high degree in some European states will also gradually occur in the others, and that it is quite a short-sighted attitude to keep relying on the thought: Oh, it's different for us, we don't need to worry about what's happening elsewhere.

Now, I have chosen as an example the East of Europe, Russia, not only because Russia, with her tragic destiny, is particularly significant for our study of humanity, but also because, according to the practical political judgments of the leading English politicians, Russia is also the country in which, most vividly, I might say, as in an experiment taking place in the life of nations, what needs and what impossibilities prevail in modern national life must show. Let me highlight just a few aspects of this Russian national character.

There, placed in the middle of the Russian absolutism of the 1860s, which you know only too well, we encounter the curious institution of the zemstvo. These are assemblies of representatives of the rural population, those people who are involved in economic life or other areas of life in individual rural areas, who come together in certain assemblies to discuss these matters, I would say in the manner of a council or the like, a cantonal council. From the 1860s onwards, Russia was full of such zemstvos. They actually do fruitful work; they work together with something else that is traditional in Russia: the Mir organizations of the individual village communities, a kind of compulsory organization for the economic life of the village. There we have, on the one hand, old democratic customs in the Russian peasant organization, but in the appearance of the Zemstvos we have something newer that definitely tends towards the democratic. But something very strange is emerging. And this strangeness becomes even more striking when we look at another phenomenon that has emerged in Russia before the world catastrophe destroyed everything or cast it in a different light.

In Russia, it has been found that people from the most diverse individual professions have associated with each other, and in turn that associations have arisen from profession to profession, bank cashiers and bank cashiers have formed associations. These associations have in turn joined together to form more comprehensive associations. Those who came to Russia actually held their meetings not with individuals, but encountered such associations wherever they had anything to do with.

All of this was incorporated into the other state life of absolutism. Now, if you study these zemstvos, if you study the associations, if you study the Mir organization itself, you notice one thing. Of course, these organizations also extend to many other areas of life, such as school institutions and the like, but they do not do anything special there. Anyone who engages in an unbiased study of these associations – after all, the Semstwos did not develop into corporations either, but actually into associations, with farmers joining those at the forefront of industrial life, and so on. Even if it all took on the character of a public institution, in reality one was dealing with associations, and they all did good. But what they did, they actually only did on the basis of economic life. And we can say: In this Russia, the strange thing is that an organic system based on associations is emerging. Furthermore, it is proving that the Russian state is incapable of dealing with what is emerging there. So we can say: as the necessity of the early capitalist development, as it occurs in Russia, leads to economic organizations, these must, out of an inner necessity, take their place alongside the political institutions.

Now, something else peculiar occurs in Russia in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. Yes, of course, absolutism founds its schools; but these schools are nothing more than, I would say, a reflection of the needs of absolutist state life. Now, a spiritual life is developing in Russia, a more intense spiritual life than the West of Europe assumes. But how must this spiritual life develop? Absolutely in opposition, yes, in revolutionary turmoil against everything that is Russian statehood. One sees that this tightly and uniformly organized state is splitting apart into three parts, but really only wants to split apart. But it cannot. It shows us, precisely through what it is experiencing, how impossible it is to compress these three most excellent spheres of human life into a unified state.

I can only sketch this out for you. If you study in detail how these three elements in Russian state life then develop into the world war, how out of the world war first the really insubstantial rule of Miliukov develops, but then under Kerensky something develops that can be called the transformation of absolutism into a democratic state, but still entirely with a belief in the omnipotence of the unitary state, then can be seen precisely from what Kerensky's short reign must fail, how this Russian state, which wants to become democratic, is unable to address the most important issues, an economic issue, the agrarian issue, because the associations of Russian life are such that anything democratic that is tried out of the old absolutism breaks down on them.

Of course, everything is also showing itself in a certain concrete way. You can't see everything in it right away. But anyone who looks at it impartially, at this becoming Russia, its steering into an impossible social-democratic structure, because the unified state is fragmented at the impossibility of combining the three areas of life, will see that this example of Eastern Europe is a very significant one and that the far-sighted English politicians are right to look at Russia as the field in which, as in a world experiment, the course of human development is being demonstrated.

One could survey the whole of Europe from such points of view, one would see everywhere how the unified state is gradually disintegrating. Even if it still appears firmly established in some areas, it will dissolve because it cannot cope with the proper interaction of the three human spheres of life. Just see how, in more recent times, where, for example, the political sense, the political attitude completely fills the innermost being of the human being, how there the political attitude cannot become master over economic life.

In this respect, France is a good example. France has saved from its revolution in the 18th century what is now a truly inner democratic spirit, even if this democratic spirit is coupled with a great conservatism in relation to family life. Even if much of the democratic reminds one of the philistine and patriarchal, the tendency towards democracy is perhaps, if not purest, then at least most pronounced in the Frenchman's deepest convictions among the peoples of Europe. This democratic spirit first sought to express itself in the life of the state. It was precisely through this expression of the democratic spirit in French state life that the state was, on the one hand, abstractly dissected into its departments; but these departments were, in turn, combined into a single unit. All this was the fruit of the French Revolution.

One has only to consider one thing in this structure of the French state: the position of the departmental prefect, and one will see how inorganically the political-legal, the state element, is linked to the economic element. The prefect is actually nothing more than the executive organ of the Paris government from a certain point of view. I might say that the Paris government has the various departmental prefects as it has its many hands. But the departmental prefect, in turn, must be in contact with the economic interest groups in his department. So that when there is an election in France, the prefect will certainly direct that election, but it will not turn out differently than it can turn out from what the prefect concedes to the economic interest groups.

Thus we see how parties exist in France, parties with party slogans, and party watchwords too, but how these party watchwords signify much less reality than that which grows out of the economic interests of the department. In this respect, the study of the individual facts of French life is extraordinarily interesting. In France, in particular, one can see how a proper interaction of the legal-state and the economic can never be transformed into a certain public truth, because the state element cannot control the economic element.

I myself have, I would like to say, studied for decades from direct observation what was bound to lead to the downfall, let us say, of Austria. There was no way for Austria to avoid going to the dogs, one way or another. For as the newer democratic life emerged, it also had to bring something like democracy into its state life, into this state life, which above all had its intellectual structure from such a diversity of peoples that there were actually thirteen official languages in Austria, which on the other hand had a complicated economic life, leaning on the Orient on the one hand, on Germany and Western Europe on the other, on Italy and so on. When something democratic was to be introduced into this Austrian state life, it was formed in such a way that a Reichsrat was created. Four different sections were elected to this Reichsrat: the curia of the chambers of commerce, the curia of the large landowners, the curia of the cities, markets and industrial centers, and the curia of the rural communities. If you look more closely at the reason: nothing but representatives of economic interests were elected to the Austrian parliament to shape the state. Of course, they achieved nothing, except that they transformed economic interests into state interests, and nothing of a real state emerged at all, but rather a conglomeration of economic interests, against which the spiritual life of the various nations then rebelled, something that was bound to move towards fragmentation for internal reasons.

We can observe something else, however, that is much more international and universal, and we will see how everything that is considered impartially in the modern life of humanity tends towards this threefoldness. Take the most striking thing that has emerged: I am not talking explicitly about the social question, but about the social-democratic question. In Russia, because the old state life, when it wanted to democratize itself, fragmented due to the impossibility of unifying the three areas of life in such a way as to a resulted in something completely alien being imposed on Russian culture, and that what is now unfolding in Russia is, of course, nothing other than something that must necessarily lead the social life it affects into ruin. What Social Democracy, the Socialist trend that swears by Marxism, can practically achieve, especially in terms of democracy, which is truly demanded by the innermost human being, can be seen from the sad state of present-day Russia, where it can already be reported that the ideals of the gullible workers are being fulfilled in such a way that now, under the necessity of the circumstances, is compelled to transform the eight-hour day into a twelve-hour day, and that instead of the usual organization, in which the worker thinks he will find his freedom, a military labor regiment is being set up that promises to be much more tyrannical than the Prussian military regiment ever was. These are the fruits of Leninism, of Trotskyism!

They cannot be otherwise. They only show, in the most radical form, how the social-democratic current developed out of the proletariat – because today's Russian rule over the many millions of the Russian people includes only a few million industrial workers, and basically there is a tyranny of the few million industrial workers today – how the social-democratic current developed. How did it develop? Yes, we can say: this social democracy, which is particularly characterized by the fact that it derives all human life only from economic production, that it regards all spiritual life only as an ideology, as something that rises like a smoke from economic production, this social democracy, how could it arise?

This social democracy, which is under Marxist influence – I do not mean healthy socialism, of course – is actually the sin of bourgeois currents that have arisen in modern times, the result of the sin of bourgeois currents, I might say. For if you look everywhere, you would see, as I have shown with two examples, France and Russia, that the whole civilized world has gone through this in its development in modern times. You would see everywhere that economic life has become one that has been stamped by technology , which has taken man away from his former connection with his occupation, and placed him in the abstract, indifferent machine, in the indifferent factory – and the proletariat, basically, has known nothing but economic life.

In more recent times, it would have been necessary to place this ever-growing proletariat in a social structure. From what historical development has brought forth in humanity, nothing could be gained by which one could, as it were, have devised a unified structure for those who are the leaders in economic life, in intellectual life, and so on, and those who have to work by hand. To a certain extent, the old powers had not been developed into new forces. The old princely states did not give rise to real institutions that would have been supported by democracy. So it has to be said that what modern social democracy actually is came about because the leading classes, the leading people in modern history, could not cope with what economic life had brought about. They have left the states so organized that they could not encompass the ever more massive and massive economic life. And so it is precisely the failure to come to terms with what was brought about by the emergence of the proletarian in human souls that shows that nothing fruitful for a possible structure of the social organism could arise from what could be imagined by the state.

And so I could cite many more examples that would show you that it is indeed necessary, on the basis of what can be observed, to place the three most important spheres of human and human existence on their own ground.

This necessity could truly have been discussed before this terrible catastrophe befell the world and so clearly revealed the destructive forces in the last four to five years. But I do not believe that humanity in the period before 1914, when people only lived in illusions about what they felt was a great, powerful upsurge in modern humanity, could somehow have been won over to an understanding of this necessity. Now, however, the time has come when it is no longer enough to prove theoretically that such a necessity exists. Instead, states that have been particularly exposed to the dangers of the unitary state have been swept away in their old form and are faced with the necessity of rebuilding themselves from scratch.

We see the eastern former Russian state fragmented, faced with the necessity of rebuilding itself, but also with the powerlessness to rebuild itself in a way that will flourish, having to accept something is being imposed on it that never grows out of its own nationality, but is imposed on it like a general socialist template that can be applied to everything. And we see, for example, in Germany, where a failed revolution, the revolution of November 1918, really shows a lot of how only chaos, real chaos, results from the circumstances. And the most striking, I would say heartbreaking, thing in the life of present-day Germany is that wherever you meet people and talk to them about public affairs, they appear at a loss. Why are they at a loss? For the simple reason that the dogma of the unified state is deeply rooted in the souls and because the terrible lessons of the last four to five years have truly not been enough for people to erase this dogma from them. I have asked many individuals where it comes from that they are so lethargic that they cannot be won over to rallying for anything positive in the direction of reconstruction. The people confessed calmly: Yes, we were in the trenches for so long, we didn't know if we would still be alive in eight days, it had to gradually become indifferent to us whether we would still be alive in eight days; shouldn't it be indifferent to us now what social institutions are made in eight days? One accommodates oneself to the mood of the soul. Many a person, truly not just one, has said this.

Of course, the circumstances of the time make many things understandable, but something greater, something more significant is the historical, the purely human necessity. There is only either-or. And I believe that here too it could be realized – since the conditions are truly not far away that are likely to throw their waves into the whole of Europe – what should be realized: that it is impossible to bring the three spheres of life, intellectual life, state life, economic life, into a unity. The necessity should be realized to place each of these three spheres on its own ground.

I am well aware of the many objections that can be raised from the old point of view against this threefold ordering of the social organism. But anyone who considers the present world situation, as I have tried to describe it with a few examples, will say to himself: this proposal differs from all the other, more utopian proposals for the reorganization of the social organism in that it does not present a program, that it does not come with the pretension of knowing everything, but that it says: if people organize themselves socially in such a way that their best that their best comes about independently in a free, emancipated spiritual life, that in which all mature people are equal, in an independent democratic state life, that in which everything must develop from economic foundations, in an independent economic life, then the fact that people are called upon to work socially will bring about something like the solution of the social question.

For I do not believe that anyone who knows life can go along with the superficial view that the social question arose yesterday, and that one only needs to have some ideas or draw some conclusions from life in order to hammer out a program that will solve the social question. There are many such concoctions. But the impulse for the threefold social order is not based on this ground of omniscience. It is permeated by the conviction that the social question has indeed arisen, that it cannot be solved overnight or with any single measure: it will always be there in the future, it will permeate our lives, and the solution can only consist in being continuously under such institutions, so that the daily new difficulties can be overcome little by little. The whole of life in the future will consist in being a kind of solution to the social question.

The impulse for threefolding hopes that the social question can be resolved through the work and judgment of individuals in the threefold social organism. It does not seek to solve the social question theoretically; it seeks to give people the opportunity to solve the social question through collaboration and joint reflection. But even what can be proposed – today I have only been able to give you a rough sketch – these characteristics of the three areas of the social organism, even that is by no means regarded by the bearers of this idea as something that could be any kind of dogma. That is all I ask: that it be discussed, that as many people as possible be imbued with what the needs of the present time teach, that out of the best forces of the human being, that which can lead to a new structure be done.

When good will from all sides works together, a fruitful discussion can arise. And it is this fruitful discussion that is really important to those who are the bearers of the idea of the threefold social organism. If they had to believe that they could not have emerged before the distress of the world catastrophe occurred, they now have some optimism; although, I would say, a sad optimism: that the ever-widening spread of distress must become the great teacher, that it is precisely out of distress that people will have to recognize that something like what is being said today — I do not want to say in the content that we are able to give to the idea of the threefold social order, but in the impulse that we would like to give to the public discussion through this idea — that something like this must somehow be taken seriously. Much will depend on whether such things can be taken seriously. A kind of spiritual drowsiness still hangs over European humanity, and indeed over modern civilized humanity. Even if those who are already working today in the movement for the threefold social order have done this or that out of their convictions, they know that the right thing will only come when a sufficiently large number of people engage with the details of the matter.

We have already had the opportunity to found a free school in the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, where children between the ages of six or seven and fourteen or fifteen are taught in an eight-year primary school according to the principles of a free spiritual life, so that they grow into a social order from a free spiritual life. We have tried many different things in this area, and economic matters are also being considered, where we want to try to place the most diverse branches of economic life under the aspects of the threefold order, to organize them, to finance them according to these aspects; for it will perhaps be particularly necessary, in order to be convincing, that the model, that the example, is there. But in order for this example to have a sufficient impact, in order to put it into practice at all, it is necessary, above all, that a sufficiently large number of people take part in the discussion of what the impulse for the threefold order of the social organism actually wants.

I would like to have stimulated a little thought on this point, and on this alone, with the very sketchy remarks that I have been able to make in the short time available to me this evening.

A discussion then followed in which various questions and objections to the remarks made in the lecture were raised.

Final Word

Actually, I have to admit that no real objections have been raised. I understand very well that, based on what I have said tonight, a wide range of questions can be asked, and I believe that it is impossible to cover such a question so exhaustively in a one-hour lecture that hundreds and thousands and perhaps even more questions cannot be asked afterwards. I would therefore just like to make a few comments, which may at least provide some insights instead of an answer to the various questions, which would really take several days. First of all, with regard to what the Chairman said last, that there are no clear formulations of what threefolding actually wants. You see, I have tried, as well as it is possible for such a movement, which is basically only at the beginning of its work, to discuss some of these problems in my book 'The Key Points of the Social Question', for example, the problem of the circulation of the means of production, which I have put in the place of the unworkable socialization of the means of production, and so on. You will find more such details in the Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage than one might perhaps expect. I must emphasize again and again that my attempts to grasp this impulse of threefolding are actually drawn from the whole of life, and that the whole of life actually has dimensions not only in two directions, but always also in the depths. I would ask you to bear in mind that the movement is in its infancy and that at the end of my presentation today, if I may call it that, I actually called for a discussion. I believe that only a discussion will produce the right results.

Now I would like to at least touch on some individual questions. An important misunderstanding between Dr. S. and me will have arisen precisely because I do not speak at all, as the doctor understood it, of three parliaments. I do not see the essence of this threefold structure as being that the unified parliament is divided into three parliaments, but rather that we only have a parliament in the modern sense for that which can be democratically administered or oriented, but that the other two areas are not administered by parliament, but are administered from what arises from within themselves. It is very difficult for me to discuss these concrete things in abstract terms. I would therefore like to build the answer, so to speak.

When setting up the Waldorf School, I once again had to deal in detail with what I would call a cross-section of the state administration for the school system. Right? I had to constitute the Waldorf School from two sides. On the one hand, I had to base it on what I believed the spiritual life itself would demand as an impulse for the Waldorf School. On the other hand, I could not build castles in the air. That is, I had to create a school where it is possible for students to leave, for example, at the age of fourteen or, if you like, in between, and then be able to join another school later on. Naturally, I had to deal with the curricula. Now, I first came across – please excuse me for having to go into very specific details, but I believe this is the best way for me to communicate – I came across the curricula. The curricula are state-defined descriptions of the subject matter, the teaching objective and so on. It is quite another matter if one, as a pedagogical and didactic artist, can study purely from the essence of the human being how, from the age of seven to fourteen, what is to be brought to the human being takes place. I am convinced that the teaching objectives for each year can be read from the developing human being.

Now I want those who are immersed in the living teaching to set the teaching goals, and not those who are torn out of it and become state officials, who thus pass over from the living teaching to democracy. So I want what comprises the spiritual life to be administered by those who are still immersed in it, who are building this spiritual life. So it is important that the whole structure of the administration is built on the structure of a spiritual life itself. Isn't it true that today, for example, I still had to make the decision that children, after completing three classes, can join again — in order to have freedom in between — after another three years, at the age of twelve, they can join again. So I had to do justice to an external aspect.

That is the essence of the threefold social order. It has a real basis everywhere and must also work from a real basis. But if you have a real basis, you do not have something vague. Spiritual life is there, it has an administration simply because one person is in one position and another in another. In this separation of the spiritual body from the state body, I would simply like the administration to be hierarchical, and I believe – of course this is something that cannot be explained quickly – that the hierarchical administration will have all imperfections. I know what the lecturers in particular will object, but perhaps even major imperfections are sometimes necessary in such transitions in order to arrive at something perfect. But the point is that, little by little, a purely didactic body of intellectual life, which, if administered in a way that is justified by the facts, only slightly echoes Klopstock's “Republic of Scholars”. And that something like this is actually possible in the field of intellectual life if one only has the good will to found it.

I think that it will then become very clear – let me mention something specific, pick out an example – that pedagogy, when practised at university level, has been one of the worst disciplines so far, at least in the whole of Central Europe. As a rule, it has been saddled on some pedagogue who has practised it as a secondary subject. In such a republic of scholars, the one who proves to be capable can be called upon for three years, can teach education, and then return to the teaching profession.

But as far as the external structure is concerned, I must say that, on a small scale, things have gone excellently so far with our teaching staff at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. The question arose right at the beginning: Who will be the director? – Of course, nobody; we simply have teachers with equal rights in all classes, and one of this teaching staff, who has slightly fewer hours than the others, takes care of the administrative matters. In this way, it can already be seen that the capable teachers also have a certain authority over the others, a natural authority, and a certain hierarchical system emerges. However, this does not need to be an answer to the question, as the senior judge L. meant: Who commands? — but it happens automatically. Naturally I will refrain from mentioning names, but it does happen. And in the intellectual field....

What about the parents' say in the choice of teachers? That's dictatorship!

Professional and objective! Of course, call it a dictatorship for my sake, the name doesn't bother me. It is a dictatorship in the sense that it is not the individual who decides. Since you are a scientist, you will easily understand when I say: when it comes to the correctness of the Pythagorean theorem, it does no harm if a “dictatorship” decides, because a certain necessity lies in the matter.

And religious education?

The point here is that some theoretical questions now become didactic questions. In the religious instruction as it is organized in the Waldorf School, although I do not want to say that it is always organized in this way, because there may be developments here too, it is important that it is appropriate for me, for example, that what I was able to give as a pedagogical and didactic teaching course is expressed only in the methodology, not in the world view, but in the way the lessons are taught. The Waldorf school is not meant to be a school of world view in any direction. This could only be achieved by the fact that my institutions all relate to the pedagogical-didactic and work from that. The children who come from Catholic parents have their Catholic religious education, the children who come from Protestant parents have their Protestant religious education from the respective Catholic and Protestant pastor. Now, there were a large number of proletarian children and also anthroposophist children, and there was a demand for free religious education. And the children whose parents demand free religious education receive free religious education from us, based on our convictions. So in this question, an emotional truth, combined with certain social driving forces, decides.

Things naturally look different in the process of becoming than after some time. But it is precisely in practice that it can be seen that one can make progress if one does not want a parliament for spiritual matters. That is why I cannot go along with the “three parliaments”, nor can I answer the question, “if Kerensky had had three parliaments. . .»; that is just it, that he should have solved the agrarian question in his one and failed because of it. I see no causal nexus between threefolding and what came before, for example; I just wanted to point out that what came before failed because of the three spheres of life, which I cannot take as two or four or even more, because there are only three.

Dr. S.: I didn't seriously consider that objection.

Dr. Steiner: I did not understand it any other way! Now I am wondering, since the state has failed in its establishment of the three parliaments, how one can make progress through a new beginning, not through a causal nexus, although what is good must remain. You see, the elements of the answer to your questions lie in what you said. I do not want a parliament in the economic field either; heaven forbid, no democracy in the economic field! But an order that does not arise hierarchically, but from the thing itself.

Now, these areas are not simply juxtaposed. If you read my “key points,” you will find that the circulation of the means of production is essentially determined by what is determined in the intellectual sphere, so that the intellectual sphere has a direct effect on the economic sphere. And so much of economic life is determined by the organization in relation to one's position. What I want to say is that the spiritual organization will also be concerned with determining whether a person is capable of doing this or that and will be trained for it; the economic position in which he can be placed depends on this. Of course, this must now be done jointly by the economic and spiritual aspects. The fact that he is qualified for this or that will already place him in a different position from another person. Nothing hierarchical develops from this, but in a certain sense nothing bureaucratic either. Every bureaucratic parliament for the economic system only leads to the disintegration of the economic system. So the essential thing for me is the way the three elements are organized, and you can't say that everyone will be in three parliaments; it is only one parliament in which everyone can be, but only based on the judgment of each mature human being. So let's say, to highlight the most important area: all legal matters. The legal issues are actually such that they are at least in the interest of every person who has come of age, and I would like to say, of course, that every person who has come of age is not ideally equally capable with every other person who has come of age. But a certain arithmetic mean does yield the appropriate result in relation to legal issues. At this point, one should now turn to the theory of the basis of law in general. Law is not really based on judgment, but on perception, on the habits that arise from the interaction of people living together. This can be judged when people who belong together judge it. I do not believe, Doctor $., that the individual human being therefore needs to find the right law, but together they will find it. That is what democracy does. I see much more of importance in the interplay than in the details. I would like to see people who have come of age in the democratic parliament and have them decide there mainly on legal matters, but also, and rightly so, on welfare issues, because every person who has come of age can decide there; of course, in many things not on the

objective and technical.

Now, the eight-hour day is something that cannot seriously be considered at all for the threefold social organism, because what does an eight-hour day actually mean? I must confess that I do not, but for the greater part of the year I work much more than eight hours and do not find it in any way excessive. I do not believe that it is possible to establish such an eight-hour day without undermining our real social life. In my “Key Points of the Social Question” you will therefore find that everything that relates to the time of work is determined within the democratic state, and on this basis, the contracts for the distribution of the proceeds are then concluded, not labor contracts, but contracts for the distribution of the proceeds between what I call the labor manager and between what I must call the worker.

So that in the right-wing parliament?

In the right-wing parliament, the time and nature of the work is determined. In this respect, the manual laborer is on an equal footing with the intellectual laborer, because the intellectual laborer cannot assert his interests. You can come to an understanding with goodwill, but you cannot make any demands that relate to economic life itself, you cannot regulate export and import according to parliamentary laws; rather, that must be studied from the economic conditions, from factual and technical knowledge. The fact that I have been working in a company for twenty years also gives me a different moral authority with my fellow human beings than if I have only been there for a year. In democratic life, it is not a matter of whether I am a cheeky young badger of twenty-one years old passing judgment on something. In economic life, it simply depends on whether life experience is taken into account. This is simply necessary for the good of humanity.

I deliberately raised the question of the eight-hour day. Now, if there were a four-hour day, what could the manager do? I don't care about the eight-hour day. I also work more. I am talking about the regulation of working hours.

All right. The matter is this: if the democratic parliament decides on a four-hour day, then this four-hour day will either be sufficient to run the economy within the economy, or it will not be sufficient. If that is not the case, then it will be a matter of everyone, in turn, realizing from their mature reason — for the change must also be carried out democratically — that the change must come about democratically, not in any other way, not by the economically more powerful being able to exert pressure. So what exists as the legal basis of economic life belongs in the democratic parliament. But what is the economic question? Isn't everything an economic question? One might ask: can spiritual life be separated from economic life at all? The objection has been raised that this costs money. In economic life, I see associations emerging from the individual branches of economic life, which interweave, from related and unrelated branches, production, consumption and so on. To describe this in detail would be going too far.

What is important is this: the various members of the spiritual life, who are in their administration of the spiritual life what I have described for the spiritual life; as participants in economic life, they form economic consumers and are members, associations that belong to the economic body. What I separate is life; it is not an abstract separation into three bodies, but it is life that is structured. It is true that spiritual life is indeed administered hierarchically, but the economic life of all those who work spiritually is part of the economic life of the associations. So in their economic activity, teachers and so on are also economic entities and economic organizations. And so the various people actually work together. And this can only be followed in detail; just as, after all, when one wants to present chemistry, not everything can be presented in one hour, but one must refer to what can then be done in detail.

But to answer a question from Judge L., it is easier to discuss and answer certain questions with people who have simply come of age than factual questions, I think that is obvious in the end.

Basically, socialist agitators usually have no understanding of economic life and even less of the conditions of economic life. And so the most diverse utopias have been put forward as to how one thing or another can be organized. For example, I would like to mention how industrial sectors that are based on a fine, meticulous interlocking of very different things are supposed to cope with their exports if they are to be organized according to a Möllendorff planned economy or something similar. It depends on certain things that can only be administered from within an economic organism, not by government, but from within.

It is characteristic, for example, when it is said: You cannot take school out of the state today; people will not put up with it, and it is not necessary in a socialist state. Those who do not know the conditions that really exist in humanity, but which haunt the minds of political agitators, must say to themselves: in the socialist state it would be even more necessary! Above all, for the good of the people, it would be even more necessary to at least take the school out of what is intended for humanity in the socialist state, as it is imagined by Marxism.

So I believe that if the good will exists to respond to the individual – I have already been repeatedly confronted with the objection of the three parliaments – I want to have the threefold structure for its own sake, not just to have three groups of people, three houses next to each other; there really won't be three houses. If I am understood correctly, it will probably be found that we can meet in the concrete solutions that I have already given for individual questions, and for others, if I still have some time to live, will still give - I would prefer if you will give others - I think we will get along quite well.

I would like to emphasize again here: it is not a matter of omniscience, but rather of trying to determine, without utopia, what should happen in detail, starting from the assumption that the three areas of life different conditions of life, and that only when people from the three areas of life work together in a qualitatively different way, not just in a parliamentary, quantitative way, but in a qualitative way, will the concrete findings emerge in the right way.

I must also say that for me, this threefold social order is so firmly established that I would compare this certainty, of course cum grano salis, with the certainty of the Pythagorean theorem. You cannot prove it everywhere, in all cases, but you can prove that you can use it. The threefold social order does not have to be abstracted from all particulars, but it can be applied in all details, in this case practically applied, in that in the threefold organism precisely the state life, economic life and spiritual life are organized in such a way that a practical result is achieved.

I believe that answering the very extensive questions of Mr. Chief Justice L. would take too long this evening; but it may be seen that the point here is to start from the concrete shaping of reality, and that it is therefore extremely difficult with abstract answers, because one wants to remain in the full reality.

I would just like to come back to this: I also find it extremely interesting that within French folklore, syndicalism has emerged, and I believe that this question is best solved by studying socialization. It is very interesting to study the different nuances of English and French socialism. English socialism is basically a watered-down form of capitalism. It is actually entirely what works in capitalism. So the purely economic element in the English labor question is actually only sharpened to the interests of the worker in the big picture; but it has not gone away completely, so that English socialism has an economically opportunistic coloring.

German socialism has taken up Marxism with military efficiency and military organizational spirit, and it has acquired a tight military organization. And those like me who have worked in a workers' educational school that had grown entirely out of social democracy, but was also thrown out by its non-Marxist orthodoxy, that is, by its non-Marxism, by saying: Not freedom, but a reasonable compulsion can judge that. German socialism is basically something that is entirely in line with the same spirit that produced Prussian militarism.

Without wishing to say anything favorable about the nature of the people or to accuse the Germans of anything, French syndicalism is, after all, — through its associative character, I must see it as the best beginning for precisely what I must think of as the association in economic life. And especially when I compare it with English and German socialism, I see that it arises from the same thing that I have tried to characterize, from the democratic spirit. These are two sides; one side has shown itself among the bourgeoisie, the other among the workers. And what is more capitalist and more profit-oriented in the bourgeoisie is syndicalism among the workers. It is only the obverse and reverse sides.

So I believe that these three different nuances, the English, French and German nuances of socialism, are related to the qualities of nationality.

And this brings us to a question that I consider to be extremely important. We should not start from a general socialism and we should not believe that there is such a thing as an abstract socialism. Instead, we should ask: How should each national culture be treated based on its own characteristics? And anyone who comes from Western Europe, has observed and reflected on Swiss social conditions, goes to Russia and imposes something completely alien on the Russian people, actually destroys what the Russian people could have formed out of themselves. — But, as I said, not all social issues can be resolved today.

Dear Sirs and Madams, It is not entirely consistent with the opinions I myself must have of the progress of the movement that Councillor of Commerce Molt has just so enthusiastically expounded to you, if I myself appear before you today to discuss economic issues, or at least economic directions, , but I would have preferred it if the idea of the threefold social order, which did come from me and which I recommended to the world, had been presented to you by a man who was professionally involved in economic life. For it may be said that in such a matter, what is just can only make the right impression when it is advocated by someone who, by his external profession, is fully immersed in some branch of external economic life. But it is the wish of our friends that I myself should speak first of all about our ideas for the recovery of economic life, and what we have taken as a basis for the founding of the “Kommende Tag”, a purely economic society. That on the one hand,

On the other hand, it is difficult today to speak of the recovery of economic life from a broader perspective in a very short time. One can keep these broad perspectives in mind in all one's actions, even in the founding of something seemingly far removed from economic life, such as the Waldorf School, or in the founding of the “Kommen Tag”, as in the case of the establishment of “Das Kommende Tag”. But it is difficult, especially in view of the present world situation, to speak briefly about what one has in mind. Therefore, I ask you to consider what I am about to say, first of all, only as a broad outline, as a suggestion, and then perhaps to receive the suggestion to look up some of the details in my booklet “The Crux of the social question”, or in other writings, for example ‘In the Execution of the Threefold Order’, in which I have set out in detail the principles underlying the whole idea of threefold order for the most diverse areas of life. And I must also, since I may well assume that not all of the esteemed listeners who were kind enough to appear here today are already quite familiar with the idea of threefolding, at least in the introduction with a few - just to characterize it, not to prove it - what the impulse of the threefold social order actually wants, and only then to show what I would like to tell you today.

From the most diverse backgrounds, a few of which I will also mention later, the only remedy for our social ills that I feel is this threefold social order, founded in Stuttgart, is precisely this threefold order for every social organism, be it the German Reich or any other social organism, small or large, can be carried out for each individual, and in fact in such a way - as Mr. Molt has already partially indicated - that what was previously abstractly summarized in the unitary state, so that the individual points of view continually mix: the interests of intellectual life, the interests of economic life, the interests of purely political life, especially socio-political interests, [that] what was thus combined in the unitary state, without being truly organically structured in itself, is to be separated into three members. What I am describing to you is by no means utopian, but something that has been taken from the practice of life. And perhaps today it will be possible to show that when we speak of this threefold order, we are not appealing to some distant point in time and to a particular improvement of humanity in some direction, but that we are speaking of something that can be tackled in principle every day in some area, so that these areas then grow together and a recovery of the entire social organism is the result. The point is that the affairs of spiritual life, to which the education system belongs, must be administered separately from the affairs of legal life together with political life, and then, as a third area, all matters of purely economic life.

The affairs of intellectual life, especially the affairs of education and teaching, cannot be decided by parliamentary means if anything fruitful for the real development of humanity is to come of it. They cannot be governed or administered by majorities in any way. Instead, it is a matter of placing spiritual matters, above all education and teaching, on the basis of pure self-government; that from the lowest elementary school to up to the university, in all fields, those people who are the teachers, and indeed those who, in the time when administrative matters are at issue, are actively teaching, are also the administrators of the entire teaching system. Today we have it arranged in such a way that the person who is involved in any kind of administrative work in the education system used to teach at one time, so that he has actually grown out of the living connection with active teaching and education. Therefore, in the future, the teacher must be relieved. Of course, this cannot be done in its entirety today; our Waldorf school teachers are far too burdened for us to be able to implement everything we consider necessary, but we are working against a situation in which teachers, in terms of teaching and education, only have to spend so much time that they still have enough left over to help manage the school as a whole. In this way the whole field of teaching and education is placed under the control of the teachers and educators themselves. It would take us too far afield today to want to prove this in detail, and I would like to characterize and inspire more today than prove; but it will be shown that in such an administration, through the mutual recognition of abilities, the individual will can be applied, and that from person to person, from body to body, in a deliberation that is not at all reminiscent of parliamentarization, what is to be done for the administration is done. And anyone who really wants to achieve something in the administration of intellectual life must be part of that intellectual life itself.

I will explain what I actually mean in another area. We intend to found an institute here in Stuttgart or nearby that is dedicated to the field of medicine; a field that, as everyone should know today, needs physicians with a certain background, namely in the field of spiritual science. We will be able to produce a whole range of remedies that are hardly on the world's mind today, but which will be a blessing to the world. But we do not intend to run this production of remedies in such a way that they are merely produced by a number of doctors; this would run the risk that these doctors would become bureaucratic, that they would increasingly outgrow the living understanding of human health and illness, that they would become more and more bureaucrats and technicians. Therefore, such an institute must be connected to a clinic, no matter how small. So that those who become technicians are continually in contact with healing itself, with the art of healing. In this way, that which must ultimately permeate their entire way of acting is kept alive in them, the way they have to participate in the overall hygienic-therapeutic process.

This is the basis of a lively approach to teaching and education, which is not sitting there in a parliament with a majority of people who have no idea about the art of pedagogy and didactics, but who judge from other interests and that they make decisions about pedagogical and didactic questions, which in turn are carried out by civil servants who either never worked in the teaching and education system or who left it and are no longer connected to it in a living way. A spiritual life that is left to its own devices means one in which those working in it are also the administrators of that spiritual life.

Now I want to touch on the other wing of this threefold social organism in principle, that is the economic wing. Here it must be clear that economic life is such that it is impossible for someone who is not knowledgeable and skilled in some branch of economic life to judge anything about it. These things can easily be proved from facts. I would like to mention just one, which I have also mentioned several times in my 'Key Points of the Social Question': the empire that so clearly showed how impossible its continued existence was within the European chaos is Austria. I spent half of my life in Austria, namely thirty years; I know the Austrian circumstances as they developed in the 1870s and 1880s, when anyone who studied them a little and could see through, could see from the outset how it would gradually come about; how it had to come about not only for national reasons - that is what one says so easily - but mainly for a different reason. When, in the 1860s, parliamentarianism was established in Austria under the pressure of modern times, how was the Reichsrat composed in Austria? From four curiae: the curia of the large landowners; the curia of the representatives of the chambers of commerce and chambers of trade; the curia of the cities, markets and industrial towns; and the curia of the rural communities. So these curiae consisted of representatives of economic entities, and what they wanted as representatives of the economic entities became intertwined with the purely state and political circumstances in the Austrian Reichsrat. The legal relationships were decided there, laws were given there, but not according to the purely political, purely legal aspects; rather, laws were given there according to the majority. There was often no internal connection between what was to be given as laws and the interests out of which these laws were voted on. In other words, anyone who was able to observe the circumstances had to say to themselves: this is a complete impossibility. Especially where the people were thrown together in such a way that there were 13 official languages in this Austria, it became apparent how, in collision with all the other circumstances, an impossible economic representation was at work in the Reichsrat. It became clear that, above all, it would have been necessary not to parliamentarize economic matters, but to have only those matters represented in parliament that every adult, simply because he is human, can have a say in; on the other hand, to remove all parliamentarization from economic life. In economic life, only those who have expertise in some field and are professionally competent may be considered. The competent and professional economists would have to join forces with others who are competent in other fields, and through these ever-widening associations, an associative life would arise. So that, to put it in layman's terms, it actually works like this: someone who is involved in a branch of production, or who represents a field in which consumers have come together for something, they join forces, associatively; not in such a way that there is an authority above it that organizes, but that all organization arises from mutual negotiations. When implemented, such an associative principle can achieve that each association puts into the negotiations what it understands that the others do not understand. And from the mutual behavior, not from overriding, but from mutual respect for what is expertise in the other, from this principle, which can only emerge from association, the network of the economy can arise, which now really manages the economy economically.

Thus, on the one hand, we have a free spiritual life, and on the other, an economic life that is not dependent on individual personalities.

Please excuse me if I express something that might offend, but which arises when one has studied economic life, state-political life and spiritual life impartially over decades, and when one asks oneself: Who is actually able to assess the economic situation when different economic sectors come into play, or even large state economies, or, as it was in more recent times, the world economy?

In the spiritual life, individuality is what counts, because in the spiritual life it is a matter of the abilities that are born with the human being penetrating into social life from within the individuality, that come out of the human being in the course of human life. If the institution were not set up in such a way that those forces that lie within each individual individuality can come from within each individual individuality, then one would simply be depriving social life of forces. But in the free spiritual life, it is possible for each individual to develop his own inner powers as an educator or teacher.

In economic life, it is an empirical fact that no one has such abilities that encompass anything outside of one or at most a very few economic sectors. For economic life is based on what one has acquired over the years through dealing with economic affairs. It is impossible for anyone in economic life to make a proper judgment as an individual. This may cause offence, but it is an empirical rule that can be proven. I would just like to point out one thing to you: When you read parliamentary debates from the mid- to late 19th century, you get the impression that the decision to incorporate all economic issues into parliament was made around the midpoint or second half of the 19th century, but especially around the midpoint, how much was discussed in parliament about the benefits of the gold standard. What I want to say now is not intended as an objection to these parliamentary speeches, which were delivered at the time by both economic theorists and practitioners. They are really very clever people. I know that a lot of astute things were said in favor of the introduction of the gold standard at the time. And among these astute things, which people said not out of insight but out of personal acumen, was also one that recurred again and again: that under the influence of the gold standard, free trade in particular would flourish. This judgment is repeatedly encountered, and there were good reasons for defending it. They were astute people, but they proved to be poor prophets. The reality of economic life was that people everywhere were crying out for tariff barriers. The protective tariff policy was introduced. So the opposite of what these astute people said about economic developments based on their individual beliefs occurred. And one could cite countless examples that would show that in economic life, the individual human being has a correct, thorough judgment only for those things in which he has personally participated. Therefore, it is necessary that in this economic life it is not the individual who judges, but the associations that form from the individual branches. So that in fact economic action, acting together under the influence of negotiation, happens out of knowledge of the subject, not out of parliamentarization, not out of the decision of majorities.

On the other hand, it is justified to decide by majority vote, in a completely democratic way, in all those areas that affect legal life; these affect what can be judged because it concerns what is universally human in every person who has come of age. We do not want to talk about the age limit here. So, what is placed in the judgment of every mature human being belongs to the state, which stands between the independent economic life based on associations and the free spiritual life.

It is a prejudice to believe that economic life and legal or state life are so intertwined that the two cannot be separated. Those who judge in this way judge according to what has emerged in recent times, where such an amalgamation has already occurred in the socio-political and economic spheres of state life with economic life, for example, so that there are people today who can no longer grasp the idea that the pure economic life, which deals with the production of commodities, the circulation of commodities, the consumption of commodities, with the tendency, on the basis of this negotiation, to arrive at a corresponding price from the negotiations of the associations - because in the sphere of economic life, what it is all about is, after all, in the end, to arrive at a price that ensures people a dignified existence. People can no longer imagine that these negotiations can be separated from one another, including in terms of administration and the constitutional system, and separated from the treatment of purely human issues such as the question of working hours. In the sense of the threefold social order, working hours would not be dealt with within the economic body, but within the body of the state. There it is like this – and I cannot say it any other way, I have acquired this judgment through decades of study – there it is like this, what must arise is that at the moment when, for example, we have overcome, through the principle of association, the hybrid nature of the so-called trade unions, which basically belong to economic life but which, by their constitution, by their very nature, are nothing more than reflections of a politicizing, of a political life; if we had overcome this principle of the trade unions, where basically people come together who are not involved in real economic life at all, but who make demands that do not belong in the economic sphere. In economic life, one should get to know what plays a role between the production, circulation, and consumption of commodities. If people who also work as manual laborers are involved in the association, then today one can only say – I am firmly convinced of this and I was a teacher at a workers' training school for many years, I got to know the most radical workers and their state of mind there; one cannot judge the social question if one has only only from the outside, but one can only judge about what the true labor question is when one has looked at the people - then we would not have the agitation in the socio-political field today, which at the moment threatens to destroy our economic life; we would not have the completely abstract demand for the eight-hour day. If the workers' associations were involved in economic life itself, they would assert their judgment in legal life, where they simply have to decide on the length of working hours; they would know that it would affect their own bodies if the corresponding working hours were enforced. Only when one separates this question from the purely economic life, only when one has a possibility to judge on what is purely human, without any connection to economic interests, which belongs in the political, in the state, only then is one in the position to judge objectively on these things. One can have a heart for the workers' issue in the truest sense of the word, but this heart then also tells one that it is necessary above all that social life should flow in such a way that the worker does not undermine the ground under his feet. To do this, however, it is necessary to look at our entire economic, legal, political and intellectual life with a healthier sense than is often the case today.

You see, one would have to talk a lot about it if one wanted to get to the bottom of the reasons for the economic plight, for example, of the German Reich. And it is really difficult to talk about threefolding today because it can only be carried out in a surrogate. After all, it is political life that is ruining economic life on a large scale today. The war ruined our economic life, but it is fair to say that peace has ruined our economic life even more, and in a much more hopeless way. So it is very difficult to talk about these things today, but I would like to point out that we will not be able to solve economic issues in the appropriate way today either if we do not set about solving the big social issues as such, insofar as this is relatively possible.

You may think about the threefold social order, initially as a kind of postulate, if you like; but one thing is clear, especially within the German Reich, when you consider the fact that this in fact emerged in the second half of the 19th century, that it is already there in certain areas, but that it is only there in a destructive sense, not in a constructive sense. And here you will allow me to dwell very briefly on things that appear to be far removed from economic life, but which, for those who see through things, are intimately connected with it.

You all know that the longing for the German Reich has existed for a long time. It is one of the most beautiful blossoms in German life. How did this longing for the German Reich appear, for example, in 1848 and even later? It appeared as a purely intellectual impulse. Those people who spoke of this establishment of German unity lapsed into a kind of romanticism – whether you like it or not, it is a fact – when they spoke of what they were striving for, of German unity. They wanted to found a Reich in which the spiritual substance of the German people would come to the fore. Then a Reich was founded from completely different points of view. No criticism is being expressed here; enough of that was expressed in the 1970s; one may admit the historical necessity that the German Reich had to be founded in this way, not out of this idealism, which can also be a false one , but it was not wrong for numerous personalities; this founding of the German Reich could have truly served as a framework for that which, out of the best spiritual striving of the Germans, wanted this German unity.

The foundation of 1871 could have provided a framework for spiritual matters. They were there. And, ladies and gentlemen, however much they may be in hiding today, they are still there today, perhaps most strongly there, even if not on the surface of life. But what then emerged within this framework? Here, too, I do not want to criticize, but to fully acknowledge: a flourishing economy has indeed emerged; an increasingly flourishing German Reich in the economic sense has emerged. Do not take what I am about to say in a dismissive sense.

The dreams of those striving for German unity were in the background as a free, spiritual empire, not publicly active or organized, but carried in the heart. It was there, this link of the spiritual organism, only it could not assert itself in the face of the external organization. It did not have its own organization. More and more, a purely economic organization asserted itself. What arose from completely different spiritual and political foundations was used as the framework for a large, powerful, admirable economic organization. Unfortunately, however, this organization contradicted the demands of the world economy, which arose more and more in the second half of the 19th century. It was simply – whether one regrets this or judges it differently – it was simply not possible for the framework of the German Reich, which had developed out of very different conditions, out of spiritual and political conditions, to become an economic area that was opposed to the trends of the world economy. This has become the deepest cause of the war, at least in the West; this is the basis of our tragic fate in Germany.

Now we have two links in the tripartite social organism. We have the secretly ruling spiritual realm; but the school and education system was organized according to the aspects that were at the top. It was, so to speak, seized by the tentacles of the unitary state, which, however, asserted purely economic aspects. On the other hand, we have economic life. And in between, yes, in between, we have a fragment, a part of the third area; the purely state, the purely economic area. This does not descend from above; because here one thinks of setting up politics itself in such a way that it can increasingly develop more and more over the economy; politics, which grows from below, which is there in the demands of social democracy. There, the demands are set up quite ruthlessly in relation to economic life, about which the Social Democracy merely theorizes. There, the demands are set up without regard to intellectual life, to the conditions of economic life. There, purely political points of view are asserted.

You see, these three members of the social organism are growing up, you just don't see it; you don't see that you also have to organize what is growing up; that you really have to come to treating these three members in such a way that they are really taken up; that we have a separate organization for spiritual life, a separate organization for legal life, where those who are not really part of the other two organizations no longer make their demands alone, but together with those who are part of them, have to work with the others as full, whole personalities.

Then we have economic life, which has just been conducted continuously from points of view that did not take into account the general demands of the world economy. We have, to a great extent, developed the economy under the entrepreneurial spirit of technical science in this new German Reich. But we have not developed this economy from an overview of the economic conditions of the world economy. And this world economy plays into the sphere of every single household. It is not something that hovers over our heads, but something we experience at every breakfast. More and more, it is something we experience, and it became more and more necessary to place oneself in this economic life out of knowledge, out of insight, which in turn could only arise out of social life. This was neglected. Then the war took away what had been achieved in a fragment of the world economy. Now, however, we are faced with the fact that politics has narrowed us down to such an extent that it is extremely difficult to achieve much through the threefold social order from this torso, which is an economic torso even in the middle of Europe. But if we look at the threefold social organism, we have to say: Of course it will not be able to turn what is an economic torso into paradise, but it will be able to get the most out of it that is humanly possible.

On the other hand, it is actually beginning to be recognized everywhere that it is necessary, on the one hand, to distinguish economic life from the social organism and to really place it on its own. However, there is little insight among those who, for some abstract reason, speak of a planned economy and believe that economic life can be organized from some central office. In economic life, we should stop talking about organizing altogether. We should know that in economic life the hard-working person can only achieve something if they can also stand within the economic circle that they can see, and can establish a relationship with the other economic circles in such a way that they stand within the associative so that the right thing can happen through the interaction in the associations; so that an opinion can develop that the individual cannot have, but that only those can have together who are part of the associations.

If we look at things this way, we have to say: What we can achieve is perhaps very imperfect, but we will still achieve the humanly possible even in this torso of Central Europe, if we not only tackle those issues that are purely socio-political matters in confusion with economic conditions, but if we really look things in the eye and try to carry out the necessary separation of politics and economics, as far as it is possible in the present circumstances.

But what is emerging, especially the revolution, has once again been covered by an incredibly dense fog, a political fog, and the prophets with their planned economy have emerged in droves. A most unfortunate consequence of what lives in politics is also the famous paragraph 165 of the German constitution of the Republic. Read this paragraph about the composition of district economic councils with a Reich Economic Council and then with what the Reich is to be internally, and try to form a clear and distinct idea of how something unified is actually to come about there. It is the most dismal amalgamation of economic and political points of view in this very paragraph 165 of the German republican constitution of the Weimar National Assembly.

You can see that there are people today who are looking in the right direction, but they are groping in the dark. They realize that something must be done to help the economy. Take the Reich Economic Council, which is truly an assembly of exceptionally knowledgeable people; but you cannot organize across a wider area from a central office, because the possibilities for business are different in each individual territory. The point is that those who have grown into these operating possibilities are included in them, and not those who are directed from above; who manage themselves through associations, while others are included in other operating possibilities. Those who judge from a political point of view will always get it wrong, because they believe that they can organize the whole of economic life through some kind of plan. But in the Reich Economic Council there are people who are familiar with the needs of economic life. They have stated that it is a matter of organizing the whole Reich according to mere economic or transport policy conditions. That is a significant word, only the demand would be that one now leaves it to the individuals working in the individual businesses to form groups that arise by themselves. It can be shown that an association formed from various economic sectors and branches of consumption acquires a certain size simply from the soil conditions or other operating possibilities, from the operating possibilities and consumption conditions. Associations that are too small would be too expensive, and those that are too large would be too unwieldy. This is what needs to be pointed out.

On the one hand, what the threefold social order is striving for is already being demanded today if we are guided by sound judgment. But other organizations will then arise out of the circumstances. It is really striking that out of today's circumstances the Reich Economic Council has been formed, which has to say that it has no initial authority, that the Reich must be divided into such bodies that work out of their operating possibilities. But in between there are always those who hold fast to the old. Thus we have to note that in a meeting of the representatives of the chambers of commerce, it was demanded that economic independence should be introduced uniformly, but that the economic entities should coincide with the old administrative districts, which were created from completely different points of view. In this way neighboring cities would be torn apart, which would naturally have to coincide. This is what repeatedly interferes with the recovery of our judgment, that people cling rigidly to the old.

In another area, too, individuals have already worked their way to a fairly sound judgment regarding corporate bodies that have emerged from the old, even economic necessities, but which no longer have any justification. Anyone who is concerned about such things could be aware of the sad economic situation of the municipalities and cities. Anyone who has studied the matter will tell you this. They are at the end of their economic resources. And those who look into these conditions already have a judgment today that other carriers must take the place of the old economic municipalities, that they must be relieved of what they can no longer provide because they have inherited their practices from old conditions. What kind of bodies are we talking about that are supposed to take this on? Bodies that are formed from the perspectives of economic life itself and that form associations with one another. That is what it is about. And so we can see it as a characteristic feature of our public life today that those who are seriously concerned with these matters are already longing for something to happen that draws attention to the fact that things cannot continue under the old conditions. I would like to say that between the lines one can read it without the people who write the lines knowing it. The sensible manager already has the urge for associative life, for the formation of new economic entities where only economic expertise and specialized knowledge count, the intergrowth of the individual manager with his economy. The grouping into associations is already on the way, but people have so much respect for the old that they cannot get away from it; they keep trying to form corporate bodies out of economic life that associate themselves, that are natural associations themselves, but they would like to combine, would like somehow to nestle in the old framework that which they want to build anew. But that is what holds us back. It is only our lack of courage in the face of new judgments. It is only that we do not want to come to terms with our thoughts. That is what brings this immense inner need to the outer need, that we cannot achieve what is humanly possible within the framework that is still left to us. Of course, even with a certain prospect of success, success in a material sense, the right thing develops out of industrial circles themselves, only one does not go to the last step. For example, it is a very good thing that the electricity industry wants to divide the entire administration of electrical power into eight districts. But if one looks again at how this body is to be linked to the old state framework, one sees that People do not want to break away from the old judgments. They cannot understand that legal relationships and economic relationships only interact properly when they are no longer combined, but when they are properly interlinked.

Some people say: the law is, after all, linked to the economy. Of course it is. In reality, they will continue to be intertwined. But there is no reason why the two should not be kept separate, if the economic circumstances are taken care of by purely economic entities, and the legal circumstances by legal and state entities. Then the people who represent their legal interests in the state and their economic interests in the economic body will not divide in half. They enter life as fully human individuals; they will all represent economic, spiritual, and state-legal life. It is only through the human being that what is only separated by the administration is joined together; but there it must be separated, otherwise we will not progress.

This is what actually distinguishes the impulse of the threefold social organism from other contemporary efforts. I have often been told: Yes, your threefold social order wants an independent economic life, that is also wanted elsewhere. And a free spiritual life is also striven for. It is pointed out that there is something here and something there that recalls the threefold social order. Since our Anthroposophical Society is international, I have already spoken about it with all kinds of people from all over the world. Some have said to me: The threefold social order is nothing new. In the areas where people are interested, we are already trying to do all of this in all three areas. I could only say: The less new the threefold social order is, the better I like it. I am not seeking to bring something new into the world with the threefold social order, but rather that which is new for the development of humanity at this time. What is new, however, is that the efforts in the individual fields are coming to light and that we can only make progress if we come together in the one great impulse, which is the threefold social order.

I am well aware of the objections that can be raised from the most diverse sides. I have also discussed the objections that can be raised from the standpoint of international interests in my paper “The Crucial Points of the Social Question”. I know very well how little scope there is for the development of threefolding and for an associative economic life in our German Empire, which has been so curtailed by the peace agreement. But if we do what is possible and, as I believe, necessary for life, then I have confidence that the example will prove effective. The victors will take a good social thing from us if we can bring it about, just as they would take any other invention from us, even if we are defeated. The only difficulty today, which I often regret in our circles, is that we have too few people working on this.

You see, the book “The Key Points of the Social Question” has been translated into European cultural languages and published everywhere; in English, Italian, French and Norwegian-Swedish. The English translation was published in May 1920. Basically, although people were always warned that an Englishman would not want to have a proper judgment of what comes from a German today, objective discussions of this book appeared in abundance in England in a short time. And if we had had the opportunity to give lectures in England from city to city in July, if we had been able to capitalize on the mood that was created by the book, then something would have come of it. Then, I am convinced, a German idea would have made a great impression there, even under today's terribly unfavorable conditions. We were unable to hold lectures in England; we are far too few in number. The few people around Steiner, the few men in the “Coming Day” are struggling, one can say; for them, night is hardly there at all during long periods. We basically only have a few people, and we need many, many people to make it work. I could only give you the guidelines, they were only meant to be suggestions; but for us they are what, if they can be represented by a sufficiently large number of people, must lead to the recovery of present life.

We also started with the “Coming Day”, this “stock corporation for the promotion of economic and spiritual values”. It is to be a purely economic enterprise. Of course, I would like to point out that such a small individual society cannot achieve what the threefold order wants within the other economic life, of course. Because just think, the most important thing is to get rid of special-interest groups such as the trade unions. We cannot do that overnight, especially not with a small group of people, and especially not if something like what happened to me here in Stuttgart, when we started working for the threefold social order, I would like to say the say it in a way that is somewhat anonymous; I got into conversation with someone from the circles of the bourgeoisie who has a certain following after we had succeeded in generating a great deal of understanding for the idea of threefolding, especially among the working class. This gentleman said to me: Yes, I can see that there is something fruitful in these things; you could make progress with them if you gained followers. But you are too few to win followers, with the few people around you; we cannot base the matter on so few eyes. Therefore, we prefer - although we know that with cannons and rifles we can only go on for another 10 to 15 years - to leave it as it is.

We did not allow ourselves to be discouraged from founding this “Coming Day”, even though we can only realize a very small part of our ideas in it. This small part is that in this “Coming Day” and the “Futurum” that goes with it in Dornach near Basel, societies have been created that eliminate the harmful effects, at least initially in a small area, that can be seen when studying the interaction between banking and industry today. Unfortunately, I cannot go into this in detail now; it would be taking us too far afield. I would just like to say the positive thing. The “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” are to be such societies in which banking is administered in such a way that it is not purely banking, but that the administrators of banking in the individual industrial enterprises, which are associatively united in the “coming day”, are at the same time active in productive industrial work, the entire organization of work, and also take care of the financial administration themselves. What has been separated only in the 19th century, to the detriment of humanity, is to be joined together: banking with productive work, with industrial, commercial work and so on. And we want to show that all of social life can really flourish.

I mentioned earlier that we want to establish a therapeutic institute under certain conditions. We have also founded a publishing house. The Waldorf School is also connected to the Kommenden Tag financially to a certain extent, even if it is still a loose connection today.

We want to show that if you can manage things in the right way, you can establish spiritual institutions alongside them, if you just have enough financial acumen to calculate with long time frames. Because spiritual institutions also pay off, they just have to be allowed long time frames, and you just have to have an open mind about what humanity needs.

We are convinced that the remedies, in the way we want to produce them, do not include any unproductive enterprises, although no other thought is embodied in them than to help humanity. But precisely when one works in the noblest moral sense in such fields, one also works in the best economic sense. For it turns out that by taking what you gain in the short term and investing it in enterprises that are subject to long-term conditions, you are at the same time establishing an economy that also encompasses the free spiritual life, which also belongs in the economy. This is an example of how we do not want to juxtapose things, but rather structure them so that things interact in the right way. And just as we do not want to found a school of world-view in Waldorf schools, but only to apply in the art of education and teaching what we have gained from anthroposophy, just as we do not want to inculcate any world-view in the child, but to let the human being become blissful as he wants. People are always criticizing what they see as dogmas in our work. We do not have dogmas; we have a method of inquiry that we claim is the right method not only for world views but also for practical matters. In Waldorf schools, the way we treat children is essential. We have Catholic children taught religion by Catholic teachers and Protestant children by Protestant teachers, but we want a methodology based on a real, thorough knowledge of human nature. And so it does not occur to us to inject any kind of world view into economic enterprises. We would regard that as foolishness. Rather, the aim is to ensure that the “day to come” is based on the associative principle of economic life to the extent possible today; that it realizes this associative principle, which is alive, at least in the one point that the banking activities and measures associate with the industrial and commercial measures; that it forms an organic whole. Perhaps we will live to see that, if the matter is sufficiently understood, this economic center will expand more and more and an economic association will emerge from it, which can then serve as an example to others. This depends on the understanding, also on the - how should I put it - generous understanding that our contemporaries show us. I know that I could not evoke this through these allusions, but the literature is indeed extensive; two books are available from me, and the weekly magazine “Die Dreigliederung”, which we publish, appears every week, in which we discuss the questions at hand in detail, and in which the intentions of “The Day to Come” have been discussed in detail; in which also highlights are thrown on the conditions of the present, on the way in which the present must be treated, so that the impulse of threefolding as a practical impulse can enter into real life and so on. There is also criticism of what in our economic life cannot possibly lead to anything other than decline, at least not to sunrise. And there is still other literature. And the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is there, trying to propagate these ideas, precisely because it believes that salvation can only be achieved in this way.

Dear attendees, please forgive me if I have only been able to give a few hints and if I have to refer you to what else we do for the idea in the way we have just characterized. But I hope that these suggestions may indicate, first, that here at least an attempt is being made, out of the great trends that are now standing before us demanding a construction out of decline, and out of practical ideas, out of ideas that social life and the real people of the present, that out of all this an attempt is made to do something that leads to a healthy economic life through a free intellectual life and through a legal or political life that satisfies people in its field. We cannot make progress today with small means, which we can only deduce from what has already been missed in economic life, but we can only make progress if we decide to understand the downfall of economic life from a broad perspective and to use this to gain momentum for a real awakening, for a recovery of this economic life.

The meeting was opened on Sunday, February 25, 1923, at 8:00 p.m., with a welcoming address by the chairman, Mr. Emil Leinhas of Stuttgart. Mr. Leinhas warmly welcomed Dr. Rudolf Steiner and Mrs. Marie Steiner, as well as the delegates and members of the Anthroposophical Society. He pointed out that the Anthroposophical Society had reached a significant turning point in its development and that it was now important for every single member to grasp the tasks of the Society with full awareness. Mr. Leinhas spoke of the feelings of terrible pain and “grief at the loss of our Goetheanum. He then pointed out the tasks of the Society with regard to the destroyed Goetheanum, the new art of eurythmy, the Waldorf School, the “Coming Day” and the other enterprises, as well as with regard to the religious movement and also with regard to the well-organized opposition to anthroposophy. He called for criticism to be unsparing, for things to be said freely and unembellished, but also for positive proposals for renewal not to be forgotten and for everything to be said in such a way that it is felt that the whole person is behind it with his or her lively interest and will, fired by the high ideals of truth, beauty and goodness. “We represent the most glorious cause in the world!” exclaimed Mr. Leinhas. “A cause that must not perish, no matter how much Europe falls prey to the forces of decline. Anthroposophy will live; for Anthroposophy is a new world!” He pointed out in urgent words the tremendous seriousness of the situation, the responsibility to the spiritual world and the magnitude of our task, which can only be fulfilled through love and enthusiasm for the cause.

Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: Lecture on The Situation of the Anthroposophical Society.

We have come together at an exceptionally important moment for our Society. This is the first significant meeting since the Anthroposophical Society was founded that is devoted solely to the affairs of the Society. There is an enormous difference between the circumstances of that time and those of today. At that time, all members were extremely enthusiastic about the affairs of the Society. When it was founded, leadership was taken on by three individuals, and the others followed suit. This was the beginning of the Society's self-management. The task of such independent leadership was thus already set for it at that time.

In those days there was a strong sense of union. Dr. Steiner's cycle of lectures and travels, who, through his tireless work between all branches, groups and individuals, always formed a mediating element, had contributed to this. The building of the Goetheanum, which has now been snatched from us, was a living testimony to the enthusiasm that united our members. At that time, an intense sense of belonging had also developed through the shared birth pangs of the Anthroposophical Society at the time of its separation from the Theosophical Society. Every member was aware of what was being undertaken by the opponents of the time. Each felt it as directed against his own person. What was available as achievements from individual personalities of the Society was known by everyone, and experienced by them. In the branches, intensive and constant inner work was done in the most diverse places through tireless work. In short, despite many bad habits and sectarianism that still existed as a tradition from the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society proved to be a reality in these early days. And we experienced this reality again on the terrible night of the fire on December 31, when everyone worked together in a way that was only possible because of a real sense of connection through anthroposophy.

However, a new phase of the movement began in 1919 with the founding of various initiatives by individuals from the bosom of society. I am referring to the movement for the threefold social order, the “Kommende Tag” (the coming day), the Waldorf school movement, the university movement, the research institutes and, finally, the movement for religious renewal. All the enthusiasm went into these foundations. The Society took action at that time. Leading circles emerged. Everyone flocked to Stuttgart. What disappeared, however, was the enthusiasm for the affairs of the Society itself. It was an enormous responsibility that the founders of the institutions took upon themselves. If these personalities did not stay the course, the consequences would fall back on the Anthroposophical Society. Through these foundations, something universal was to be given on the one hand, and wide circles were to be led to the anthroposophical movement. On the other hand, however, the Anthroposophical Society had to develop along with it, it had to keep pace with the foundations.

But the leading circles of the Society were not aware that the Society had to be consciously led in a new way. Dr. Steiner could no longer, as he had done before, take the leadership of the Society into his own hands. The leadership turned all its attention to representing the daughter movements. The individual members felt less and less supported by the leadership; they felt, so to speak, abandoned and isolated. The branch leaders also had no support from the leadership. They were completely alone. Members flocked to them, but no one took them under their wing. No measures were taken to turn the members into active participants in the common cause. In fact, the leadership had abandoned the periphery.

Looking back at developments in recent years, it must be said that the best forces in society went to Stuttgart, but did not give back to the membership at the periphery what they themselves gained through their work there. No information came out from the leadership to the members of the Society. There was no awareness that a continuous stream of messages about the spiritual wealth conveyed by Dr. Steiner, about the tasks of the Society, the achievements in the same, the opposition, etc. had to flow out.

And in Stuttgart, too, people had no heart for the Anthroposophical Society. We had good representatives of the individual daughter movements, good teachers, representatives of the three-folding movement, religious renewal, etc., but almost no good co-workers in the Anthroposophical Society. As Dr. Steiner mentioned in one of his last lectures here, the mother, the Anthroposophical Society, was increasingly neglected. The enthusiasm that people had from the early days was carried into the individual daughter movements, but they did not move on to working for the Society itself and looking at the necessity of continuing to cultivate the central anthroposophical life. “You can work without the Society.” That was the great error that existed in general.

This tendency developed particularly in Stuttgart. The individual personalities in the enterprises carried a scientific life, etc., that had not yet been completely transformed, into the Society from the daughter movements. Much specialization was carried into the branches in an unprocessed state, so to speak. The anthroposophical life of the branch could not keep pace with the rationalizations. In the face of the mostly successful conferences and other external events, people were unable to really solve the problems that arose for community life.

That was the “Stuttgart system”. In Stuttgart, researchers, teachers, etc. faced each other individually. A bureaucracy arose in Stuttgart. Many who came here felt a certain icy coldness. It was simply not possible to combine these two things in one person, when it was no longer possible, as it was before, to practice Anthroposophy only in one's private life and to have one's profession alongside it.

Actually, the leadership of the Society would have had to double, or even increase tenfold, its activities in order to continue anthroposophical life in the right way and to strengthen it. If the Anthroposophical Society as such does not make progress, ultimately the individual foundations will also suffer; for without the real Anthroposophical Society the foundations would not have been possible.

This duplication of concern for anthroposophical matters did not occur. There was a lack of awareness among the leaders and also among most members that the Society had to be brought to a level that could do justice to the fertility of anthroposophy in all fields. On the other hand, there was a lack of cooperation between the leadership and the members of the branches everywhere. Even at the time of the threefold social order movement, it was not pointed out that the central anthroposophical life should have been cultivated to an even greater extent than before. People heard about the tasks of the threefold social order movement, but not about the tasks of the mother, anthroposophy. The same lack of information also became apparent when the religious renewal movement came into being. Here too, the leadership did not provide the members with any information that could have clarified the situation. There was also a dwindling awareness of what anthroposophy can offer people by striving for a union of the scientific, artistic and religious.

This deficiency is also connected with the most recent events here in Stuttgart. To understand this, we must touch on the background to the appeal that has now been sent to the members. This prehistory began even before the Dornach catastrophe, had nothing to do with it, because it was rooted in the long history of the Society, as just described. The decision taken at the Stuttgart Congress (1921), when the new Central Executive Council was constituted, to create an organization of trust within the Society, had not been fulfilled. There was no real cooperation in the Central Board. On December 10, 1922, a conversation took place between Dr. Steiner and Mr. Uehli, a member of the Central Board. During this conversation, Dr. Steiner pointed out that either the Central Board had to bring about a consolidation of the Society by consulting with other prominent figures, or that it would have to address the members without the Board. Mr. Uehli did not recognize the scope and seriousness of this situation. Due to disagreements within the board of directors, this task was not carried out.¹ After the catastrophe at Dornach, a number of prominent individuals took the initiative and a large number of meetings were held, during some of which very strong criticism was expressed of the activities of the Central Board to date. Following this, Mr. Uehli resigned from his position as a member of the Central Board, and Dr. Unger did so conditionally, in case the initiative of the aforementioned prominent individuals should lead to positive goals. However, this did not happen. Dr. Steiner then gave a series of lectures here in Stuttgart on the problems of society, and further discussions also took place. Dr. Steiner had already characterized the “Stuttgart system” in his lecture on 6 January 1923 in Dornach, and this was also done in the most forceful way here in Stuttgart.

It became apparent that all these questions could only be resolved if a meeting were convened at which the entire membership would be called upon to participate.

Initially, after Mr. Uehli's resignation, a “provisional central committee” was formed by co-opting Dr. Eugen Kolisko. However, this solution could only be a provisional one. After long negotiations, this committee, which has signed the appeal, was formed as a kind of representative body for the individual institutions. It was co-opted by the provisional board. The intention was to make it clear that such a provisional body of trust could only be formed from the institutions and that these institutions intended to give back to the Anthroposophical Society what they had received from it. You can see from the composition of the committee that the most important institutions are represented in it: “Kommender Tag”, the Waldorf School, both publishers, the newspaper, the movement for religious renewal, the old central board, the scattered external interests.

We must therefore focus all our attention on the Society itself. For what is the situation of the Anthroposophical Society? We are facing a world of enemies without inner unity, and the members do not even know how strong they are and how they are working to put an end to the entire anthroposophical movement. We must be clear about this: the less is happening for the Society, the more a vacuum is forming within, and the more the opposition outside is strengthening and expanding. It will be necessary for the membership to become acquainted with this antagonism and its motives through reports, so that, through this knowledge, they can see how something can be done about it.

And then contact must be re-established between the leadership and the Society so that each individual member can take part in what is being achieved. The “Stuttgart system” must be broken. Only when there are open ears for all the needs of the membership can an anthroposophical life arise again. In the course of this conference, the individual institutions will have the opportunity to present their work and their status, so that this can also be made known to the members.

Now the Anthroposophical Society has the duty to take care of its internal affairs above all. For it is the neglect of the Society's internal affairs that has led to the current situation. Then the Society will not present an obstacle to the spread of anthroposophy, as has been the case so far. Then everyone who longs for anthroposophy can be satisfied within the Society, and those on the outside will not be repelled.

The delegates may now give a picture of the state of anthroposophical life in the branches. Then, through discussion, the possibility will arise for anthroposophical matters to be properly discussed, so that everyone can work on the reorganization of anthroposophical life.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart: It will now be necessary to supplement Dr. Kolisko's report by having the friends express their views on the tasks of the Society. The debate on this is to be opened now.

Mr. Kurt Goldstein, Berlin, suggests that the usual chronological order of speakers not be followed for the debate, but rather the logical order. — The motion is rejected.

Prof. Hermann Craemer, Bonn: In the branches outside, one often misses the kind of vibrancy of intellectual life that gives strength of will and clarity of thought. But the power and strength of community life is not only, as has been emphasized so far, lacking in the relationship between the leadership and the members, but also among the members themselves. If one takes Stuttgart as a whole and compares it with other branches, one sees the same phenomena within the branches. Dr. Kolisko thought that the problems in the branches were often due to the fact that the branches were put at the service of the threefold order. But the real reason for the problems is that the threefold order was brought in without being thought through. Half unconsciously, the members said to themselves: I only accept the ideas of threefolding because otherwise I would not be accepted as a full member. — We are told that there is still a strong belief in authority in our movement, so that the strength of our movement is highly endangered. But Dr. Steiner himself never gives so-called “instructions” that we should follow. Nevertheless, people often refer to Dr. Steiner in such a way as to say, “Yes, but... Dr. Steiner said this or that here or there.” This must not be allowed to form an argument in our lives.

What is needed, therefore, is independent action based on full responsibility, even at the risk of making a mistake. And as long as one cannot follow up criticism with something positive, one can spare oneself the criticism.

Mrs. Else Pfläumer, Dresden: I came here in response to the document that was titled “Call”. And from all that came to me from what was titled “Call”, something like the air of death came; as if one wanted to organize something that is actually an organism, what the body wants to become to a human, to the human “Anthroposophy”. And so I think we would really like to profess this “human being” first, and then begin to deal with this organism.

At the last college course, Dr. Steiner spoke the word: Anthroposophy is a human being. When this word fell into me, an image stood before me: John on the cross, in his arms Mother Sophia. “Behold, this is your mother. And he took her to his heart.

And just as anthroposophy entered my life, I felt that it was the power of catharsis, the power of Mother Sophia. And so I think: we experienced on New Year's Eve how a person died in our building. And before we can think of building a new structure, we must create, we must pour our heart and soul into it, so that the structure of this body of anthroposophy can arise. Only then can we think of it becoming Vitae Sophia, with which one can establish something, with which one can enter into science, which one can carry as anthroposophy into the religious movement. When we bring what Dr. Steiner transmits to us, as he gives it to us, into science, it is sometimes as if we had stolen something, if it has not come to life, if it has not simply become the power of catharsis.

I cannot express myself very well, but that is how it surges and surges within me. And I hope that the other people who can express it, who have the strength to express what I have just been able to say from my feelings, will accept it and fertilize it so that something really comes of our meeting. That we not only say: this or that is our task, but that we simply profess what has driven us into anthroposophy; that we stand by our longing, which has become a germ in the Anthroposophical Society, and that, when we grasp this longing, which has actually brought down the germ of an Anthroposophical Society, we allow this germ to grow, so that a society has grown and not been organized.

Mr. Otto Westphal, Hamburg, speaks to the agenda. He wants to help ensure that vigilance reigns from the very beginning of our meeting. Since he is not speaking to the agenda, he is interrupted.

Mr. Josef Elkan, Munich, explains that he had come to Stuttgart with a very specific agenda. He would like to express the most important of these in the form of a few wishes. First of all, he hopes that the Central Executive Committee that comes to the fore of the movement is aware of the tasks that need to be accomplished to bring the movement to the appropriate level. But for this it is also necessary, above all, that guidelines be provided by the center, on the one hand, while, on the other, the autonomy of the branches is fully maintained. The admission of members and the type of introductory courses cannot be handled according to certain rules or directives. But if the branch leaders were sufficiently informed by the central committee, they would be able to fully execute the will of the central committee. Now it would be important to organize the deliberations in such a way that the delegates return home with positive results.

Mr. Paul Knoop, Bochum, would like to see an appeal made to young people to join the movement.

Mr. Emil Leinhas, Stuttgart, reminds the meeting that the youth movement is still to be discussed.

Dr. Wilhelm Zitkowsky, Linz, speaks on the topic of “Organization of the Branches”. He warns against “encapsulating the branches from the outside world”. He suggests that more consideration be given to creating individual smaller working groups than has been the case so far. In particular, the “Philosophy of Freedom” should be addressed in such working groups, since without a philosophical basis, Anthroposophy cannot be brought to the outside world. The impulses of the book “How to Know Higher Worlds” must be realized.

Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer of Stuttgart points out the extreme seriousness of the situation in the face of the very numerous opponents. A meeting of “non-anthroposophical experts on anthroposophy” took place, at which the well-known accusations were again put forward and widely disseminated by sending the minutes. The main problem that the Society now faces, especially as a result of the cult movement, is the question of how the Anthroposophical Society can achieve true community on the basis of its own spiritual assumptions. They have made an egoism out of anthroposophy and should have made a great love of humanity out of it. We live on an island and should stand as a visible place of pilgrimage with a human sanctuary in culture. If the word anthroposophy really becomes truth inwardly, if knowledge becomes a personal wisdom and through it a new humanity, then and only then would the working class, would young people be able to gain trust.

Mrs. Lili-Maria Eljakim-Werner, Vienna, singles out some things in relation to the work in the outside world: namely, how a certain way of working has benefited us and how another way has harmed us. This should be communicated and exchanged. For example, “encapsulation” is particularly harmful if one wants to bring anthroposophy to people. If one wants to do this, then one must know people as they are. For this it would be desirable to also occupy oneself with other movements. One should not describe such movements as inferior. The people there have good will; but we have the answers to the questions that move them. One must note that there is a difference between whether Dr. Steiner says something or we do. If we have not experienced it ourselves, it is knowledge and not insight. Above all, criticism from opponents that is condescending is harmful. Dr. Steiner presents facts, and we have presented the judgments that we have formed from them to the world. Others must realize that there is something behind anthroposophy that one must know. We Anthroposophists stand between the world and Anthroposophy.

Mr. Louis Werbeck, Hamburg: Demands are being made here for things that are outdated or taken for granted. Since the congress, we have been waiting for the co-option of the Central Board via Germany to become a reality. This expansion has not materialized. It is necessary for the Central Council to have representatives in many places who work in harmony with Stuttgart. But things must be ripe. The other necessity points to community life. We need forms of communication, even if they are not exactly cultic. Things can be presented in such a way that everyone can understand them. Spiritual knowledge can be popularized in a good sense. The branches should develop into anthroposophical colleges. Each individual can achieve more than he or she realizes. Dr. Eugen Kolisko, Stuttgart: The difficulties in society are connected with the fact that the best minds have been called here. One could say that if only one could send them all back to where they came from, everything would be all right. What was meant by this was that all those who work in the Stuttgart institutions today have done intensive anthroposophical work in the branches, some of them even as branch leaders. But then everything that had to do with the founding would have to be undone, and we cannot simply restore the conditions of 1918. Besides, new forces that were to come from outside were more repelled than attracted. Building community is the most important problem, but it is particularly difficult here. For we cannot, as in the case of religious renewal, rely on a cult that brings about community, but we must start from the individualities and still have community building. The magnitude of the achievements of anthroposophy has not been recognized in society at all. What could not have been done for eurythmy? In many cases, the tasks that need to be solved are not even known. Unfortunately, today's discussion did not provide a picture of the situation in the individual branches: but we cannot form an opinion if the delegates themselves do not give us such a picture of the situation in the Society.

End 11 a.m.

• 1. The situation was that Mr. Uehli, not having recognized the scope of this task, saw no reason to inform Dr. Unger of it. It was only on December 24 that a conversation took place in which, among other things, steps for the reorganization of the Society were discussed. Dr. Unger only learned on January 17 that Dr. Steiner had given such an instruction.

Two-part report in: Das Goetheanum, vol. 1, no. 39 and 40

Rudolf Steiner

I. In Holland

From April 7th to 12th we held an “anthroposophical-scientific” course in The Hague. The following people were among those who organized the course (F.W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven, physician, H. Droogleever Fortuyn, P.J. de Haan, G. Schubert Knobel, litt. stud. Leiden, M.H. Ekker, techn. stud. Delft, M. van Deventer, med. cand. Utrecht, M.L. Stiebe, jur. cand. Leiden, F.C.J. Los, litt. stud. Amsterdam) a number of teachers from the Stuttgart Waldorf School, other representatives of the anthroposophical worldview from Stuttgart, Dr. E. Vreede from Dornach and myself.

This course had a specific task. It was to show students at the Dutch universities how the anthroposophical method of research is based on a fully-fledged scientific foundation, how it can have a fruitful effect on the most diverse fields of knowledge and life, and how the insights it can provide really meet the demands of those who are serious about contemporary civilization.

Of course, it is only possible for me to describe the impressions I have received from my personal point of view as a co-lecturer. And I ask the reader to accept the following as a sum of subjective perceptions.

The first lecture was held by Dr. W. Stein on “Goethe's significance in the development of humanity as a whole”, after a warm welcome by G. Schubert Knobel, for which we all had to be grateful. Dr. Stein has grown into an inner affinity with the anthroposophical way of thinking and research from an early age as a matter of course, through an inner disposition. He is a keen thinker and courageously presents anthroposophy as well as the self-revelation of his own personality. His comprehensive overview of the anthroposophical results already available today helps him to gather evidence, justifications and explanations from the most diverse corners for the topic he is discussing. And so there is something about his lecture that I believe should have a stimulating effect on many serious listeners. They should come to the conviction that anthroposophy is a conscientiously reasoned matter of knowledge and life.

Dr. Stein then sat with me before he gave his further lecture: “The Connection of Epistemology with Organic Science”. He felt the need to talk to me about many things before this lecture. I said to him: “As a young man, you naturally grew into anthroposophy; in the future you will face difficult personal tasks of knowledge precisely because you have mastered so much and work so flexibly in your thinking. But you can use it to give your audience the most beautiful thing in addition to your many other gifts: your whole, unique humanity.

Dr. Karl Heyer offered a completely different nuance with his lectures. He shows that he comes from the world of contemporary science. He has thoroughly absorbed the contemporary character of jurisprudence and history. Of course, this is not really any of the public's business. But this foundation runs through all of Heyer's statements like a thread. He shows: this is what science is like now; and because it is like this, it must lead to anthroposophical research. Dr. Stein speaks, Dr. Heyer lectures; but it is necessary that there is also lecturing within our ranks. Dr. Heyer can be convincing precisely because he lectures his way from the recognized into the anthroposophical, and thus brilliantly guides his listeners from the known into the unknown.

Ernst Uehli comes across quite differently from the two of them. He has given two lectures on completely different subjects. One was about the “Threefold Social Organism” and the other about the “Egyptian Sphinx as a phylogenetic development problem”. But even when he talks about such diverse subjects, a unifying impulse prevails in his heart. Uehli has an artistic view of the world. He also allows the artistic to prevail in him when he observes social life. But the artistic in him is transformed into a cognitive impulse by the seriousness of his soul mood and by a sense of reality that seems to come from his heart. That is why warmth of soul flows through his arguments, and a noble emotion pulses through his assertions in a certain even tone. Uehli has humor, but it is stronger in his inner being than in the revelation of speech. A humor that sometimes dries on the lips. All this ultimately gives a distinct personality, carried by enthusiasm for anthroposophy.

Dr. H. von Baravalle is an important mathematical mind. In his doctoral dissertation, published by Kommenden-Tag-Verlag, he has delivered a fundamental work on certain mathematical-physical concepts and on spatial forms. He is able to bring a thinking rooted in natural reality into mathematical-physical formulas. One is tempted to say: Usually the formula arises as something that embraces the natural process from the outside; Dr. Baravalle makes it something that lives in the process. This was particularly noticeable during his Hague discussions. The most stimulating discussions were related to these discussions. Dead formulas, borne by the accustomed scientific way of thinking, rubbed interestingly against the lively but still unfamiliar Baravalles.

Dr. E. Vreede is tireless in her efforts to introduce anthroposophy into the field of mathematical natural science. Her Hague lecture was on astronomy. The task is difficult. In everything Dr. Vreede does in this direction, she must first point out a necessary methodological reorientation. She succeeds in doing this with anyone who first wants to be made aware of the essentials. This is because she combines thorough anthroposophical insight with an excellent clarity about how anthroposophy is to be introduced into the individual sciences.

Dr. von Heydebrand had to speak in The Hague about education. She is a born educator. The educational mission lives in each of her sentences, as it lives in her actions at the Stuttgart Waldorf School. Its foundation is anthroposophical knowledge of the human being, its effective impulse is insight-based love for people and especially for children. You can also hear from her lectures that the children must love her. It seems to me that sensible listeners must have the thought with her: I would like to have my children educated and taught by this woman.

Personalities such as Dr. med. He spoke in The Hague about biological and chemical problems and also about “Free spiritual life through Anthroposophy”. In Kolisko, scientific phenomenalism has a champion who develops this side of Anthroposophical thinking objectively and from unbiased factual knowledge. In Kolisko's work, one never has the feeling that he brings anthroposophy into his world knowledge from the outset, but rather that he gains the anthroposophical view from the concrete problems in an appropriate but intimate way of thinking. In the process, he is intimately entwined with his problems as a personality, so that, in my opinion, he comes across as a thoroughly scientifically convincing personality. When I hear him speak, as he did this time about “free spiritual life”, I have the feeling that he speaks truthfully to the heart; and in this truth he lives out completely.

Dr. Herbert Hahn is in the process of comprehensively and internally penetrating the linguistic results of the recent past and present in order to perfect them into an anthroposophically oriented science. His fresh and vigorous approach to his tasks, and his loving devotion as a teacher and researcher, have led him to valuable results as a scientist and to fruitful effectiveness as a teacher. His lecture in The Hague on 'Consciousness Change in the Mirror of Linguistic History' was likely to have a surprising effect due to the research results gathered from all possible sides and due to the emphasis placed on the linguistic phenomena that emerge in the life of nations in order to understand the moral-inner life that expresses itself in the linguistic-external of the life of nations. One would hope that Hahn's approach would find many followers among people trained in philology, linguistics and history, for his life's work requires the collaboration of many.

For many years, Dr. Carl Unger has been the most enthusiastic and dedicated co-worker in the anthroposophical movement. In The Hague, he spoke as a technician and as a philosopher about “The Social Tasks of Technology and Technicians” and “On the Philosophical Foundations of Anthroposophy”. Dr. Unger saw early on that anthroposophy requires, above all, a rigorous epistemological foundation. With deep understanding, he took up what I myself was able to give many years ago in my writings “Epistemology”, “Truth and Science” and “Philosophy of Freedom”. He independently developed the suggestions further. His keen intellectual powers were directed towards understanding the nature of the human cognitive process in a clear and illuminating analysis and synthesizing this understanding into a true picture of cognition. Unger is not a dialectician but an observer of the empirical facts of knowledge. And that is why he has been able to provide particularly valuable work over the years in the sense that the process of knowledge of ordinary consciousness drives the impulses for anthroposophical research out of itself everywhere. Unger's thinking is trained on the technical problems, is thereby free of any subjective fuzziness, and therefore his scientific contribution to anthroposophy is the most meaningful conceivable. He has grown steadily over the years in his thinking, research and technical as well as anthroposophical work. In his two Hague lectures, he offered ripe fruits of this growth. In his first lecture, he showed how the technician in particular is challenged to develop social understanding in the present; in the second, he showed how philosophy, from its own historical development, must flow into anthroposophy in the present.

Dr. Friedrich Husemann spoke about the medical field. His topic was “New Paths to Rational Therapy.” The suggestions that can come from anthroposophy for the healing arts require, in order to be accepted by science, the closest connection to existing medical schools of thought. One could prove to them that they only understand themselves and take themselves to their logical conclusions if they look for anthroposophical supplementation. To work in this direction is not difficult under the present circumstances. It is also not as difficult in medicine as it is in education, for example. For the teachings that one receives from illness cannot be so easily had from the development of a more or less healthy person. Illness speaks a clear language. One needs only scant suggestions from the side of intuitive insight in order to conscientiously work through the clearly speaking symptom complexes to the point where pathology and therapy converge into a rational medical art. Exploitation of solid scientific education, prudence in the observation of patients will lead to the goal. So far, I only hear the problems from public lectures in this field. Here too, it must be emphasized that anthroposophy is not a theory, but a practice of life. A single case, properly characterized from beginning to end, would speak louder than any theoretical discussion. Theory is of no use in and of itself, except insofar as it allows us to believe in the coherence of phenomena. This can be learned from Goethe. I have described the individual voices that came together in a chorus in The Hague to form a whole. I myself had the task, in six evening lectures, of characterizing the significance of anthroposophy in contemporary spiritual life, its scientific character, its particular research methods, research results, and its relationship to art and to the scientific agnosticism of the present day. My aim is to present the anthroposophical results from ever new angles, so that one can see how they mutually support each other. However, anyone who fails to recognize that the moment the sciences flow into anthroposophy, one must come to this mutual support and bearing of truths, will not find the path to genuine knowledge. The heavy things on earth must lie on the ground so as not to fall; the world bodies support each other. The empirical sciences rest on sense perception; anthroposophical knowledge must be mutually supportive. To demand of it the same conditions as for the usual foundation of science is like demanding a support for the earth in space. It does not fall without support, and neither does anthroposophy, even if it is founded differently than the usual science.

I will not be asked to speak about the impressions that the audience has received. Others must judge about that. But I may say that we, the participants, must all feel a heartfelt thank you towards the organizers, whose devotion to the matter was evident from every action and every word they spoke.

After the course in The Hague ended, I went to England. I had lectures in London and at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. In Holland, my experience was working with colleagues and friends. In their work I lived with them. In England I was given tasks that had a different outward character. But these tasks came from the same source. How I understood them, how I tried to solve them, and how I was helped by understanding helpers, is what I will talk about in the next issue of this journal.

II. In England

My journey to England grew out of the course I gave at Christmas on educating and teaching on the basis of anthroposophical knowledge of the human being. This course was inspired by Prof. M. Mackenzie, who attended the last summer course at the Goetheanum with her husband, Prof. Mackenzie. In the summer, the workers at the Goetheanum got to know two personalities in Prof. and Mrs. Mackenzie, whose visit had to fill all of these workers with deep satisfaction from the point of view of the anthroposophical movement. Prof. Mackenzie is a personality who expresses a significant note in English philosophical life. His constructive philosophy is not only independent in outlook and content from other contemporary trends in this field, but, above all, it is so independent that it seizes with the certainty of an intuitive grasp of reality on a field that brings the true philosophical sense of the human being into activity. I would like to say: Mackenzie's constructive philosophy begins where it needs to begin if the metaphysical, psychological and epistemological fields, which are fluctuating all around, are to be given a firm foundation again. In doing so, his literary and philosophical work covers many fields of cultural history, social and educational issues. His books on humanism and on social life bear witness to this.

Prof. Mackenzie, who was herself also a university teacher (Prof. of Education, University College, Cardiff), presented me with her extremely interesting book, 'Hegels educational Theory and Practice', during her summer stay here in Dornach. This book reveals the comprehensive work of this spirited and practical woman in literary form. Hegel is easily misunderstood. In his books, he seems abstract. But the peculiar thing about him is that behind his abstractions stands a man who grasped reality with a firm hand. His thoughts are basically the life-awakening, only seemingly abstract expression of a passionate life practice. Mrs. Mackenzie has seen this as clearly as possible: “I believe that these two philosophers (Plato and Hegel) were constantly striving not only to see the truth, as other philosophers did, but also to fathom how it can be achieved and appropriated by a mind that is far removed from its essence; and both believed that this could be done through the dialectical method.” Thus she says in the preface to her book, and it is now her aim to show how this philosophical self-education thinks about the education of the child and the young person. With regard to Hegel, she comes to the view: “I dare to claim that Hegel, more than any other educator (more than Herbart, because his educational ideas are grounded in a deeper philosophy), offers us precisely those things that we need most today and also in our country.”

What can be seen in her relationship to Hegel, and what is fully confirmed when one gets to know Prof. Mackenzie better, is that she is a person of great intellectual depth, combining philosophical insight with a wide range of interests in educational and social issues of humanity.

It is thanks to this personality that the pedagogical Christmas course described by Albert Steffen in this weekly magazine has come about. Prof. Mackenzie invited teachers from England to this course. Among those who attended was Miss Cross, headmistress of Kings Langley Priory, a school and boarding school near London. Even then, the idea arose among the English visitors to bring the spirit into this school, from which I held my Christmas course.

Thanks to a few of the participants in that course, after some time I received an invitation from the “New Ideals in Education” committee to participate in the festivities they organized around Shakespeare's birthday (from April 17 to 24) by giving lectures. This invitation was followed by another from friends of the anthroposophical worldview (including Mrs. Drury-Lavin and Mr. Collison) to give a few lectures in London for those interested in anthroposophical endeavors.

So I was able to give two lectures in London on April 14 and 15. The first was on “Cognition and Initiation”. My aim was to show how knowledge of the supersensible world can be attained through the development of abilities that are not used in ordinary life and ordinary science. I called the supersensible vision that comes about in this way “exact clairvoyance” because it is my conviction that the processes of the soul life through which man comes to this vision are experienced with the same clarity of consciousness as the solution of a problem in exact science. If science is exact in its treatment of the objective world, then anthroposophy is exact in the development of supersensible cognitive abilities, through which the vision of the spiritual world then arises, through which man grasps the eternal nature of his being. Our time, which everywhere shows the strong need of thinking people to ascend from the sensual to the supersensible, can demand such “exact clairvoyance”, not a nebulous mysticism or an unscientific occultism.

I only want to give my subjective impressions in all modesty here. And that is how it should be meant when I say: the sight of my audience in London gave me deep satisfaction. For I felt I could sense that the need I mentioned was also present here.

On the following day, it was my turn to describe the mystery of the Christ-life on the basis of anthroposophical knowledge. Anthroposophy certainly does not want to found a sect or even a new religious community. It only wants to say what arises from “exact clairvoyance” about the mystery of Golgotha. This is what the modern human being demands. Through centuries of development in the field of external knowledge of nature, he has been brought into a state of soul that must progress from mere belief to the cognitive grasp of religious content. Religious belief is not touched by this, but rather deepened and strengthened. Again, in all modesty, I would like to say that after my second lecture in London, I had the impression that this need to consolidate religious mysteries is an international one. On such occasions, one can gain the conviction that in the search for the supersensible, the peoples of the civilized world can come together in harmony out of discord.

After these two lectures, I had to give another one in the narrower circle of personalities who have been in the anthroposophical movement for many years. On the same day, I was able to accept an invitation from Miss Cross to show us her school in Kings Langley. Again, the idea arose to adapt this school to the spirit in which I must think I have developed the art of education. Among those with whom I was able to discuss this matter was Prof. Mackenzie.

I may mention here that a group of people around Prof. Mackenzie and Miss Cross has set itself the goal of helping to make this idea a reality in England. This opens up the prospect that the educational basis, which was held in the spirit of the Dornach Goetheanum and on which the Waldorf School in Stuttgart is based, will be understood and cultivated in England.

On April 18, the Shakespeare festivities began in Stratford-upon-Avon. A long line of personalities expressed their reverence for the poetic creations, which are among the greatest of humanity, by offering what they have to say about art, poetry and education. One was presented with an impressive cross-section of contemporary English intellectual life. Powerful speeches on artistic contemporary interests, such as those offered by Lena Ashwell in a lecture on “Drama and National Life” and Cicely Hamilton in her remarks on “Tendencies of Modern Drama,” alternated with charmingly and ingeniously expressed longings for the permeation of education with the artistic spirit. John Masefield spoke about playwriting from the point of view of an artist who feels he is part of the lively world of art and artistic endeavor and who wants to say what art needs if it is to fulfill its task.

It is not my intention here to criticize certain aspects with which I cannot agree, especially in the area of the cultivation of art in schools. But more important at this moment in time is that one can only look with satisfaction at the basic tendency of the whole event. Shakespeare's figure was to some extent only in the background. From the glance up to him, the impulse went out to discuss the question of education from all sides. The education of children, of the people, of humanity in general; these were the questions that turned the interest of speakers and listeners alike. And so the most important thing for the present day was placed at the center of the intellectual work of these festivities. It was clear from the attitude of this assembly that it had a sense of these civilizational hardships. Miss Ashwell's words on the decline of the dramatic and theatrical arts and on the necessity of providing the forces for an ascent were essential. A personality full of fire, but also full of inner understanding for the matter, stood on the podium in Miss Ashwell. And in beautiful addition to this was what Miss Hamilton said about the decline and the necessity of raising artistic taste.

In this context, I was able to present my anthroposophical views on Shakespeare, on education and on the demands of spiritual life for the present day. The educational power of Shakespeare's art stands in the developmental history of humanity through the influence it had on Goethe. One must ask oneself: on what is this tremendous influence based? Asking myself this question, a fact of supersensible experience presents itself to me.

Those who are able to immerse themselves in a Shakespearean drama and then carry the experience over into the world that is spread out before 'exact clairvoyance' can find that Shakespeare's figures present themselves in the supersensible realm as more alive to the soul, while the newer naturalistic dramas either transform themselves completely into puppets or freeze during this process. The Shakespearean figures live on in the imagination. They do not perform the same actions as in the drama, but they act in transformed situations and with a different course of events. I believe that through this fact the deep rootedness of Shakespeare's characters in the spiritual world can be found; and that Goethe unconsciously experienced this rootedness in his devotion to Shakespeare's plays. He felt as if he himself had been seized by facts of the spiritual world when he turned to Shakespeare.

I had this experience in the background when I was able to speak in Stratford about Shakespeare, Goethe and education in three lectures. In particular, the conviction that arose from this lived in my heart when I had to speak about “Shakespeare and the New Ideals” on April 23, the actual Shakespeare Day.

The events of the committee for “New Ideals in Education” were accompanied by performances of Shakespearean plays in the Shakespeare Memorial Theater. We were able to see: “Othello”, “Julius Caesar”, “The Taming of the Shrew”, “The Twelfth Night”, “All's Well That Ends Well”, “Much Ado About Nothing”. I found the performances of the comedies satisfying for my feelings. But I imagine the right way to present the tragedies differently.

On April 24, I was able to give a lecture in London to the English friends of the anthroposophical movement. It was intended to show how anthroposophy relates to the spiritual development of humanity in general and to the Christ impulse in particular. I tried to show how a figure such as Cardinal Newman, out of his perception of the religious needs of the time, sought a basis for knowledge of the supersensible, but how this can be found not on the paths he took, but only on the anthroposophical path.

Special thanks are due to George Kaufmann, who took on the difficult task of translating all my lectures for the audience after merely listening to them in sections.

On April 25, I left England, filled with the thought that there are people in England who see the cultivation and representation of the anthroposophical cause as part of their life's work and work energetically in this direction. I have to think of them when I feel gratitude in my soul when I find people who intervene helpfully for this cause. That I was able to find this help in this day and age as a German in London and Stratford, I may well express as a satisfying final thought of this subjective travelogue.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

Allow me to say a few words before our eurythmy performance, not to explain the performance. Artistic things must not be preceded by an interpretation or an explanation; they must work through themselves, otherwise they would by no means belong to the field of art. But what we have conceived as eurythmy, especially in its further elaboration, does come from certain artistic sources that humanity has so far made very little use of, and it lies in an artistic formal language that has also hardly been used in the other arts and in artistic life in general. For our eurythmy must not really be compared with anything else that is similar, because the similarity could only be an external one with certain pantomime arts, dance arts and the like. Our eurythmy is not meant to be any of those things, because it makes use of a special means of expression, which consists of a kind of silent language that works through movements.

And so you see on the stage the moving human being, that is, the human being who moves from within — the human being who moves his limbs in a certain way or also groups of people who carry out movements [that] change in their mutual relationships in the spatial relationships, so that movement, lawful movement of groups of people, also arises there. All this has not come about in a haphazard way, one might say, a random gesture with what takes place in the soul, but all the movements that are performed are in fact connected to the human soul and spiritual life in the same way as the tone languages themselves. The movements that are performed by the person doing the eurythmy are created in such a way that, through sensory-supernatural observation, to use this Goethean expression, it is observed which movement tendencies the larynx and the other speech organs of the person have when the person reveals himself through the sound language. There are only movement tendencies present. For as soon as a person is in contact with the outside world when speaking, what actually happens directly in the larynx and in the neighboring organs is transferred to the moving air through which the sound is conveyed, and the actual movement tendency is interrupted as it arises.

If we can recognize these movement tendencies, which are excited by the larynx and all of its speech organs, and observe them through sensory and supersensory observation, then we can also, by elevating the principle of Goethean metamorphosis into the artistic, move the whole person and also groups of people in such a way as they would otherwise, I would like to say, want to move, by into the handling of human functions. According to this principle of Goethe's metamorphosis, one can move the whole person and also groups of people in such a way as the larynx and its neighboring organs would otherwise, I would like to say, want to move in ordinary tonal language.

Goethe pointed out – and this will play a much greater role in the future study of the living than humanity can even dream of today – Goethe asserted that the whole plant is nothing more than a more complicated, developed leaf and that the leaf is a simply formed whole plant. So we can also say that what is present in the larynx and its neighboring organs is actually the whole human being. And we can, in turn, observe what is happening in the speech organs and apply it to the whole human being and to groups of people. This is how we arrive at this moving language, which is presented to you as eurythmy. There is nothing mimic, pantomime, nothing merely dance-like in it, but the succession of movements is as the succession of sounds in human language. And the forms in which we execute the movements are, as it were, to represent the artistic design of the literal, these movements are modeled on the pure creation, the design of the human being, as the poet shapes it out of mere prose language and so on.

This indeed gives us a special kind of art that is very much adapted to the demands of our time. The present time must strive for it, if man is not to descend into barbarism, which many people today already predict and which even Spengler wanted to prove scientifically. if we want to achieve a new ascent and not sink into barbarism, then an inner elevation of the human being, an inner illumination with new forces, new forms and so on must take place.

Now, eurythmy is such an inner strengthening of the human being, and in order to show this, I will have to put this eurythmy in the series of the other arts with a few words. For example, we have sculpture. One understands it only, the sculpture, the art of sculpture, if one understands the shaping of the physical human body from its form. Because basically, everything else we sculpt can only be modeled three-dimensionally if we understand the sculpture of the human body.

Architecture is an art that initially appears to have no real model. It appears as it does, through proportionality, symmetry, through a sensed or perceived balance and equilibrium of the individual architectural elements and so on. We feel no model for architecture because this model is in the outer being of the human being himself. What we experience, for example, as a small child, from the state in which we cannot walk, gradually learning to walk, swinging up to the vertical, what we experience as balance when we learn to move our limbs. In short, everything that we experience within ourselves, can experience as the innermost part of the human body's formation, when this body is alive, we carry it out into the outer world and develop it into architecture.

And by giving ourselves to the outer world itself, to its intense impressions in colors and chiaroscuro, we develop painting. But then, when we live with that which is actually below the surface of things, with what essentially painting deals with, when we live with that which the exterior of nature presents in terms of supersensible uniformity, when we can feel that, we can surrender to nature, not as a mere observer, but go along with the inner secrets of nature, and instead of feeling the balance of our own body, the symmetry, which we already do as a child, if we instead feel the enigmatic, mysterious symmetry of natural things outside, the proportionality and symmetry of spatial things, and if we then develop this within ourselves to a certain extent as an echo, holding up to mute nature the counter-image in the secrets contained in it, then we develop the musical through adapting the organization of our own bodily members to the external relationships of symmetry and proportion in nature.

We carry our sense of symmetry and proportionality into the outside world in the form of architecture. For singing, we take into ourselves that which exists in the outside world in the way of symmetry, and we bring it, through our own body, through a part of our body, to a kind of echo of mute nature. And a branch of this is what we make resound in language, especially in the meter, in the rhythm of language, and so on, in declamation, recitation.

But in all this it is our etheric body that remains, so to speak, at rest in itself, but makes parts of itself - that is, its interior - a resonance of natural events. But in the moment when we let the secrets of nature flow into us more deeply than is the case with singing and declaiming, then we will let them flow through the organs of speech and song, into the whole bodily organization, into that which is in outer nature. Then the person does not feel as if they are holding – as they do when singing or declaiming – what they are making sound as an echo of nature, but they feel as if they are immediately transforming into movement what they have overheard from nature as secrets. So although the human being is the instrument for bringing the moving or symmetrical or proportioned supernature to expression, he immediately passes over into nature. He does not retain what he absorbs from song or music, but passes immediately into outer nature. The human being is completely selfless, physically selfless. He becomes an instrument of that which the secrets of nature itself are when he eurythmizes.

Then the eurythmic art is indeed something for internalization, and it is something truly artistic. For that which becomes internalized is somehow manifested in the movements of the objective, sensual world: the spirit of the world in human movement. One could say that eurythmy works entirely in the sense of Goethe's beautiful words: When man is placed at the summit of nature, he in turn perceives himself as a nature, takes in order, measure, harmony and meaning and rises to the production of the work of art. But he rises most beautifully and nobly to the production of the work of art when he gives himself as a tool. He does this, of course, in song and in declamation, but he does it in such a way that he does not form that which he can develop in his own physical organization, but immediately makes it perceptible to the outside world as a visible language in eurythmy.

Thus this eurythmic art has something that makes it particularly suitable for the modern human being in a very special way. It also has a therapeutic-hygienic side, which I do not want to talk about here, but which also needs to be further developed. But it also has a didactic-pedagogical side. That is why we have included it in the curriculum, as a compulsory subject at our Stuttgart Waldorf School. And it has to be said: one day people will think more objectively and impartially about the things we are considering here than they do today.

It must be said that gymnastics may be a good thing; it is based on an understanding of the physiological laws of the human body, and what it achieves relates only to the training of the human body. But for children, what is brought to them through eurythmy has a very special value. Firstly, when they really get to know it, children love eurythmy very much, as has been shown in lessons in the Waldorf school. But then eurythmy is an inspired form of movement. No movement is performed without spirit and soul being put into it. Every movement of each limb is the expression, the revelation of something spiritual and soul-like. This is something that the child grows into, so that initiative of will and strength of soul will be in him. And this is something that should actually be given to humanity today, because it is this that is most closely connected with our decline, that humanity does not have this soul energy, and terrible phenomena of cultural degeneration would occur if the next generation were brought up in the same way, with sleepy souls and without energy, as was largely the case with the generations that then sailed into the terrible catastrophe of the present.

So, dear audience, we are certainly expecting a great deal from eurythmy. But we must ask for indulgence for everything that we can currently give, because we are only just beginning, and what we can already present today must therefore be seen as a beginning. We are our own harshest critics and we know very well what we are still lacking today. But those of our esteemed audience who have been here before will also have seen how we have progressed again in the last few months, particularly in the shaping of the forms. They will also notice how we have worked to truly express the inner artistic form of a poem in a particularly characteristic way.

During the course, I spoke about 'declamation and recitation', and it is indeed the case that our eurythmy, which is accompanied on the one hand by the musical — which is just another form of expression for what eurythmy also presents — on the other hand by recitation and declamation, which is another form of expression. For in recitation the human being uses only a single organ, whereas in eurythmy he uses his whole body. But what becomes apparent is precisely this: it is in eurythmy that one can recognize how justified the things are that I spoke about in our current course on recitation over at the Bauhaus.

In the present unartistic time, people consider recitation art to be something quite different from what it really is. It is believed that it is important to get the prose content across by emphasizing what is often called “feeling nuances”. No, when reciting and reciting - and this becomes apparent when one has to recite to eurythmy - when reciting and reciting, it is important that the inner eurythmy - rhythm, beat, and the form of the of the literal content, as done by the poet — that this is particularly expressed in the formation of the sound, in the shaping, in the tempo and so on, in the rhythm of the sound. And only by practising this art of recitation, as described above, and by practising the recitation that Dr. Steiner recited during the course over there in the building, can one show how, on the one hand, the content is expressed in the visible language of eurythmy movement and, on the other hand, through the eurythmic formation of the sound in recitation or declamation.

But this is all, of course, in the beginning, and it must be further developed, either by us or, more likely, by others, because it will take a great deal to perfect what is only a beginning today. But when it has been perfected to a certain degree, then it will be seen that this eurythmy, which is formed here out of Goethean artistic sense and artistic attitude — like everything else that comes from here — that this eurythmy will be able to establish itself as a fully-fledged younger art alongside the other sister arts. These sister arts also had to gradually conquer their position in the course of human development. Eurythmy will, when some one-sided prejudices or preconceptions have been cast off, eurythmy will also conquer this position alongside the other arts in the future.

Dear attendees:

As always before these eurythmy performances, allow me to say a few words about the whole character and essence of our eurythmy. This is not done to explain the performance – that would be an unartistic undertaking. Artistic work must make an immediate impression and must make this impression naturally without explanation. But since our eurythmy is an art that draws from artistic sources, that is not drawn from forms of previous art, and that also makes use of an artistic formal language that was also not previously in use, it is possible to say a few words about the essence of eurythmy. What you will see on the stage is movements performed by individuals through their limbs or performed by groups of people who also change their mutual positions in relation to each other and so on.

None of this is meant to be pantomime or mime or even dance, but something completely different. It is based on a visible, mute language, but one that is just as much a human means of expression as the spoken word. [pause]

Now, nothing is arbitrarily chosen from these or those gestures. Rather, it is carefully investigated – to use this Goethean expression – through sensual and supersensory observation how the human larynx and the other speech organs want to move, what movement tendencies they have within them when sound language comes about. By this I do not mean movements that are carried out in the air, for example, when speech is conveyed or when I hear what happens through the movement of the air, but I mean what goes on in the larynx and its neighboring organs in order to set the air in vibration in the first place. This is something that one does not notice at all, of course, when one listens to speech, because there one is concerned with the sound, with the tone. But through sensory-supersensory observation, one can study what the speech organs want to carry out but hold back because the forces are to pass into the air waves that then convey the sound. Then, according to the principle of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis, one can expand what Goethe meant only for form, for example in plants or in the growth of animals, by translating it into the artistic, expanding it to the method. So that one can – just as Goethe saw a more complicated leaf in the whole plant and in the simple leaf plan a simply designed whole plant, which is what he meant by his metamorphosis, so one can expand what in ordinary speech is one-sidedly based on the speech organs as a law can be extended to the movement of the whole person [and] to the movement of whole groups of people, so that they will actually see on the stage the whole person or groups of people moving in the way that the speech organs want to carry out their movements, but only hold back.

This gives rise to a genuine mute language, which can then be formed and shaped artistically in the same way as spoken language, and in this way we achieve something that serious artists are striving for right now but cannot be achieved directly with the artistic means of the older arts. I do not want to present eurythmy as a special model art in this direction, but I just want to note that eurythmy, because it uses certain artistic means, wants to be a thoroughly artistic form of expression that achieves what one actually strives for in other arts. In our case, in our structure, there is nothing [conceptual] in painting, and even though the pictorial appears here according to [...][illegible passage], what should be achieved in art is manifested: that thought should be completely suppressed in the work of art above all else.

For to the extent that thought is effective in art, to that extent art is actually inartistic. But in our language, especially in civilized languages, it is at least not the case, as it is with more primitive peoples, that language is an expression of what a person feels as passion, what a person feels in general, and thus of his or her entire being. Our language has gradually developed into a means of expression, into a vehicle for the more abstract thoughts. Of course, that doesn't prevent good poetry from being written today, although – and this is a parenthesis – almost 99 percent of all the poetry that is written today, if it were only a matter of art, would not need to be written. But on the whole, one must say: the more language becomes civilized, the more it loses the character of the truly artistic because it can no longer be a means of expression for the whole human being.

In eurythmy, we have a means of returning to the most original sources of human expression in language and raising this means of expression to a higher level. In ordinary spoken language, I would like to say, thoughts flow from the human head, impulses from the whole human being, and what is in what is presented as eurythmy, but language remains silent. In this way, the thought is also more or less pronounced. But through this, eurythmy is led to the art, and through the fact that those forms are taken out of the whole human organization, which are carried out by the individual human being in his limbs, or are also moved by groups of people, the will mainly works into this movement, and we have a soul-inspired will that is directly seen and, in addition, through the instrument of the human being himself, becomes visible. In the highest degree, this serves that which Goethe expressed so beautifully: “When man is placed at the summit of nature, he perceives himself as a whole nature, taking in order, measure, harmony and meaning, and finally rises to create a work of art.

He rises in particular to create the work of art when he uses his own organism instead of a violin or a piano or a brush and paint. If, as a result, more of that which works so mysteriously in the speech organ is brought out, and is sometimes suppressed, that is brought out of the human being, this microcosm – that is, the human being – this small world really reveals the secrets of world existence. And here too we come close to Goethe, who said: “When nature begins to reveal her secrets, one feels an irresistible longing for her most worthy interpreter, art.” In the human being himself, the highest secrets of the existence of the world truly come to life through the human being in a way that corresponds to his or her entire organization. Then one encounters not only the secrets of humanity but also the secrets of the world in the movements of the human being.

And so one is able to follow the poet and also the musician with eurythmy, by achieving through this silent language of eurythmy what the truly poetic artist seeks to achieve through the revelation of language. On the one hand, you will see the eurythmic presentation often accompanied by music, which is just another form of expression, or also accompanied by recitation or declamation. In particular, you can see very clearly in the recitation or declamation [what peculiarity lies in art] /illegible passage]. With the inartfulness of what is practised today as the art of recitation, one could not accompany eurythmy at all. Today, [illegible word] is basically only recited in passing. But it is just a speaking of prose. This is particularly regarded as art today. What is actually artistic about poetry is suppressed: the rhythmic, the metrical, the musical or even the pictorial. Both the poet's intentions for language can be given greater expression in the silent language of eurythmy.

It must be constantly recalled how Schiller, before he had the literal content of a poem, had an indeterminate melody living in his soul, and this indeterminate melody was for him the actual artistic element. He could, so to speak, think of any content in connection with such an indeterminate melody, because the musical element that lies in the poem is the actual artistic element. In Goethe it is more pictorial. Therefore, when rehearsing his 'Iphigenia', Goethe himself worked with a baton like a conductor, seeing the main thing in the flowing of the iambus, not in the reciting of the literal words. These poems make it possible — precisely through eurythmy — to return to the sources of poetry in a higher sense. And to say this at all in our time, which is so unartistic, was the truly artistic.

In eurythmy, it seems particularly artistic that one has movements in front of one, so one sees something with the senses. Everything artistic must become such that it is, as it were, directly perceived in the physical world with the senses, not with thoughts. But everything artistic must also be shaped. We can observe that the human being itself is the tool for artistic representation, that soul is in each of its movements. What a real poet writes is elevated when, in addition to being recited, his poetry is presented eurythmically – which you will see here.

Now, those of you who have been here before will also see how we are trying to truly penetrate to the stylishness of the poems in the way we present them, how we are trying – for example, in particularly expressive forms in the humorous pieces – to express, through the way we present them, what lies in the artistic form itself, not in the prose content of the poem, which is actually not part of the content of the poem at all, in other words, to express the serious attempts in other forms, – thoroughly like attempts borne by seriousness in other forms, express that which lies precisely in the how of the artistic creation, not in the prose content of the poem, which actually, basically, does not belong to the content of the poem.

These are a few words about what is intended as art with eurythmy. But there are other sides to this eurythmy as well. First of all, I would like to mention what is to be added to the training: the hygienic-therapeutic side, since the movement that is performed comes entirely from the nature of the human organism itself. In this way, a kind of eurythmy therapy can also be developed. A eurythmy [healing] art will be developed and it will speak far more through the therapeutically trained [will], through the movement regained in the [through the trained] sensitivity of the will.

A few more words about the pedagogical-didactic side. I would like to point out that in the future, people will really start to think more objectively about all these things. A famous physiologist who had come to see eurythmy and had listened to my remarks] told me afterwards that gymnastics are not an educational tool at all, but a barbarism. As I said, I do not want to go that far. It is an otherwise very spiritually minded contemporary physiologist who has expressed this. I will just say that gymnastics is concerned with the physiological, with that which is intended to cultivate the body. And it is precisely this eurythmy, which can be practiced in this way, that has an effect on children as a special means of education [as] a soul-filled gymnastics. And precisely according to [our experiences] is yes / gap?] at the Stuttgart Waldorf [School], where eurythmy has been introduced as a compulsory educational offering and has been in effect for a year and one can really see can be seen in what a clearly defined way it can affect children - precisely because of this and [...] the Stuttgart Waldorf School has [already] provided the proof.

So this soul-inspired gymnastics can be applied. Firstly, the child experiences it as something that it naturally grows into, because it feels that the movements that are made belong to the whole organization of the human body. But then, it is not just seen physiologically, as the people are [in terms of their bodies], but every movement is animated. Therefore, the child's body, soul and spirit are educated at the same time, and this is something that the child feels and that is particularly effective as an educational tool. And once this eurythmy is used more extensively as an educational tool, which will certainly be the case in the future, it will be said that it is an important educational tool in other respects as well. I do not want to say that it can already be used as such for adults today; it does not need to be, but when it is used as an educational tool for children, it will be a tool for educating the sense of truth. As I said, it does not need to become that for adults. But it certainly does for children, because that is the dilemma of our civilized language, that it does not come from the whole human being, but only from a part of the human organs. And precisely by the fact that we then achieve the whole human organization expressing (gap), through this, the participation of the whole human being in what he speaks is gradually achieved. Movement comes about that stimulates questioning, that leads to the fact that through this mute language of eurythmy, the human being can participate with his entire organism in what, as meaning, emerges from the soul.

Then, with such a means of education, the sense of truth, if only it is started early enough, will receive very special care. Language is gradually perceived. What is really necessary for it today - that it be stripped of the phraseological - will be achieved by eurythmy: that it becomes a means of education for truth. So much for the pedagogical-didactic side.

Of course, we must ask for your indulgence, because however high the goals we have set ourselves with eurythmy may be, what has been achieved so far is only just the beginning. But it must also be further developed – perhaps by us, but more likely by others. And however much we ourselves are strict critics, however much we also know how imperfect everything still is today, we have already striven. In the near future, there will certainly also be [all kinds of] mere pantomime, mimic and gestural endeavors, and eurythmic movements will flow into them in such a sequence [of] laws, from such successive laws, [as those] that connect melody, the musical. But for that, a further development is needed. [Fragmentary final passage, see notes.]

Among the concepts of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science that must work toward the future development of man's soul being in the most fruitful, the most intensive, indeed the most necessary way, will be the concept of man's prenatal existence. Let us consider for a moment what will be added in this direction to those concepts and feelings that have for so long held sway in Western humanity. When anyone professing a faith, regardless of what religious denomination, speaks today of eternity, of the immortality of the human soul, he thinks mainly of nothing but living on after death, the continued existence of the human soul. In the future, when the viewpoints of spiritual science will have taken hold of a sufficiently large number of people, one will, above all, speak of the human soul's existence before birth. One will speak of the human soul's sojourn in spiritual worlds before it descended to physical earth existence. Mainly, one will speak of what takes place before birth or before conception, just as one speaks of what happens to the human soul after death. Today, one does not sufficiently realize the significance that such mention of prenatal existence will have for the whole of human life, not only for the inner but also external life.

Let us consider for a moment what this means when we look at the growing child; when we see how, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, the physiognomy of the face assumes its outward form from within, how various features appear, smooth themselves out or recede, and so on. As yet, we really do not realize what secrets of existence we are looking into when watching such a developing human being. How great will be the intimate ardor with which such a developing human being will be viewed when one has the underlying awareness: Before this human being was conceived and born, its soul-spiritual entity was above in soul-spiritual worlds. There, it had experiences by means of soul-Spirit organs, just as man during physical existence has experiences through his physical organs.

We can go a step further into the inner nature of the human soul and, from that standpoint, get some idea of the change of views in this regard. Take the various religious denominations that speak to people today in sermons and doctrine about eternity and the immortality of the soul based on their century-old traditions. One should not speak about these matters from a theoretical standpoint; one should speak from the standpoint of life itself. One should follow the nuances of feeling out of which flow most sermons and theological doctrines about the human soul's claim to eternity. I am not speaking about the content so much as the motives, intentions, and feelings that underlie what is being said in sermons and theological doctrine. It is a fact that, quite aside from what is true, a person can have the feeling, springing from an inner egotism of the soul, that the soul ought not to be destroyed along with the body! It is really an element of soul egotism that desires not to be destroyed. One cannot bear the event of dissolution; one thirsts for a continued existence of the human soul after death. It is this feeling of thirsting for immortality to which sermons and theological doctrines appeal. This gives the basis for what is spoken to people of various religious denominations about the eternity of the soul. One finds believers by making concessions to their hidden inner soul egotism. Actually, one tells such people something for which they thirst, the opposite of which they certainly do not wish to hear. By telling them of the continuation of life after death, one discovers the access to human faith. In no other way would one find this access to faith, if the human soul were not thirsting out of egotism for the soul's indestructibility after death.

Now we know from spiritual science that the human soul does, in fact, retain its existence after death. From the many descriptions that have been given in the course of the work in this movement, we could also see that one can speak with precision about the experiences after death based on the science of initiation.

To begin with, we will not speak about what really lies beyond death, only about the motives that underlie the preaching of the doctrine of immortality. Spiritual science cannot appeal to these motives. In fact, spiritual science will not make any appeal when it is supposed to speak of the human soul's existence prior to birth or conception, for it actually has nothing to do with the soul's egotism. As a rule, people give little thought to how they fared prior to birth or conception, as to what their experiences were before they descended into an earthly body. This leaves them more or less indifferent, and does not stimulate the same longing as does the question of life after death. An interest in this area will only be found in those in whom the desire is aroused to comprehend the human being in general, in whom exists a longing to discover that force in the human soul which, as an immortal force, actually lies at the basis of what we are in the outer physical world owing to our body. In our Western civilization, which is doomed to decline unless new forces are injected into it, we find little inclination and few concepts to which one might turn if one were to speak about this life of the human soul before birth. As you know, the churches view this teaching as heresy; they do not realize that in this they are not really teaching Christianity but Aristotelian philosophy. For when Aristotle's philosophy was included in the Church's philosophy in the Middle Ages, the doctrine of the origin, of the creation, of each individual human soul at birth, or, respectively, with the development of the human embryo in the mother's womb, gained ground increasingly in the philosophy of the Church. Thus, gradually, the belief arose that this denial of the human soul's preexistence was part of the true doctrine of the Church, of Christianity. It was not part of it. To the real practical teaching of Christianity belongs the penetration of the spiritual worlds. Penetration into the spiritual worlds cannot exist without the insight into the preexistence of the human soul.

Western civilization, however, is infected by the various creeds. Things have gone so far that we do not even have the means in our language to express what is the truth in this area. If we still adhere to a religious world concept, or to some kind of rational philosophical world view, we speak of the immortality of the human soul. In that we have this word "immortality" of the human soul, we point to the fact that with this word we actually negate only dying, not birth; for what word could we use with which we could indicate preexistence in the same way that the word "“immortality” points to postexistence? Why should we not use a word like “unbornness” which, in the face of true spiritual knowledge, has as much justification as does the word “immortality?” This can be your best evidence of what has been lost in the West directly through the activities of the various religious denominations: the truth about the being of man. This truth has been lost even in regard to language. And even insofar as language is concerned, we must bring about the awareness that the human soul is eternal, that it exists before birth as much as it exists after death. We need a word for the condition of "unbornness" just as much as for “immortality.” Now, however, when you think of an existence before birth, and turn to really sound logic, logic that makes you capable of thinking something through to its conclusion, ask yourself if you are then still capable of not speaking of repeated earth lives. Of course, if you speak only of immortality, of postexistence, you can believe: Here is one earth life, then follows an eternity of a totally different kind! Logically, you will no longer be able to do that when you speak of preexistence. For, otherwise, you would have to ask yourself: Well, how is it that I now find that the soul is not created at birth? Why should it be created somewhere along the way before birth? In short, you absolutely arrive at repeated earth lives when you speak of preexistence. It is a fundamental fact that never in earthly civilization has one come to the view of preexistence without also speaking of repeated earth lives.

But consider what it will mean for the whole approach to this earthly existence if this teaching of repeated earth lives is not to be proclaimed as a mere theory, if this view finds its way into all the feeling life and also the will life of people, if man experiences himself as a being that has descended from spiritual worlds and has embodied himself in a physical body. Then, you know that here on this earth you are a messenger of the divine spiritual world; you know that this life here is a continuation of a spiritual life. Everything that we bear in ourselves as a sense of duty, as abilities, is illuminated and energized by such an awareness, for we know that the gods have sent us down into this physical existence. Only then will this physical existence receive a task not set by itself, but set for it by the heights of heaven. This is what is special about spiritual science—it does not just speak against the intellect, it must speak to the intellect, for these matters must be comprehended. Yet, insofar as we take up the concepts derived from initiation science, these concepts penetrate the whole of our human nature; they penetrate not merely our thoughts; they penetrate feeling, our emotions; they penetrate our will and give us an awareness of the nature of our whole human condition. The manner in which one places oneself in the world in awareness of this preexistence of the human soul will be especially important for the civilization of the future. This manner will penetrate human beings with the light and with the power that is needed to struggle free from the powers of decline that otherwise will, without fail, drive civilization into barbarism at the beginning of the third millennium.

Indeed, all the segments of life take on special form when one has such an underlying view. You have often heard me speak here of the Waldorf School that was founded in Stuttgart. In teaching and education, this school is in a certain sense supposed to make practical use of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. The abstract guidelines that you normally find in pedagogical textbooks, or in teaching regulations approved by the state, are by no means particularly important in the pedagogy of Waldorf School teachers. Instead, the feelings with which a teacher enters the classroom, for instance, are among the especially important things effective there. One of these feelings that is especially effective pedagogically—a feeling that every teacher is permeated with because he has been led into his calling from this aspect—is the reverence for the divine seed that, from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, is blossoming forth from within the entity that has come down from the eternal spiritual world into this physical world. The awareness, possessed by the teacher, that, through the gate of the physical body, he is dealing with a being that has descended to him out of spiritual worlds, is the basis of the deep reverence the teacher has for that human being, which, as a soul-spirit being, increasingly takes on form in the physical body. One may or may not believe it today—a teacher who has this reverence for the developing human being possesses a secret power within himself by means of which he teaches and educates quite differently from a teacher who does not have this reverence, and who believes that the human being comes into existence at the moment his physical body is released from the mother's body. For one teaches and educates not only by means of concepts and ideas. Above all, one educates with the mysterious powers and forces that pass as imponderables from teacher to child.

An example can be cited for this that can be mentioned as an especially important one. As a teacher, one may ponder over how one might give this or that child the idea of immortality. Today, of course, the usual way of thinking is that the teacher is the clever one and the child the dumb one. The clever teacher thinks: How do I teach this dumb child something of the idea of immortality? He might say to the child: Look at the chrysalis of the butterfly! Inside is the butterfly; it emerges and unfolds after the chrysalis bursts open. It is just like this in the case of the immortal soul in your body—the body bursts open. The immortal soul is just not as visible as the butterfly, but it is visible to super-sensible perception, and it flies into spiritual worlds. Certainly, one can think up something like that and teach a child the concept of immortality by means of such a comparison. In my opinion, the child will not gain much this way when the idea of immortality is taught to him by the type of teacher who is clever by today's standards. This is because he does not believe in it himself! He only thought it up. When any one of our Waldorf teachers teaches a child the idea of immortality in this way, it is quite different. For he himself believes in this picture; he is permeated with the truth that the chrysalis and the butterfly that crawls out of it were ordained by the gods to represent the picture of the human soul's immortality. He is permeated by the thought: This is the same phenomenon—the emerging butterfly on a lower level, on a higher level the soul that comes out of the body. I did not make up this picture; it has been placed into nature by the divine-spiritual powers themselves. He believes in it with the same fervor with which the child should believe, and this faith is what matters. If the teacher has this belief, then he can also secure it in the child; if he does not have it, or if he has it only as an abstract idea in himself, this idea will not have a fruitful effect. For it depends upon the feelings that flow into the classroom, upon the feelings that are kindled in our own soul out of the knowledge of preexistence.

Only if one takes seriously all that follows from preexistence will one gain an accurate concept of the connection between the human soul and the human body. If you take any handbook of knowledge concerning the soul—one calls this psychology—you find all kinds of theories on how the soul works upon the body, and so forth. You would not become very knowledgeable through these theories, for they are abstract webs of thought, and when you are finished with them you don't know much more than you did before. For, in psychology, all kinds of hypotheses are merely set forth on how the soul affects the body.

If one knows how the prenatal human being incarnates itself in a physical body, then one follows the developing human being in the child quite differently. We find that there are two stages in the developing human being. The first stage is indicated by the change of teeth around age seven. What does this change of teeth signify? It is a much more powerful change in the whole human organism than one usually believes. Today, however, one only observes these things outwardly. When people eventually accustom themselves to consider these things on the soul level in the way it can be done through spiritual science, what will they realize? They will say: Strange! Until the change of teeth the child does not really form solid, contoured concepts; to be sure, the child remembers a lot but does not retain its memories in concepts; actual intelligence does not yet appear. Just observe a child carefully and notice how, during the time when the teeth change, the faculty of actual intelligence increasingly emerges. Today one has no sense of the difference existing between a seven-year-old and a five-year old regarding the development of intelligence. If one would only observe how the soul gradually emerges after age seven—the Waldorf School teachers must observe it, for their whole teaching and education is based upon it—one would immediately understand in which direction one has to look in order to answer the question: Where was the element of intelligence that emerges after the seventh year? Where was it concealed? It was within the body; it was active in the organism. The same element that emancipates itself at age seven and turns into intelligence was within the body, was forming the body, and the culmination point of its activity of shaping the body is reached when the second teeth appear. The power that thrusts itself into being with the second teeth has been active in the whole organism. It is, however, a power that is active in the body only up to the seventh year. After that it has nothing more to do with the body; it then becomes intelligence. It already was intelligence earlier; as such, however, it was at work in the body. Look at what takes place in the child's body up until the seventh year. Next, look at what the child has as intelligence after age seven. You are looking at the same thing. Through birth, intelligence descended. At first it was not active as intelligence, as soul being; it becomes active in this way gradually after the seventh year. Here you have a concrete view of the working together of the soul with the body. Now you are able to see what was mainly at work in the human body until age seven. You do not have the foolish abstract concepts, fabricated and put into our textbooks and handbooks, concerning the interaction of body and soul. You have the concrete views of what works throughout seven years in blood and nerves, in muscles and bones, and then becomes the child's intelligence.

In this way, when one gradually penetrates into what spiritual science is able to give, one comes to know the human being in the totality of his nature, in his soul and bodily being. Now, man stands before us in a completely different way. It is strange—materialistic science aimed at knowing what matter was, and yet could not know anything, for example, of the nature of the forces that are active in the child's body until the seventh year. Now comes spiritual science and teaches how one really comes to know matter; spiritual science penetrates right into the material element. This is the tragedy of materialism—it becomes more and more abstract and no longer teaches what matter really is. What does the modern physician really know of the liver and kidney, of the stomach and lungs—that is, of the material structures? One day when the insights attained through spiritual science are applied to medicine and natural science, when something of what I tried to show in the course held in Dornach this spring⁹⁷ penetrates modern science, one will see that spirit insight is called upon to throw light even into the essence of matter, while the materialist confronts the whole world like a blind man standing before color. Material existence is just what the materialist never comes to know.

A second stage in the life of the human being is puberty; in the male sex it is marked by the change of voice, in the female by changes in the body that spread over the whole organism, not focusing on one organ as clearly as does man's change of voice. In both sexes the changes fall somewhere around the fourteenth year. Once again, this is an essential change in the organism. What is really happening there? What is different after puberty? The whole life of will of the human being is quite changed! Try to compare a nineteen year-old with a thirteen-year-old, directing your attention to the concrete life of will. The whole life of will becomes quite different; otherwise feelings of love could not enter the life of will. Again, a transformation in the soul life! When through spiritual science we investigate what is going on, we come to the following: We increasingly grow together with the outer world, especially in the time between the change of teeth and puberty; we grasp more and more of this outer world; our will becomes more and more oriented and we learn to bring it into harmony with the things and events of the external world. When one really studies the whole complex confronting us here, one finds that during this time the human being acquires for himself the will element, not from within, but through contact with the outer world. It was out of deep intuition that Goethe said, “A talent is formed in the stillness, a character in the stream of life.”⁹⁸

Talent springs from within. Character, that is, the element of will, is formed in the stream of the world, in the exchange between inner and outer forces. The human being always has to defend himself against all that comes toward him from the outer world; the inner being has to react; it has to resist what comes from the outer world. This will developing element, which approaches man through the alternating communication with the external world, is confronted by an inner force from the opposite direction. This force accumulates in the larynx of the male, in the female in other organs. This accumulation, this collision between the outer element of will and the inner will element, is expressed in the transformation of the larynx or similar organs. Here you even see the spiritual of the outer world working on the human being.

Now bring all this together with the views of spiritual science with which you are already familiar. We know that we descend from the soul-spiritual world into the physical world through conception or birth. We know, on the other hand, that with our astral body and ego we enter a spiritual world every time we go to sleep. The spiritual world, which gives us our soul, works upon the shaping of our form until the seventh year, but after that it becomes our intelligence. Now this intelligence is confronted by the will element—actually, from birth onward, but especially so at puberty, because the interchange between them takes place then. This struggle between the external will element and the inner element of intelligence; between that spirituality we sleep through—passing through it from the moment we fall asleep until we awaken—and the particular realm of the spiritual world that we went through before our birth and conception respectively; the struggle between what we have brought along and what we sleep through each night expresses itself in the development of the larynx, in the development of what occurs in the organism during puberty. A spiritual element works with another spiritual element. We go through a spiritual world between falling asleep and waking up. Concealed in this spiritual world is the will that is communicated to us; concealed in our organism is the intelligence that we bring through birth into physical existence. We can understand the human body when we experience it as an outer revelation of something taking place out of the spiritual domain.

Everywhere we look, and especially when we look upon the human being, we find that spiritual forces are the basis of the world. We only begin to understand man when we actually envision the interchange between these spiritual forces. Mankind will take up all of this in the future. Then, humanity will find it incomprehensible how a certain age could once have come to the point of saying: There is the sense world; in it work atoms, molecules, tiny particles whose collision with each ether is supposed to be brought about through certain movements of light or electricity. No, it is not the effects of atoms and molecules; spiritual forces are at work there! Behind all that is perceived by the senses, spiritual forces are at work. The dramatic reversal will be that man no longer will believe he is walking through a mist of atoms and molecules; he will be aware that with every step he is going through spiritual worlds. It is spirit worlds that dwell in him, and spirit worlds that build him up, that transform him. Just as our materialistic faith, the mere postmortem doctrine, has, in its final consequence, led us into what is now happening in the East of Europe, so the teaching of the spirit will lead us in the future into an existence truly worthy of man. But only this spirit teaching, only this, can lead to a real social reconstruction, and not until mankind comprehends this can things improve; they will only get worse and worse.

Certainly, all of you have often allowed a saying by Christ from the Gospel to pass through your souls: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”⁹⁹ What does this word of Christ mean? It has no meaning for the person who believes in atoms and molecules because he assumes that, prior to this earth existence with its animals, plants and human beings, there was a nebulous formation, and that out of it, the sun and the planets gradually developed; then, along with the conglobulation and constant rotation, plants, animals and human beings eventually originated. Right-feeling people go along with what the famous historian Hermann Grimm¹⁰⁰ said: “Future ages will have difficulty explaining the nonsense of the Kant-Laplace theory, for a carrion bone being circled by a hungry dog is more appetizing than this theory!” This is what a person with healthy feelings says. For when we look out into the world of the senses, what is behind the colors, what is behind the sounds? Not atoms and molecules, but spiritual forces that collide with our own spiritual forces and so form the carpet of color, the network of sounds, and the sphere of warmth that spread out around us. If, then, this is what is in truth around us—I have already identified it in the eighties of the last century in my introduction to Goethe's natural-scientific writings—namely, metamorphosing sensations and behind them a spiritual world, then we shall experience what one would see if one could travel from earth to a distant star and from there look back at the earth. From there, one would not see what is in our surroundings—trees, clouds, plants and animals—one would only behold what is contained within the human skin. What you see in the star is not what the beings of this other star see, for that has no meaning for a strange star. The light that streams toward you from other stars is not a process in the external world; it is a process within the beings that inhabit these stars, just as what is within your skin becomes visible only when earth is viewed from another star. When you grasp this you will no longer say that the world came into being out of a multitude of atoms that conglobulated. Human beings form ideals; what is to become of such ideals if earth turns again into nothing but a heap of atoms? The whole moral world, all ethical, moral and religious ideas that ever arose, would be lost, forgotten and destroyed, if only matter and energy were everlasting. Energy and matter resolve themselves into sensations. The spirit that we bear within us is eternal, and this spirit also appears physically an another celestial body. What exists outside the human skin is in no way present for that other heavenly body. Therefore we can say that a certain nature surrounds us now; we are born again and again; this nature will no longer be there in the future; it will have been replaced by a different nature. Of everything that is present now, only what dwells within the human skin will still exist in future times. It was therefore out of a profound intuitive knowledge that Christ Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away!” He meant, All that you see around outside will pass away, but the words that issue from My mouth will not pass away; they will endure!

Now let us look from this point of view at the lies of today's world. We hear it proclaimed from the pulpits that the human soul is immortal; we hear it proclaimed from the universities that matter and energy are everlasting. Then come the cowardly compromisers who try to fit these two concepts together. It would only be honest if those who believe in the eternity of matter would say that there is no immortality of the soul, and if those who believe in the soul's immortality would deny the eternity of matter. They would then have to confess to the truly Christian saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words”—meaning, the content of my soul—“will not pass away!” The two concepts are incompatible; if people had courage, the materialistic university professors would admit that Christianity has no validity for them. Those whose task it is to proclaim Christianity would have to fight against the materialism of the universities for the sake of Christianity. The fact that this is not done, that people try to glue the two viewpoints together—this is the great lie in our time regarding life. Where the attitude of falsehood prevails, its seeds come up; the germ of lying proliferates and creeps into the other aspects of life. It has done so extensively in the course of time because men did not try to appeal along with postexistence to a knowledge that would unconditionally point to preexistence, to a life before birth. All untruthfulness of life, prevalent today in so many areas, springs from the fact that so many wished to speak only of postexistence—something that appeals merely to soul egotism, not to knowledge. The spirit of untruthfulness cannot be halted if it takes hold of the best in us, namely, our innermost conviction.

These matters can only be rightly and fully evaluated, however, in connection with the whole of human life. Throughout the Middle Ages and right into our time, one spoke only of “right” and “wrong.” Everyone, of course, believed he had hit upon the right thing and whatever did not conform with that was wrong. When people spoke of right and wrong they spoke from the standpoint of logic. Logic was the great pride of mankind. It is already hardly the case today. From America, a teaching has come that has already taken hold of philosophy and, in Germany, has assumed an especially grotesque form. This is no longer the logical teaching of true and false; it is the so-called pragmatism, the teaching of what is useful. One believes that something is true, not because one has perceived it logically, but because people like William James¹⁰¹ and others say that true and false are merely other expressions for what is useful or damaging. We notice that something is useful; therefore we say it is right; we note that something is damaging to us; therefore we consider it wrong. In Germany, this has asserted itself as the “as-if” philosophy. There actually exists a thick book on this by a certain university professor, Vaihinger,¹⁰² who taught philosophy for a long time in Halle. This “as-if” philosophy goes something like this: One does not know whether atoms or molecules exist, but it is useful to explain the world as if there were atoms. One does not know whether the good has any everlasting significance, but it is useful to explain the world as if this were so. One does not know if there is a God, but it is useful for humanity—more useful than the opposite—to view the world as if there is a God, and so on. I am only expressing this with a few paradigmatic words. This “as-if” philosophy is the German version of the American teaching that what is useful is true and what is damaging is false.

Beside these viewpoints there existed yet another in all the old cultures. In the late Greek culture, it was already no longer present, but it was still noticeable in more ancient Greek times by those who study this era not in a professorial manner but according to truth. In those times one did not say of a viewpoint in the logical sense that it was “true” or “false”; one said of it that it was “healthy” or “sick.” That signified something! Today we really talk of health or sickness only when we refer to physical man, for in ordinary life we refer to nothing any longer but him. We know that from somewhere in the cosmos come the forces that make us healthy or sick. But when we speak of soul and spirit, we no longer refer to health or sickness; for there we have changed over to abstractions, to mere theory. In the cultures of antiquity, when somebody said something that was correct, one had the feeling that this organized his spirit in a correct sense and he was healthy. When he said something that was awry and what we today abstractly call “false,” people sensed concretely that this came from a sick soul mood. “Healthy” and “sick” were terms that were applicable also to the soul; actually, above all, one felt this way about the soul. Out of this feeling originated a word about which scholars have later written long philological treatises—the word “catharsis” in Greek tragedy, a word that comes out of the Mysteries. According to Aristotle, catharsis takes place in the human soul when it watches a tragedy. Fear and compassion are stimulated in the soul, leading to a kind of crisis, to catharsis, and the human being in turn is purified by fear and pity. Thus, the process that occurs in the human soul when it looks upon a tragedy is described as a healing process occurring in the strengthened soul. There, in aesthetics, in art, you still have the concept of a curative element and of an element that causes an affliction.

We must return to this! We must once more regain the concept that what we now abstractly call “right” comes about because the soul, descending from prenatal existence, gains control over the body and organizes it so that it will submit as malleable substance to the soul forces that make it healthy. This is the truth. It is the sick soul element which comes from a soul that is unable to use its body as an apparatus, a soul that expresses itself obliquely and darkly through its body. We must once again learn to replace the concepts “true” and “false” with “healthy” and “sick.” We must again experience an inner pain that can overcome us when somebody expresses wrong views; we must again sense inner satisfaction over truth. Not until we speak equally of prenatal existence and postmortem existence, however, not until we learn to use a word like “unbornness” just as we use the word immortality, shall we feel that way. The fact that we do not feel this now shows how far we have strayed from the knowledge of that spiritual world from which the human being actually comes.

You will find that those matters I have only briefly summarized today are described in more detail in numerous published cycles of my lectures and books. From such descriptions you can realize what a change it signifies in the whole constitution of the human soul when spiritual science will be the very nerve center of human feeling; when human beings will go about in the world with an awareness of their being such as the one attainable from spiritual science. People today indulge only the egotism of the soul that wishes to cling to a postexistence; they do not want to press onward to a real comprehension of the human soul which had experiences before birth, just as it will have experiences after death. The whole, complete eternity of the human soul is only grasped by one who can not only speak of immortality but, based an insight, of “unbornness,” too. We can believe, because belief always comes from a desire for life after death. We can know of the life before birth and the life after death as two things that are inseparable. Knowledge takes in the total being of the human soul; belief is concerned only with the postmortem existence. Knowledge of the spiritual is what the human being must struggle to acquire, but this is what people today strongly resist. Real knowledge of the spiritual world can only flow out of spiritual science. Out of spiritual science will come a constitution of the human soul that is healthy, not only true, and physical healing will be a necessary consequence of spiritual healing. Then man will not view the earth in the manner of modern geology as a huge mineral globe; he will view it as a spiritual being of which he himself is a member. That is what we must work toward.

This was meant to be the first part of my observations today.¹⁰³

• 97 . Rudolf Steiner: Spiritual Science and Medicine, GA 312 (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1948).
• 98 . Goethe: Tasso I, 2.
• 99 . See Note #90
• 100. See Note #24
• 101. William James: 1842–1910. American psychologist and philosopher.
• 102. See Note #36
• 103. The second part is unknown.