The Rudolf Steiner Archive

(Questions were asked about Colours and Primeval Rock.)

DR. STEINER: I will first deal with the question about rock, as that can very well be brought into connection with the things we have been considering lately.

Now you know that when a building is put up on the earth, great attention has to be paid to the laws of weight, gravity and many others—the laws of elasticity, for instance, of which we shall speak presently.

Imagine that one builds a tower, a tower, let us say, like the one on Cologne Cathedral, or that one builds something like the Eiffel Tower. It is clear, of course, that it must be built in such a way that it does not fall. If one has accurate knowledge of the laws of gravity there is no need for the whole thing to fall down. Still, the highest towers on earth can only be built on a base, and if you carry upwards to a height about ten times the base—that is, one to ten, you can get the highest towers.

So with the ratio of one to ten the highest towers can be built—otherwise the motion of the earth, wind storms, etc., would make them fall.

But in addition one must take care that the towers are in themselves somewhat elastic. The top always rocks to and fro slightly. Attention must be paid to what is called the force of gravity. The tower will always rock, but as soon as it rocks too violently it collapses. The Eiffel Tower rocks quite considerably at the summit. But care must be taken that it does not get thrown out of its base.

Now if you look at—let us say—a blade of wheat, you find at once that these laws are not observed at all. A blade of wheat is really nothing but a tower, yet it has a tiny base. A wheat blade with its tiny base goes up high aloft, and if we reckon out the ratio it is certainly not one to ten, which must always be used in mechanical building. The ratio is much more like one to four hundred, and in many cases one to five hundred.

By the mechanistic laws we use on earth, such a tower would quite definitely have to fall down. For when it is shaken by the wind its elasticity forces cannot be understood at all by the laws that a mechanist must obey.

If you tried to set up something else quite heavy on the Eiffel Tower, you would find that it simply could not be done! But at the top of this tower, this blade or stalk, there is still the ear, and it moves to and fro in the wind. That, you see, contradicts all the laws of the builders.

Now when one investigates the substances of which this blade consists, one first finds wood, that is to say, one gets a woody substance which you all know as bast. You see it in trees. And next you find in it a real building material: silica, quartz, real silicic acid. But it is harder quartz than is found in the Alps, in granite, for instance, or gneiss. This quartz, then, forms a scaffolding.

Besides these it contains a fourth substance—water. Thus this mortar made from wood, bast, water and quartz enables the stalk to contradict all terrestrial laws. A blade of grass is also a tower built entirely of substances. It can be tossed in the wind, does not break, rights itself when the wind ceases or the weather is favourable and calmly stands upright again, as of course you know.

But forces such as these, forces which can build something like this out from the ground, are not to be found on earth, assuredly not. And if you ask: Well, where do they come from?—this answer must be given: The Eiffel Tower is dead, the blade of wheat is alive. But it does not get life from the earth, its life comes from the whole surrounding universe. [See Fundamentals of Therapy, by Rudolf Steiner and Dr. Ita Wegman. Chapter III, “The Phenomena of Life.”] On the Eiffel Tower, gravity works purely downwards, drawing it down. The blade, however, does not grow by supporting itself on what is below. If we build the Eiffel Tower we must lay one material upon another and what is beneath will always be the support of what is above. With the blade this is not the case; the blade is in fact drawn out towards universal space.

So if you picture the earth (a sketch was made on the blackboard) and there the blades of wheat, then because the universe is filled by a very fine substance called ether which lives in the plant, [See Etheric Formative Forces in Cosmos, Earth and Man, by Dr. G. Wachsmuth.] the wheat blades are all drawn out towards the universe. But life does not come from the earth, it comes from cosmic spaces, and we can say: life simply comes out of the universe.

In the same way, when the egg is formed in the body of the mother (I have spoken of this before) this body only provides the substance. It is the whole cosmos that works upon the egg and gives it life. In all that lives, you see, the whole of universal space is working.

Now if you consider the plant, it grows, to begin with, under the earth. (A sketch is made.) If that is the earth, the plant is growing within it. But the earth is not some sort of neutral lump, it is really miraculous. It contains all sorts of substances, but three were of quite special importance in ancient times.

One of the three is a substance which we call mica. Only a small amount is to be found in plants to-day, but even so it is extraordinarily important. If you have already seen mica, you can perhaps remember that it is formed of thin plates, so thin that they sometimes look transparent. And once upon a time the earth was interwoven by such little mica plates. They went in this direction (sketch). As long as the earth was soft, such forces were still in it. Opposing them were other forces: they went so (sketch) and thus there was a real grating of lattice-work in the earth. These other forces are to-day contained in quartz.

And in between is yet another substance—clay. This clay unites the two, it fills in the lattice-work, so to speak. As a rock it is called feldspar.

Thus at one time the earth was composed in the main of these three kinds of primeval rock. But it was all soft, like pulp. There was the mica, which was really at pains to have the earth formed of thin plates in a horizontal direction. Then there was the quartz, radiating in this direction, and then the feldspar cementing the two together.

We find these most essential constituents to-day when we take the clay soil that is everywhere in the fields. At one time they were all intermingled inside the earth, now they are to be found outside in the mountains. If we take a piece of granite, it is quite granular, simply composed of little scales. These scales are the thin places of mica broken into splinters. Then there are very hard grains in it—that is the quartz; and then combining grains—the feldspar. These three bodies are broken down, made granular and are to be found outside in the mountains. They form the base of the hardest mountain ranges.

Thus since the earth was soft they have been pounded and broken to bits by all manner of forces which work in the earth. But remains of these old substances, particularly remains of their forces, are still to be found everywhere in the earth and the plants are built up from them by the universe.

We can say therefore that when they are working to-day out there in the mountains, they can create nothing more. These rocks are broken up, crumbled away, crushed into grains and are too hard to become plant. But since the plant always gives its essential substances and forces to the seed, what is within the earth can still be used for building up the plant out of the universe.

Such a view as this, where one takes into account how the whole of cosmic space works together to produce life, is not found at all in modern science. You may have read of the lecture recently delivered in Basle where an explanation was given of how life must actually have arisen on earth. The lecturer said: Yes, it is difficult to imagine that through mere intermixing or chemical combinations of substances, life comes about on earth. Then it must have come out of the universe—but how?

Now it is interesting to see how a modern scientist pictures to himself the way in which life can have come out of the universe. He says to himself: Well now, if it is not on the earth it must have come from other stars. The nearest star which perhaps once threw off substances that then flew towards the earth is so far away that what was split off would take forty thousand years to reach the earth. One has to imagine that the earth was once a fiery-fluid body. There could be no life on it or else of course it would have been burnt up. But it cooled down and then it was able to absorb life if it had flown to it from the nearest star. Now one cannot imagine—said the lecturer—that a life germ, a little germ of life wandered for forty thousand years through cosmic space, especially as this has a coldness—not warmth—of minus 220 deg. C. This germ then would arrive at the earth and then life on earth would originate. Earlier, no matter how many germs had flown into it, they would have been burnt up. And when the earth had sufficiently cooled down they would have thriven. But this simply could not have come about, said the lecturer. Therefore we don't know where life comes from!

But one can see quite clearly that life comes out of the universe. One sees in reality that in everything living, not only earth-forces are at work. We use only the forces of the earth for the Eiffel Tower and so on. But in such a tower as this (blade of wheat) there work indeed not only the earth's forces but the forces of the whole universe. And when the earth was still soft, when mica, feldspar and quartz or silica, swam through each other in the fluid condition, then the whole earth was under cosmic influences; it was a giant plant. When you go out to the mountains to-day and find granite there, or gneiss—which differs from granite in being more rich in mica—they are the remains of this ancient giant plant. And just as when to-day the plant decays and gives over its mineral constituents to the earth, so, later on, the whole earth body as plant gave over its mineral constituents. And thus to-day you have the mountain ranges. For our hardest mountains originated from the plant nature, when the whole earth was a kind of plant.

I have already told you how the earth looked when this primeval rock had ceased to be in a plant condition, but all was still soft. Our present animals and men were not then in existence, but the Megatherion and all the creatures I described to you. But before all this came about, the earth was a giant plant in cosmic space. And if you observe a plant to-day and enlarge it, you find even now that it resembles the mountain formations outside. For the universe only acts on the plant as a whole; its minutest parts are already stone. Thus, briefly, the earth has once been alive and what we find to-day in the hardest mountain rocks is the remains of a living earth.

But the earth's solid, mineral matter has originated in yet another way. If you go out on the ocean you find island formations. Here is the sea (sketch) and at a certain depth under the sea there live tiny creatures in real colonies—the coral-insects or polyps. These coral polyps have the characteristic of continuously secreting chalk. The chalk remains there and the island is finally covered by their deposited chalk secretions. And then sometimes the ground sinks in here, is submerged and a lake is formed. There is a ring of chalk which the coral insects have left behind. Now the earth as a whole is continually sinking in the very regions where these polyps are depositing their chalk. They can only live in the sea itself, so they go down deeper and deeper, while the chalk is left behind up above.

Thus one can still find in the sea chalk deposits which are derived from living creatures, namely, the coral polyps. Formerly there was animal life where now in the Juras we find limestone or chalk. The limestone is the deposit of former animal life.

If you go into the central Alpine region where the hardest rocks are, there you have the deposited plants. If you go into the Juras, there you have what is deposited by animals. The whole earth has once been living; originally it was a plant, then an animal. What we have to-day as rock is the remains of life.

It is simply nonsense to imagine that life is built up from dead substances through chemical combination. Life comes out of the ether-filled universe. It is nonsense to say that dead substances could unite and come to life—what is called “original creation.” No, it is precisely the dead substances that are derived from the living, are deposited by the living. As our bones are separated out—in the mother's body they are not there at first—so is everything, our bony structure, etc., formed out of the living. The living exists first and only afterwards comes the dead. The ether surrounds us and it draws everything upwards just as the earth's gravity draws everything down. It draws upwards but it does not bring death, as gravity does. The more you inhale gravity, the more you become gouty or diabetic or something of the sort. To that extent we become dead. And the more the upward forces prevail in us, the more living we become.

HEALING FORCES IN HUMAN NATURE

I now come to a part of the question which Herr B. has asked. Let us imagine then that I have someone before me who is ill, and I can say to myself: What is wrong with him is that he has not enough of the forces that work outside in the universe. He has too much of the forces of gravity—everything imaginable is deposited in him. Now I remember! Yes, I say to myself, it was quartz, silica, that at one time let forces stream out into the universe. If I prepare silica in such a way that the original forces become active again, that is, if I make a preparation from silica, mix it with other substances by which the silica element gets etheric force again and give this as a remedy, then I may be able to make a cure. Very good results can come from a silica preparation. And so in medicine one can make use again of forces which at one time existed in silica in living form. Great achievements in medicine can be secured if one reflects upon the condition of the earth when it was fully alive, when the silica was still under the influence of the universe.

Therefore when too little is living in a patient and he needs a connection with the universe, i.e. gives him substances which lie hardened outside and which one can very well employ as medicaments.

The head projects most of all into the cosmos, therefore it is most easily healed with silica; the abdomen tends most towards the earth, hence it is most easily healed with mica. And that which lies more in the centre—lungs, etc.—that one heals very well with feldspar when one prepares it in the right way.

So now you see that when one understands nature, one also really understands what are healing forces in human nature. But one must have a real feeling for the fact that the universe acts upon our earth.

Now it is always only possible to explain certain things at certain times. And so I can explain to you the flight of birds from another aspect than the one I took before, when we were not so advanced. Our modern science thinks very abstractly about the flight of birds in autumn and spring. In spring the birds leave their warmer haunts and in autumn, when it gets colder, they desert the more northerly regions. But there are birds which fly over the ocean in a south-easterly direction and they fly very fast and make no halt in between. One can prove this because it can be shown that there are no islands at all on the routes such birds sometimes take. Moreover they fly very high and it is not possible, on the lines of ordinary science, to answer the question: what do they breathe up there! For one could only think that so high up they would be stifled.

Nor can people make out how these birds find their direction. It is sometimes said: Oh, well, that is an inherited faculty; the young ones have always inherited it from the older ones, and the old birds instruct the young and then it works very well—the young ones can also do it. So when autumn comes, the older swallows organise a school, the young ones are instructed, the old ones fly in front, the young ones behind and copy them. This is what people have imagined.

But not all birds of passage do this. In the case of migratory birds in South Africa, for instance, when spring comes here with us, the older birds fly away first and come back here. The young ones can hold out longer there because they are still strong. The old birds get away earlier from the dust and leave the young ones behind. They don't instruct them at all, don't act as guides; the young have to find their way quite alone.

Some people have said: Oh, well, birds see to a great distance. In fact if it is a case of Africa they would even have to see through the earth! One doesn't get very far with these things. But I will give you an example by which you can see how the matter really lies. There is something else about which one can wonder how it makes its way—namely, a ship. How does a ship find its direction if it is to sail from Europe to America? It takes its direction from the compass. When as yet there were no compasses it went rather badly with the ships; they had to find their direction from the stars. So they steer their course by the compass, that is to say, by forces which are invisible, which are present in the ether. These are the very forces by which the birds find their direction! Only we men have no longer a sense for these invisible forces. The birds, however, have a sense for them, they have an inner compass. What we only learn laboriously, by observing the etheric forces with compass, magnet, etc., a bird has within itself. It flies by the ether, by what is working in universal space.

And so we can say: the earth is everywhere surrounded by ether and the ether contains life-forces. They come from the universe, take hold of earthly substances and from them bring about the living.

But something always remains within as remains of life. When, for instance, you take coral chalk, there is always something left that a little recalls life, something that has branched off from the living. So it is possible to find all sorts of things within it still, which can be administered as quite a good remedy.

And if, as I said, you take silica, which has already become terribly hard, and make use of it as a medicament, you can heal head ailments very effectively.

Thus life is still within it. The whole of it has once been alive. We cannot say that minerals are still living to-day, but they have lived once. They were once constituents of life. There is a remnant left in them which we can extract by all sorts of means and through which they can serve very well as remedies.

So this question as to whether there is also life in stone has been answered. If people only calculate with the forces acting on earth, then they proclaim that the earth looked different millions of years ago. They take no account in this of heavenly space. I said to you lately that if one takes into account what comes from the heavens one does not arrive at anything like such vast numbers of years.

One discovers, however, that here in our regions everything was still frozen and covered with ice, while over in Asia there was already quite a high degree of civilisation with much wisdom spread among the inhabitants.

But one comes to see that in a certain way our earthly life depends on the life outside, the life in the universe. When one goes back six, seven, eight thousand years, the earth with its mineral rocks was quite different from what it is to-day; not so much externally, but internally quite different. And then one goes back farther and farther to the soft condition of the earth. If we want to direct ourselves by the cosmos, we must observe it in the right way.

Now one can observe the cosmos by observing the position of the sun's rising. At the present day the sun in spring rises on the morning of 21st March with the constellation of Pisces behind it. But if one goes farther back—for instance, into the times before the Birth of Christ, the sun rose, not in Pisces, but in the constellation of Aries. That means the vernal point has moved along. If the sun rises in spring on 21st March in Pisces, then about 2,160 years ago it rose in Aries, still earlier in Taurus, still earlier in Gemini. There are twelve such constellations.

Thus the rising position of the sun is always moving in a backward direction; it moves round a whole circle, so that the vernal point goes quite round the earth. Is that understandable? It is always moving farther round from west to east.

One therefore arrives at the fact that formerly the sun rose in Aries, earlier in Taurus, still earlier in Gemini, then in Cancer, Leo, Virgo, then in Libra, in Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and then, as to-day, in Pisces. So when we go back 2,160 years it rose in Aries, another 2,160 years in Taurus, another 2,160 in Gemini, still another in Cancer, another in Leo. Then we come round again until at one time it was rising in Pisces. We come right round. (Sketch.) In 25,920 years the sun makes a revolution round the whole universe.

That is very interesting, and by such a course of the stars one can see how everything on earth changes. With the conditions brought by our present vernal point, we have our high mountains with the dead granite masses, containing feldspar, quartz and mica. It is all dried up, devastated. So it was, too, 25,920 years ago: similar conditions then prevailed on earth. But in between it was all different. For instance, the sun rose at one time in spring in Libra, between Virgo and Scorpio. Then the whole earth was alive, soft, was in fact a kind of plant. We need not go back more than 15,000 years at most, then through the quite different position of the sun the earth had a plant nature, and later an animal nature. We should be able to follow from the sun's course how the influences coming in from cosmic space have altered conditions on the earth.

You must think to yourselves, as you go back in time: the rock in the primeval Alps which is quite hard and solid to-day begins to flow, somewhat as iron flows in an iron foundry. It is naturally not quite the same, for when we go back the flow is reversed, as it were, it is in process of becoming solid. And if we go forward into the future, we shall again have the sun in Libra—for now it rises in Pisces, after 2,160 years in Aquarius, then in Capricorn, Sagittarius and once more in Libra, the Scales. At this future time when the sun rises once more in the Scales, the whole primeval Alpine range will have dissolved. The dense quartzes will have become fluid again, the earth will once more be plant-like and men and animals return to the condition in which they formerly were. In the meanwhile, however, they have absorbed all that they could take in on the earth.

So everything really goes in a circle. We look back to an earlier time when the earth and its hardest formations were fluid. Then the cosmos above brought forth such creatures as I once described to you; they arose through the in-working of heavenly forces and died out. Then all cooled down, solid formations arose and gradually there came the life of to-day. But it all goes back again. The granular quartz and granite, etc., are dissolved and former conditions return, but at a higher stage of evolution.

If you take in your hand a piece of granite containing quartz, you can say: This piece of granite with its quartz will at a future time be alive again. It has lived in former ages and to-day it is dead. It has formed solid ground upon which we can walk about. When we did not need to walk, the solid ground was not there. But one day it will come to life again.

In fact we can say that the earth sleeps as regards cosmic space—only the sleep is long, 15,000 years at least. When the earth was alive it was awake, it was in connection with the whole universe and the life forces of the universe brought forth upon it the great beasts. Later, as solidity was reached, these forces brought forth the human beings. Human beings nowadays have a pleasant time of it on earth—of course in regard to the universe too—they can go about on solid ground. But this solid ground will wake up again—it is really only asleep—it will wake up again and become active life.

If we take a piece of chalk, limestone, just an ordinary bit from the Juras, it is the remains of a portion of life. It is deposited from life, but someday it will be alive again, it is between life and life and is really only asleep.

Now we can use chalk, or calcium, very well as a medical preparation when, for instance, we find that children cannot absorb proper nourishment. This is particularly the case in Germany to-day—it is dreadful there now. When I recently went to Stuttgart to inspect the Waldorf School again, I visited the first Class. We have twenty-eight children in this Class, of whom only nineteen were present, the others were all ill. In another Class, fifteen were ill. And when one goes into it one finds terrible conditions. They brought a little boy into my consulting room and asked: What is to be done with him? He can no longer eat and the doctor has given him up.

Through persistent undernourishment, the digestive organs gradually form the habit of not being able to digest and they refuse everything. People can no longer eat, no matter how much one gives them. You can give them Quaker meals (The Society of Friends supplied the Waldorf School with food gifts) and everything possible, but nothing can help the child because his organs have ceased to act. He looks rather fat and greyish-yellow. What is to be done? The organs must first be made fit again to take in nourishment. Here one is well served by the little bit of life that is in calcium. When calcium is rightly used as a remedy, one can reawaken these sleeping digestive forces so that the child can live. One must give a mixture of calcium with other substances as it does not work by itself alone; it must be made to pass over into the organism. The calcium is absorbed if it is given in 5 per cent dilution.

But what is one using in giving calcium in this dilution? One is using the forces which once, in earlier times, were life forces in the chalk. They are still in it and can be used to reawaken life. But if one uses calcium in high dilution, in homeopathic doses, as one says, not 5 per cent but 5/10,000—not even 5 per 1,000 but 5/10,000—this, mixed with the other substances, acts on the head. It immediately becomes a remedy for the head.

If one gives the calcium allopathically it acts on the digestive organs, but in a quite high dilution it acts on the head and one can vary one's treatment in this way. It is also possible to ask: what is one using in the high dilutions of calcium? Here one is using the forces of the future which are still in it and will come into existence again in future ages.

You see, we must know nature in this way and then it can give us remedies. For there was once life everywhere and will be so again; death only stands between two lives. From primeval rock it is possible to use both past and future life forces in the right way.

This makes us realise something else. We find in our modern world both allopaths and homeopaths. The allopaths cure allopathically and the homeopaths, homeopathically. Well, but as a matter of fact many illnesses cannot be cured homeopathically, many must be cured allopathically. Remedies must be prepared differently. One cannot be a fanatic who swears by words, one must administer the remedies out of a full knowledge—sometimes so, sometimes so. Anthroposophy does not go in for catchwords—allopathic—homeopathic—but it studies the matter and says: the allopath works principally on the stomach, intestines, kidneys; there he is successful. Homeopathy is successful when the source of the illness is in the head, as in influenza. Many illnesses have their origin in the head. One must know how things really take their course in nature. People invent catchwords to-day as they no longer have real knowledge. Catchwords are always invented when things have ceased to be understood.

It is naturally not easy to arrive at the truth, for the allopath says: I have often cured such and such ... and the homeopath says: I have often cured such and such. ... Of course they always leave out the diseases they have not cured!

But take a man like Professor Virchow of Berlin, a doctor and professor who certainly could not be accused of not standing completely in modern medicine, who has even been called a genuine Liberal by the Free Thought Party. Yet with regard to cures he has been obliged to admit the following: “When a doctor in our modern medical world can show that he has cured one hundred people, the truth really is that fifty of these would have got well without him, and 20 per cent would have recovered even if he had used quite different remedies. So 70 per cent of cures are not to be attributed to modern medicine—30 per cent at most.” This is what Virchow calculated and he stood fully within the world of modern medicine.

It can definitely be stated that the right remedy, rightly employed, is effective; everyone can convince himself of that. Quicksilver, for instance, although it has after-effects, is nevertheless efficacious. And so one must just find the right thing. Sometimes it is terribly complicated, sometimes the organism has even become too brittle to stand the cure. But in a certain sense, through a real knowledge of what exists in nature, we can see how the various substances work. As dead substances they are really only in the middle between two periods of life and we can see their effect on man. But it is essential to have a real knowledge concerning their life.

Now the peculiar thing is that if one wants to understand anything, one must always start from life. Even in regard to colours we must take our start from life.

Sometimes when one sees modern pictures one has the feeling that there is no flesh behind, but that wood has simply been smeared with colour. Modern painters are quite unable to reproduce the tint of flesh-colour, because they have no living feeling that flesh colour is created out of the human being. Nowhere does it appear on any other material. One has to understand flesh colour and then the other colours can be understood. I will speak more about this on another occasion.

The child that they brought to me in the Waldorf School and who had been treated with calcium by the school doctor had completely lost the flesh colour and had become yellow from within outwards ... let us hope that people don't say that a proper remedy was not used! Living activity is inherent in colour and we are therefore experimenting in using the less dead for colours. So when we painted the Goetheanum we used plant colours as they come more from the living. In colour too you must go to life.

You see, the question as to whether rocks also have life was not so foolish, in fact it is quite intelligent. It has given us the opportunity of considering how the rocks are alive in the course of the earth's evolution, become dead again, and so on, and how human life is related to this.

The turning-point, between the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean periods,¹ which falls in the fifteenth century, is very much more significant for human evolution than is recognized by external history, even today. There is no awareness of the tremendous change which took place at that time in the condition of human souls. We can say that profound traces of what took place at that time for mankind as a whole became deeply embedded in the consciousness of the best spirits. These traces remained for a long time and are indeed still there today. That something so important can take place without at first being much noticed externally is shown by another example—that of Christianity itself.

During the course of almost two thousand years, Christianity has wrought tremendous transformation on the civilized world. Yet, a century after the Mystery of Golgotha, it meant little, even to the greatest spirits of the leading culture of the time—that of Rome. It was still seen as a minor event of little significance that had taken place out there in Asia, on the periphery of the Empire. Similarly, what took place in the civilized world around the first third of the fifteenth century has been little noted in external, recorded history. Yet it has left deep traces in human striving and endeavour.

We spoke about some aspects recently. For instance, we saw that Calderón's² drama about the magician Cyprianus shows how this spiritual change was experienced in Spain. Now it is becoming obvious—though it is not expressed in the way Anthroposophy has to express it—that in all sorts of places at this point in human evolution there is a more vital sense for the need to gain greater clarity of soul about this change. I have also pointed out that Goethe's Faust is one of the endeavours, one of the human struggles, to gain clarity about it. More light can perhaps be thrown on this Faust of Goethe when it is seen in a wider cultural context. But first let us look at Faust himself as an isolated individual.

First of all in his youthful endeavours, stimulated of course by the cultural situation in Europe at that time, Goethe came to depict in dramatic form the striving of human beings in the newly dawning age of the intellect. From the way in which he came across the medieval Faust figure in a popular play or something similar, he came to see him as a representative of all those seeking personalities who lived at that time. Faust belongs to the sixteenth, not the fifteenth century,³ but of course the spiritual change did not take place in the space of only a year or even a century. It came about gradually over centuries. So the Faust figure came towards Goethe like a personality living in the midst of this seeking and striving that had come from earlier times and would go on into later centuries. We can see that the special nature of this seeking and striving, as it changed from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period, is perfectly clear to Goethe. First he presents Faust as the scholar who is familiar with all four academic faculties. All four faculties have worked on his soul, so that he has taken into his soul the impulses which derive from intellectualism, from intellectualistic science. At the same time he senses how unsatisfying it is for human beings to remain stuck in one-sided intellectualism. As you know, Faust turns away from this intellectualism and, in his own way, towards the practice of magic. Let us be clear about what is meant in this case. What he has gone through by way of ‘Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine and even, alas, Theology,’⁴ is what anyone can go through by studying the intellectualized sciences. It leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. It leaves behind this feeling of dissatisfaction because anything abstract—and abstraction is the language of these sciences—makes demands only on a part of the human being, the head part, while all the rest is left out of account.

Compare this with what it was like in earlier times. The fact that things were different in earlier times is habitually overlooked. In those earlier times the people who wanted to push forward to a knowledge of life and the world did not turn to intellectual concepts. All their efforts were concentrated on seeing spiritual realities, spiritual beings, behind the sense-perceptible objects of their environment. This is what people find so difficult to understand. In the tenth, eleventh, twelfth centuries those who strove for knowledge did not only seek intellectual concepts, they sought spiritual beings and realities, in accordance with what can be perceived behind sense-perceptible phenomena and not in accordance with what can be merely thought about sense-perceptible phenomena.

This is what constitutes that great spiritual change. What people sought in earlier times was banished to the realm of superstition, and the inclination to seek for real spiritual beings was lost. Instead, intellectual concepts came to be the only acceptable thing, the only really scientific knowledge. But no matter how logically people told themselves that the only concepts and ideas free of any superstition are those which the intellect forms on the basis of sense-perceptible reality, nevertheless these concepts and ideas failed, in the long run, to satisfy the human being as a whole, and especially the human heart and soul. In this way Goethe's Faust finds himself to be so dissatisfied with the intellectual knowledge he possesses that he turns back to what he remembers of the realm of magic.

This was a true and genuine mood of soul in Goethe. He, too, had explored the sciences at the University of Leipzig. Turning away from the intellectualism he met in Leipzig, he started to explore what in Faust he later called ‘magic’, for instance, together with Susanne von Klettenberg and also by studying the relevant books. Not until he met Herder⁵ in Strasbourg did he discover a real deepening of vision. In him he found a spirit who was equally averse to intellectualism. Herder was certainly not an intellectual; hence his anti-Kant attitude. He led Goethe beyond what—in a genuinely Faustian mood—he had been endeavouring to discover in connection with ancient magic.

Thus Goethe looked at this Faust of the sixteenth century, or rather at that scholar of the fifteenth century who was growing beyond magic, even though he was still half-immersed in it. Goethe wanted to depict his own deepest inner search, a search which was in him because the traces of the spiritual change from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period were still working in him.

It is one of the most interesting phenomena of recent cultural evolution that Goethe, who wanted to give expression to his own youthful striving, should turn to that professor from the fifteenth and sixteenth century. In the figure of this professor he depicted his own inner soul life and experience. Du Bois-Reymond,⁶ of course, totally misunderstood both what lived in Goethe and what lived in the great change that took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when he said: Goethe made a big mistake in depicting Faust as he did; he should have done it quite differently. It is right that Faust should be dissatisfied with what tradition had to offer him; but if Goethe had depicted him properly he would have shown, after the early scenes, how he first made an honest woman of Gretchen by marrying her, and then became a well-known professor who went on to invent the electro-static machine and the air pump. This is what Du Bois-Reymond thought should have become of Faust.

Well, Goethe did not let this happen to Faust, and I am not sure whether it would have been any more interesting if he had done what Du Bois-Reymond thought he should have done. But as it is, Goethe's Faust is one of the most interesting phenomena of recent cultural history because Goethe felt the urge to let this professor from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stand as the representative of what still vibrated in his own being as an echo of that spiritual change which came about during the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period.

The sixteenth century Faust—that is the legendary Faust, not the one who ought to have become the inventor of the electro-static machine and the air pump—takes up magic and perishes, goes to the devil. We know that this sixteenth century Faust could not be seen by either Lessing or Goethe as the Faust of the eighteenth century. Now it was necessary to endeavour to show that once again there was a striving for the spirit and that man ought to find his way to salvation, if I may use this expression.

Here, to begin with, is Faust, the professor in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Goethe has depicted him strikingly well, for this is just what such personalities were like at the universities of that time. Of course, the Faust of legend would not have been suitable, for he would have been more like a roaming vagabond gipsy. Goethe is describing not the legendary Faust but the figure of a professor. Of course, at the profoundest soul level he is an individual, a unique personality. But Goethe does also depict him as a type, as a typical professor of philosophy, or perhaps of medicine, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. On the one hand he stands in the midst of the culture of his day, occupying himself with the intellectual sciences, but on the other he is not unfamiliar with occult things, which in Goethe's own day were considered nothing more than superstition.

Let us now look at Goethe's Faust in a wider world context. We do make the acquaintance of his famulus and Goethe shows us the relationship between the two. We also meet a student—though judging by his later development he does not seem to have been much influenced by his professor. But apart from this, Goethe does not show us much of the real influence exercised by Faust, in his deeper soul aspects, as he might have taught as a professor in, say, Wittenberg. However, there does exist a pupil of Faust who can lead us more profoundly into this wider world context. There is a pupil of Faust who occupies a place in the cultural history of mankind which is almost equal to that of Professor Faust himself—I am speaking only of Faust as Goethe portrayed him. And this pupil is none other than Hamlet.

Hamlet can indeed be seen as a genuine pupil of Faust. It is not a question of the historical aspect of Faust as depicted by Goethe. The whole action of the drama shows that although the cultural attitudes are those of the eighteenth century, nevertheless Goethe's endeavour was to place Faust in an earlier age. But from a certain point of view it is definitely possible to say: Hamlet, who has studied at Wittenberg and has brought home with him a certain mood of spirit—Hamlet as depicted by Shakespeare,⁷ can be seen in the context of world spiritual history as a pupil of Faust. It may even be true to say that Hamlet is a far more genuine pupil of Faust than are the students depicted in Goethe's drama.

Consider the whole character of Hamlet and combine this with the fact that he studied in Wittenberg where he could easily have heard a professor such as Faust. Consider the manner in which he is given his task. His father's ghost appears to him. He is in contact with the real spiritual world. He is really within it. But he has studied in Wittenberg where he was such a good student that he has come to regard the human brain as a book. You remember the scene when Hamlet speaks of the ‘book and volume’ of his brain.⁸ He has studied human sciences so thoroughly that he speaks of writing what he wants to remember on the table of his memory, almost as though he had known the phrase which Goethe would use later when composing his Faust drama: ‘For what one has, in black and white, one carries home and then goes through it.’⁹ Hamlet is on the one hand an excellent student of the intellectualism taught him at Wittenberg, but on the other hand he is immersed in a spiritual reality. Both impulses work in his soul. The whole of the Hamlet drama stands under the influence of these two impulses. Hamlet—both the drama and the character—stands under the influence of these impulses because, when it comes down to it, the writer of Hamlet does not really know how to combine the spiritual world with the intellectual mood of soul. Poetic works which contain characteristics that are so deeply rooted in life provide rich opportunities for discussion. That is why so many books are written about such works, books which do not really make much sense because there is no need for them to make sense. The commentators are constantly concerned with what they consider to be a most important question: Is the ghost in Hamlet merely a picture, or does it have objective significance? What can be concluded from the fact that only Hamlet, and not the others characters present on the stage, can see the ghost? Think of all the learned and interesting things that have been written about this! But of course none of it is connected with what concerned the poet who wrote Hamlet. He belonged to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And writing out of the life of that time he could do no other than approach these things in a way which cannot be fixed in abstract concepts. That is why I say that it is not necessary to make any sense of all the various commentaries. We are talking about a time of transition. Earlier, it was quite clear that spiritual beings were as real as tables and chairs, or as a dog or a cat. Although Calderon lived even later than Shakespeare, he still held to this older view. It would not have occurred to him even to hint that the spiritual beings in his works might be merely subjective in character. Because his whole soul was still open to spiritual insight, he portrayed anything spiritual as something just as concrete as dogs and cats.

Shakespeare, whose mood of soul belonged fully to the time of transition, did not feel the need to handle the matter in any other way than that which stated: It might be like this or it might be like that. There is no longer a clear distinction between whether the spiritual beings are subjective or objective. This is a question which is just as irrelevant for a higher world view as it would be to ask in real life—not in astronomy, of course—where to draw the line between day and night. The question as to whether one is subjective and the other objective becomes irrelevant as soon as we recognize the objectivity of the inner world of man and the subjectivity of the external world. In Hamlet and also, say, in Macbeth, Shakespeare maintains a living suspension between the two. So we see that Shakespeare's dramas are drawn from the transition between the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean periods.

The expression of this is clearest in Hamlet. It may not be historical but it is none the less true to suggest that perhaps Hamlet was at Wittenberg just at the time when Faust was lecturing not so much about the occult as about the intellectual sciences—from what we said earlier you now know what I mean. Perhaps he was at Wittenberg before Faust admitted to himself that, ‘straight or crosswise, wrong or right’, he had been leading his scholars by the nose these ten years long. Perhaps Hamlet had been at Wittenberg during those very ten years, among those whom Faust had been leading by the nose. We can be sure that during those ten years Faust was not sure of where he stood. So having taken all this in from a soul that was itself uncertain, Hamlet returns and is faced on the one hand with what remains from an earlier age and what he himself can still perceive, and on the other with a human attitude which simply drives the spirits away. Just as ghosts flee before the light, so does the perception of spiritual beings flee before intellectualism. Spiritual vision cannot tolerate intellectualism because the outcome of it is a mood of soul in which the human being is inwardly torn right away from any connection with the spirit. The pallor of thoughts makes him ill in his inner being, and the consequence of this is the soul mood characteristic of the time from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries and on into even later times. Goethe, who was sensitive to all these things, also had a mood of soul that reached back into this period. We ought to be clear about this.

Take Greek drama. It is unthinkable without the spiritual beings who stand behind it. It is they who determine human destinies. Human beings are woven into the fabric of destiny by the spiritual forces. This fabric brings into ordinary life what human beings would otherwise only experience if they were able consciously to go into the state of sleep. The will impulses which human beings sleep through in their daytime consciousness are brought into ordinary life. Greek destiny is an insight into what man otherwise sleeps through. When the ancient Greek brings his will to bear, when he acts, he is aware that this is not only the working of his daytime consciousness with its insipid thoughts. Because his whole being is at work, he knows that what pulses through him when he sleeps is also at work. And out of this awareness he gains a certain definite attitude to the question of death, the question of immortality.

Now we come to the period I have been describing, in which human beings no longer had any awareness that something spiritual played in—also in their will—while they slept. We come to the period in which human beings thought their sleep was their own, though at the same time they knew from tradition that they have some connection with the spiritual world. Abstract concepts such as ‘Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Medicine, and even, alas! Theology’ begin to take on a shadowy outline of what they will become in modern times. They begin to appear, but at the same time the earlier vision still plays in. This brings about a twilight consciousness. People really did live in this twilight consciousness. Such figures as Faust are, indeed, born out of a twilight consciousness, out of a glance into the spiritual world which resembles a looking over one's shoulder in a dream. Think of the mood behind such words as ‘sleep’, or ‘dream’, in Hamlet. We can well say that when Hamlet speaks his monologues he is simply speaking about what he senses to be the riddle of his age; he is speaking not theoretically but out of what he actually senses.

So, spanning the centuries and yet connected in spirit, we see that Shakespeare depicts the student and Goethe the professor. Goethe depicted the professor simply because a few more centuries had passed and it was therefore necessary in his time to go further back to the source of what it was all about. Something lived in the consciousness of human beings, something that made the outstanding spirits say: I must bring to expression this state of transition that exists in human evolution.

It is extremely interesting to expand on this world situation still further, because out of it there arise a multitude of all-embracing questions and riddles about life and the world. It is interesting to note, for instance, that amongst the works of Shakespeare Hamlet is the one which depicts in its purest form a personality belonging to the whole twilight condition of the transition—especially in the monologues. The way Hamlet was understood in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could have led to the question: Where was the stimulus for what exists in Hamlet's soul? The answer points to Wittenberg, the Faust source. Similar questions arise in connection with Macbeth. But in King Lear we move into the human realm. The question of the spiritual world is not so much concerned with the earth as with the human being—it enters into the human being and becomes a subjective state of mind which leads to madness.

Then Shakespeare's other dramas could also be considered. We could say: What the poet learnt by taking these human characters and leading them to the spiritual realm lives on in the historical dramas about the kings. He does not follow this specific theme in the historical dramas, but the indeterminate forces work on. Taking Shakespeare's dramas all together, one gains the impression that they all culminate in the age of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare wanted to depict something that leads from the subconscious, bubbling forces of his people to the intellectual clarity that has especially shone forth from that corner of the civilized world since the age of Elizabeth. From this point of view the whole world of Shakespeare's dramas appears—not perhaps quite like a play with a satisfactory ending, but at least like a drama which does lead to a fairly satisfying conclusion. That is, it leads to a world which then continues to evolve. After the transition had been going on for some time, the dramas lead toShakespeare's immediate present, which is a world with which it is possible to come to terms. This is the remarkable thing: The world of Shakespeare's dramas culminates in the age in which Shakespeare lived; this is an age with which it is possible to come to terms, because from then on history takes a satisfactory course and runs on into intellectualism. Intellectualism came from the part of the earth out of which Shakespeare wrote; and he depicted this by ending up at this point.

The questions with which I am concerned find their answers when we follow the lines which lead from the pupil Hamlet to the professor Faust, and then ask how it was with Goethe at the time when, out of his inner struggles, he came to the figure of Faust. You see, he also wrote Götz von Berlichingen. In Götz von Berlichingen, again taken from folk myth, there is a similar confrontation. On the one side you have the old forces of the pre-intellectual age, the old German empire, which cannot be compared with what became the later German empire. You have the knights and the peasants belonging to the pre-intellectual age when the pallor of thoughts did not make human beings ill; when indeed very little was guided from the head, but when the hands were used to such an extent that even an iron hand was needed. Goethe refers back to something that once lived in more recent civilization but which, by its very nature, had its roots in the fourth post-Atlantean period. Over against all this you have in the figure of Weislingen the new element which is developing, the age of intellectualism, which is intimately linked to the way the German princes and their principalities evolved, a development which led eventually to the later situation in Central Europe right up to the present catastrophe.

We see that in Götz von Berlichingen Goethe is attacking this system of princes and looking back to times which preceded the age of intellectualism. He takes the side of the old and rebels against what has taken its place, especially in Central Europe. It is as though Goethe were saying in Götz von Berlichingen that intellectualism has seized hold of Central Europe too. But here it appears as something that is out of place. It would not have occurred to Goethe to negate Shakespeare. We know how positive was Goethe's attitude to Shakespeare. It would not have occurred to him to find fault with Shakespeare, because his work led to a satisfying culmination which could be allowed to stand. On the contrary, he found this extraordinarily satisfying.

But the way in which intellectualism developed in his own environment made Goethe depict its existence as something unjustified, whereas he spiritually embraced the political element of what was expressed in the French Revolution. In Götz von Berlichingen Goethe is the spiritual revolutionary who denies the spirit in the same way as the French Revolution denies the political element. Goethe turns back in a certain way to something that has once been, though he certainly cannot wish that it should return in its old form. He wants it to develop in a different direction. It is most interesting to observe this mood in Goethe, this mood of revolt against what has come to replace the world of Götz.

So it is extremely interesting to find that Shakespeare has been so deeply grasped by Lessing and by Goethe and that they really followed on from Shakespeare in seeking what they wanted to find through their mood of spiritual revolt. Yet where intellectualism has become particularly deeply entrenched, for instance in Voltaire,¹⁰ it mounts a most virulent attack on Shakespeare. We know that Voltaire called Shakespeare a wild drunkard. All these things have to be taken into account.

Now add something else to the great question which is so important for an understanding of the spiritual revolution which took place in the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Add to all this the extraordinary part which Schiller played in this spiritual revolution which in Goethe is expressed in a Goethean way in Götz von Berlichingen. In the circle closest of all to Schiller he first met what he had to revolt against. It came out of the most one-sided, unhealthy intellectualism. There was of course as yet no Waldorf school¹¹ to do battle against one-sided intellectualism. So Schiller could not be sent to the Waldorf school in Wurttemberg but had to go to the Karlsschule instead. All the protest which Schiller built up during his youth grew out of his protest against the education he received at the Karlsschule. This kind of education—Schiller wrote his drama Die Räuber (The Robbers) against it—is now universally accepted, and no positive, really productive opposition to it has ever been mounted until the recent foundation of the Waldorf school.

So what is the position of Schiller—who later stood beside Goethe in all this? He writes Die Räuber (The Robbers). It is perfectly obvious to those who can judge such things that in Spiegelberg and the other characters he has portrayed his fellow pupils. Franz Moor himself could not so easily be derived from his schoolmates, but in Franz Moor he has shown in an ahrimanic form¹² everything that his genius can grasp of what lives in his time. If you know how to look at these things, you can see how Schiller does not depict spiritual beings externally, in the way they appear in Hamlet or Macbeth, but that he allows the ahrimanic principle to work in Franz Moor. And opposite this is the luciferic principle in Karl Moor. In Franz Moor we see a representative of all that Schiller is rebelling against. It is the same world against which Goethe is rebelling in Götz von Berlichingen, only Schiller sets about it in a different way. We see this too in the later drama Kabale and Liebe (Love and Intrigue).

So you see that here in Central Europe these spirits, Goethe and Schiller, do not depict something in the way Shakespeare does. They do not allow events to lead to something with which one can come to terms. They depict something which is there but which in their opinion ought to have developed quite differently. What they really want does not exist, and what is there on the physical plane is something which they oppose in a spiritual revolution. So we have a strange interplay between what exists on the physical plane and what lives in these spirits.

In a rather bold way I could draw it like this: In Shakespeare the events he depicts carry on in keeping with the way things are on earth

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

(blue). What he takes in from earlier times, in which the spirit still worked, goes over (red) into a present time which then becomes a factual world evolution.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Then we see in Goethe and Schiller that they had inklings of an earlier time (red) when the spiritual world was still powerful, in the fourth post-Atlantean period, and that they bring this only as far as their spiritual intentions, whereas they see what is taking place on earth (blue) as being in conflict with it. One thing plays into the other in the human struggle for the spirit. This is why here in Central Europe the question became a purely human one. In the time of Goethe and Schiller a tremendous revolution occurred in the concept of man as a being who stands within a social context. I shall be able to expand on this in the coming lectures.

Let us now look towards the eastern part of Europe. But we cannot look in that direction in the same way. Those who only describe external facts and have no understanding for what lives in the souls of Goethe and Schiller—and also of course many others—may describe these facts very well, but they will fail to include what plays in from a spiritual world—which is certainly also there, although it may be present only in the heads of human beings. In France the battle takes place on the physical earth, in a political revolution. In Germany the battle does not come down as far as the physical plane. It comes down as far as human souls and trembles and vibrates there. But we cannot continue this consideration in the same way with regard to the East, for things are different there. If we want to pursue the matter with regard to the East we need to call on the assistance of Anthroposophy. For what takes place in the souls of Goethe and Schiller, which are, after all, here on the earth—what, in them, blows through earthly souls is, in the East, still in the spiritual world and finds no expression whatsoever down on the earth.

If you want to describe what took place between Goethe's and Schiller's spirits in the physical world—if you want to describe this with regard to the East, then you will have to employ a different view, such as that used in the days of Attila when battles were fought by spirits in the air above the heads of human beings.

What you find being carried out in Europe by Goethe and Schiller—Schiller by writing Die Räuber (The Robbers) and Goethe by writing Götz von Berlichingen—you will find in the East to be taking place as a spiritual fact in the spiritual world above the physical plane. If you want to seek deeds which parallel the writing of Die Räuber (The Robbers) and the writing of Götz, you will have to seek them among the spiritual beings of the super-sensible world. There is no point in searching for them on the physical plane. In a diagram depicting what happens in the East you would have to draw the element in question like a cloud floating above the physical plane, while down below, untouched by it, would be what shows externally on the physical plane.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Now we know that, because we have Hamlet, we can tell how a western human being who had been a pupil of Faust would have behaved, and could have behaved. But there can be no such thing as a Russian Hamlet. Or can there? We could see a Russian Hamlet with our spiritual eyes if we were to imagine the following: Faust lectures at Wittenberg—I mean not the historical Faust but Goethe's Faust who is actually more true than historical fact. Faust lectures at Wittenberg—and Hamlet listens, writing everything down, just as he does even what the ghost says to him about the villains who live in Denmark. He writes everything down in the book and volume of his brain—Shakespeare created a true pupil of Faust out of what he found in the work of Saxo Grammaticus,¹³ which depicts things quite differently. Now imagine that an angel being also listened to Faust as he lectured—Hamlet sat on the university bench, Faust stood on the platform, and at the back of the lecture hall an angel listened. And this angel then flew to the East and there brought about what could have taken place as a parallel to the deeds of Hamlet in the West.

I do not believe that it is possible to reach a truly penetrating comprehension of these things by solely taking account of external facts. One cannot ignore the very profound impression made, by these external facts, particularly on the greatest personalities of the time, when what is taking place is something as incisive as the spiritual revolution which took place between the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean periods.

• 1 . Lecture Three, Note 1
• 2 . Lecture Nine, Note 2
• 3 . The first mention of Faust appeared in 1506. In 1587 the first Faustbuch, a popular chapbook, was published in Frankfurt-am-Main.
• 4 . Faust Part One. The Study.
• 5 . Johann Gottfried Herder, 1744-1803. Called Kant's system ‘a kingdom of never-ending whims, blind alleys, fancies, chimeras and vacant expressions.’
• 6 . Emil Du Bois-Reymond, 1818-1896: In ‘Goethe und kein Ende’ (No end to Goethe), address of 15 October 1882 in Reden (Speeches), Leipzig 1886.
• 7 . William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. Hamlet is one of his later plays.
• 8 . Hamlet, Act One, Scene 5.
• 9 . ‘what one has in black and white’: Faust Part One, The Study.
• 10. Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire, 1694-1778. One of the greatest French authors.
• 11. Lecture Four, Note 3
• 12. Lecture One, Note 3
• 13. Saxo Grammaticus, d.1204. Danish historian who wrote the Gesta Danorum.

Yesterday I spoke of the teacher’s encounter with the children. Today I will try to describe the child, as a growing being, and the experience of encountering the teacher. A more exact observation of the forces active in the development of the human being shows that at the beginning of a child’s earthly life we must distinguish three distinct stages of life. After we have gained a knowledge of the human being and the ability to perceive the characteristics of these three stages, we can begin to educate in a way that is true to the facts—or rather, an education that is true to the human being.

The Nature of Proof in Spiritual Matters

The first stage of life ends with the change of teeth. Now I know that there is a certain amount of awareness these days concerning the changes that occur in the body and soul of children at this stage of life. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to enable perception of all that happens in the human being at this tender age; we must come to understand this in order to become educators. The appearance of teeth—not the inherited, baby teeth—is merely the most obvious sign of a complete transformation of the whole human being. Much more is happening within the organism, though not as perceptible outwardly; its most radical expression is the appearance of the second teeth.

If we consider this we can see that contemporary physiology and psychology simply cannot penetrate the human being with any real depth, since their particular methods (excellent though they may be) were developed to observe only outer physical nature and the soul as it manifests in the body. As I said yesterday, the task of anthroposophic spiritual science is to penetrate in every way the whole human development of body, soul, and spirit.

First, however, we must eliminate a certain assumption. This preconception is inevitably a stumbling block to anyone who approaches the Waldorf education movement without a basic study of anthroposophy. I do not mean for a moment that we simply ignore objections to this kind of education. On the contrary. Those who have a spiritual foundation such as anthroposophy cannot be the least bit fanatical; they will always fully consider any objections to their viewpoints. Consequently, they fully understand the frequent argument against anthroposophic education. But, these things still must be proven.

Now, people have a lot to say about proofs with no clear idea of what that means. I cannot present a detailed lecture on the methods of proof in the various spheres of life and knowledge; but I would like to be clear about a certain comparison.

What do people mean when they say that something requires “proof”? The whole trend of human evolution since the fourteenth century has been to validate judgments through visual observation—that is to say, through sense perception. It was a very different matter before the current era, or before the fourteenth century. But we fail to realize today that our ancestors had a very different view of the world. In a certain sense we feel proud when we consider the development that has occurred in recent centuries. We look condescendingly at what people did during the Middle Ages, for example, considering them childish and primitive. But it is an age about which we really know nothing and call the “Dark Ages.” Try to imagine how our successors will speak of us—if they are as arrogant in their thinking as we are! If they turn out to be so conceited, we will seem just as childish to them as medieval people appear to us.

During the ages before the fourteenth century, humans perceived the world of the senses, and also comprehended with the intellect. The intelligence of the medieval monastic schools is too often underestimated. The inner intelligence and conceptual faculty was much more highly developed than the modern and chaotic conceptual faculty, which is really driven by, and limited to, natural phenomena; anyone who is objective and impartial can observe this. In those days, anything that the intellect and senses perceived in the universe required validation from the divine, spiritual realm. The fact that sense revelation had to be sanctioned by divine revelation was not merely an abstract principle; it was a common, very human feeling and observation. A manifestation in the world of the senses could be considered valid only when knowledge of it could be proven and demonstrated in terms of the divine, spiritual world.

This situation changed, gradually at first, one mode of knowledge replacing the other. Today, however, it has come to the point where we only acknowledge the validity of something—even in the spiritual world—when it can be proven through the senses. Something is validated when statements about spiritual life can be confirmed by experiment and observation. Why does everyone ask for a demonstration of matters that are really related to spirit? People ask you to make an experiment or sense observation that provides proof.

This is what people want, because they have lost faith in the reality of the human being’s inner activity; they have lost faith in the possibility that intuitions can emerge from the human being when looking at ordinary life, at sensory appearances and the intellect. Humanity has really weakened inwardly, and is no longer conscious of the firm foundation of an inner, creative life. This has had a deep influence on all areas of practical life, and most of all on education.

Proofs, such as external sensory appearances, through observation and experiment, may be compared to a man who notices that an unsupported object falls, and that it is attracted by the Earth’s gravity and therefore must be supported until it rests on solid ground. And then this man says, “Go ahead, tell me that the Earth and the other heavenly bodies hover freely in space, but I cannot understand it. Everything must be supported or it will fall.” Nevertheless, the Earth, Sun, and other heavenly bodies do not fall. We must completely change our way of thinking, when we move from earthly conditions into the cosmos. In cosmic space, heavenly bodies support one another; the laws of Earth do not apply there.

This is also true of spiritual facts. When we speak of the material nature of plants, animals, minerals, or human beings, we must prove our statements through experiment and sense observation. This kind of proof, like the example mentioned, suggests that an object must be supported. In the free realm of the spirit, however, truths support one another. The only validation required is their mutual support. Thus, in representing spiritual reality, every idea must be placed clearly within the whole, just as Earth or any other heavenly body moves freely in cosmic space. Truths must support one another. Anyone who tries to understand the spiritual realm must first examine truths coming from other directions, and how they support the one truth through the free activity of their “gravitational force” of proof, as it were. In this way, that single truth is kept free in the cosmos, just as a heavenly body is supported freely in the cosmos by the countering forces of gravity. A capacity to conceive of the spiritual in this way must become an essential inner quality of human beings; otherwise, though we may be able to understand and educate the soul aspect, we will be unable to understand and educate the spirit that also lives and moves in the human being.

The Individual’s Entry into the World

When human beings enter the physical world of sensation, their physical body is provided by the parents and ancestors. Even natural science knows this, although such discoveries will become complete only in the remote future. Spiritual science teaches that this is only one aspect of the human being; the other part unites with what arises from the father and mother; it descends as a spirit and soul being from the realm of spirit and soul.

Between the previous earthly life and the present one, this being passed through a long period of existence from the previous death to rebirth; it had experiences in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, just as on Earth, between birth and death, we have bodily experiences communicated through the senses, intellect, feelings, and will. The essence of these spiritual experiences descends, unites at first only loosely with the physical nature of the human being during the embryonic period, and hovers around the person, lightly and externally like an aura, during the first period of childhood between birth and the change of teeth. This being of spirit and soul who comes down from the spiritual world—a being just as real as the one who comes from the body of the mother—is more loosely connected with the physical body than it is later in human life. This is the why the child lives much more outside the body than an adult does.

This is only another way of expressing what I said in yesterday’s lecture, namely, that during the first period of life the child is in the highest degree and by its whole nature a being of sense. The child is like a sense organ. The surrounding impressions ripple, echo and sound through the whole organism because the child is not so inwardly bound up with its body as is the case in later life, but lives in the environment with its freer spiritual and soul nature. Hence the child is receptive to all the impressions coming from the environment.

Now, what is the relation between the human being as a whole and what we receive from the father and mother strictly through heredity? If we study the development of the human being with vision that truly creates ideas instead of mere proofs as described—a vision that looks at the spiritual and the evolution of the human being—we find that everything in the organism depends on hereditary forces in exactly the same way as the first, so-called baby teeth do. We only need to perceive, with precise vision, the difference in the ways the second teeth and the first are formed. In this way, we have a tangible expression of the processes occurring in the human being between birth and the change of teeth.

During this stage the forces of heredity hold sway in the physical body, and the whole human being becomes a kind of model with which the spirit and soul element work, imitating the surrounding impressions. If we place ourselves in the soul of a child relative to the environment and realize how every spiritual impulse is absorbed into the whole being—how with every movement of the hand, every expression, every look in the eyes of another the child senses the spirit inherent in the adult and allows it to flow in—then we will also perceive how, during the first seven years, another being is building itself on the foundation of the model provided by heredity. As human beings, the earthly world actually gives us, through hereditary forces, a model on which to build the second human being, who is really born with the change of teeth. The first teeth in the body are eliminated by what wants to replace them; this new element, which belongs to the human being’s individuality, advances and casts off heredity. This is true of the whole human organism. During the first seven years of life, the organism was a product of earthly forces and a kind of model. As such it is cast off, just as we get rid of the body’s outgrowths by cutting our nails, hair, and so on. The human being is molded anew with the change of teeth just as our outer form is perpetually eliminated. In this case, however, the first being, or product of physical heredity, is completely replaced by a second, who develops under the influence of the forces that the human being brings from pre-earthly life. Thus, during the period between birth and the change of teeth, the human hereditary forces related to the physical evolutionary stream fight against the forces of a pre-earthly existence, which accompany the individuality of each human being from the previous earthly life.

The Religious Nature of Childhood

It is essential not to merely understand these things theoretically, which is the habitual way of thinking today. This is the kind of fact that must be understood by the whole inner human being from the perspective of the child, and only then from the standpoint of the educator. If we understand what is happening from the perspective of a child, we find that the soul-being of the child—with everything brought from preearthly life from the realm of soul and spirit—is entirely devoted to the physical activities of human beings in the surroundings. This relationship can be described only as a religious one. It is a religious relationship that descends into the sphere of nature and moves into the outer world. It is important, however, to understand what is meant by such term.

Ordinarily, one speaks of “religious” relationships today in the sense of a consciously developed adult religion. Relevant to this is the fact that, in religious life, the spirit and soul elements of the adult rise into the spiritual element in the universe and surrender to it. The religious relationship is a self-surrendering to the universe, a prayer for divine grace in the surrender of the self. In the adult, it is completely immersed in a spiritual element. The soul and spirit are yielded to the surroundings.

To speak of the child’s body being absorbed by the environment in terms of a religious experience thus seems like we are turning things around the wrong way. Nevertheless, it is a truly religious experience—transposed into the realm of nature. The child is surrendered to the environment and lives in the external world in reverent, prayerful devotion, just as the eye detaches itself from the rest of the organism and surrenders to the environment. It is a religious relationship transferred to the natural realm.

If we want a picture, or symbol, of the spirit and soul processes in the adult’s religious experience, we should form a real idea in our souls of the child’s body up to the change of teeth. The life of the child is “religious,” but religious in a way that refers to the things of nature. It is not the soul of the child that is surrendered to the environment, but the blood circulation, breathing activities, and the nutritional process through the food taken in. All of these things are surrendered to the environment—the blood circulation, breathing, and digestive processes pray to the environment.

The Priestly Nature of Teaching

These expressions may seem contradictory, but their very contradiction represents the truth. We must observe such things with our whole being, not theoretically. If we observe the struggle unfolding in the child before us—within this fundamental, natural religious element—if we observe the struggle between the hereditary forces and what the individual’s forces develop as the second human being through the power brought from pre-earthly life, then, as teachers, we also develop a religious mood. But, whereas the child with a physical body develops the religious mood of the believer, the teacher, in gazing at the wonders that occur between birth and the change of teeth, develops a “priestly” religious attitude. The position of teacher becomes a kind of priestly office, a ritual performed at the altar of universal human life—not with a sacrificial victim to be led to death, but with the offering of human nature itself, to be awakened to life. Our task is to ferry into earthly life the aspect of the child that came from the divine spiritual world. This, with the child’s own forces, forms a second organism from the being that came to us from the divine spiritual life.

Pondering such things awakens something in us like a priestly attitude in education. Until this priestly feeling for the first years of childhood has become a part of education as a whole, education will not find the conditions that bring it to life. If we merely try to understand the requirements of education intellectually, or try to rationally design a method of education based on external observations of a child’s nature, at best we accomplish a quarter education. A complete educational method cannot be formulated by the intellect alone, but must flow from the whole human nature—not merely from the part that observes externally in a rational way, but the whole that deeply and inwardly experiences the secrets of the universe.

Few things have a more wonderful effect on the human heart than seeing inner spirit and soul elements released day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, during the first period of childhood. We see how, beginning with chaotic limb movements, the glance filled with rapture by the outer, the play of expressions that do not yet seem to belong to the child, something develops and impresses itself on the surface of the human form that arises from the center of the human being, where the divine spiritual being is unfolding in its descent from pre-earthly life. When we can make this divine office of education a concern of the heart, we understand these things in such a way that we say: “Here the Godhead Who has guided the human being until birth is revealed again in the impression of the human organism; the living Godhead is there to see; God is gazing into us.” This, out of the teacher’s own individuality, will lead, not to something learned by rote, but to a living method of education and instruction, a method that springs from the inner being.

This must be our attitude to the growing human being; it is essential to any educational method. Without this fundamental attitude, without this priestly element in the teacher (this is said, of course, in a cosmic sense), education cannot be continued. Therefore, any attempt to reform the methods of education must involve a return of the intellectual element, which has become dominant since the fourteenth century, to the domain of soul and feelings, to move toward what flows from human nature as a whole, not just from the head. If we look at the child without preconceptions, the child’s own nature will teach us to read these things.

The Effects of a Teacher’s Inner Development on the Child

Now, what has been the real course of civilization since the fourteenth century? As a result of the great transition, or cultural revolution, that has occurred since then, we can only perceive what is exprEssentialEd, as it were, from internal to external existence. Grasping at externals has become a matter of course for modern human beings to the degree that we are no longer aware of any other possibility. We have arrived at a condition in historical evolution that is considered “right” in an absolute sense—not merely a condition that suits our time.

People can no longer feel or perceive in a way that was possible before the fourteenth century. In those days, people observed matters of the spirit in an imbalanced way, just as people now observe the things of nature. But the human race had to pass through a stage in which it could add the observation of purely natural elements to an earlier human devotion to the world of spirit and soul that excluded nature. This materializing process, or swing downward, was necessary; but we must realize that, in order that civilized humanity not be turned into a wasteland in our time, there must be a new turn, a turning toward spirit and soul. The awareness of this fact is the essence of all endeavors such as that of Waldorf school education, which is rooted in what a deeper observation of human evolution reveals as necessary for our time. We must find our way back to the spirit and soul; for this we must first clearly recognize how we removed ourselves from them in the first place. There are many today who have no such understanding and, therefore, view anything that attempts to lead us back to the spirit as, well, not really the point, shall we say.

We can find remarkable illustrations of this attitude. I would like to mention one, but only parenthetically. There is a chapter (incidentally, a very interesting chapter in some ways) in Maurice Maeterlinck’s new book The Great Riddle. Its subject is the anthroposophic way of viewing the world. He describes anthroposophy, and he also describes me (if you will forgive a personal reference). He has read many of my books and makes a very interesting comment. He says that, at the beginning of my books, I seem to have a level-headed, logical, and shrewd mind. In the later chapters, however, it seems as if I had lost my senses. It may very well appear this way to Maeterlinck; subjectively he has every right to his opinion. Why shouldn’t I seem levelheaded, logical and scientific to him in the first chapters, and insane in later ones?

Of course, Maeterlinck has a right to think this way, and nobody wants to stop him. The question is, however, whether such an attitude is not really absurd. Indeed, it does become absurd when you consider this: I have, unfortunately, written a great many books in my life (as you can see from the unusual appearance of the book table here). No sooner have I finished writing one, than I begin another. When Maurice Maeterlinck reads the new book, he will discover once again that, in the first chapters I am shrewd, levelheaded and scientific, and lose my senses later on. Then I begin to write a third book; the first chapters again are reasonable and so forth. Consequently, if nothing else, I seem to have mastered the art of becoming at will a completely reasonable human being in the early part of a book and—equally by choice—a lunatic later, only to return to reason when I write the next book. In this way, I take turns being reasonable and a lunatic. Naturally, Maeterlinck has every right to find this; but he misses the absurdity of such an idea. A modern man of his importance thus falls into absurdities; but this, as I say, is only an interpolation.

Many people are completely unaware that their judgments do not spring from the source of human nature but from elements implanted in our outer culture since the fourteenth century as a result of the materialistic system of life and education. The duty of teachers, of educators—really the duty of all human beings that have anything to do with children—is to look more deeply into the human being. In other words, we need to become more aware of how anything acting as a stimulus in the environment continues to vibrate in the child. We must be very clear that, in this sense, we are dealing with imponderables.

Children are aware, whenever we do something in their environment, of the thoughts behind a hand-gesture or facial expression. Children intuit them: they do not, obviously, interpret facial features, since what operates instead is a much more powerful inner connection between the child and adult than will exist later between adults. Consequently, we must never allow ourselves to feel or think anything around children that should not be allowed to ripple on within the child. The rule of thumb for all relationships in early education must be this: Whether in perception, feeling, or thought, whatever we do around children must be done in such a way that it may be allowed to continue vibrating their souls.

The psychologist, the observer of souls, the person of broad practical experience, and the doctor thus all become a unity, insofar as the child is concerned. This is important, since anything that makes an impression on the child, anything that causes the soul’s response, continues in the blood circulation and digestion, becoming a part of the foundation of health in later years. Due to the imitative nature of the child, whenever we educate the spirit and soul of the child, we also educate the body and physical nature of the child. This is the wonderful metamorphosis—that whatever approaches children, touching their spirit and soul, becomes their physical, organic organization, and their predisposition to health or illness in later life.

Consequently, we can say that if Waldorf schools educate out of spirit and soul, it is not because we choose to work in an unbalanced way with only the soul and spirit; rather, it is because we know that this is how we physically educate the inner being in the highest sense of the word. The physical being exists within the envelope of the skin.

Perhaps you recall yesterday’s examples. Beginning with the model supplied by the human forces of heredity, the person builds a second human being, experienced in the second phase of life between the change of teeth and puberty. During the initial phase of life, human beings win for themselves a second being through what resulted of a purely spiritual life between death and rebirth. During the second stage of life, however, between the change of teeth and puberty, the influences of the outer world struggle with what must be incorporated into the individuality of the human being.

During this second stage, external influences grow more powerful. The inner human being is strengthened, however, since at this point it no longer allows every influence in the environment to continue vibrating in the body organization as though it were mainly a sense organ. Sensory perception begins to be more concentrated at the surface, or periphery, of the being. The senses now become more individual and autonomous, and the first thing that appears in the human being is a way of relating to the world that is not intellectual but compares only to an artistic view of life.

The Teacher as Artist

Our initial approach to life had a religious quality in that we related to nature as naturally religious beings, surrendered to the world. In this second stage, however, we are no longer obligated to merely accept passively everything coming from our environment, allowing it to vibrate in us physically; rather, we transform it creatively into images. Between the change of teeth and puberty, children are artists, though in a childish way, just as in the first phase of life, children were homo religiosus—naturally religious human beings.

Now that the child demands everything in a creative, artistic way, the teachers and educators who encounter the child must present everything from the perspective of an artist. Our contemporary culture demands this of teachers, and this is what must flow into the art of education; at this point, interactions between the growing human being and educators must take an artistic form. In this respect, we face great obstacles as teachers. Our civilization and the culture all around us have reached the point where they are geared only to the intellect, not to the artistic nature.

Let us consider the most wonderful natural processes—the description of embryonic life, for example, as portrayed in modern textbooks, or as taught in schools. I am not criticizing them, merely describing them; I know very well that they had to become the way they are and were necessary at a certain point in evolution. If we accept what they offer from the perspective of the spiritual force ready to reawaken today, something happens in our feeling life that we find impossible to acknowledge, because it seems to be a sin against the maturity attained by humanity in world-historical evolution. Difficult as it may be, it would be a good thing if people were clear about this.

When we read modern books on embryology, botany, or zoology, we feel a sense of despair in finding ourselves immediately forced to plunge into a cold intellectuality. Although the life and the development of nature are not essentially “intellectual,” we have to deliberately and consciously set aside every artistic element. Once we have read a book on botany written according to strict scientific rules, our first task as teachers is to rid ourselves of everything we found there. Obviously, we must assimilate the information about botanical processes, and the sacrifice of learning from such books is necessary; but in order to educate children between the change of teeth and puberty, we must eliminate what we found there, transforming everything into artistic, imaginal forms through our own artistic activity and sensibility. Whatever lives in our thoughts about nature must fly on the wings of artistic inspiration and transform into images. They must rise in the soul of the child.

Artistically shaping our instruction for children between the change of teeth and puberty is all that we should be concerned with in the metamorphosis of education for our time and the near future. If the first period of childhood requires a priestly element in education, the second requires an artistic element. What are we really doing when we educate a person in the second stage of life? The I-being journeying from an earlier earthly life and from the spiritual world is trying gradually to develop and permeate a second human being. Our job is to assist in this process; we incorporate what we do with the child as teachers into the forces that interwove with spirit and soul to shape the second being with a unique and individual character. Again, the consciousness of this cosmic context must act as an enlivening impulse, running through our teaching methods and the everyday conditions of education. We cannot contrive what needs to be done; we can only allow it to happen through the influence of the children themselves on their teachers.

Two extremes must be avoided. One is a result of intellectualizing tendencies, where we approach children in an academic way, expecting them to assimilate sharply outlined ideas and definitions. It is, after all, very comfortable to instruct and teach by definitions. And the more gifted children learn to parrot them, allowing the teacher to be certain that they retain what has been taught them in the previous lesson, whereas those who don’t learn can be left behind.

Such methods are very convenient. But it’s like a cobbler who thinks that the shoes made for a three-year-old girl should still fit the ten-year-old, whereas only her toes fit into the shoes but not the heels. Much of a child’s spiritual and psychic nature is ignored by the education we give children. It is necessary that, through the medium of flexible and artistic forms, we give children perceptions, ideas, and feelings in pictorial form that can metamorphose and grow with the soul, because the soul itself is growing. But before this can happen, there must be a living relationship between child and teacher, not the dead relationship that arises from lifeless educational concepts. Thus, all instruction given to children between approximately seven and fifteen must be permeated with pictures.

In many ways, this runs counter to the ordinary tendencies of modern culture, and we of course belong to this modern culture. We read books that impart much significant substance through little squiggles we call a, b, c, and so on. We fail to realize that we have been damaged by being forced to learn these symbols, since they have absolutely no relationship to our inner life. Why should a or b look the way they do today? There is no inner necessity, no experience that justifies writing an h after an a to express a feeling of astonishment or wonder.

This was not always the situation, however. People first made images in pictographic writing to describe external processes, and when they looked at the sheet or a board on which something had been written, they received an echo of that outer object or process. In other words, we should spare the child of six or seven from learning to write as it is done today. What we need instead is to bring the child something that can actually arise from the child’s own being, from the activities of his or her arms and fingers. The child sees a shining, radiant object and receives an impression; we then fix it with a drawing that represents the impression of radiance, which a child can understand.

If a child strokes a stick from top to bottom and then makes a stroke on the paper from top to bottom, the meaning is obvious. I show a fish to a child, who then follows the general direction of the form, followed by the front and back fins that cross in the opposite direction. I draw the general form of the fish, and this line across it, and say to the child, “Here, on the paper, you have something like a fish.” Then I go into the child’s inner experience of the fish. It contains an f, and so I draw a line crossed by another line, and thus, out of the child’s feeling experience, I have a picture that corresponds to the sound that begins the word fish. All writing can be developed in this way—not a mere copying of the abstract now in use, but a perception of the things themselves as they arise from a child’s drawing and painting. When I derive writing from the drawing and painting, I am working with the living forces of an image.

It would be enough to present the beginning of this artistic approach; we can feel how it calls on the child’s whole being, not just an intellectual understanding, which is overtaxed to a certain extent. If we abandon the intellectual element for imagery at this age, the intellect usually withdraws into the background. If, on the other hand, we overemphasize the intellect and are unable to move into a mode of imagery, the child’s breathing process is delicately and subtly disrupted. The child can become congested, as it were, with weakened exhalation. You should think of this as very subtle, not necessarily obvious. If education is too intellectual between the ages of seven and fourteen, exhalation becomes congested, and the child is subjected to a kind of subconscious nightmare. A kind of intimate nightmare arises, which becomes chronic in the organism and leads in later life to asthmas and other diseases connected with swelling in the breathing system.

Another extreme occurs when the teacher enters the school like a little Caesar, with the self-image of a mighty Caesar, of course. In this situation, the child is always at the mercy of a teacher’s impulsiveness. Whereas extreme intellectualism leads to congested exhalation, the metabolic forces are thinned by overly domineering and exaggerated assertiveness in the teacher. A child’s digestive organs are gradually weakened, which again may have chronic effects in later life. Both of these excesses must be eliminated from education—too much intelectualizing and extreme obstinateness.

We can hold a balance between the two by what happens in the soul when we allow the will to pass gently into the child’s own activity and by toning down the intellect so that feelings are cultivated in a way that does not suppress the breathing, but cultivates feelings that turn toward imagery and express the buoyant capacity I described. When this is done, the child’s development is supported between the change of teeth and puberty.

Thus, from week to week, month to month, year to year, a true knowledge of the human being will help us read the developing being like a book that tells us what needs to be done in the teaching. The curriculum must reproduce what we read in the evolutionary process of the human being. Specific ways that we can do this will be addrEssentialEd in coming lectures.

For quite a number of years now Education has been one of those branches of civilised, cultural activity which we foster within the Anthroposophical Movement, and, as will appear from these lectures, we may perhaps just in this sphere look back with a certain satisfaction on what we have been able to do. Our schools have existed only a few years, so I cannot speak of an achievement, but only of the beginning of something which, even outside the Anthroposophical Movement, has already made a certain impression on circles interested in the spiritual life of the cultural world of today. Looking back on our educational activity it gives me real joy, particularly here in Holland, where many years ago I had the opportunity of lecturing on subjects connected with anthroposophical spiritual science, to speak once more on this closely related theme.

Anthroposophical education and teaching is based on that knowledge of man which is only to be gained on the basis of spiritual science; it works out of a knowledge of the whole human being, body, soul and spirit. At first such a statement may be regarded as obvious. It will be said that of course the whole man must be taken into consideration when it is a question of educational practice, of education as an art; that neither should the spiritual be neglected in favour of the physical, nor the physical in favour of the spiritual. But it will very soon be seen how the matter stands when we become aware of the practical results which ensue when any branch of human activity is based on anthroposophical spiritual science. Here in Holland, in the Hague, a small school has been founded on the basis of an anthroposophical knowledge of man, a daughter school, if I may call it so, of our Waldorf School in Stuttgart. And I believe that whoever gets to know such a school, whether from merely hearing about the way it is run, or through a more intimate knowledge, will find in the actual way it deals with teaching and education, something arising from its anthroposophical foundation which differs essentially from the usual run of schools in our present civilisation. The reason for this is that wherever we look today we find a gulf between what people think, or devise theoretically, and what they actually carry out in practice. For in our present civilisation theory and practice have become two widely separated spheres. However paradoxical it may sound, the separation may be observed, perhaps most of all in the most practical of all occupations in life, in the business world, in the economic sphere. Here all sorts of things are learnt theoretically. For instance, people think out details of administration in economic affairs. They form intentions. But these intentions cannot be carried out in actual practice. However carefully they are thought out, they do not meet the actual conditions of life. I should like to express myself still more clearly, so that we may understand one another. For example, a man who wishes to set up a business concern thinks out some sort of business project. He thinks over all that is connected with this business and organises it according to his intentions.

His theories and abstract thoughts are then put into effect, but, when actually carried out, they everywhere come up against reality. Certainly things are done, thought-out ideas are even put into practice, but these thoughts do not fit into real life. In actual fact something is carried over into real life which does not correspond with what is real. Now a business that is conducted in this way can continue for some time and its inaugurator will consider himself to be a tremendously practical fellow. For whoever goes into business and from the outset has learnt absolutely nothing outside customary practice will consider himself a “practical” man.

Today we can hear how really practical people speak about such a theorist. He enters into business life and with a heavy hand introduces his thought-out ideas. If sufficient capital is available, he may even be able to carry on for a time, after a while, however, the concern collapses, or it may be absorbed into some more established business. Usually when this happens very little heed is paid to how much genuine, vital effort has been wasted, how many lives ruined, how many people injured or impaired in their way of life. It has come about solely because something has been thought out—thought out by a so-called “practical” man. In such a case however the person in question is not practical through his insight but by the use of his elbows. He has introduced something into reality without considering the conditions of reality.

Few people notice it, but this kind of thing has become rampant in the cultural life of today. At the present time the only sphere where such things are understood, where it is recognised that such a procedure does not work, is in the application of mechanical natural science to life. When the decision is made to build a bridge it is essential to make use of a knowledge of mechanics to ensure that the bridge will stand up to what is required of it; otherwise the first train that passes over it will be plunged into the water. Such things have already happened, and even at the present time we have seen the results of faulty mechanical construction. Speaking generally, however, this sphere is the only one in practical life in which it can be stated unequivocally that the conditions of reality have or have not been foreseen.

If we take the sphere of medicine we shall see at once that it is not so evident whether or not the conditions of reality have been taken into account. Here too the procedure is the same; something is thought out theoretically and then applied as a means of healing. Whether in this case there has been a cure, whether it was somebody's destiny to die, or whether perhaps he has been “cured to death,” this indeed is difficult to perceive. The bridge collapses when there are faults in its construction; but whether the sick person gets worse, whether he has been cured by the treatment, or has died of it, is not so easy to discover.

In the same way, in the sphere of education it is not always possible to see whether the growing child is being educated in accordance with his needs, or whether fanciful methods are being used which can certainly be worked out by experimental psychology. In this latter case the child is examined by external means and the following questions arise: what sort of memory has he, what are his intellectual capacities, his ability to form judgments and so on? Educational aims are frequently found in this way. But how are they carried into life? They sit firmly in the head, that is where they are. In his head the teacher knows that a child must be taught arithmetic like this, geography like that, and so it goes on. Now the intentions are to be put into practice. The teacher considers all he has learnt, and remembers that according to the precepts of scientific educational method he must set about things in such and such a way. He is now faced with putting his knowledge into practice, he remembers these theoretical principles and applies them quite externally. Whoever has the gift for observing such things can experience how sometimes teachers who have thoroughly mastered educational theories, who can recount admirably everything they had to know for their examination, or had to learn in practice class-teaching, nevertheless remain utterly removed from life when they come face to face with the children they have to teach. What has happened to such a teacher is what, daily and hourly, we are forced to observe with sorrowing heart, the fact that people pass one another by in life, that they have no sense for getting to know one another. This is a common state of affairs. It is the fundamental evil which underlies all social disturbances which are so widespread in the cultural life of today: the lack of paying heed to others, the lack of interest which every man should have for others. In everyday civilised life we must perforce accept such a state of affairs; it is the destiny of modern humanity at the present time. But the peak of such aloofness is reached when the teacher of the child or the educator of the youth stands at a distance from his pupil, quite separated from him, and employs in a completely external way methods obtained by external science. We can see that the laws of mechanics have been wrongly applied when a bridge collapses, but wrong educational methods are not so obvious. A clear proof of the fact that human beings today are only at home when it comes to a mechanical way of thinking, which can always determine whether things have been rightly or wrongly thought out, and which has produced the most brilliant triumphs in the life of modern civilisation—a proof of this is that humanity today has confidence only in mechanical thought. And if this mechanical thinking is carried into education, if, for instance, the child is asked to write down disconnected words and then repeat them quickly, so that a record can be made of his power of assimilation, if this is the procedure in education it is a sign that there is no longer any natural gift for approaching the child himself. We experiment with the child because we can no longer approach his heart and soul.

In saying all this it might seem as though one had the inclination or desire only to criticise and reprove in a superior sort of way. It is of course always easier to criticise than to build something up constructively. But as a matter of fact what I have said does not arise out of any such inclination or desire; it arises out of a direct observation of life. This direct observation of life must proceed from something which is usually completely excluded from knowledge today. What sort of person must one be today if one wishes to pursue some calling based on knowledge—for instance on the knowledge of man? One must be objective! This is to be heard all over the place today, in every hole and corner. Of course one must be objective, but the question is whether or not this objectivity is based on a lack of paying due heed to what is essential in any particular situation.

Now for the most part people have the idea that love is far more subjective than anything else in life, and that it would be utterly impossible for anyone who loves to be objective. For this reason when knowledge is spoken about today love is never mentioned seriously. True, it is deemed fitting, when a young man is applying himself to acquire knowledge, to exhort him to do so with love, but this mostly happens when the whole way in which knowledge is presented is not at all likely to develop love in anybody But the essence of love, the giving of oneself to the world and its phenomena, is in any case not regarded as knowledge. Nevertheless for real life love is the greatest power of knowledge. And without this love it is utterly impossible to attain to a knowledge of man which could form the basis of a true art of education. Let us try to picture this love, and see how it can work in the special sphere of an education founded on a knowledge of man drawn from spiritual science, from anthroposophy.

The child is entrusted to us to be educated, to be taught. If our thinking in regard to education is founded on anthroposophy we do not represent the child to ourselves as something we must help to develop so that he approaches nearer and nearer to some social human ideal, or whatever it may be. For this human ideal can be completely abstract. And today such a human ideal has already become something which can assume as many forms as there are political, social and other parties. Human ideals change according to whether one swears by liberalism, conservatism, or by some other programme, and so the child is led slowly in some particular direction in order to become what is held to be right for mankind. This is carried to extreme lengths in present-day Russia. Generally speaking, however, it is more or less how people think today, though perhaps somewhat less radically.

This is no starting point for the teacher who wants to educate and teach on the basis of anthroposophy. He does not make an “idol” of his opinions. For an abstract picture of man, towards which the child shall be led, is an idol, it is in no sense a reality. The only reality which could exist in this field would be at most if the teacher were to consider himself as an ideal and were to say that every child must become like him. Then one would at least have touched on some sort of reality, but the absurdity of saying such a thing would at once be obvious.

What we really have before us in this young child is a being who has not yet begun his physical existence, but has brought down his spirit and soul from pre-earthly worlds, and has plunged into a physical body bestowed on him by parents and ancestors. We look upon this child as he lies there before us in the first days of his life with indeterminate features and with unorganised, undirected movements. We follow day by day, week by week how the features grow more and more defined, and become the expression of what is working to the surface from the inner life of soul. We observe further how the whole life and movements of the child become more consequent and directed, how something of the nature of spirit and soul is working its way to the surface from the inmost depths of his being. Then, filled with holy awe and reverence, we ask: “What is it that is here working its way to the surface?” And so with heart and mind we are led back to the human being himself, when as soul and spirit he dwelt in the soul-spiritual pre-earthly world from which he has descended into the physical world, and we say: “Little child, now that you have entered through birth into earthly existence you are among human beings, but previously you were among spiritual, divine beings.” What once lived among spiritual-divine beings has descended in order to live among men. We see the divine made manifest in the child. We feel as though standing before an altar. There is however one difference. In religious communities it is customary for human beings to bring their sacrificial offerings to the altars, so that these offerings may ascend into the spiritual world; now we feel ourselves standing as it were before an altar turned the other way; now the gods allow their grace to stream down in the form of divine-spiritual beings, so that these beings, acting as messengers of the gods, may unfold what is essentially human on the altar of physical life. We behold in every child the unfolding of cosmic laws of a divine-spiritual nature; we see how God creates in the world. In its highest, most significant form this is revealed in the child. Hence every single child becomes for us a sacred riddle, for every single child embodies this great question—not, how is he to be educated so that he approaches some “idol” which has been thought out.—But, how shall we foster what the gods have sent down to us into the earthly world. We learn to know ourselves as helpers of the divine-spiritual world, and above all we learn to ask: What may be the result if we approach education with this attitude of mind?

Education in the true sense proceeds out of just such an attitude. What matters is that we should develop our education and teaching on the basis of such thoughts as these. Knowledge of man can only be won if love for mankind—in this case love for the child—becomes the mainspring of our work. If this is so, then the teacher's calling becomes a priestly calling, for then the educator becomes the steward of what it is the will of the gods to carry out with man.

Here again it might appear as though something obvious is being said in rather different words. But it is not so. As a matter of fact in today's unsocial world-order, which only wears an outer semblance of being social, the very opposite occurs. Educationists pursue an “idol” for mankind, not seeing themselves as nurturers of something they must first learn to know when actually face to face with the child.

An attitude of mind such as I have described cannot work in an abstract way, it must work spiritually, while always keeping the practical in view. Such an attitude however can never be acquired by accepting theories quite unrelated and alien to life, it can only be gained if one has a feeling, a sense for every expression of life, and can enter with love into all its manifestations.

Today there is a great deal of talk about educational reform. Since the war there has been talk of a revolution in education. We have experienced this. Every possible approach to a new education is thought out, and pretty well everybody is concerned in some way or other with how this reform is to be brought about. Either one approaches some institution about to be founded with one's proposals or at the very least one suggests this or that as one's idea of how education should take shape. And so it goes on. There is a great deal of talk about methods of education; but do you see what kind of impression all this makes when one surveys, quite without prejudice, what the various societies for the reform of education, down to the most radical, put forward today in their educational programmes? I do not know whether many people take into account what kind of impression is made when one is faced with so many programmes issuing from associations and societies for educational reform. One gets the impression: Good heavens, how clever people are today! For indeed everything which comes about like this is frightfully clever. I do not mean this ironically, but quite seriously. There has never been a time when there was so much cleverness as there is in our era.

There we have it, all set out. Paragraph 1. How shall we educate so that the forces of the child may be developed naturally? Paragraph 2 ... Paragraph 3 ... and so on. People today of any profession or occupation, and of any social class can sit down together and work out such programmes; everything we get in this way in paragraphs 1 to 30 will be delightfully clever, for today one knows just how to formulate everything theoretically. People have never been so skilful in formulating things as they are today. Then such a programme, a number of programmes can be submitted to a committee or to Parliament. This again is very clever. Now something may perhaps be deleted or added according to party opinion, and something extremely clever emerges, even if at times strongly coloured by “party.” Nothing can be done with it, however, for all this is quite beside the point.

Waldorf School education never started off with such a programme. I have no wish to boast, but naturally, had this been our purpose, we could also have produced some kind of programme no less clever than those of many an association for educational reform. The fact that we should have to reckon with reality might perhaps prove a hindrance and then the result would be more stupid. With us however there was never any question of a programme. From the outset we were never interested in principles of educational method which might later on be somehow incorporated in a legalised educational system. What did interest us was reality, absolute true reality. What was this reality? To begin with here were children, a number of child-individualities with varying characteristics. One had to learn what these were, one had to get to know what was inherent in these children, what they had brought down with them, what was expressed through their physical bodies. First and foremost then there were the children. And then there were teachers. You can stand up as strongly as you like for the principle that the child must be educated in accordance with his individuality—that stands in all the programmes of reform—but nothing whatever will come of it. For on the other hand, besides the children, there are a number of teachers, and the point is to know what these teachers can accomplish in relation to these children. The school must be run in such a way that one does not set up an abstract ideal, but allows the school to develop out of the teachers and out of the pupils. And these teachers and pupils are not present in an abstract kind of way, but are quite concrete, individual human beings. That is the gist of the matter. Then we are led by virtue of necessity to build up a true education based on a real knowledge of man. We cease to be theoretical and become practical in every detail.

Waldorf School education, the first manifestation of an education based on anthroposophy, is actually the practice of education as an art, and is therefore able to give only indications of what can be done in this or that case. We have no great interest in general theories, but so much the greater is our interest in impulses coming from anthroposophy which can give us a true knowledge of man, beginning, as here of course it must do, with the child. But today our crude observation completely ignores what is most characteristic in the progressive stages of life. I would say that some measure of inspiration must be drawn from spiritual science if today we are to develop a right sense for what should be brought to the child.

At the present time people know extraordinarily little about man and mankind. They imagine that our present state of existence is the same as it was in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, and indeed as it has always been. They picture the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians as being very similar to the man of today. And if we go back still further, according to the views of present-day natural science, history becomes enveloped in mist until those beings emerge which are half ape, half man. No interest is taken, however, in penetrating into the great differences which exist between the historical and pre-historical epochs of mankind.

Let us study the human being as he appears to us today, beginning with the child up to the change of teeth. We see quite clearly that his physical development runs parallel with his development of soul and spirit. Everything that manifests as soul and spirit has its exact counterpart in the physical—both appear together, both develop out of the child together. Then, when the child has come through the change of teeth, we see how the soul is already freeing itself from the body. On the one side we shall be able to follow a development of soul and spirit in the child, and on the other side his physical development. The two sides however are not as yet clearly separated. If we continue to follow the development further into the time between puberty and about the 21st year the separation becomes much more defined and then when we come to the 27th or 28th year—speaking now of present-day humanity—nothing more can be seen of the way in which the soul-spiritual is connected with the physical body. What a man does at this age can be perceived on the one hand in the soul-spiritual life and on the other hand in the physical life, but the two cannot be brought into any sort of connection. At the end of the twenties, man in his soul and spirit has separated himself completely from what is physical, and so it goes on up to the end of his life.

Yet it was not always so. One only believes it to have been so. Spiritual science, studied anthroposophically, shows us clearly and distinctly that what we see in the child today, at the present stage of human evolution—namely, that in his being of soul and spirit the child is completely dependent on his physical bodily nature and his physical bodily nature is completely dependent on his being of soul and spirit—this condition persisted right on into extreme old age—a fact that has simply not been noticed. If we go very far back into those times which gave rise to the conception of the patriarchs and ask ourselves what kind of a man such a patriarch really was, the answer must be somewhat as follows: Such a man, in growing old, changed in respect of his bodily nature, but right into extreme old age he continued to feel as only quite young people can feel today. Even in old age he felt his being of soul and spirit to be dependent on his physical body.

Today we no longer feel our physical body to be dependent upon what we think and feel. A dependence of this kind was however felt in the more ancient epochs of civilisation. But people also felt after a certain age of life that their bones became harder and their muscles contained certain foreign substances which brought about a sclerotic condition. They felt the waning of their life forces, but they also felt with this physical decline an increase of spiritual forces, actually brought about by the breaking up of the physical. “The soul is becoming free from the physical body.” So they said when this process of physical decline began. At the age of the patriarchs, when the body was already breaking up, the soul was most able to wrest itself free from the body, so that it was no longer within it. This is why people looked up to the patriarchs with such devotion and reverence, saying: “O, how will it be with me one day, when I am so old? For in old age one can know things, understand things, penetrate into the heart of things in a way that I cannot do now, because I am still building up my physical body.” At that time man could still look into a world order that was both physical and spiritual. This however was in a very remote past. Then came a time when man felt this interdependence of the physical and the soul-spiritual only until about the 50th year. The Greek age followed. What gives the Greek epoch its special value rests on the fact that the Greeks were still able to feel the harmony between the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily. The Greek still felt this harmony until the 30th or 40th year. He still experienced in the circulation of the blood what brought the soul into a unity with the physical. The wonderful culture and art of the Greeks was founded on this unity, which transformed everything theoretical into art, and at the same time enfilled art with wisdom.

In those times the sculptor worked in such a way that he needed no model, for in his own organisation he was aware of the forces permeating the arm or the leg, giving them their form. This was learned, for instance, in the festival games; but today when such games are imitated they have no meaning whatever.

If however we have such a sense for the development of mankind then we know what has actually taken place in human evolution. We know too that today we only have a parallelism between the physical-bodily and the soul-spiritual until about the 27th or 28th year, to give a quite exact description. (Most people observe this parallelism only up to the age of puberty.) And so we know how the divine-spiritual springs up and grows out of the developing human being. Then we feel the necessary reverence for our task of developing what comes to meet us in the child, that is to say, of developing what is given to us and not developing those abstract ideas that have been thought out.

Thus our thoughts are directed to a knowledge of man based on what is individual in the soul. And if we have absorbed such universal, great historical aspects, we shall also be able to approach every educational task in an appropriate manner. Then quite another life will be brought into the class when the teacher enters it, for he will carry the world into it, the physical world and the world of soul and spirit. Then he will be surrounded by an atmosphere of reality, of a real and actual conception of the world, not one which is merely thought out and intellectual. Then he will be surrounded by a world imbued with feeling. Now if we consider what has just been put forward we shall realise a remarkable fact. We shall see that we are founding an education which, by degrees, will come to represent in many respects the very opposite of the characteristic impulse in education at the present time. All manner of humorists with some aptitude for caricature often choose the so-called “schoolmaster” as an object which can serve their purpose well and on whom they can let loose their derision. Well, if a schoolmaster is endowed with the necessary humour he can turn the tables on those who have caricatured him before the world. But the real point is something altogether different; for if the teacher, versed in present-day educational methods, carries these into school with him, and has therefore no means of learning to know the child, while nevertheless having to deal with the child, how can he be anything other than a stranger to the world? With the school system as it is today, he cannot become anything else; he is torn right out of the world. So we are faced with a truly remarkable situation. Teachers who are strangers to the world are expected to train human beings so that they may get on and prosper in the world.

Let us imagine however that the things about which we have been speaking today become an accepted point of view. Then the relation of the teacher to the children is such that in each individual child a whole world is revealed to him, and not only a human world, but a divine-spiritual world manifested on earth. In other words the teacher perceives as many aspects of the world as he has children in his charge. Through every child he looks into the wide world. His education becomes art. It is imbued with the consciousness that what is done has a direct effect on the evolution of the world. Teaching in the sense meant here leads the teacher, in his task of educating, of developing human beings, to a lofty conception of the world. Such a teacher is one who becomes able to play a leading part in the great questions that face civilisation. The pupil will never outgrow such a teacher, as is so often the case today. The following situation may arise in a school. Let us suppose that the teacher has to educate according to some idea, some picture of man which he can set before himself. Let us think that he might have 30 children in his class, and among these, led by destiny, were two, who in their inborn capacity, were far more gifted than the teacher himself. What would he want to do in such a case? He would want to form them in accordance with his educational ideal; nothing else would be possible. But how does this work out? Reality does not permit it, and the pupils then outgrow their teacher.

If on the other hand we educate in accordance with reality, if we foster all that manifests in the child as qualities of soul and spirit, we are in the same situation as the gardener is in relation to his plants. Do you think that the gardener knows all these secrets of the plants which he tends? O, these plants contain many, many more secrets than the gardener understands; but he can tend them, and perhaps succeed best in caring for those which he does not yet know. His knowledge rests on practical experience, he has “green fingers.” In the same way it is possible for a teacher who practises an art of education based on reality to stand as educator before children who have genius, even though he himself is certainly no genius. For he knows that he has not to lead his pupils towards some abstract ideal, but that in the child the Divine is working in man, is working right through his physical-bodily nature. If the teacher has this attitude of mind he can actually achieve what has just been said. He achieves it by an outpouring love which permeates his work as educator. It is his attitude of mind which is so essential.

With these words, offered as a kind of greeting, I wanted to give you today some idea of what is to be the content of this course of lectures. They will deal with the educational value of a knowledge of man and the cultural value of education.

Let us now consider once more from a different point of view what this healing of sins consists of. We look first into human nature and compare it with

what it is in its earthly environment. Let us imagine for a moment this duality before the soul: earthly human nature, that is, the inner nature of earthly human nature, and now the whole earthly environment. We cannot do otherwise if we proceed calmly than to imagine, in the sense of a truly spirit-imbued cosmology - which is also a Christian cosmology - that this environment of ours, if we want to use religious terms, is a revelation of the divine that permeates this earthly environment. But it will not be difficult for you to imagine that within human nature, something else is at work than in the earthly environment of man. In his inner nature, man is actually only completely similar to the outer world in what are intermediate earthly processes, which take place between water and air on the one hand and between water and solid earth on the other. Processes are constantly taking place in the outer world between the airy and the liquid, which play into the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. Processes take place between water and the earth, external processes that natural science observes as geology, geognosy, mineralogy, paleontology, but also as biology, and which, insofar as they take place between the solid and the aqueous, play into human nature almost unchanged. All that takes place in this interplay between the airy and the watery and between the watery and the solid, and what also takes place in this relationship in the environment of man, was described by an earlier clairvoyant art, which, however, was able to see through these things to a higher degree than the mercurial.

Now, however, we also have those processes that take place between air and warmth, air and light, which, to a certain extent, lie above the mercurial. These are processes that take place primarily in the human head and are quite different from those processes that take place between air, warmth and light outside of the human being. Only the middle earthly processes, the mercurial ones, are almost the same outside and inside the human being. What takes place, on the other hand, in the sulphuric processes, as they were called in earlier times – for solid sulphur is indeed a Maja image of the actual effects of sulphur – which essentially take place between air, warmth and light and also in the life ether, these are processes that take place within human nature in a very different way. And the processes that take place in the middle human being, which are quite similar to external natural processes, undergo a strong metamorphosis in the human mind, so that something completely different takes place in the mind than outside of it.

Likewise, the metabolic processes that extend into the movement processes of the limbs involve completely different processes than those outside in nature. The external natural processes that, for example, lead to the formation of phosphoric acid lime in nature are quite different from those processes that take place within the human body to form phosphoric acid lime in the bones or teeth. Such processes, which, for example, cause a human thigh bone to develop in such a way that it appears as a wonderful framework, these processes, which form the phosphoric acid lime and the carbonic acid lime as mineral processes in the human being, are not found in the external natural world. But such processes, which are not found in nature, which are found in the head processes and in the organization of movement in the human being, are, because they are also connected with the soul and spirit of the human being, now also dangerous for this soul and spirit again, and indeed the head processes become dangerous in the luciferic sense, the metabolic-limb processes in the ahrimanic , and external healing can only be brought about – as I described yesterday – by supplying the head processes with the salt that remains almost unchanged in the human nutritional process and the limb processes with the volatile, fluctuating phosphorus present in grape juice, which then continues to work in the metabolic organization and permeates the limb system. Thus we have [in humans] a chemo-biology that brings about something quite wonderful, namely that something happens to the salt that in the external world has actually only been done by the gods. For we have to imagine that in the human environment the Luciferic and Ahrimanic are not present in the same way as in the human being; after all, it works from the human being into nature and is present in the salt effects [of nature]. By consuming salt, we therefore send a decisive fight against the luciferic processes into our head, while by absorbing the phosphorus and causing it to overflow into our limbs, we send a fight against the ahrimanic into them. This is the outer process, which the believing person must also follow in his inner soul processes. If it is the outer process that you bring about in the souls of the faithful through Communion, then Communion can naturally only work in the right way if the inner inspiration is also renewed again and again from time to time. This must be done by taking the healing of sins in the broadest sense, so that everything that can be a temptation to sin through the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic in human nature is now truly healed through the priestly work.

And so the priestly work must add to the communion, if not to everyone, then at least now and then, that which is no longer preserved in its purity in the Catholic Church, but only in a terrible distortion . It is necessary to add the counseling of the person that precedes Communion, that which in the Catholic Church has become confession, especially auricular confession, which is an entirely Ahrimanic distortion of what needs to be willed. That is what makes up the difficulty with respect to Catholicism. If, for example, a Catholic anthroposophist asks whether he can participate in the overall practice of the Catholic Church, one is always confronted with the Ahrimanic aspect of auricular confession, which one cannot advise the [anthroposophical] Catholic to take; but by doing so, one deprives him of Holy Communion, because the Catholic Church has the coercive law that Communion can only be given if auricular confession has been made beforehand. This is, of course, the most difficult of spiritual requirements. But if you handle the counseling, which must be linked to Communion at certain intervals, correctly, you will not only be able to appear as enthusiastic priests proclaiming the word, but also as priests who forgive sins, and you must be clear about what you can also be as a counselor to your parishes. You will need to take a stand on the matters with which your parishioners come to you as their inner soul concerns. You will not, of course, introduce compulsory confession, but you will notice when the community is properly established how much the community members will come to you with trust and will entrust you with the most diverse inner matters, and how most of them will even feel a certain relief in being able to entrust these matters to you.

This is all you have to do in your movement, going beyond what anthroposophy will essentially remain as teaching and knowledge and what should not, to some extent, be adapted to the individuality of each person: counseling individuals with regard to what can inwardly trouble them in their soul condition as a result of sinful human nature. Of course, you will achieve the least if you indulge in general, theoretical and didactic phrases when counseling your parishioners before Communion. At this moment, anything doctrinal is actually the least appropriate. Only a priest who, when he is such a “confessor”, can put himself in the position of how the difficulties in the soul of the penitent actually arose, what role they play, and how far back they go in time, will give this advice correctly. In short, I would say that you will have to implement in a pure form what has already emerged as nonsense in the development of culture because the churches have withdrawn from it. The Catholic Church has so thoroughly Ahrimanized confession that the confession of children and young people is often a source of moral aberration in the Catholic Church. There are areas where what Catholic children are supposed to do in the so-called examination of conscience is preprinted - I cannot say in small “booklets” because it is usually four pages long - where the possible sins that someone might have are printed in advance, so that some boys, who see through these things, simply cross out what they do not want to have sinned and then just read their confession according to the form. But this also leads to great harm in many other respects. These forms often state, for example, that the child should ask itself whether it has the habit of keeping its hands under the blanket. You can imagine that, from a very early age, the child is made aware of sexual mischief precisely through the obligation required of him by confession. In short, what has become of auricular confession is already a great, great difficulty. That is one side of it; the other is the following.

People live strangely blindly in the world. You know that in Spengler's “Decline of the West” it is said that the priest actually has no influence on world events, that he is a kind of theorizing, contemplative person, and that the world is basically run by people of the nobility, princes and so on. Spengler really talks as if he did not know that there are confessors, that princes, before they come to their decisions, first sit with their confessors, and that from the way the auricular confession is handled there emanates the greatest possible influence on the great affairs of the world. You must realize that in the world, the origins of the most important events must be sought with the confessors. But people are blind; they describe what happens on the outside and have no sense of where things come from. No, you must not forget that this is something that tends to be extremely secretive and that it is something through which one can rule the world in a very wonderful secretive way. The Pope sits in Rome, the Archbishop N.N. in some very distant place and has his archdeacons, canons, provosts and the lower clergy; all of whom, through the confessional, have access to the most intimate affairs of those people who are subject to them. Of course, the Pope in Rome does not need to know what the individual penitent says to the confessor, but he knows that he has someone sitting in these places who carries out the Roman orders with an enormous amount of in-depth knowledge. In this way, the Catholic Church has made confession extraordinarily difficult, both for the individual and for the whole world context. And the Protestant Church? It is not just one Protestant preacher, but a whole series who, in the course of my life, have been with me and said: We long to have something that is like the Catholic confession; we need a method to gently enter into the matters of the heart with which people come to us; we need a kind of active catechesis. Some Protestant pastors have clearly presented this to me. I then advised them to develop the idea from “How to Know Higher Worlds,” whereby, if adopted from the priestly side, one could actually arrive at a tactful confession. That was too difficult for them. So some of them came to me and said: Yes, insofar as these instructions morally coerce, I can agree with them, but where it becomes a matter of inner technique for a person, we certainly do not need such a thing in religion. — In short, the difficulty is this: First one is asked: what should we do? —, one says so, and then the person concerned replies: We have no need of it.

This shows that precisely these innermost things point to something that must come. And because it is not offered to people by either the Catholic or the Protestant side, psychoanalysts do it. Familiarize yourself with the methods of psychoanalysts, to whom people flock in droves today, and see how psychoanalysis is praised by outstanding writers. You will see: What psychoanalysis wants to give to people in a crude way is what the churches of all denominations actually withhold from them. Today we have a psychoanalysis that is spreading more and more every day, from a neglect that can be attributed to the churches. Take any English weekly or monthly magazine. I have convinced myself: you will find an essay on psychoanalysis in it almost every time. This is the materialistic degeneration of what should have been the duty of the pastor, and the matter takes on its serious character when one then comes to what takes the place of communion at the psychoanalyst. One cannot think of the development of Christianity without thinking of all that has been left out of the development of denominations out of human complacency.

You must be aware of these things. You must educate yourself to be able to live with the inner difficulties that people approach you with. You can only do this if you approach everything humanly, without emotion, if both joy and indignation essentially remain silent, and if you can immediately raise the judgment of what you have to approach to a higher sphere, to the sphere of spiritual life. Then you will find that even in the most specific details you have the opportunity not to teach theories or doctrines to the penitent, but to formulate little by little what is indeed doctrine, always in the specific case, and thus to bring it into your teachings. You must, of course, make it clear to the penitent how he has an inner tendency to sin in the Ahrimanic and Luciferic sense, but do not speak of Luciferic and Ahrimanic every time; rather, the treatment of each individual case must always be an essentially individual matter, formulated in concrete terms. You must make it clear to the penitent how the person belongs to another earth, from which he has brought in the Ahrimanic and Luciferic as an inclination, and how he helps himself by really experiencing the means of his religious community to overcome what gives him difficulties within.

In this direction you must become an adviser. You must be able to advise the penitent on some point of difficulty, so that he may rise above it. This will come to you if you apply yourself to a constant and careful study of human nature, in the sense in which it is possible today. The various representations that have been given on an anthroposophical basis contain so many indications of how one or the other aspect of human nature is connected with karma, with the individual destiny, and even with the physical human organization, that they will shed light on many things for you if you study the subjects not just by take a book or a cycle, read it and then be able to say what you have read, but when you study it in such a way that, immediately after you have read it, you bring it to life in your own thoughts, bring it to life as it lives in one or other case during earthly existence, when you study it in a lively way. This is how anthroposophy should be studied. I often have to say to people: you should not read an anthroposophical book like any other book, but in such a way that you feel you want to 'eat it up', so that it then works in you as a force. The comparison can really be taken to the extreme: what you have eaten up has disappeared for the others. That is how one would like an anthroposophical book to disappear, to no longer be there, but to go through a process in the person. If it is read in this way, one learns to understand human nature in a concrete way.

In this way, an enormous amount can be done in the preparation for the act of communion. And every such consultation should actually, I would say, end with a half or three-quarters ritual, in that the penitent is released in a living way with a thought that I would like to put before your souls in the following six lines. It is not necessary for you to express this thought in a formulaic way to each person after every confession, as the Catholic Church does, but the direction that the end of every communion counseling should take is indicated in these six lines.

Learn to sacrifice your thoughts to the Divine
And receive thy will by God's grace.
Then your soul will feel peace;
you will lovingly admire God's revelation and lovingly serve people.
Love for God will enter into your entire being,
love for people will enter into your heart.

If the penitent experiences what lives in these words through you, then you have certainly achieved something with the confession. In this way, you have developed the whole meaning of Johannine Christianity at the end of each confession and can then lead your penitent to Communion with what really inspires them in that Communion. That is what essentially needs to be said about what confession should become through you, what makes confession a real sacrament in connection with Communion.

It will then be my task tomorrow to familiarize you with the last rites and perhaps with some of the things you have notified yourself. But then I will have given you everything I think you need to start your work. After tomorrow's session, we will only need to complete the fundamental issues we have discussed in our joint deliberations, and it will be necessary to say a mass before you leave, with communion for the others.

A participant asks a question about the confession formula. (The stenographer did not note down the wording of the question.

Rudolf Steiner: The difficult sentence of the creed was already felt by me in its difficulty, but it already had a little history from us. The point is that we formulate it - in the real it is not about craziness, but about activity - so that this is expressed in a sentence in the creed: He who joins this community recognizes that what he has become through this community, can only initially become through this community; that is to say that he receives the rituals and what radiates from the rituals from this community and also receives from it the right, in the sense of these rituals, to found communities. So that the person in question has received the evaluation from the supreme leaders and leaders of this community for everything he does on behalf of this community, and that he acknowledges that he has no right to carry out these rituals other than as a member of this community. But you must not make that dependent on whether his will is to recognize this today and may be different in three years, but you must decide today that his will must not be different in three years. So it would not be for him to decide, but for the community. He would have to acknowledge that, with regard to everything he has received on behalf of the community, the community can decide in its superiors, and also that he renounces deciding on it himself in the future. That is the meaning of the matter. We cannot get around this meaning, otherwise you make the rituals a free gift, otherwise you do not establish something, but teach something, and it is gradually carried into the world in dilution, in change, without connection to what it started from. So what I am saying now should be taken into account in some way. But I only want to be available to advise on these matters.

Then someone asked me what the relationship between the community and the Waldorf school teachers will be, since they not only teach the children but are also active in the religious services in the Sunday and other celebrations; and since at the beginning of this course there was the view that Mr. Uehli should not participate in this course, there was something dubious about this relationship. A real basis for such things must be found within the constitution. I do not know whether there is still a rule for this within the community, but there must be. For it is undoubtedly the case that the Waldorf School - and it would be very similar in other schools set up in this way - already has religious education in the sense sought here, and also religious practice. You should be aware that the whole of the teaching in a Waldorf school is imbued with this, so that at least something should be struck in this respect.

A participant: How should we imagine the early development of the work in the community? How should the community be led, and who should take part in the first service? How should we counter the accusation of stealing the mass from the Catholic Church? Rudolf Steiner: With such things, we have to be clear about how the natural process will be. So let's start with this case of the mass. Here we must place ourselves on very firm ground. The Catholic Church regards the reading of the Mass as something that is an outgrowth of apostolic succession. It therefore recognizes as having the right to read a valid Mass only that person who can prove his apostolic succession in the way that the Catholic Church understands this apostolic succession. The Catholic Church interprets succession in such a way that it only recognizes it if it itself effects it, so that in the sense of the Roman Catholic Church only those can read masses who can trace their authority back to a priest ordained by the church itself. Among the Old Catholics, the Old Catholic priests themselves claim that they also fulfill the apostolic succession, also in the sense of the Roman Catholic Church, that they can trace it back to those who were ordained by the Roman Catholic Church in the sense of the apostolic succession. That is what will lead to the Catholic Church not recognizing your masses as valid. But you cannot expect that either. Since there is no Catholic among you or, insofar as there is one here, he is not a priest – a Catholic priest is not with you, otherwise the whole thing would have had to take a different course, we would have had to count on the Catholic priest, but we did not need to – so it is therefore a matter of the Catholic Church not being able to apply the disciplinary measures it has against a renegade Catholic priest who has been deprived of the right to say mass and who then does say it anyway. So there remain the Catholics who are within your community; you must have some. These Catholics naturally expose themselves to excommunication. One must realize quite clearly that the Catholic Church will also apply the disciplinary measures it has, and there is no objection at all within the Catholic Church to excommunication for reading Mass and hearing confessions. If the Catholic Church now decides that it would be wise not to make a fuss about it, then that would be wise of her. That may well be the case as long as you have not exceeded the third thousand, because the Catholic Church does not concern itself with trivialities. If you do not sit together too much or too intensely on one point, you are a bagatelle for the Catholic Church. It already said in 1909: As long as the anthroposophical movement is small, we will only observe it, but not deal with it. But in 1919, she found that she had to deal with it very strongly. And it will also come about that all Catholics who read mass or hear confessions [at your place] will be excommunicated. Of course, she will also take issue with priestly ordinations in the first place, while she will take less offense at all other ceremonies.

That is the one thing that can happen, and a theoretical justification that the Catholic Church itself got the mass from somewhere else is of no significance at all; it does not recognize that and it decides it as a mere question of power. So any theoretical objections would naturally be ignored by the Catholic Church with a wave of the hand. The important thing is that you simply have to accept the excommunication and count on those who are your followers remaining so despite being excommunicated Catholics. That is the real process. The more you enter into the real practice of religion, the more you have to get rid of Protestant theorizing, which aims to prove something to someone. This has even less significance for the Church than it has for the sciences. In the real world, 'proving' something has basically no real meaning. So you can't make anything dependent on the fact that you want to prove to the Catholic Church that you are reading the mass “by right”. You are reading it in the sense of the Catholic Church absolutely wrongly, and you can put forward the most cunning or spiritual proofs, so that would not be able to help you the slightest bit on this point. You cannot take any other direction than the one in which you succeed in getting more and more people to recognize that you are right to read the mass. You cannot do this in any other way than by winning your followers through the three means I have mentioned. In general, this will not be particularly difficult for you at the present time. If you look at the matter superficially, you will find that there is a very strong yearning for worship in humanity today throughout the civilized world, except that this yearning for worship and also for confession is not being met in the right way by the religions.

Of course, you can deal with the faithful by making an impression of truth through your whole behavior, through the way you work and through the inspiration of your work, when you tell them in the appropriate way: The property of the Catholic Church is the Latin Mass; this has taken on a dead character because the Latin language itself is dead. We do not in the least deny that the Latin Mass was once the right Mass; but we must point out that only the German Mass - or the French Mass or the English Mass and so on - which we read, is the present form of the Mass, and that we hold this in the sense of the living Christ, just as the Roman Catholic Church reads the Latin Mass in the sense of mere remembrance of Christ. And you must make this concept understood. It is important that you do everything so that this concept simply prevails. That is not so difficult. Because there is a deep need in humanity for a renewal of the forms of worship. The Latin Mass is also felt by Catholics today as something insufficient. The only thing you have to do is to show by your whole behavior that you have a spiritual impact, that your holding of Mass is not from men, but from God.

With regard to the Mass, you have only one task with regard to those who join you as parishioners. Even in Luther's time, it was possible to discuss with the Roman Catholic Church, as Luther did. Of course, you can't do that anymore, but you can only gather followers who assert what you yourself assert. The Catholic Church today no longer enters into a discussion in the same way as it did in Luther's time. So I think that everything depends on your strength, whether you can get the reading of the mass recognized or not.

I have already told you this in connection with other things a long time ago. You must be clear about one thing: a movement like the one you have in mind has the peculiarity that it should only be started when you are sure that it will succeed! And as far as this certainty is based on your own inner strength, it depends on you simply not letting up. You must have this certainty. And for that you will need a certain broad-mindedness today, both in the way you deal with religious matters and in the way you deal with the faithful, and especially in administrative matters. I can only express such things radically, they are perhaps a little gentler in reality. You feel today that Breitbrunn has bound you together. It has done that, and you must hold on to it. But if you do not continue what you began in Breitbrunn, then the picture of a large part of you hitting your heads in no time at all is not so far-fetched. You must therefore realize that you need to keep that which you believe to be firmly established in constant exercise and liveliness. For think for yourselves how it is with those who join you – after all, you will not always remain just these forty. You must bear this in mind when you begin to found your communities. You have already begun. A large number of you will return to these communities, but for another part the communities will have to be sought. And above all, you will first have the task of dealing with the proclamation of the word in a somewhat freer way, in connection with advising the people who come to you. And if you succeed in speaking about Christ as you speak, if you take into account everything that we have been going through for a long time, especially in these days, then you will see that you will win your followers through your speaking, much more easily than followers can be won on the basis of anthroposophy, where you have to speak in different terms. And you will find that precisely because you are also taking on the task of healing sins, you will be able to retain these followers as very loyal ones.

You must be satisfied with every small flock, for only by being satisfied with a small flock will that small flock gradually become larger. This is not possible in any other way. Those who want a large flock right away will not get one. So you have to be satisfied with everything that arises out of the world as a possibility, and you will see what can be meant by this loyalty in the first instance. And if you are careful enough with the teaching and with the confession-like treatment of the faithful, you will be able to move on to the cultic acts very soon. It is much easier to move on to the cultic acts than the Protestant preacher or the one who wants to become one imagines. The more naturally you let the community arise, the better it will be.

That is it, [what is to be said about it,] how just such a thing would be treated, which lies in such questions as they have been asked here. I will begin to answer the other questions this evening.

A participant: What about the criteria for worship and what would be advisable for the beginning of worship? In Bremen, for example,

people are already prepared for it, and there is even a church available. Would it be advisable to exclude the public?

Rudolf Steiner: The early Christians also had guidelines, but they did not formulate them, because it was often necessary for the early Christians to hold services underground in order to create the possibility of holding them at all. It has happened that such a longing was present in the first priests to hold services that they held the service even when they were tied hand and foot, but were surrounded by a wall of believers who prevented anyone from watching. And only gradually did it actually emerge in the post-Constantinian period that services could be held in public.

I find it hard to believe that you will have any particular luck if you say a German mass in a public church in front of unprepared people. On the other hand, I think it's a very good thing that you say this mass as soon as possible in front of people who will all say yes. So you have to prepare your people, and for a long time you will simply be forced to say your mass in such a way that you only say it in front of prepared people and only allow prepared people. Because of course, if a dyed-in-the-wool atheistic social democrat goes into your mass today and afterwards starts his things, which he will most certainly start, then you will see that you will most certainly have difficulties that you should actually avoid. You have to take such things into account and you have to look out into the world in what you do every day. The smaller the movement still is, the more you will be able to do that. The more it grows quickly, the more others will do what you shouldn't do.

And now we must go on to say something about the cases you have with you at Lauenstein.¹

I would like to speak first of that eldest boy of yours, who is sixteen years old, and in whom we can clearly recognise an inferiority occasioned by the failure of the I and astral body to penetrate the physical organisation. He was given into your care comparatively late; you did not, I think, have him with you until he was in his sixteenth year? So you have here a case with antecedents that have already undergone marked development. If the boy could have been taken in hand earlier on and given the advantage of Waldorf School education, then, in the time between the change of teeth and puberty, he would have experienced the principle of authority in the right way. Care would also have been taken, first of all, to watch all the time and see what things really interested him, and then, starting from these, to extend his field of interest. Had this been possible, and if in addition the boy could at the same time have been given lead in gently administered doses, then notwithstanding his inherent difficulties the boy's soul would be today on quite a different level. For it is plain, the boy has interests. He has moreover definite ability. You will however have seen from the quite simple test that we put to him, where the lad's trouble lies.

You will remember, I set him a comparatively simple sum in arithmetic—a problem in subtraction, put in the form that accords with the methods of Waldorf School education. For we always ask, you know: What have I to take from a given number in order to leave another given number as remainder: Thus, we do not, as is usually done in teaching arithmetic, give the minuend and subtrahend, but instead the minuend and the remainder, leaving the subtrahend to be found. This way of stating the problem puts the condition of mind and soul to severer test; on the other hand, the child is helped far more in his development when he has to tackle the problem in this form, than when it is put to him the other way round. As you saw, the boy was able to do the sum, but not able to do it at once. As soon as he had solved the problem, he came up to me with great delight; but it must have been an hour and a half later. He took thus an hour and a half to do the sum, and was happy and delighted when he had found the answer. There was therefore no doubt about it, the boy had the necessary ability, he was able to do the sum. All the members of his organism were in readiness to be directed to the task; there was, so to speak, no “fault in the contact”. The trouble with him is only that he needs longer time. And the reason for this is, that from the very outset his ether body and his physical body offer resistance; they fail to unfold the activity that is proper to them, in spite of the fact that the possibilities for the activity are there all the time.

Follow carefully how the boy's interests work. You will find they remain in the head organisation; they cannot make their way down into the rest of the body. This fact was clearly demonstrated in a little incident that took place during my visit. You saw how the boy came up to us with his little Kodak and wanted to take our photograph. He managed it quite well, carrying the whole thing through with intense interest. Afterwards I tried to suggest to him that he should make another exposure. This would have necessitated his going to fetch a new film; his interest would have had to reach beyond what lay immediately to hand. He resisted the idea, and nothing would persuade him to listen to it. When an interest seizes hold of him in the very movement, here and now—he is ready for it—he is “all there”: but if the situation requires that he should bring the interest down into his metabolism-and-limbs system, then at once his ether and physical bodies set up a powerful resistance. What should one do in such a case?

With a boy already in his teens, it is of course much more difficult than it would have been earlier; we should however set ourselves even now to intervene with our pedagogical therapy. Taking as our starting point things that the boy follows with a certain interest, we should go on from these, widening the circle of his interest in all directions. A great deal can be achieved by recognising and appealing to an entirely healthy instinct that the boy undoubtedly possesses—despite his difficulties. For you must realise that even in persons who are abnormal, healthy instincts are yet always present. And with this boy, you will find that as soon as you draw his attention to objects and processes that call for skilful handling, he will at once begin to experience a widening of his circle of interests.

The boy has, you see, difficulty in following the road that leads from the head organisation to the metabolism-and limbs organisation, and thence, as I have explained to you, out again beyond. This latter part of the journey he accomplishes only with great difficulty, since there is in him no capacity to perceive what is going on there. Even the slight measure of perception that is present in a normal human being is in his case lacking. Once, however, he can be brought to see, he has an object plainly before him, the skilfulness of his own limbs, the sight will fill him with joy. You must get him to do things which will bring this about. An excellent plan will be to give him Curative Eurythmy exercises, to be done with legs and hands, but especially taking care to see that the toes and fingers move with great energy. Then draw the boy's attention to these movements that are going on in his limbs, let him watch himself making the movements.

If it should happen that you have to do with younger children who already show signs of this kind of difficulty, where what has been decided upon by the head does not easily find its way down into the rest of the organism, try getting them to touch their feet with their head. In the case of the boy we are considering, it is too late for this, but you may any day receive into your Home quite little children with the same disability. Try it yourselves; you will find it is no easy matter! But for small children it is a very good exercise; they can be brought even to kiss their own toes. Another thing that never fails to help in such cases—and it could prove a real blessing even to your boy—is to get the child to hold a pencil between his great toe and the next, and with the pencil contrive to trace out some letters of the alphabet, and so have the enjoyment of discovering that he can write with his feet. It is quite possible that even at his age this boy of yours could receive very great benefit from such an experiment. For in cases such as his, Curative Eurythmy—and writing with the toes is a kind of Curative Eurythmy!—can be of the very greatest help. Whether also a course of treatment with lead will at his age afford him the help he stands in need of, we shall discover when we begin to make trial with it and note its effects.

All that I have been saying will have demonstrated to you the imperative need for a delicate and fine power of observation. The simple calculation that took the boy an hour and a half to make, the reluctance to go back into the house to fetch a new film—facts like these may seem trifling and insignificant, and yet it is just this kind of thing that we must learn to make the object of careful observation. As we come to do so, we shall realise what an invaluable aid it can be to the educator of backward children if he is sensitive to every little thing that happens with the child he wants to help.

And now you will be wanting to say to me: It looks as though the education of backward children is going to take up all one's time; one will have to be perpetually giving one's whole attention to the children, and will have no time left to meditate, no time in fact to do anything else whatever! That is not the case; and the esoteric nature of a life-work such as you are undertaking should not allow you ever to admit for a moment this point of view. What is wanted is not that you should all day long be constantly on the watch—not that at all, but rather that you should acquire a quick sense for characteristic happenings. If one has already learned how to watch quite a number of children and knows how to make the right use at every turn of one's powers of perception, it is, under certain circumstances, quite possible to carry out a thorough investigation of a single child in five or ten minutes. It does not depend at all on the length of time one devotes to the matter, but wholly on the degree to which one is able to unite oneself inwardly with the act of perception. If people would only realise that one has to really connect oneself inwardly with the phenomena in question then a great deal of time would be saved, especially for those who work in the professions.^E1

Now, there was at Lauenstein another boy, a typical case, a fifteen-year-old epileptic. You could see the same type in the boy we had here before us the other day; only, your boy at Lauenstein is several years older. The first thing that claims our attention in his case is the difficult situation created by the fact that he is at the age of transition to puberty. He has been castrated, has he not? Now what we are concerned with is the process of attaining puberty as it has to go forward in the whole organism. The fact that the boy has been castrated, means that in his case we have to reckon with a phenomenon that manifests in him with extraordinary vehemence—namely, the reaction that is induced as a result of this unnatural influence that has been brought to bear on the evolution of sex. The boy gives indeed every appearance of one in whom the transition to puberty is going to prove difficult. The gradual attainment of puberty is, as we have said, a process that belongs to the whole organism; and the sole significance that castration possesses for the boy at the present time consists in the reactionary influence it has in him upon the attainment of puberty.

The first thing to do therefore is to see that the boy is placed where he will be sure of being treated in the way that is right and necessary for boys who are attaining puberty—that is to say, where care is taken to provide conditions under which such boys have their interest aroused in all the processes that go on in the world in which they find themselves. Boys who are at the age of puberty urgently need Waldorf School education. This boy must not be left to the mercy of his own impulses and emotions; we must try to bring it about that he is continually occupied with something outside himself, and takes a keen interest in the objects and processes that he finds around him. Tell me, how is he getting on at school? Perhaps you can tell me this?

(S. “He can neither read nor write. During the past year we have not even made a beginning with school for him. Frau F. did once begin to teach him reading and writing; it was on the Montessori method, and he did not get on at all, he seemed unable to make any progress. His school attainments have really to be counted as nil.”)

He shows, you see, a certain obtuseness to external impressions. We shall here be under the necessity of applying Waldorf School education in the way we are accustomed to do with quite little children—taking our start, that is, from painting, and so providing the opportunity for the boy to put out into colour whatever is tormenting him inwardly. Get him to paint, and you will see what can be got rid of this way. And then you can go farther with him in whatever direction his own inclinations and abilities indicate.

There can moreover be no question but that we must intervene here also with our therapy. We have not, I think, up to now, prescribed any medicaments? The boy should have algae and belladonna. Therapeutical treatment will consist then of these two remedies. You probably understand in a general way the nature of algae injections, but you will do well to enter a little more deeply into the significance of them; for you should, you know, be ready to make use of them on your own responsibility, in individual cases. Why do we propose for this boy algae injections?

In the algae we have plants that have neither strongly developed root formation nor strongly developed flower formation. It is indeed almost as though flower and root had been telescoped. The leaf organisation is the main thing; everything else is produced from it. In algae therefore, since foliage preponderates, we find no very near relationship to the earth. Nor, on the other hand, is there any very near relationship to the outer cosmos. There is however a relationship to the watery and airy elements that are active immediately over the surface of the earth. Algae—and the same applies also to mushrooms—are plants that are, as it were, completely steeped in the interplay of air and water. And these two kinds of plants have in addition this characteristic in common, that they are strongly attracted to the minute quantity of sulphur which is to be found everywhere today in water as well as in air. Consequently, when these plants are introduced into the rhythmic organism of man, they are peculiarly adapted to restore harmony between astral body and ether body. And harmony between astral body and ether body is precisely what is lacking in a boy of this type.

In cases where we perceive a disturbance due to the ego organisation making too great demand upon the astral body and not allowing it to enter into the etheric body, we must have recourse rather to the mushroom type of plant. The algae, which come nearer to the ordinary plant, are to be used when the physical body and etheric body refuse to allow the astral body to enter—that is to say, when the disharmony is due not to an excessive attraction exerted by the ego organisation, but to a special resistance put up by the ether body.^E2

Then there was a girl you had at Lauenstein. Perhaps you would kindly describe her for us, in accordance with the indications I gave at the time?

(S.: “I too have seen this girl only on that one occasion—a girl with protruding lips. You pointed out that something very serious must have happened to her astral body between the ages of 3 and 4; the child must, you said, have had at that time a violent attack of itching and scratching. The mother confirmed afterwards that high temperatures had occurred at that age, accompanied by irritation and itching. For treatment, nicotiana enema was prescribed; and if that did not help, nicotiana injections were to be given. The girl is fifteen years old.”)

So we have here a girl who has attained the age of fifteen, and in whom we can see quite clearly that the astral organisation has made very weak connection with the organism as a whole. The girl is obviously of that type.^E3 One notices at once that the astral organisation is far too weak to restrain the ego in face of the temptation that always assails man when he eats—the temptation to enjoy the eating too much, to revel in the sweet and pleasant taste of the food. When the astral body is not sufficiently active in the lower region of the face, then the lips will be found to protrude noticeably—a symptom that is due to the excessive pleasure experienced in tasting food and also in the initial process of digestion, that takes place in the mouth. Phenomena such as these have far-back antecedents; obviously they cannot be making their appearance for the first time at this somewhat late stage of childhood. As has been said, I stated at the time that an irregularity must have occurred in the child's development about the 3rd or 4th year.

How can you learn to perceive such facts for yourselves? You can find your way to such perceptions if you set out to do so with the love that I have described to you and upon which you will remember I laid such stress. You must never say: In order to perceive such things, I should have to be clairvoyant. To say that betokens an inner laziness—a quality that must on no account ever be found in one who undertakes the task of education. Long before you attain to the clairvoyance that is required for spiritual research in general, you can beget in yourself the faculty simply to perceive what is really the matter. The power to do this can be born in you, if you approach with loving devotion all that shows itself in the child, and especially just those developments that come with abnormal conditions. What you say to yourself at that moment will be true. There is of course need here for esoteric courage. This esoteric courage can and does develop in man—provided only that one thing does not stand in the way.

It is strange, and at the same time significant, that these inner intuitions are so little noticed by the very people who are, comparatively speaking, well able to have them. Anthroposophists have many an opportunity to pay heed to such inner intuitions! For they have these intuitions, far more than is supposed, but they fail to attend to them—the reason being that in the moment when they should do so, they find themselves assailed by a vanity that is hard to overcome. With the discovery of faculties not known before, all manner of impulses that spring from vanity begin to crop up in the soul. Along with the other characteristics of our age that I described for you in my lecture yesterday, as well as on several other occasions, we have to reckon also a tendency to grow vain and conceited, for it is a tendency that is terribly prevalent in present-day mankind.

This is a matter that should receive serious consideration from those of the present-day Youth—and you yourselves are of course among the number—who are devoting their lives to some great and noble calling. There is in our time great need that young men and women should rise up among us and exercise a regenerating influence upon mankind; and what I am now going to say is not said out of misunderstanding of the Youth Movement of our day, nor from lack of understanding, but out of a true understanding of it. It is a necessity, this Youth Movement, it is something of quite extraordinary significance; for those older people who can understand it, the modern Youth Movement is interesting in the highest degree. Not a word shall be uttered here against it. Nor shall we attempt to deny that there is only too often a deplorable lack of readiness on the part of the older generation to understand this Youth Movement, and that a great many plans have suffered shipwreck just because the Movement has not been taken seriously enough, just because people have not troubled themselves to look into it sufficiently. But the Youth Movement does need to beware of one thing when it sets out to undertake specific practical tasks; and it is incumbent on those of us who have had experience in the matter to call attention to it, for it makes one seriously apprehensive for the whole future of the Movement. I mean a certain vanity that shows itself there on every hand.

This vanity is not so much due to a lack of education and culture, but is rather the consequence of an inevitable situation. For the will to action necessitates of course a strong development of inner capabilities, and then it follows all too easily that under the influence of Ahriman vanity begins to spring up in the soul. I have had opportunity in my life to make careful and intimate observation of persons who were full of promise—persons too of the most various ages of life—in whom one could see again and again how with the dawn of the Age that has followed Kali Yuga, vanity began to grow and thrive in their souls. It is not, therefore, only among the Youth that the vanity shows itself. What concerns us at the moment however is the special form of it that manifests in the Youth and that has in point of fact hindered them from developing the right and essential character that lies inherent in present-day Youth, waiting to be developed. Hence the phenomenon with which we are so familiar, this endless talk of “missions”, of great tasks, with all too little inclination to set to work upon the details, to take pains about the small things that require to be done in carrying out these tasks.

These will emphatically be need in the future for what has been described in simple words as devotion to detail.

Devotion to detail and to little things is something which the Youth of our time need to develop. They are far too apt to revel in abstractions; and this revelling in abstractions is the very thing that can then lure them with irresistible force into the snare of vanity. I do beg you to bethink yourselves of the difficulties that beset your path on this account. Make it a matter of esoteric striving to master this tendency to vanity; for it does indeed constitute a real hindrance to any work you undertake.

Suppose you want to be able to speak to some fellow human being from out of an intuitive power of vision. The things you need to behold in him are by no means written plain for all to see; and you may take it that statements made about backward children from the ordinary lay point of view are generally false. What you have to do is to see through what lies on the surface, see right through it to the real state of affairs. If therefore you want to come to the point of being able to say something to him out of intuitive vision, what do you need for that? You need to tell yourself with courage and with energy—not just saying it at some particular moment, but carrying it continually in your consciousness, so that it determines the very quality and content of your consciousness:—“ I can do it.” If, without vanity, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, and in earnest endeavour to overcome all the things that hinder, you repeat these words, not only feeling them, but saying them to yourself over and over again, then you will begin to discover how far you are able to go in this direction. Do not expect to find the development of the faculty you seek, by spinning out all manner of theories and thoughts. No, what you need to do is to maintain all the time this courageous consciousness, which develops quite simply of itself when once you have begun to fetch up from the depths of your soul what lies hidden there, buried (metaphorically speaking) beneath an accumulation of dust and rubbish.

Generally speaking, people are not able to achieve anything of this kind in the realm of pedagogy. They could do so if only they would set themselves seriously to bring to life within them a certain truth. Let me explain to you how this can be done.

Try to accustom yourselves to live your way every evening into the consciousness: In me is God. In me is God—or the Spirit of God, or what other expression you prefer to use. (But please do not think I mean just persuading yourself of this truth theoretically—which is what the meditations of the majority of people amount to!) Then, in the morning let the knowledge: I am in God shine out over the whole day. And now consider! When you bring to life within you these two ideas, which are then no longer mere thoughts, but have become something felt and perceived inwardly, yes, have even become impulses of will within you, what is it you are doing?

First, you have this picture before you: In me is God;

and on the following morning, you have this picture before you: I am in God (see Figure 3, right). They are one and the same, the upper and the lower figure. And now you must understand: Here you have a circle (yellow); here you have a point (blue). It doesn't look like that in the evening, but in the morning the truth of it comes to light. And in the morning you have to think: Here is a circle (blue); here is a point (yellow). Yes, you have to understand that a circle is a point, and a point a circle. You have to acquire a deep, inner understanding of this fact.

But now, this is really the only way to come to a true understanding of the human being! You remember the drawing I made for you, of the metabolism-and-limbs man and the head man (see Figure 1.). That drawing was nothing else than a realistic impression or record of what you have before you now in this simple figure for meditation. In the human being it becomes actual reality; the I-point of the head becomes in the limb man the circle—naturally, with modifications. Adopting this line of approach, trying, that is, to understand man inwardly, you will learn to understand the whole of man. You must, first of all, be quite clear in your mind that these two figures, these two conceptions, are one and the same, are not at all different from one another. They only look different from outside. There is a yellow circle; here it is too! There is a blue point; here it is too! Why do they look different? Because that drawing is a diagram of the head, and this a diagram of the body. When the point claims a place for itself in the body, it becomes the spinal cord. It makes its way in here

and then the part it plays in the head organisation is continued in the spinal cord. There you have the inner dynamic of the morphology of man. Taking it as your starting point, you will be able, by meditation, to build up a true anatomy, a true physiology. And then you will acquire the inner intuition that can perceive in how far the upper and lower jaws are limbs; for you will begin to see in the head a complete organism in itself, sitting up there on the top of the human being, an organism whose limbs are dwarfed and have—in process of deformation—turned into jaws. And you will come to a clear perception of how teeth and toes are in polarity to one another. For you have only to look at the attachments of the jawbones, and you can see it all there before you—the stunted toes, the stunted hands and feet.

But, my dear friends, meditation that employs such pictures as I have been giving can never take its course in the kind of mood that would allow us to feel: Now I am going to settle down to a blissful time of meditation; it will be like sinking into a snug, warm nest! No, the feeling must be continually present in us that we are taking the plunge into reality—that we are grasping hold of reality.

Devotion to little things—yes, to the very smallest of all! We must not omit to cultivate this interest in very little things. The tip of the ear, the paring of a finger-nail, a single human hair—should be every bit as interesting to us as Saturn, Sun and Moon. For really and truly in one human hair everything else is comprised; a person who becomes bald loses a whole cosmos! What we see externally—we can verily create it inwardly, if only we achieve that overcoming which is essential to a life of meditation. But we shall never achieve it so long as any vestige of vanity is allowed to remain—and vestiges of vanity lurk in every corner and crevice of the soul. Therefore is it so urgent, if you want to become real educators, and especially educators of backward children, that you should cultivate, with the utmost humility, this devotion in the matter of little things. And when you have made a beginning in this way in your own sphere, you can afterwards go on to awaken in other circles of the Youth Movement this same devotion to little things.

And then it will indeed become possible for you to receive, for example, indications that are afterwards verified from external evidence—as happened, you remember, in the case we are considering. And here I must say in connection with this very case, I have occasion to find grave fault. The same kind of thing happens only too often in connection with the various undertakings that have been begun within our anthroposophical movement. The situation was as follows. Here was a girl concerning whom I told you that a kind of abnormality must have occurred in her development between the third and fourth year. You question the mother, and the mother confirms that it was so. What did you do then? Please tell me, honestly and sincerely: What did you do, when the mother confirmed the fact? (Silence.) Please be esoterically honest and tell me the truth, you three: what did you do? (Silence.) If you had done the right thing, you would now be telling me: “We danced and jumped until we made a hole in the ceiling!” And the after-effect of this jumping for joy would be still expressing itself today—and not merely in words, it would be shining out from you like a light.

That is what you need—enthusiasm in the experience of truth. This enthusiasm is an absolute sine qua non: you cannot get on without it. For years it has been so terribly painful to me, the way the members of the anthroposophical movement stand there as if they were rooted to the spot—and the young too, almost as much as the old. But now consider what it means, That they can stand there so impassively. Look at Nietzsche! What a different sort of fellow he was—even if he did get ill from it! He made his Zarathustra become a dancer. Can't you become dancers—in the sense Nietzsche meant it? Why, you should be leading lives of joy—deep inner joy in the truth! There is nothing in the world more delightful, nothing more fascinating, than the experience of truth. There you have an esotericism that is far more genuine, far more significant than the esotericism that goes about with a long face. Before everything else—and long before you begin to talk about having a “mission”—there must be this living inner experience of truth.

The girl had, when three or four years old, an occult fever. It is even called that in the medical world—one of those instances where medicine has retained an earlier form of speech. When a doctor does not know what is the cause of a fever, he calls it an “occult” fever. This occult fever, then, made its appearance. During the period round about the third and fourth years, the astral body was particularly weak. The physical body and the ether body reacted to this and developed too strongly; and then the astral body was unable to keep up with them. It is exceedingly important that we take cognisance first of all of this fact: at the age of three the growth of the astral body suffered a significant check, the child's astral body became stunted and cramped within itself. I must come to its aid. It must receive help to make up for what has been lost; and this help can be given through education, by awakening the child's interest in many directions. Tell me now, how has it been with this girl at school?

(S.: “We are not having the girl with us in the Home, she will come only for treatment. She was in a school for giving special help to backward children up to the beginning of her sixteenth year, and can read and write, and work with numbers up to about a thousand. In all other respects we have really no knowledge of the girl, we had her there only in order for you to see her. Enema containing nicotiana was prescribed.”)

It will be important to treat this girl with Curative Eurythmy.^E4

As a result of the stunting of the astral body, a strong tendency to deformation has, you see, made its appearance in the upper organism. The child has about her an extraordinarily animal look, the reason being that all that part which belongs to the organs of mastication is deformed. We have already been making very careful tests here in the Clinic of the influence of nicotiana juice in counteracting deformation; and this girl is just a case in point, where it will be able to do its good work. So you see it will be possible right away to begin—slowly—to make some progress. The nicotiana juice is given by the mouth, to start with; and then one has to watch carefully—one must acquire an eye for such things—to see whether the organs of mastication are beginning to come more under the control of the organism. For, as it is, the organs of mastication lie almost entirely outside the realm of the child's control. They just hang there—limp. The child can thus be treated with nicotiana juice given by the mouth in suitable decimal of dilution, beginning with the sixth and going up to the fifteenth. If it should turn out that this does not work strongly enough, we shall have to resort to injection of nicotiana juice in a high potency into the circulation, so that it may make direct contact there with the astral body and enable us to achieve in this way what we failed to achieve when we administered nicotiana juice by ingestion.

I have also a further suggestion to make. The nicotiana juice is intended to work within the astral body and remain there, and it will perhaps be good if we try to prevent its influence from entering too powerfully into the ego organisation—if we try, that is, to arrest it before it reaches the ego organisation. This result can be induced by giving—not often, perhaps only once a week—a weak sulphur bath.

Tomorrow we will speak about the other cases that you have at Lauenstein, and I shall be particularly glad to be able to consider with you the interesting phenomenon of albinism, which we have opportunity to study in two of your children. One of them is fifteen years old and the other a much younger sister of hers. (Dr. Steiner asked Dr. Vreede [the original leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section at the Goetheanum] if she had drawn their horoscopes, and she handed them to him. The dates were 6th December, 1909, approximately 4 a.m., and 18th May, 1921, approximately 3 a.m., both at Jena.) How does Uranus stand? Did you not find any special constellations? (Dr. Vreede replied that she had—namely with Uranus and Neptune. In the case of the elder girl, Neptune was in opposition to Uranus.)

Such children always show two main characteristic peculiarities: fair hair; and poor sight, with the variation in the eyes. These are the essential phenomena of albinism. No more than a superficial study is required to discover that in albinos we have to do with an organisation that is very feeble at assimilating iron, but on the other hand assimilates sulphur with the greatest ease. The organisation resists iron; it resists dealing with it, and this applies especially to the periphery of the body; assimilation of iron stops short of the periphery. Sulphur, on the other hand, is driven to the periphery; and not only so, but driven even out beyond it. That is how it comes about that in the region of the hair, you see, all around, a sulphur-aura, which pales and bleaches the hair and takes the strength out of it. And in the eyes (which are formed comparatively independently, being built into the organism from without, in the embryo time)—in the eyes you have a still more striking manifestation of a sulphur-aura. Here it has the effect of fairly forcing the eyes to betake themselves out of the etheric into the astral. In such children we see the eye plucked right out of its “grotto”, the etheric body of the eye left disregarded and its astral body very much to the fore and fully engaged.

Very important questions arise at this point. If we consider the “forming” of man, we find that he stands in connection on the one hand with the telluric forces that divulge themselves to us in the substances of the earth, and on the other hand, with the whole cosmos. He is dependent on both. Both sets of forces are present in the individual process of evolution, as well as also in the stream of inheritance. Let us take first, in considering these two children, the stream of inheritance. Neither in the case of the father nor of the mother is there any indication of albinism. They are both perfectly normal human beings. There was however somewhere in the antecedents—was it a grandmother, of whom it is reported that she had signs of albinism? (Frl. Dr. K.: “It was a sister of the mother.”) An aunt, then. Albinism has been known in the family; that is all that need concern us at the moment. A tendency to albinism is present in the antecedents. And did you not tell me that there had been other cases in the Saal region, also at Jena? (Frl. Dr. K.: “Yes, two children; and one adult, aged thirty-two, who is already married. Of these three, in only one case had there been albinism before in the family history.”) It would seem, therefore, that albinism is in some way endemic to a certain part of the country, but meets also with many counter-influences. And so in fact it makes its appearance quite sporadically! Only under certain circumstances will an albino be born there. The equation will immediately suggest itself: How does it come about that an albino is born in a particular territory?

In the case of an albino we have, as we have seen, a sulphurisation process working outwards, so that little sulphur islets occur in the aura, in the periphery. And now we look round in the native environment of the children to see where we can find sulphur. The whole valley of the Saal abounds in iron sulphide. Iron and sulphur are thus present in combination. You can study first the presence of iron in the neighbourhood, and then again the presence of sulphur; and you can take special note of the whereabouts of the beautiful pyrites (iron sulphide). These delicate and lovely cubes of pyrites with their beautiful golden gleam are a characteristic product of the valley of the Saale. Other regions nearby yield gypsum. Gypsum is, as you know, calcium sulphate with 20 per cent water. So that here again we have an opportunity to study sulphur—this time in combination with calcium. This kind of study of the soil will throw light for us on all that lives in the atmosphere etc.; and so we shall have first of all to give ourselves to the study of that which comes out of the ground and is connected with the absorption of sulphur and iron. For we have here a territory that is also very rich in iron, and the question arises: How does this opposite relationship come about in this territory in regard to earth and man, in the earth has a great power of attraction for iron, while the human being cannot attract iron at all, or only with difficulty? What constellations must be present to cause the human being to be particularly disposed to reject the iron and accept the sulphur?

Here we come into the realm of the cosmic; we have to set about investigating the constellations that were present at birth (we cannot of course do it for conception). And this will lead us to ask whether there were not in the case of these children who are albinos, quite special constellations, constellations moreover that can only seldom occur. We shall have to find what we can learn, not from the planets that move more quickly, but from the constellations of the planets that take a long time to revolve, such as Saturn and Uranus. You see, therefore, to what kind of questions such cases will lead us. We must first find the right questions to ask; when once we have the questions, then we are ready to begin our study.^E5

Now, for these children also, I would like to prescribe a little course of treatment, basing it on the indications I have given today. We will talk of that tomorrow.

I gather from a remark that was made to me this morning, that you are wanting something more than is contained in the lectures. These (you feel) go too much in the direction of “devotion to detail”—too much, that is, in the direction that you need! But I am really entirely ready to meet you in this matter, and propose to use here the new method I have been using with the workmen at the Goetheanum. For there I have allowed it gradually to come to this—that I ask them on what I am to speak; so that, ever since a certain date, the workmen themselves have been specifying the themes they want dealt with in the lectures. And now they can never complain that they do not get lectures on subjects they want to hear about.

• 1. Curative home in Jena-Lichtenhain, founded by Franz Löffler, Siegfried Pickert, and Albrecht Strohschein.
• E1. Rudolf Steiner visited Lauenstein on 18th June, 1924, almost immediately after the Home was opened. The children were brought to him; and having first had a good look at each in turn, talking with the child and enquiring into the history of the case, he explained to us how this or that condition had come about, and gave indications for therapeutical treatment and education.
  
  The explanations and advice given by Rudolf Steiner on the occasion of this visit were noted down, and provide in each case a most valuable addition to the words spoken by him in this course. Wonderful, above all, was the example Rudolf Steiner set us in the whole way in which he met the children, entering with loving and devout interest into every single detail of their condition. For the little group of us who were taking part together in these first beginnings of the work of Curative Education, the whole visit was a deep experience, and the memory of it continues to be cherished in the “Institutions for the Education and Healing of Children in Need of Special Care”. Some of the indications and instructions given by Rudolf Steiner will be added here as Notes to the Course.
  
  As regards this boy, Rudolf Steiner told us that he is lacking in brain sand (the calcareous concretions of the pineal body). The convulsions and the whole general condition must go back to some fright to which the mother had been subjected during pregnancy. (Enquiry afterwards confirmed this.) He added that one must, in such cases, always ask how things were with the mother during pregnancy. The convulsions, he said, were a secondary effect.
  
  For therapy, Rudolf Steiner prescribed injections of thyroid gland secretion. The medicament must enter the body in a centripetal direction, in order to evoke a reaction that works centrifugally. The preparation should still contain epithelial cells. On the day following the injection, the fever curve, also the pulse and the breathing, should be measured, quantitatively and qualitatively.
  
  In addition, the boy should drink a full glass of Levico water in the course of each day, diluted in the proportion 1:8.
  
  Curative Eurythmy: O, I (ee), L.
• E2. When this poor feeble-minded boy, who was as a rule excessively restless, was brought to Rudolf Steiner, he became for the moment quite peaceful and at rest, and the finer side of his nature, which was generally overlaid and hidden, suddenly revealed itself in a truly beautiful manner. Rudolf Steiner took particular interest in the boy's sense-perceptions, and proved to us that he cannot see far into the distance. When his bad teeth were alluded to, Rudolf Steiner pointed out that his finger nails also were soft and weak. The following notes of the conversation were made at the time: “Did you not notice anything particular about the mother? This is a case where we can see evidence of a remarkable karma. The astral body is over-ripe. Something is working in from the preceding incarnation. The time between death and new birth has been quite short, with the result that the soul has brought into this incarnation something of the astral body of the former incarnation. The boy still has even now strange dreams at night. This fact will reveal itself to you in strange and disconnected remarks that he makes after waking up. Supposing he has at some time or other seen snakes, then it may be that now he will see them coiling and uncoiling themselves. It is a case of a poor astral body, that has its seat mainly in the back of the head.” (Here Dr. Steiner laid his hand, with a gesture of the most intense interest, on the back of the boy's head, which was thickly covered with stubborn black hair. “This condition has to be met by introducing a counter-astrality; and that we can do by the use of algae. For algae draw in the astral forces of the surrounding air. Mushrooms do this still more; but we had better not begin with the strongest influences. All parasitic plants draw in astrality. By means of algae injections, healthy astrality will be attracted—astrality, that is, which is opposite in quality to the astrality already in the body; for there the astrality is bad.
  
  The therapy will therefore be: Algae inoculations D 5; Belladonna D 4, D 10, D 15, D 20, D 30.”
  
  Dr. Steiner was shown the record of the fits. The suggestion having been raised that their occurrence might be running parallel with the rhythms of the Moon, Dr. Steiner said that the influence of the Moon could not in this case be the direct cause of the fits; at the most, it could affect only the consciousness.
  
  Eurythmy should be done, especially with the legs.
• E3. Dr. Steiner said at Lauenstein: “She has a kink in her astral body; its form has no unity or coherence; above, it is weak, whilst below, it is stronger.”
• E4. At Lauenstein the following prescription was given: Nicotiana enema, a five per cent decoction, twice a week. If this does not help, then Nicotiana injections D 6. Curative Eurythmy: F, M, UT (oot), TU (too).
• E5When the children were brought to Rudolf Steiner at Lauenstein, he particularly enquired whether there had not been some weakness or debility in the mother. The mother declared that she had never been seriously ill, but admitted that she had suffered from chlorosis as a girl and had in general been very anaemic. Rudolf Steiner: “So the mother, you see, was evidently, earlier on, in a delicate state of health.” The father too had in his youth been weak and ailing. Their first child, at whose birth the mother was twenty years old and the father twenty-two, died young of pneumonia. The second was the elder of the girls we are considering. The third, a boy, is entirely normal. Then came, as fourth, the younger of our two albinos.
  
  Rudolf Steiner also made enquiries about the geological conditions of the district in which the children had been born. Information was given of the presence of pyrites and gypsum, to which allusion is made in the lecture. He then asked whether the people of the district were strikingly blond. This was denied; on the contrary, they are inclined to be dark. Lastly, he enquired whether the parents were relatives of one another; the answer was in the negative.
  
  Rudolf Steiner then explained to us the connection of the albinism with the sulphur. “These children”, he said, “are completely sulphurous. In them, sulphur processes are permeating the entire body.” The children are “all eye”; processes which ought to be going on in the eye alone are here taking place throughout the body. The quivering in the eyes and the furtive glancing hither and thither are due to oscillation between ether body and astral body.

Dr. Steiner: We will begin school at 8:00 a.m. During the period from November 15 through February 15, I suggest we begin at 8:30 a.m. The class teachers will be:

Class 1 Miss von Mirbach
Class 2 Pastor Geyer
Class 3 Miss Lang
Class 4 Mrs. Koegel
Class 5 Dr. von Heydebrand
Class 6 Mr. Oehlschlegel
Classes 7 & 8 Dr. Treichler and Mr. Stockmeyer

In addition, Dr. Stein, Mr. Hahn, and Mr. and Mrs. Baumann will also be teaching.

The religion, singing, and music classes will be in the afternoon from 2:00 until 3:30. Eurythmy will also be in the afternoon. Therefore, the afternoon schedule will be:

2:00-3:30 Music
3:30-4:00 Recess
4:00-5:00 Religion
5:00-6:00 Eurythmy and Gymnastics
6:00 Dismissal

There will be no school on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Therefore, the teaching schedule will be as follows:

The teachers can decide the number of hours.1 We will give religion instruction in reverse order of the classes. It is good for the teachers to have the youngest children just before Sunday. Thus, on Thursday and Friday we will have religion for the four lowest classes at 4:00 in the afternoon.

In the first, second, and third grades, we will have only eurythmy; in the fourth through eighth grades, we will also have gymnastics. The gymnastics teachers will observe during eurythmy; the eurythmy teachers will observe during gymnastics. Now we come to the morning schedule.

In the first three-quarters of the year, we should go through everything in a connected manner. That is, we will take the subjects one-quarter of the year3 at a time according to choice. In the last quarter of the year, we can separate the various subjects and alternate them as a repetition.4 We can separate the subjects only during the repetition. The remainder of the time we will always take one subject at a time, for instance, telling fairy tales and then reading.

Third grade Monday–Saturday 8:00-10:00 a.m. with the class teacher.

Twelve hours is sufficient for the teacher. That will be an eight-hour work day, including preparation.

Fourth grade is the same as the third grade.

In the 7th and 8th grades, the teachers will alternate.

Languages:

The first grade has a class of English and French every day, either before or after Main Lesson depending upon whether Main Lesson begins at 8 or 10:15. We may eventually have to do that in the afternoon, but if possible, we should teach it in the morning.

The second grade is the same as the 1st.

The third grade also has a class of English or French every day.

The same is true for the fourth grade. However, in addition, they will have two hours of Latin every day in the afternoon, except for Wednesday and Friday. Thus, they will have eight hours of Latin per week. If possible, we should do this in the morning.

[Dr. Steiner later changed this so that both Latin and Greek began in the fifth grade. Refer to the discussion on July 20, 1920.]

The fifth grade is like the fourth grade.

In the sixth and seventh grades, we will add Greek. Thus, beginning in the sixth grade, we will drop three of the English/ French classes and teach 1½ hours of Latin and 1½ hours of Greek instead.

All language instruction shall occur between recesses.

Dr. von Heydebrand will teach English in the 1st and 2nd grades, and Mr. Oehlschlegel will teach the remaining classes. Mr. Hahn will teach French in the first through third grades and Dr. Treichler, grades four through eight. Pastor Geyer will teach Latin in the fourth and possibly fifth grades, and Dr. Treichler, the sixth grade. Dr. Treichler will also teach Greek.

Dr. Stein will replace Miss Mirbach during the period of her absence, and perhaps he can also assist Dr. Treichler in Latin for three or four weeks, until about the middle of October. We can give handwork to an extent, or perhaps we can fit it into the afternoons.

The anthroposophical instruction, that is, the independent religious instruction, can be given by the class teachers. However, we should wait until September 23 to begin that.

I will be in Dresden from September 18 to 21, but will return on the 23rd. We will certainly have much to discuss then, and you can ask everything at that time. However, on the 26th I must again leave.

A teacher asks about equipment for physics.

Dr. Steiner: We will purchase teaching aids as we need them. However, you should let us know four weeks ahead of time.

A teacher asks a question about teaching physics.

Dr. Steiner: You must differentiate between percussive, plucked, and bowed tones through monochords.

[Dr. Steiner mentions two books commonly used in Austria for teaching Latin and Greek. There is also some discussion about fairy tales, sagas, and stories, as well as history, in connection with the teachers’ library. A discussion of the Free Waldorf School Association and unified elementary and secondary schools follows.]

Dr. Steiner: The meetings are free republican discussions. Each person is sovereign in them. Every teacher should keep a small journal.

It is not possible to say everything in the first lecture, and I mentioned many things only as a sort of introduction; later I will present them in more detail. Therefore there may be some questions that I will answer in their full context in subsequent lectures. Nevertheless I would like to ask if you have any questions today. Perhaps you can write your questions down, and I will attempt to answer them in later lectures. That way I can answer them within the full context. It is not at all superfluous to pose such questions today, or perhaps, even better, tomorrow, after you have had some time to think.

I have a written question here asking how to handle a boy in the third developmental stage of childhood, that is, after puberty, who is one-sidedly gifted in mathematics and the natural sciences, but who has absolutely no talent for foreign languages.

That question is related to a great deal that I will discuss in detail later. In the next lectures, I will discuss these special but one-sided talents and show how you can place them in the service of developing the entire human being. I will also show how you can harmonize them by proceeding in a particular way pedagogically. Nevertheless I would like to say something about it now.

There are some girls who have this kind of talent, but it happens so seldom that you can often find complete biographies of these women because they then became famous mathematicians. The one-sided talent for mathematics and natural sciences that we find in boys is generally based upon the fact that an organ that appears quite unimportant is very subtly developed in these young men. Perhaps some of you are aware of such families as the Bernoulli family,1 in which individual members of the family were particularly gifted in mathematics over a period of eight generations. In another famous case, we have the Bach family,2 which produced a large number of “little Bachs” who were extremely talented with regard to music. I should also mention that there are many boys who are highly talented with regard to the physical and mathematical sciences, but whom we cannot observe so well because their talents lie more in the direction of botany and zoology. At the same time, they are also highly talented in the area of mineralogy, but are not particularly gifted in observing the physical characteristics of minerals.

Such things can take on many different nuances. In these boys, the three semicircular canals in the human ear are particularly well developed. It may be that these three tiny vertical bones within the human ear are so arranged that they bring with them a highly developed sense of space and numbers. In other cases, they are much less well developed. These talents are connected with that development. If the human organism is particularly well developed in that way, a special talent arises out of the ear.

Within the organ of hearing are all the organs necessary for hearing, but these are further connected with the organs for speaking, for balance, and for a sense of numbers. In a certain sense, they all meld together. If these small bones that appear as three semicircular canals within the ear are one-sidedly developed within a person, then that development occurs at the cost of the development for hearing the sounds in speech and so forth, namely, for hearing the proper structure of language. This weakens the talent for hearing language, with the result that particularly those children who are very gifted in mathematics have less talent in language. The only thing we can do with such children is to begin teaching them language as soon as we notice that they are particularly gifted in mathematics. We teach them language without placing a strong value upon the intellectual aspect, that is, upon grammar. Rather we teach them language through the rhythm of the language itself. If you have the children memorize things without going into the actual content, but so that they simply enjoy the rhythm of the foreign language in short poems, then teach them the content through the sounds and what the sounds carry within them, you will see, if you begin this early enough, that these children will overcome this one-sidedness.

As we have shown in practice at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, it is absolutely necessary to avoid beginning with an intellectually oriented education when children are seven or eight. Instead we need to work from the more artistic aspect. We do not teach writing in an intellectual way, by working with the forms of the letters. Instead we teach it by beginning with a kind of primitive drawing. In that way, we develop the will more than the intellect, whereas the common way of teaching writing today speaks too strongly to the intellect. Thus we attempt to engage the entire human being. In that way, the individual one-sided talents balance out.

If you ask how to awaken the memory for correct spelling, my answer would be that you need to observe the differences in human strengths during the three periods of human life, that is, until the change of teeth, until puberty, and then after puberty until the age of twenty. You need to develop a sense for observing these three periods of life and the differences in the specific forces of life that develop. Then you will notice that people who, until the age of fifteen, have absolutely no sense of correct spelling or correct grammar will develop it if they are treated in the way I just mentioned. If you draw their attention to the rhythm of the language, they will develop this sense out of the depths of their souls after the age of fifteen.

This is why it would be totally inappropriate to keep children who have well-developed talents from progressing through the grades simply because they do not demonstrate any particular talent for grammar. If you look at what Goethe wrote as a young boy and then see that when he was older, he stood in a very exclusive group with regard to grammar, you will think about him very differently than the way people usually think about a boy or girl who cannot spell properly at the age of thirteen or so. Instead of wringing our hands about how poorly such children spell and continually asking what we should do to teach them to spell, it would be much better to think about what capacities the children actually have, seek out those special talents, and then find a way to teach the children what they need to learn from those talents.

You will see that if you emphasize the artistic element when teaching children who are one-sidedly gifted in mathematics, you will always achieve a balance.

At the beginning, Graf Bothmer gave a lecture about teaching gymnastics with approximately the following content:

Should boys and girls participate together or exercise in the same room, but separately? Girls hold the boys up. Should we group the children according to their temperaments? That would be the ideal.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps I can say something more general about gymnastics later. When we have time before the beginning of the new school year, I can discuss gymnastic exercises in relationship to the child’s age and how to make them whole. That is what we will do. Today, I would like to speak about what you just presented. Please consider what I do not speak about as meaning I agree with what you said. I will not emphasize anything I agree with.

Concerning the relationship of gymnastics to eurythmy, there can actually not be any conflict between gymnastics and eurythmy. In general, we can generally see gymnastics exercises and how they are presented as a continuation of eurythmy exercises. Suppose we take a particular movement of the arm in eurythmy and a corresponding movement in gymnastics. In eurythmy we need to take care that the form of the movement itself lies nearer the center of the body than it would in gymnastics. Thus, there can actually be no conflict.

You can best understand that when you realize that in eurythmy you are primarily concerned with that part of the human organism that is directly connected with the inner breathing process. Thus, what an arm or leg, a finger or toe does in eurythmy is directly connected with what plays out as the inner breathing process, that process of the transition from air to blood. On the other hand, what happens in gymnastics is primarily connected with the human organic process basic to the transition from blood to muscle. That is primarily physiological and sheds complete light upon what we develop. As soon as we understand that instinctively or intuitively, we will see that every movement in gymnastics is connected with strengthening the muscles, with their growth, and with making them elastic by forcing blood into the muscles. The more you understand that, the more you will be able to develop free exercises.

We can say the same thing from a different perspective. Eurythmy is primarily a pliable forming of the organism. Or, I could also say that eurythmy exists in the sculpting of the organism. Gymnastics lives in the statics and the dynamics of the organism. Of course, you, Graf Bothmer, felt that when you mentioned that the children feel the room during gymnastics. You can best understand that through the picture of how an arm or leg moves in space, or their relationships to weight.

That we do not have any conflict with eurythmy, we can see if we take character into account. We do that much too little in pedagogical eurythmy because it is not so important in artistic presentations, but it is much more important in pedagogy. If you have seen the eurythmy figures, you will have noticed that we differentiate between movement, feeling, and character. In movement and feeling, which you have taken into account almost exclusively, things are going well. However, character has not permeated eurythmic movements to any great extent. That is natural because it has no great importance in artistic eurythmy that is viewed by others.

In contrast, the character of a movement should be a significant part in pedagogical eurythmy. A person doing the eurythmy should feel how a movement or position flows back into their own feeling. For example, such a person should feel the pressure of one limb upon another in a eurythmy movement and how that pressure flows back into the center of the body. For that reason, I colored the eurythmy figures so that it would be clear. You will find three colors in all the eurythmy figures. One is for the movement, the second, which is like a veil over the first, is for feeling, and the third is for character. For a person doing eurythmy, it indicates the specific part of the body where the muscles should be tensed, and the feeling that muscle tension should produce. That is part of the life of eurythmy within the form of the body.

The students have asked if we could present the figures during the pedagogical week at Easter, so I will bring them here. We should have such a series here. The Waldorf teachers should study those figures because they are also important for a more psychological physiology. The Waldorf teachers should study them to gain greater understanding of the human organism. At the same time, they can form the basis of a more general feeling for art, for a greater understanding of the inner aspects of the human organism.

We can, therefore, say that the gymnastics teacher should have an idea of the spiritual relationship of statics and dynamics in the human organism. The gymnastics teacher should have a clear picture of what it means to raise a leg or to drop an arm in relationship to gravity. On the other hand, the eurythmy teacher should have a strong feeling for what will develop the limbs sculpturally. It is incorrect to say that the gymnastics teacher is like a sculptor. That would be true for the eurythmy teacher. The work of gymnastics teachers is to picture an ideal human being in terms of lines, forms, and movements to which they must develop these lazy, sloppy people they have before them. You were certainly correct when you mentioned how children should carry themselves. Whereas the eurythmy teacher should work so that the muscles feel themselves, feel how they gain strength through the character of the movement, the gymnastics teacher should feel how people can properly perceive the heaviness or lightness of a limb. The child should learn, not through reason, but instinctively, how to perceive the lifting of an arm or leg in relationship to gravity. Children should, for example, develop a feeling for how their foot becomes heavy when they stand on one leg and lift the other.

The task of the gymnastics teacher is, therefore, to place the dynamic ideal human being he or she carries in his or her soul into another person. Of course, the artistic must also play a role, since we can realize human statics or dynamics only through artistic feeling. Whereas, artistic feeling plays a major role in eurythmic sculpturing, it must precede the forms the gymnastics teacher creates statically and dynamically.

Concerning the question of breathing, it is significant that eurythmy lies closer to the breath, whereas gymnastics lies closer to the blood process. Aside from the fact that the tempo of breathing increases during the course of the exercises, something that is a physiological process, it is important that we should develop gymnastic technique in such a way that it does not affect the breathing process. We could call a gymnastics exercise incorrect if, while maintaining the proper physical position, the exercise negatively affects the breathing process. We should exclude those gymnastic exercises that disturb the breathing process, even though the body is properly held. Now that I have seen everything you are doing, it seems to me that all the breathing exercises in modern gymnastic methods are directed toward maintaining proper posture, and that breathing is treated as a reaction. I have noticed that all the things presented are directed primarily toward creating proper posture, at least to the extent it is expressed through the breathing process. That is something Swedish gymnastics for the most part takes into account. That is what I want to say about that.

In gymnastics, it is important that we take the will into account. The teacher must, therefore, whether instinctively or intuitively, live directly into the connection between movements of the body and expressions of the will. The teacher must have a feeling for what the connection between movement and will is. In eurythmy, there is also a development of will, but one that uses a more indirect path through inner feeling and occurs at a level where will is expressed through feeling. That is what I just referred to as character, and it is the experience of feeling in an act of will. The gymnastics teacher works directly with the act of will, but the eurythmy teacher works with experiencing the feeling in an act of will. You can see how there is everywhere a very strict separation and we need to take that into account when developing a curriculum. Perhaps we cannot immediately do that, but we should certainly see it as our ideal. Then, from these two things we will clearly see why it is much easier for girls in eurythmy and for boys in gymnastics. Things are more clearly differentiated with boys. For that reason, we will, in fact, have to allow the boys and girls to do their gymnastics in the same room, but in different groups. The girls can form a group for themselves and do those exercises that create a relationship between them. If we do such exercises that are modified for boys and girls, they will enjoy them more.

I think we will see that when we discuss the curriculum in detail. That is also true of the differences in age.

Concerning exercises with equipment, I would like to remark that we could modify the form of the equipment and make it more appropriate. In that way, at least to an extent, we can make the most common pieces of equipment not quite so bad, so we can do something with them. Although I do not want to be fanatical about this, I would also like to see that we have no climbing poles, but I don’t want to complain about them too much.

Those people who have observed what boys in the villages do when a tree is brought from the woods and placed atop a pole on a church holiday will know how valuable such climbing poles can be. Up there, a few branches remain with a small kerchief, a piece of candy, or maybe a small bottle of wine, and the boys have to climb their way up to that little tree attached to the top of the pole from which the bark has been removed. The victor is the boy who brings it down. That very strongly connects the activity of the will to the nature of the body. We do this same thing artificially with a climbing pole. It is certainly better when the children have to learn how to climb a rope. The pole has a rather limited significance in gymnastics, I would say, but I do not want to completely remove it. With the parallel and high bars, with the horse and so forth, if they are properly used, you can certainly gain something from them.

I also agree you should do the exercises, at least to an extent, by combining the different pieces of equipment, because that emphasizes what equipment exercises should achieve, namely, more presence of mind. That has a secondary effect of also strengthening the muscles. The children thus develop proper strength and elasticity.

I also agree that the high bar should be more prominent, and that it will gain that through a kind of observation, not an observation with the eyes, but through bodily feelings. One useful exercise would be to have the children swing so they must then catch the bar. They would need to hold themselves in the air. That is only an example to give the direction I am thinking of. It could be done with the hands or also with the entire arms, but the movement really becomes significant only if it is done with the arms. You could, however, allow the children to begin with their hands.

These things that allow the children to feel the device with their entire body can also give them a greater sympathy for the equipment. That is particularly true with the high bar when the children learn to work on it with their legs. You could combine exercises with the high bar by first having them do what I mentioned above and then having them “walk” the bar with their legs dangling.

All that simply gives the spirit of the direction. I don’t think I need to speak about dead equipment and simple routine. That is the way things were, but things do not need to be routine when we emphasize this way of experiencing the equipment. The children can use their legs in wonderful ways on the bars.

I completely agree with what you said about games and sports. Our gymnastics should lead to what you described.

We want to discuss the gymnastics curriculum at the next opportunity. Then, we will also consider the temperaments at various ages.

The school doctor: Some of the anemic older girls often become tired easily.

Dr. Steiner: This is where the pathology and therapy of gymnastics begins. What you have termed “gymnastics pain” arises because the process between the blood and the muscles in such children leads to the crystallization of uric acid. What is important is that we combat this nearly inorganic metabolic process through diet. That is, of course, a task only when we see that gymnastics tires the children beyond a certain degree. At that point, we need to try therapy. Through gymnastics we can most easily see whether a child is healthy or not. If you wanted to determine whether someone will have gout in three years, you could have that person do some physical exercise, and if he or she shows some kind of gout-like feelings, that person will most certainly have gout within three years. Today, when children are so malnourished, many of them will have such symptoms because the process between the blood and muscles no longer functions properly.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to do something. Mrs. R. gave me a donation. I have discussed the matter with her, and these million Marks should be used to start a fund so that something can be done about the children’s nutrition. I would like to see these million Marks she gave used to improve the children’s health. We should create such a fund, and this could be its foundation.

A teacher asks about how to occupy the children during breaks and on field trips.

Dr. Steiner: The question of children’s play is certainly appropriate. We should not overdo play since it could soften the children. It is valid to object if there is insufficient time for play, but we could also make a valid objection now. Nevertheless, I would say that it is not sufficient to speak just about play. When the children need a break, what is important is to allow them to sit. First, they need to sit and eat. They need to be able to occupy themselves with that, but quite consciously and with real appetite. When they have fully satisfied their hunger, you can allow them to play, as you have done. If you lead this activity, you must try to see to it that they eat as slowly as possible, so that they use the time available for eating to savor every bite.

Games where the children just crawl around are not very good. Children’s play should require their attention, and their games should offer them some enjoyment. What you have described gives them some enjoyment because of their anticipation. Amusement is necessary in games. You also need to be sure the children drink, so they have fluid throughout their bodies before you continue the field trips. There is no harm in allowing them to drink when they sit down during a break. During the break, they should begin with eating, and drink at the end. The time in between should be amusing, so that their souls are occupied with anticipation, with solving a problem, with excitement or disappointment. That is how we should include the element of entertainment. What you are doing now is simply boring. Sports are not particularly exciting, they are actually boring. In games, we need to avoid being like the English. Our games should not be influenced by the West. They should be healthy, entertaining games.

I certainly do not want to imply that the old games are very good simply because they come from older times. They need to be replaced. Blind Man’s Bluff or such things are the right thing. Or, A-Tisket, A-Tasket. In other words, games that do not require a lot of effort, but that are amusing. When the children are resting, they should first have something good to eat. I would also have them stretch, or perhaps sing. After they have played for a while, they could sing, have something to drink, and end the break.

A teacher asks about marching and singing.

Dr. Steiner: These military or war-like games can be done in a healthy way if they are done artistically. What was done where I grew up was pure nonsense. Someone composed some sentences, and then two from the group of children shouted out one sentence. The others standing further away could no longer understand what was said. We need to drop things like that. On the other hand, if we connect something genuinely rhythmic with walking as a group or with marching, that is quite proper. When art plays a part, you can allow people to do something as a group, allow them to think together, or something of that sort. It is important that there is no fooling around. Playing Cowboys and Indians and so forth is healthy if it is done with spirit. We can differentiate among all those things, between play at the right time and sport. Healthy play occupies you with something you enjoy because of the movement in healthy thinking and feeling. Sports are so bad because you simply move without any thinking, and thus become lazy in your thinking. People want to do things so they do not have to be mobile in their thought and feeling. It would be good if we could remove from our bodies those things that exist in the English-speaking world due to their belief in sports.

A question is asked about cooking outdoors.

Dr. Steiner: That is good to do since it extends mealtime, that is, it extends the time used for eating. There is nothing better. When you take the children outside, you should extend their mealtime during rest period as far as possible. It is best if you make them as uncomfortable as possible, so that they have to make some effort.

A teacher: Should we have swimming in school?

Dr. Steiner: That would hurt nothing and could be quite good. However, I think that for technical as well as scheduling reasons, it would not be possible. We need to do what is possible under present circumstances.

The gymnastics teacher: Could we arrange to have showers?

Dr. Steiner: That would be good. The only problem then is that when it becomes known that a child is lacking in that area, then people think that the child has to be bathed. If we had showers, we would have to avoid that kind of negative thought, but that is, of course, often difficult to do. If we had a boarding school, we could do all sorts of such valuable things. I have, however, found no way of avoiding such negative thoughts. We should see to it, however, that the children come to school properly dressed and washed. There would be no negative opinions if we required children to come to school clean and well-kept. In such cases, there is sometimes something pathological present. There are people who cannot avoid looking dirty and smelling bad even when they are washed. I would agree to having showers, but we would have to find some way to connect it with a moral perspective.

A teacher: Should I take up Virgil in Latin? Perhaps the Fourth Song of the Aeneid.

Dr. Steiner: That would be very good if you could connect it with other things. Very good indeed.

A teacher reads aloud the ninth lecture from Practical Advice to Teachers and the curriculum directions given until this time as summarized by Mr. B.

Dr. Steiner: The foreign-language teachers were interested in hearing what directions have already been given. We should not forget there has been a certain difficulty in the foreign language class. In the past, students of the most differing ages came to us, so that we also needed to take new students in the higher class. We could assume that if a nine-year-old child came, he or she had already learned a certain amount. That was, however, not the situation with foreign languages. Children who had never learned a single word of French or English came into the fifth grade, so we could not establish a strict curriculum. It is still a question whether we are able to set up a specific curriculum for a given year or whether we can have only a general perspective we would follow as best we can throughout all the classes when we accept new children into the first grade.

Our teaching of foreign languages is somewhat independent. We consider what is taught in the first two hours to be the basis of education. In the future, we must treat our foreign language teaching somewhat more freely.

In general, we should teach a child in the first grade a foreign language, and we should teach foreign languages through speaking until the end of the third grade. We should avoid having the children learn words or phrases through translation. Instead, they should learn things directly from the word or phrase. Therefore, we should not associate a foreign word with the corresponding German word, but with the subject itself, and should always speak in the foreign language. That is particularly important until the end of the third grade. During that period, they should not even notice that grammar exists.

In working with longer pieces, do not be disturbed if the children learn a verse or a poem purely by sound, even though they may have little understanding of the content. In an extreme case, a child may learn four, six, or eight lines that he or she remembers only by the sounds. Under some circumstances, that could be of considerable help in learning the language, since the child would later learn to understand things memorized by sound. Quite clearly, poetic material is to be preferred over prose during the first three years. It is quite clear from this that we cannot view the individual years separately. Instead, we must handle them completely equally.

We now come to the fourth grade. Then it is best to no longer avoid the beginnings of grammar. However, do not make the children learn rules, but make visible the texts they have already learned. Thus, you develop the rules of grammar inductively, and once they have been formed, you should require the children to remember them, so that they then have rules. You should not fall prey to the extreme by thinking that children should learn no rules at all. Instead, you should develop the rules inductively, so that they will know them by heart. Remembering rules is part of the development of the I during the period from nine to ten years. We can support the development of the I by giving the children the rules of grammar in a logical way based upon the structure of the language.

You can then go from poetry to prose. Until the end of the third grade, you should hold prose to a minimum. Beginning in fourth grade, you can choose material such that the grammar and the material can be learned in parallel. For that, you should select only prose. We would make poetry pedantic if we only used it for abstracting grammatical rules, but prose can certainly be used for that. While using prose, you can gradually move into a kind of translation.

Of course, the foreign language teachers have tried to teach in this way until now. Nevertheless, it has come up that the teaching has been more from the direction of lexicography, and that you have not sought the connection between the subject and the foreign word. Instead, you made the connection between the German word and the foreign word. That is easier for the teacher, but it results in teaching languages in contrast to one another, so the feeling for the language is not properly developed.

We need to begin that in the fourth grade, but we need to limit ourselves primarily to teaching how words are formed.

In the fifth grade go on to syntax, continuing with it in the sixth grade into more complicated syntactic forms. The readings would, of course, follow in parallel. You should not have the children translate from German into the foreign language. Instead, have them write short essays and such things. You should work with such translations only by saying something short and then having the children express the same thing in the foreign language. Thus, you would have them say in the foreign language what they have heard in German. That is how you should work with translations until the end of sixth grade. In any event, you should completely avoid having them translate longer German passages directly into the foreign language.

On the other hand, the children should read a great deal, but their readings should contain much humor. The class should have an enjoyable discussion of everything connected with the readings, particularly concerning customs. You should discuss the living situations and attitudes of the people who speak the foreign language. Thus, you should include, in a humorous way, a study of the people and customs in the fifth and sixth grades. Also take idiomatic expressions into account in the fifth grade by including the sayings and idiomatic expressions contained in the foreign language, so that the children have a corresponding saying in that language for the various occasions in life where they would use a German saying. These are often expressed in a much different way.

For the seventh grade, the instruction should take into account that a large number of children will leave the school following the eighth grade. In the seventh and eighth grades, you should emphasize reading and working with the character of the language evident in sentences. Of course, it is important that they learn about the things that would occur in the everyday life of the people who speak the language. They should practice by reading texts and retelling things in the foreign language so that they gain a capacity for expression. You should have them translate only rarely. Have them retell what they have read, particularly dramatic things. Do not have them retell lyric or epic readings, but they can retell in their own words the dramatic things they have read. In the eighth grade, you should also teach them rudimentary things about poetry and meter in the foreign language. Also, in these two last classes, you should give a very brief overview of the literary history of the respective language.

We now have ninth grade. There, you need to review grammar, but do it with some humor by always giving them humorous examples. Through such examples, you can go through all the grammar of the language in the course of the year. Of course, you do that in parallel with the exciting readings the class does.

In the tenth grade, emphasize the meter of the language by reading primarily poetry. In the eleventh grade, the readings should be mostly drama in parallel with some prose texts and a little about the aesthetics of the language. You can develop poetry from the dramatic readings, and you should continue that into lyric and epic poetry for the twelfth grade. There, the class should read a number of things related to the present and to the area where the foreign language is spoken. The students should, therefore, have some knowledge of modern foreign literature.

That is, then, the general curriculum we will want in the future. You should never read anything without making the children aware of the entire content. In the fourth and fifth grades, you can begin with the basics of grammar, but see that the children also speak.

I would like to say something else in regard to drama in the seventh and eighth grades. You could find, for example, some longer passage from one of Moliére’s comedies that you want to read. In a humorous way, you need to tell the children the content—be as detailed and dramatic as possible—then have them read the passage.

In the course of the past years, we have made small additions to what was said earlier, and we should leave it that way, in principle. They should begin their written work only at that stage presented in the course.

The teaching of ancient languages has, of course, a particular position, and it actually needs a special curriculum, which I will work out in more detail and give to you. You probably already know what we did previously and the things we slowly changed.

A teacher requests a seminar on languages and Dr. Steiner agrees.

Dr. Steiner: I would now like to hear about some of your teaching experiences since Easter.

A teacher asks about Bible stories for the third grade.

Dr. Steiner: I have seen that some of you use the Hebel edition of the Bible. My feeling is that we should use only the Schuster edition because of its exemplary structure. It is better not to work exactly with the text of the stories, but to present them freely. You should give only free renditions to the children, and the book itself is only a help for remembering and reviewing. In that case, the older Schuster edition is still the best; the new edition is not nearly so good. As interesting as it may be to read Hebel, if you want to read something you already know, it is not appropriate for teaching about the Bible, quite aside from the fact that the printing in the present edition is terrible. I think we should stay with the old Schuster edition. Its structure is really very good. On the other hand, it is rather pedantic and Catholic-oriented, but I do not think you run any danger of being too Catholic.

A religion teacher asks about the difference between working with the Bible stories in religion class and in the main lesson of the third grade.

Dr. Steiner: You can learn a great deal if you recall the principle for working with Bible stories in these two different places. When we teach Bible stories in the main lesson, that is, in the actual curriculum, we treat them as something generally human. We simply acquaint the children with the content of the Bible and do not give it any religious coloring at all. We treat the stories in a profane way; we present the content simply as classical literature, just like all other classical literature.

When we work with the Bible in religion class, we take the religious standpoint. We use these stories for teaching religion. If we approach this difference with some tact, that is, without giving any superficial explanations in the main lesson, then we can learn a great deal for our own pedagogical practice by working with this subtle difference. There is a difference in the “how,” an extraordinarily important difference in “how.”

What was told before is then read so that it is firmly seated. I cannot believe the Schuster Bible is poor reading material. The pictures are quite humorous and not at all bad. Perhaps a little cute, but not really sentimental. It is good enough as reading material for the third grade and can also serve as an introduction to reading Fraktur.

A teacher asks about difficulties with new students in the stenography class.

Dr. Steiner: The only thing we can do is to make stenography an elective. We will make it something the children should learn.

Suppose a student comes into the eleventh grade. In previous years, he had a Catholic teacher for natural history. Now he comes and says he wants to learn only Catholic natural history. There is nothing we can do to free him of that.

We are teaching the best stenographic system, Gabelsberger’s, and it is obligatory because in our modern times it is needed for a complete education. I do not think it is prejudice at all. It is the only system that has some inner coherence. The others are all simply artificial. We need to think about having this class in a lower grade.

A teacher: Don’t the first-grade children have too much school because of the language class?

Dr. Steiner: If you see the children are tired, it would be better to drop that subject in the first two grades rather than to try some sort of tricks. I would prefer that we teach the little children only two hours a day if that were possible.

The school doctor asks about curative eurythmy exercises.

Dr. Steiner: That can be only a question of using the time most efficiently. Some children are given curative eurythmy exercises for a particular period, and they should be done daily. The children will have to leave class for that. If they are doing some curative eurythmy exercises, then they are sick. Since it is a therapy, you should be able to remove the children from class at any time except during religion class. If they miss something in class, it is just karma. There can be no difficulties if curative eurythmy is given the importance it is due. No one should hold curative eurythmy in such low regard that a child is not allowed to go.

A teacher asks about Cavalieri’s perspective in twelfth-grade geometry.

Dr. Steiner: Cavalieri’s perspective is more realistic. In it we see everything in small pieces. That perspective should be used wherever possible. It is designed for architecture. The architrave in the first Goetheanum was done in Cavalieri’s perspective, as though you were walking around a room while looking at the walls.

I want the children to have an equal opportunity to do all of the geometric constructions, for example, the sections through a cone, to sketch them freehand. They can do the actual drawing, the real construction, with a compass and a ruler.

A teacher asks about year-end reports.

Dr. Steiner: There is not much to say about the reports. The first school-year reports were really very interesting. Not giving grades was new; instead you evaluated the children in your own words. Many people received that in a very good way. You wrote the sentences with tremendous love. If you look at those reports today, you will see they were written out of love.

When I read some reports because someone complained, I found that for a large number of teachers writing the reports had gradually become a burden, just as in other schools, so that the teachers were happy when they were done. You can see they are no longer written with love. They have been formulated in the driest prose. It would be better if we used the 4, 3, 2, 1 grading system. We need to be more careful about how we write and be somewhat more creative. You should be more diligent and more loving, otherwise the result might be something like, “Can’t do anything, but will be better,” or, “Behavior leaves something to be desired,” and so forth. Then, the reports would no longer serve any purpose. I have nothing against it if you think it is too great a burden. Then we will have to swallow the bitter pill and give regular reports. That would be a shame, though. We cannot allow them simply to be written in the last week, but we cannot have any rules about them, because we would need a special rule for each student.

I was disturbed by S.T.’s report. When I decided to accept him, I said explicitly that we could not do so if we were going to be stuffy about it. We would have to be more open. That was when I was in J. We cannot have a Waldorf School and depend upon support if we set ourselves outside the world. It would have been much easier to say that we cannot accept such a student. The question was one of solving a more difficult problem, and thus that young boy came to us. I certainly did not hide the fact that we were subjecting ourselves to a real problem. I said all of that at the time. We needed to solve a problem: a boy who was very gifted for his age came into the ninth grade. Look at the questions he asked, but on the other side, he couldn’t do anything. He was lazy in every subject. But then he received a report that neglected everything that was said at the time. This drives me up the wall! It was written very pedantically, with no consideration of the special circumstances, and with no consideration of his psychology. I was just mortified by the faculty here. The report had no meaning for the boy, and his mother lost her head. The report was a wonderful example of disinterest. In this case, you did not seem to be as talented as usual. You wrote in the style of a very average middle school teacher.

You should write the reports for those who are to learn something about the child. You can tell the children what you have to say in a much more direct way throughout the year. The reports are for others to read. This report gives no indication whatsoever that the boy went through the most important year of his life and was very different at the end of the year than he was at the beginning. The positive things that occurred are not at all visible. We did not need to bring him to the Waldorf School to get such a report. Of course, you can take the position of a schoolmaster, but we should actually be much more open.

You need to write the reports with more love. You did not do that. You need to look at the individual students with more love. This report is sloppy, even superficially. Something like this looks bad. A report like this should be well organized and carefully written. You may have to describe the inner development of some children. If our teaching fails, it would be better not to take any risks if we fear things will get worse because the care needed for such an individual is not here.

A teacher asks whether L.K. from the third grade should go into the remedial class.

Dr. Steiner: Her mother is horrible. She was that way already as a young girl. It would not be appropriate to put the child into the remedial class where we should really have only children with some intellectual or emotional problems. K. is simply bad, and that would only be a punishment. She would not fit into the remedial class. Don’t put everyone in the remedial class.

A teacher: Should we consider K.E. in the fourth grade as normal?

Dr. Steiner: What is normal? You cannot draw some line. K.E. is not abnormal, but under such circumstances, you could put such a child in a lower grade.

A teacher asks about R.A. in the fifth grade, who had stolen something.

Dr. Steiner: For four years he has stolen nothing, but now he is beginning to steal. It is our task to make him into a proper young man. There must be something missing in the contact between the faculty and the children. If the children have genuine trust in the teachers, it is actually not at all possible for such moral problems to arise. You should certainly keep him in the class. He is not a kleptomaniac. He did it alone. You need to understand the children’s psychology better. It is possible that sometimes children do things because of a dare. It is also possible a hidden laziness exists. I certainly told him my mind quite clearly.

A teacher asks about a course in voice eurythmy.

Dr. Steiner: The eurythmy teachers and Mr. Baumann should have been at the tone eurythmy course in February.

In this case, the question is somewhat different. I began tone eurythmy in 1912. At that time a number of students came, Kisseleff, Baumann, and Wolfram. The course expanded when a number of eurythmists also came. Lori Smits continued it, but something foreign came into it then. This course should be used to make a new beginning. We will have to see how far we get. This is something that could be especially important. Since eurythmy is also done here in school, it could lead to closing the eurythmy class.

Dr. Schubert, Dr. Kolisko, and anyone else who can should attend the curative pedagogy course.

Miss Michels will go to the agricultural course. Someone will have to take over the children at that time.