The Rudolf Steiner Archive

From the three foregoing lectures, it should have become somewhat clear that in the Gospel of St. John the truths of Spiritual Science can be found again. However, it must be very clear that in order to discover these truths, it will be necessary to weigh every word thoroughly. In fact the important thing in a consideration of this religious document is that the true, exact meaning be perfectly understood, for as we shall see in particular instances everything in it has the deepest possible significance. Moreover, not only the wording of special passages is of importance, but something else must be considered and this is the division, the composition, the structure of the document. As a matter of fact, people no longer have the right feeling for such things. Authors of the past—if I may so designate them—introduced into their works much more of an architectural structure, much more of an inner arrangement than is usually imagined. You need only to recall from among them a relatively modern poet, Dante, to find this confirmed. Here we see that the Divine Comedy is architecturally composed of parts based upon the number three. And it is not without meaning that each division of Dante's Comedia closes with the word “Stars.” This I mention only to suggest how architecturally ancient writers constructed their works, and especially in the great religious documents we should never lose sight of this architectural form, because in certain cases the form signifies a very great deal. To be sure, we must first discover this meaning.

Here at the end of the 10th Chapter of this Gospel of St. John we should recall the following verse, which we should keep clearly in mind. In the first verse we read:—

And many came to him and said:

John performed no miracles, but all that he said of this man is true.

This means that we find in this verse of the 10th Chapter, an indication that the testimony given of Christ Jesus by John is true. He expresses the truth of this testimony in very special language. Then we come to the end of the Gospel and there we find a corresponding verse. Here we read in the 24th verse of the 21st Chapter:—

This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true!

Here at the end of the entire Gospel, we have a statement that the testimony of the one who reported these things is a true one. The coincidence that something very special is being said, here and there, by means of some particular word, is never without significance in ancient writings and just behind this coincidence is concealed something very important. We shall proceed with our considerations in the right manner if we direct our attention to the reason for this.

In the middle of the Gospel of St. John a fact is presented which, if not understood, would render this Gospel incomprehensible. Directly following the passage in which these words are introduced as confirmation of the truth of the testimony of John the Baptist stands the chapter concerning the raising of Lazarus. With this chapter the whole Gospel falls into two parts. At the end of the first part it is pointed out that the testimony of John the Baptist should be accepted for everything that is maintained and affirmed concerning Christ Jesus and at the very end of the Gospel it is pointed out that all that follows the chapter on the raising of Lazarus should be accepted on the testimony of the Disciple whom we have often heard designated as “the Disciple whom the Lord loved.” What then is the real meaning of the “raising of Lazarus?”

Let me remind you that following the narration of the raising of Lazarus there stands an apparently enigmatical passage. Let us picture the whole situation:—Christ Jesus performs what is usually called a miracle—in the Gospel itself it is called a “sign”—namely, the raising of Lazarus. And subsequently we find many passages which attest that “this man performs many signs,” and all that follows indicates that the accusers did not wish to have intercourse with Him because of these signs. If you read these words, whatever their translation (this has already been referred to in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact), you would need to ask:—What is really at the bottom of it all? The raising of some one provoked the enemies of Christ Jesus to rise up against Him. Why should just the raising of Lazarus so provoke these opponents? Why does the persecution of Christ Jesus begin just at this stage? One who knows how to read this Gospel will understand that a mystery lies hidden within this chapter. The mystery concealed therein is, in truth, concerned with the actual identity of the man who says all that we find written there. In order to understand this, we must turn our attention to what in the ancient Mysteries is called “initiation.” How did these initiations in the ancient Mysteries take place?

A man who was initiated could himself have experiences and personal knowledge of the spiritual worlds and thus he could bear witness of them. Those who were found sufficiently developed for initiation were led into the Mysteries. Everywhere—in Greece, among the Chaldeans, among the Egyptians and the Indians—these Mysteries existed. There the neophytes were instructed for a long time in approximately the same things which we now learn in Spiritual Science. Then when they were sufficiently instructed, there followed that part of the training which opened up to them the way to a perception of the spiritual world. However, in ancient times this could only be brought about by putting the neophyte into a very extraordinary condition in respect of his four principles—his physical, ether and astral bodies and his ego. The next thing that occurred to the neophyte was that he was put into a death-like sleep by the initiator or hierophant who understood the matter and there he remained for three and a half days. Why this occurred can be seen if we consider that in the present cycle of evolution, when the human being sleeps in the ordinary sense of the word, his physical and ether bodies lie in bed and his astral body and ego are withdrawn. In that condition he cannot observe any of the spiritual events taking place about him, because his astral body has not yet developed the spiritual sense-organs for a perception of the world in which he then finds himself. Only when his astral body and ego have slipped back into his physical and ether bodies, and he once more makes use of his eyes and ears, does he again perceive the physical world, that is, he perceives a world about him. Through what he had learned, the neophyte was capable of developing spiritual organs of perception in his astral body and when he was sufficiently evolved for the astral body to have formed these organs, then all that the astral body had received into itself had to be impressed upon the ether body just as the design on a seal is impressed upon the sealing-wax. This is the important thing. All preparations for initiation depended upon the surrender of the man himself to the inner processes which reorganized his astral body.

The human being at one time did not have eyes and ears in his physical body as he has today, but undeveloped organs instead—just as animals who have never been exposed to the light have no eyes. The light forms the eye, sound fashions the ear. What the neophyte practiced through meditation and concentration and what he experienced inwardly through them, acted like light upon the eye and sound upon the ear. In this way the astral body was transformed and organs of perception for seeing in the astral or higher world were evolved. But these organs are not yet firmly enough fixed in the ether body. They will become so when what has been formed in the astral body will have been stamped upon the ether body. However, as long as the ether body remains bound to the physical, it is not possible for all that has been accomplished by means of spiritual exercises to be really impressed upon it. Before this can happen, the ether body must be drawn out of the physical. Therefore when the ether body was drawn out of the physical body during the three and a half days deathlike sleep, all that had been prepared in the astral body was stamped upon the ether body. The neophyte then experienced the spiritual world. Then when he was called back into the physical body by the Priest-Initiator, he bore witness through his own experience of what takes place in the spiritual worlds. This procedure has now become unnecessary through the appearance of Christ-Jesus. This three and a half day death-like sleep can now be replaced by the force proceeding from the Christ. For we shall soon see that in the Gospel of St. John strong forces are present which render it possible for the present astral body, even though the ether body is still within the physical, to have the power to stamp upon the etheric what had previously been prepared within it. But for this to take place, Christ-Jesus must first be present. Up to this time without the above characterized procedure, humanity was not far enough advanced for the astral body to be able to imprint upon the ether body what had been prepared within it through meditation and concentration. This was a process which often took place within the Mysteries; a neophyte was brought into a death-like sleep by the Priest-Initiator and was guided through the higher worlds. He was then again called back into his physical body by the Priest-Initiator and thus became a witness of the spiritual world through his own experience.

This took place always in the greatest secrecy and the outer world knew nothing of the occurrences within these ancient Mysteries. Through Christ-Jesus a new initiation had to arise to replace the old, an initiation produced by means of forces of which we have yet to speak. The old form of initiation must end, but a transition had to be made from the old to the new age and to make this transition, someone had once more to be initiated in the old way, but initiated into Christian Esotericism. This only Christ-Jesus Himself could perform and the neophyte was the one who is called Lazarus. “This sickness is not unto death,” means here that it is the three and a half day death-like sleep. This is clearly indicated.

You will see that the presentation is of a very veiled character, but for one who is able to decipher a presentation of this kind it represents initiation. The individuality Lazarus had to be initiated in such a way that he could be a witness of the spiritual worlds. An expression is used, a very significant expression in the language of the Mysteries, “that the Lord loved Lazarus.” What does “to love” mean in the language of the Mysteries? It expresses the relationship of the pupil to the teacher. “He whom the Lord loved” is the most intimate, the most deeply initiated pupil. The Lord Himself had initiated Lazarus and as an initiate Lazarus arose from the grave, which means from his place of initiation. This same expression “Whom the Lord loved” is always used later in connection with John, or perhaps we should say in connection with the writer of the Gospel of St. John, for the name “John” is not used. He is the “Beloved Disciple” to whom the Gospel refers. He is the risen Lazarus himself and the writer of the Gospel wished to say:—“What I have to offer, I say by virtue of the initiation which has been conferred upon me by the Lord Himself.” Therefore the writer of the Gospel distinguishes between what occurred before and what occurred after the raising of Lazarus. Before the raising, an initiate of the old order is quoted, one who has attained a knowledge of the Spirit, one whose testimony is repeatedly announced to be true. “However, what is to be said concerning the most profound of matters, concerning the Mystery of Golgotha, I myself say, I the Risen One; but only after I have been raised, can I speak concerning it!” And so we have in the first part of the Gospel, the testimony of the old John—in the second half, the testimony of the new John whom the Lord Himself had initiated, for this is the risen Lazarus. Only thus do we grasp the real meaning of this chapter. These words are written there because John wished to say: I call upon the testimony of my super-sensible organs, my spiritual powers of perception. What I have related I have not seen in the ordinary physical world, but in the spiritual world in which I have dwelt by virtue of the initiation which the Lord has conferred upon me.

Thus we must attribute the characterization of Christ-Jesus, which we find in the first chapters of the Gospel of St. John as far as the end of the loth Chapter, to the knowledge which might be possessed by any one who had not yet, in the deepest sense of the word, been initiated through Christ-Jesus Himself.

Now, you will say: “Yes, but we have already in these lectures listened to profound words about Christ-Jesus as the incarnated Logos, the Light of the World, etc.” It is no longer surprising that these profound words concerning Christ-Jesus were spoken even in the very first Chapters, for in the ancient Mysteries, Christ-Jesus, who was to appear in the world at a future time, in other words, the Christ, was not perhaps an unknown being. And all the Mysteries point to One who was to come. For this reason the ancient initiates were called “prophets” because they prophesied concerning something that was to take place. Thus the purpose of initiation was to let it be clearly understood that in the future of mankind the Christ would be revealed, and in what he had already learned at that time, the Baptist found the truth which made it possible to state that He, who had been spoken of in the Mysteries, stood before him in the person of Christ-Jesus.

How all this is connected and what the relationship was between the so-called Baptist and Christ-Jesus will become clearer to us if we answer two questions. One of these questions is the following:—What was the position of the Baptist in his own age? The other leads back to the explanation of various passages at the beginning of the Gospel.

What was the position of the Baptist in his own age? Who, in fact, was the Baptist? He was one of those who—like others in their initiation—had received indications of the coming Christ, but he was represented as the only one to whom the true mystery concerning Christ-Jesus had been revealed, namely, that He who had appeared was the Christ Himself. Those who were called Pharisees or were designated by other names saw in Christ-Jesus some one who in fact opposed their old principles of initiation, one who in their eyes did things to which they in their conservatism could not accede. Just because of their conservatism they said:—We must adhere to the old principles of initiation. And this inconsistency of constantly speaking about the future Christ, yet never admitting that the moment had arrived when He was really present, was the reason for their conservatism. Therefore when Christ-Jesus initiated Lazarus, they looked upon it as a violation of the ancient Mystery-traditions. “This man performs many signs! We can have no intercourse with him!” According to their understanding, He had betrayed the Mysteries, had made public what should be confined within their secret depths. Now we can see how to them this was like a betrayal and seemed to be a valid reason for rising up against Him. From that time, because of this, a change takes place; the persecution of Christ-Jesus begins.

How did the Baptist represent himself in the first chapters of this Gospel? In the first place, as one who was well acquainted with the Mystery-truths of the Christ Who was to come; as one who knew very well that the writer of the Gospel of St. John himself could repeat all that he, the Baptist, already knew, having become convinced of its truth through what we are now about to learn.

We have heard what the very first words of the Gospel mean. We shall now consider for a moment what is said there about the Baptist himself. Let us present it once more in the best possible translation. Thus far we have only heard the very first words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was a God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through It and save through It was not anything made that was made.

In It was Life and Life was the Light of men.

And the Light shone into the darkness but the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man; he was sent from God, bearing the name John. The same came as a witness in order to bear witness of the Light that through him all might believe.

He was not the Light but was a witness of the Light.

For the true Light which lighteth every man should come into the world.

It was in the world and the world came into being through It, but the world knew It not.

It entered into individual men (that is, the ego-men); but individual men (the ego-men) received it not.

But they who received it could reveal themselves as Children of God.

They who trusted in His name were not born of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man—but of God.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard His teaching, the teaching of the once born Son of the Father filled with Devotion and Truth.

John bare witness of Him and proclaimed clearly: He it was of whom I said:—He will come after me, who was before me. For He is my forerunner.

For out of His fullness have we all received Grace upon Grace. For the law was given through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus-Christ.

Hitherto hath no one beheld God with his eyes. The once-born Son, who was in the bosom of the Universal-Father, has become the leader in this beholding.

These are the words which give again approximately the meaning of those first verses of the Gospel of St. John. However, before we come to their interpretation, we must add something else. How did John describe himself? You will remember that people were sent to discover who John the Baptist was. Priests and Levites came to him to ask him who he was. Why he gave the foregoing answer, we have yet to discover. Just at present we shall only consider what he said.

He said, “I am the voice of one calling in solitude.” These are the words which stand there. “I am the voice of one calling in solitude.” “In solitude” stands there quite literally. In Greek, the word eremit signifies the “solitary one.” You can then understand that it is more correct to say, “I am the voice of one calling in solitude,” than “I am the voice of one preaching in the wilderness.” We shall better understand all that is presented in the opening words of the Gospel, if we call to mind John's own characterization of himself. Why does he call himself “the voice of one calling in solitude?”

We have seen that in the course of human evolution, the true Earth-mission is the evolution of love, but that love is only conceivable when it is given as a voluntary offering by self-conscious human beings. We have also seen that the human being little by little gains control of his ego and that slowly and gradually this ego sinks into human nature. We know that the animal, as such, has no individual ego. If the individual lion were able to say “I” to itself, the individual animal would not be meant thereby, but the group-ego in the astral world. All lions would say “I” to this group-ego. Thus whole groups of animals of like form say “I” to the supersensibly perceptible group-ego in the astral world. The great advantage human beings have over the animals is that of possessing an individual ego. The latter, however, only evolved by degrees, for human beings also began with a group-ego, with an ego belonging to a whole group of individuals.

If you were to go back to ancient peoples, to ancient races, you would find that originally human beings were everywhere formed into little groups. With the Germanic peoples you would not need to go very far back. In the writing of Tacitus it is quite evident that the German thought more of his whole tribe than of himself as an individual. The individual felt himself more as a member of the Cheruskian or of the Sigambrian tribe than as a separate personality. Therefore he partook of the fate of the whole tribe and when an individual member or the entire tribe received an affront, it did not matter who was the avenger.

Then in the course of time it happened that individual personalities gave up their tribal membership, and this resulted at last in the breaking up of the tribes so that they no longer held together. Human beings also evolved out of this group-soul characteristic and little by little they developed to a point where they could experience the ego in their own individual personalities. We can only understand certain things, especially religious documents, when we understand this mystery of the group-souls, of the group-egos. For those peoples who had come already to a certain conception of the individual ego, there still always existed a greater ego that spread out not only over groups living contemporaneously in a certain place, but also far beyond these groups. Human memory at the present time is of such a character that the individual remembers only his own youth. But there was a time when a different kind of memory existed, a time when the human being not only remembered his own deeds but also those of his father and of his grandfather as though they were his own. Memory reached out beyond birth and death as far as the blood relationship could be traced. The memory of an ancestor whose blood, as it were, flowed down through generations was preserved for centuries in this same blood, and a descendant or offspring of a tribe said “I” to the deeds and the thoughts of his forebears as though to himself. He did not feel himself limited by birth and death, but he felt himself as a member of a succession of generations, the central point of which was the ancestor. For what held the ego together was the fact that the individual remembered the deeds of the fathers and of the grandfathers. In ancient times this had its outer expression in the giving of names. The son remembered not only his own deeds but also those of his father and of his grandfather. Memory extended far back through generations and all that the memory thus encompassed was called in ancient times, for example, Noah or Adam. The individual human beings were not meant by these names, but the egos which for centuries had preserved the memory. This mystery was also concealed behind the names of the Patriarchs. Why did the Patriarchs live so long? It would never have occurred to the people of ancient times to denominate an individual human being by a special name during his life between birth and death. Adam was looked upon as a common memory, because the limits of time and space in ancient days played no part in the giving of names.

By degrees the human individual ego slowly freed itself from the group-soul, from the group-ego. The human being came gradually to a consciousness of his own individual ego. Formerly he felt his ego in his tribal membership, in the group of human beings to whom he was related through the blood tie, either as to time or space; hence the expression, “I and Father Abraham are one,” which means one ego. The individual felt himself safe within the whole, because a common blood ran through the veins of all of the members of his particular people. Evolution progressed and the time became ripe for individuals right within their race to feel their own separate egos. It was the mission of the Christ to give to human beings what they needed in order that they might feel themselves secure and firm within their separate individual egos. In this way we should also interpret those words which can be so easily misunderstood namely, “He who does not deny wife and child, father and mother, brother and sister, cannot be my disciple!” We must not understand this in the trivial sense of instruction to run away from the family. But it means that every one should feel that he is an individual ego and that this individual ego is in direct union with the Spiritual Father who pervades the world. Formerly a follower of the Old Testament said, “I and Father Abraham are one,” because the Ego felt itself resting within the blood relationship. At that moment this feeling of oneness with the Spiritual Father-Substance had to become independent; no longer should the blood relationship be a guarantee of membership in the whole, but the knowledge of the pure Spiritual Father-Principle in whom all are one.

Thus we are told in the Gospel of St. John that the Christ is the great bestower of the Impulse which gives to men what is needed to make them feel themselves forever within their own separate, individual egos. This is the transition from the Old Testament to the New, for the old had always something of a group-soul character in which one ego felt itself associated with the others, but in reality never felt either itself or the other egos. Instead, it experienced the folk or tribal ego within which they all had a common shelter.

What must be the feeling of an ego that has become so matured that it no longer feels the connection with the other individual personalities of the group-soul? What must have been the feelings of the individualized ego in a period in which it could be said: “The time is now past when union with other persons, union with all egos belonging to a group-soul can be felt as an actual life-reality; first, however, One must come who will give the spiritual Bread of Life to the soul from which the individual ego may receive nourishment.” This separate ego had to feel itself solitary and the forerunner of the Christ was compelled to say: I am an ego that has broken away, that feels itself alone, and just because I have learned to feel solitary, I feel like a prophet to whom the ego gives real spiritual nourishment in solitude. Therefore the herald had to designate himself as one calling in solitude, which means the individual ego isolated from the group-soul calling for what can give it spiritual sustenance. “I am the voice of one calling in solitude.” Thus we hear again the profound truth:—Each human individual ego is one wholly dependent upon itself; I am the voice of the ego that is freed, seeking a foundation upon which it, as an independent ego, can rest.—Now we understand the passage, “I am the voice of one calling in solitude.”

In order that we may accurately understand the words of the Gospel, we shall need to familiarize ourselves a little with the way names and designations were then usually given. The giving of names at that time was not so abstract and devoid of meaning as it is at present, and if the exponents of biblical documents would only consider a little how much is expressed in this way, many trivial interpretations would never come to the light of day. I have already pointed out that when the Christ said, “I am the Light of the World,” He really meant that He was the first to give expression to the “I AM” and was the Impulse for it. Therefore in the first chapters wherever “I AM” is to be found, it must be especially emphasized. All names and designations in ancient times in a certain sense are very real—yet at the same time they are used in a profoundly symbolical manner. This is often the source of tremendous errors made in two directions. From a superficial point of view, many say that according to such an interpretation a great deal is meant symbolically, but with such an explanation in which everything has only a symbolical meaning, they wish to have nothing to do, since historical, biblical events then disappear. On the other hand, those who understand nothing at all of the historical events may say:—“This is only meant symbolically.” Those, however, who say such things, understand nothing of the Gospel. The historical reality is not denied because of a symbolic explanation, but it must be emphasized that the esoteric explanation includes both, the interpretation of the facts as historical and the symbolic meaning which we ascribe to them. Of course, if anyone sees only the prosaic external facts, namely, that a man was born somewhere, at some particular time, he will not understand that this man is something more than just a person with a particular name whose biography can be written. But whoever knows the spiritual relationship will learn to understand that besides being born in some particular place this living human being is also a symbol of his age and that what he signifies for the evolution of humanity is expressed in his name. It is something symbolic and historical at the same time, not simply the one or the other. This is the important thing in a true interpretation of the Gospel. Therefore in almost all of the events and allusions, we shall see that John—or the author of the Gospel bearing his name—really has a super-sensible perception; he sees at one and the same time the outer events and the manifestation of deep spiritual truths. He has in mind the historical figure of the Baptist; he is considering the historical figure. But the true historical figure is for him at the same time a symbol for all men who were in ancient times called upon to receive the imprint of the Christ Impulse upon their egos, a symbol for those into whose individual egos the Light of the World might shine, although they had just started on the path. It was not, however, a symbol for those who in their darkness were not yet able to apprehend the Light of the World. What appeared as Life, Light, and Logos in Christ-Jesus, has always shone in the world, but those who were first to become matured did not recognize it. The Light was always there, for had it not been there, the germ of the ego could not possibly have come into existence.

Only the physical, ether and astral bodies of the present human being existed within the Moon Evolution; there was no ego in them. Only because the Light became transformed into that light which now shines down upon the earth did It have the power to enkindle the individual egos and to bring them gradually to maturity. “The Light shone in the darkness but the darkness could not yet comprehend it.” It entered into the individual human being—right into the human ego—for an ego-humanity could not have come into existence at all, had not the Light been rayed into it by the Logos. However, ego-humanity as a whole did not receive It, but only certain individuals, the initiates. They raised their souls to the spiritual worlds and they always bore the name, “Children of God,” because they possessed knowledge of the Logos, of the Light, and of Life and could always bear witness of These. There were certain ones who already knew of the spiritual worlds through the ancient Mysteries. What was present there in these initiates? It was the eternal human living within them in full consciousness. In the mighty words, “I and the Father are one,” they felt, in fact, I and the great Primal Cause are one! And the most profound thing of which they were conscious, their individual ego, they received not from father and mother but through their initiation into the spiritual world. Not from the blood nor from the flesh did they receive it, nor from the will of father or mother, but “from God,” which means from the spiritual world.

Here we have an explanation of why it was that although the majority of mankind had already received the rudiments of an ego-being they could not as individuals receive the Light which had only descended, in fact, as far as the group-ego. Those, however, who received the Light—and they were few, indeed—could by means of it make themselves “Children of God.” Those who put their trust in the Light were through initiation born of God. This gives us a clear picture. But in order that all men might perceive the living God, with their earthly senses, He, the Christ, had to appear upon earth in a way that made it possible for Him to be seen with physical eyes; in other words, He had to take on a form of flesh, because only such a form can be seen with physical eyes. Prior to this, only the initiates could perceive Him through the Mysteries, but now He took on a physical form for the salvation of every soul. “The Word or the Logos became flesh.” Thus the writer of the Gospel of St. John links the historical appearance of Christ-Jesus together with the whole of evolution. “We have heard His teaching—the teaching of the once-born Son of the Father!” What manner of teaching is this? How were other men born?

In the ancient times in which the Gospels were written, those who were born of the flesh were called “twice-born.” They were called twiceborn—let us say—because of the intermingling of the blood of father and mother. Those who were not born of flesh and did not come into existence through a human act or through the mingling of blood, were “born of God,” that is to say, they were “once-born.” Those who were previously called “Children of God” were always in a certain sense the “once-born” and the teaching about the Son of God is the teaching of the “once-born.” The physical man is “twice-born,” the spiritual man is “once-born.” You must not understand it to mean born into (hineingeboren)—no, “once-born” (eingeboren) is the antithesis of “twice-born” (zweigeboren). These words point to the fact that besides the physical birth, the human being can experience also a spiritual birth, namely, union with the Spirit, a birth through which he is “once-born,” a child or a son of the Godhead.

Such a teaching had first to be heard from Him who represented the Word-made-Flesh. Through Him this teaching became general—“this teaching of the once-born Son of the Father, filled with Devotion and Truth.” Devotion is the better translation here, because we have to do not only with being born out of the Godhead, but also with continued union with It, with the removal of all illusions which only come from being “twice-born” and which surround men with sense-deceptions. On the contrary it is a teaching, the truth of which is substantiated by Christ-Jesus Himself, living and dwelling among men as the incarnated Logos.

John the Baptist called himself—literally interpreted—the forerunner, the precursor, the one who goes before as herald of the ego. He designated himself as one who knew that this ego must become an independent entity in each individual soul, but he also had to bear witness of Him who was to come, in order that this be brought about. He said very clearly, “That which is to come is the ‘I AM,’ which is eternal, which can say of Itself, “Before Abraham was, was the I AM.” John could say, “The I (the ego) which is spoken of here existed before me. Although I am Its forerunner, yet It is at the same time my Forerunner. I bear witness of what was previously present in every human being. After me will come One Who was before me.”

At this point in the Gospel very significant words are spoken:—“For of His Fulness have we all received grace upon grace.” There are men who call themselves Christians, who pass over this word, “Fulness,” thinking that nothing very special is meant by it. “Pleroma” in Greek means “Fulness.” We find this word also in the Gospel of St. John: “For from the Pleroma have we all received grace upon grace.” I have said that if we wish really to understand this Gospel, every word must be weighed in the balance. What is then, Pleroma, Fulness? He alone can understand it who knows that in the ancient Mysteries Pleroma or Fulness was referred to as something very definite. For at that time it was already being taught that when those spiritual beings manifested themselves who during the Moon period evolved to the stage of divinity namely, the Elohim, one of them separated from the others. One remained behind upon the Moon, and thence reflected the power of Love until humanity was sufficiently matured to be able to receive the direct Light of the other six Elohim. Therefore they distinguished between Jahve, the individual God, the reflector, and the Fulness of the Godhead, “Pleroma,” consisting of the other six Elohim. Since the full consciousness of the Sun Logos meant to them the Christ, they called Him the “Fulness of the Gods” when they wished to refer to Him. This profound truth was concealed in the words:—“For out of the Pleroma, we have received grace upon grace.”

Now let us continue by transplanting ourselves back into the age of the group-souls, when each individual felt his own ego as the group-ego. Let us now consider what kind of a social organization existed in the group. As far as they were visible human beings, they lived as individuals. They felt inwardly the group-ego, but outwardly they were individuals. Since they did not yet feel themselves as separate entities, they were also unable yet to experience inner love to its fullest extent. One person loved another because he was related to him through blood. The blood relationship was the basis of all love. First those related by blood loved each other and all love, as far as it was not sex-love, sprang from this blood relationship. Men must free themselves more and more from this group-soul love and proffer love as a free gift of the ego. At the end of the earth evolution, a time will come for mankind when the ego, now become independent, will receive into its inner being, in full surrender, the impulse to do the right and good. Because the ego possesses this impulse, it will do the right and the good. When love becomes spiritualized to such a degree that no one will wish to follow any other impulse. than this, then that will be fulfilled which Christ-Jesus wished to bring into the world. For one of the mysteries of Christianity is that it teaches the seeker to behold the Christ, to fill himself with the power of His image, to seek to become like Him, and to follow after Him. Then will his liberated ego need no other law; it will then, as a being free in its inner depths, do the good and the true. Thus Christ is the bringer of the impulse of freedom from the law, that good may be done, not because of the compulsion of any law, but as an indwelling Impulse of Love within the soul. This Impulse will still need the remainder of the Earth period for its full development. The beginning has been made through Christ-Jesus, and the Christ figure will always be the power which will educate humanity to it. As long as men were not yet ready to receive an independent ego, as long as they existed as members of a group, they had to be socially regulated by an outwardly revealed law. And even today men have not, in all things, risen above the group-egos. In how many things in the present are men not individual human beings, but group-beings? They are already trying to become free, but it is still only an ideal. (At a certain stage of esoteric discipleship, they are called the homeless ones.) The man who voluntarily places himself within the cosmic activities is an individual; he is not ruled by law. In the Christ Principle lies the victory over law. “For the law was given by Moses, but Grace through Christ.” According to the Christian acceptation of the word, the soul's capacity for doing right out of the inner self was called Grace. Grace and an inner recognition of truth came into being through the Christ. You see how profoundly this thought fits into the whole of human evolution.

In earlier ages, those who were initiated developed higher spiritual organs of perception; previously no one ever saw God with physical eyes. The once-born Son who rests in the bosom of the Father is the first who made it possible for us to behold a God in the way we see a human being upon earth with the physical earthly senses. Previously God had remained invisible. He revealed Himself in the super-sensible world through dreams or in other ways in the places of Initiation. Now God has become an historical fact, a form in the flesh. We read this in the words: “Before this no one had beheld God. The once-born Son who dwelt in the bosom of the Universal Father became the guide to this perceiving.” He brought mankind to the point where it could behold God with earthly senses.

Thus we can see how sharply and clearly the Gospel of St. John points to the historical event of Palestine and in what exemplary and concise words which must be accurately weighed in the balance if we wish to use them for an understanding of Esoteric Christianity.

Now we shall see in the following lectures how this theme is further developed and at the same time how it is shown that the Christ is not only the guide of those who are united with the group-soul, but how He enters into each individual human being and endows the individual ego itself with His Impulse. The blood-tie indeed remains, but the spiritual aspect of love is added to it, and to this love which passes over from one individual, independent ego to another, He gives His Impulse.

Day by day, one truth after another was revealed to the neophyte in the course of his initiation. A very important truth is always disclosed, for example, on the third day. Then it is that one learns fully to understand that there is a point in the evolution of the earth when physical love, bound up with the blood, becomes ever more spiritualized. This point of time is the event which demonstrated the transition from a love dependent upon the blood-tie to a spiritualized form of love. In significant words Christ-Jesus makes reference to this when He says: “A time will come which is my time, a time when the most important things will no longer be accomplished by men bound by the tie of blood, but by those who stand alone by themselves. This time however is yet to come.” The Christ Himself who gave the first impulse, says on one important occasion that this ideal will sometime be fulfilled, but that His time is not yet come. He prophetically points to this when His mother stands there and asks Him to do something for mankind, hinting that she has the right to induce Him to an important deed for humanity. He then replies, “What we are able to do today is still connected with the blood bond, with the relationship between thee and me, for My time is not yet come.” That such a time will come when each must stand alone is expressed in the narrative of the Marriage at Cana when the announcement: “They have no wine,” was answered by Jesus with the words: “That is something that has still to do with thee and me, for My time is not yet come.” Here we have the words, “between thee and me” and “My time is not yet come.” What stands there in the text refers to this mystery. Like many others, this passage also is usually very roughly translated. It should not read: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” but: “This has to do with me and thy blood relationship.” The text is very fine and subtle, but comprehensible only to those who have the will to understand it. But when, in our age, these religious documents are repeatedly interpreted by all kinds of people, one would like to ask, have those who call themselves Christians then no feeling for all this, that they make the Christ utter the words, incorrectly translated, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”

In much that today calls itself Christianity which rests upon the teaching of the Gospel, we are inclined to ask, Do they really possess the Gospel? The important thing is that they should first possess it. And with such a profound document as the Gospel of St. John every word must be weighed in order that its proper value be recognized.

To-day, the 8th May, the Theosophical Society celebrates the Day of the White Lotus, which to the outer world is known, in the usual terminology of the day, as the death-day of the instigator of that Spiritual stream in which we now stand. To us it would seem more appropriate to select a different designation for to-day's festival, one taken from our knowledge of the Spiritual world and which should run more like this: ‘The day of transition from an activity on the physical plane to one in the Spiritual worlds’. For to us it is not only an inner conviction in the ordinary sense of the words but an ever-increasing knowledge, that what the outer world calls death is but the passing from one form of work, from an activity stimulated by the impressions of the outer physical world, to one entirely stimulated by the Spiritual world. When to-day we remember the great instigator, H. P. Blavatsky, and the leading persons of her movement who have also now passed over into the Spiritual realm, let us in particular try to form a clear idea of what we ourselves must make of our Spiritual movement so that it may represent a continuation of that activity which she exercised on the physical plane as long as she remained on it; so that on the one hand it may be a continuation of that activity and at the same time be possible for the Foundress herself to continue her work from the Spiritual world, both now and in the future. On such a day as this it is seemly that we should in a sense break away from our usual study of theosophical matters, and theosophical life, and should instead go through a sort of conscientious retrospect, a retrospect concerning what the tasks and duties the theosophical movement sets before us, and which may also lead us to a sort of prevision of what this movement should become in the future, and what we should do, and avoid doing.

What we are carrying on as the Theosophical movement came into the world as the result of certain quite special circumstances and certain historical necessities. You know that there was here no question, as in other Spiritual movements or unions of any sort,—of one or more persons determining to follow certain ideals according as the quality of their hearts and minds leads them to feel enthusiasm for these ideals, trying to enthuse other people and to induce them to form societies or unions for carrying these into practice. Not in this way should we view the Theosophical movement if we understand it aright. We only do this if we look upon it as an historical necessity of our present life: something which, regardless of what people feel or would like to feel about it, was bound to come, for it already lay in the womb of time, so to speak, and had to be brought to birth. In what way then may we regard the Theosophical movement? It may be considered as a descent, a new descent of Spiritual life, of Spiritual wisdom and Spiritual forces, into the sensible physical world from the super-sensible ones. Such a descent had to take place for the further development of man, and must repeatedly take place in the future. It cannot of course be our task to-day to point out all the different great impulses through which Spiritual life has flowed down from the super-sensible worlds in order that the soul-life of man should be renewed when it had, so to speak, grown old; but in the course of time this has frequently occurred. One thing, however, must be borne in mind.

In the primeval past, not long after the great Atlantean catastrophe which the traditions of the various countries record as the story of the Flood, came that impulse that we may describe as the inflow of Spiritual life that poured into the development of mankind through the Holy Rishis. Then came that other stream of Spiritual life that flowed down into man's evolution through Zarathustra or Zoroaster, and we find another stream of like nature in that which came to the old Israelites through the revelations of Moses.

I do not propose today to link up with what I was saying here last Sunday in the manner usually intended when people speak of continuing a subject. On that occasion I tried , as far as this was possible in a mere outline, to show in a general pedagogical and introductory way how we are to conceive the organisation of a life of spirit, a life instruction, independent of either the economic life of that of the State. I tried, too, to show how, once this independence is established, the various branches of instruction have to be applied in a new way, in order to give what must reveal itself to teacher and educa tor some kind of anthropological and pedagogical form or, perhaps it is better to say, a kind of anthropologically pedagogical activity. On the same occasion I remarked that one essential in the future will be the training and particularly the examining of a prospective teacher or educator to discover whether his personality is fitted for the task.

I will reserve the direct continuation of these matters for a later occasion and try to pursue my main subject in quite another way. I shall try to put before you clearly how it is necessary for me to think out of the evolutionary forces of the age—and how today we should have to speak at teachers' conferences, for example, or at somethigg of the sort, where people really desire to serve their times. At present it is a fact that, if we want to emerge from utter confusion and chaos, many things will have to be spoken of quite differently from how the present thinking habits prompt us to do.

Today even at teachers' conferences people talk—as can be proved by striking examples—on the old hackneyed lines, whereas it would be possible to introduce a really liberal education for the future, only if educators and teachers were able to rise to the level from which they could survey the very great task s at present facing us, insof ar as, out of the very nature of education and instruction, these tasks lend themselves to logical development. True, the manner in which I shall speak to you today will not be what I should like to hold up as a standard or even a pattern. But what I want to do is to indicate the angle from which we should speak to teachers so that they may themselves receive the impulse to get to work on an education having free play. It is just those who do the teaching who must rise to the level of the great and all-embracirg tasks of the age; they must be first to gain insight into the nature of the forces concealed behind present world events; they must see which forces have to be recognised as coming from the past and therefore needing to be superseded, which forces need to be specially cherished as having their roots in our present existence. These matters must be looked at today culturally and politically, in the best and most ideal sense, if we are to create a foundation for the impulses which will have to exist in those who are teachers. Above all, people must become aware that at every stage of instruction and guidance our education has suffered impoverishment and the reasons for this must be understood. The principal reason is that education has lost its direct connection with life. The educationalist today talks of many things which have to do with method, above all of the tremendous benefits that education is to derive from State control. Apparently, in his almost automatic way, he will still be speaking of these benefits when in theory he will in part have accepted the concept of the necessary threefold social organism. There has never been an age when thinking has been so automatic as it is now, and this is particularly evident where ideas on education are in question. These ideas on education have suffered under something that up to now we have been unable to escape; we must, however, escape from it. There are indeed questions today that cannot find so easy a solution as the following: Judging from past experience this or that will be possible. Then doubt will immediately take possession of the hearts and minds of men. Today there are innumerable questions which will have to be answered by: Is it not imperative that something should happen if we are to extricate ourselves from confusion and chaos? Here we have to do with questions of will, where the often apparently justified intellectual doubt regarding the validity of experience can settle nothing. For experience has value only when worked upon in a suitable way by the will. Today, though very little worked upon thus by the will, there is much in the way of experience. In the educational sphere itself a great deal is said against which, from the purely intellectual and scientific point of view, not much objection is to be made, and which from its own point of view is quite clever. But today it is important to understand the real issue—above all to understand how alien from real life our education has become.

I should here like again to refer to a personal incident. In Berlin about twenty-three years ago a society was formed concerned with college education. Its President was the astronomer Wilhelm Forster. I too belonged to this society. We had to hold a course of lectures most of which were given on the assumption that all it was necessary to know were certain stereotyped things about dealing with the various branches of science, about grouping these into faculties, and so on. I tried—though at the time I was little understood—to draw attention to the fact that a college should be a department of life in general, that whoever wants to speak about college education ought to start with the question: From the standpoint of world history, in what situations are we in life at present in all its different spheres, and what impulses have we to observe in these various spheres of life in order to let these impulsesstream into the college, thus linking it with the common life? When we work out such things, not in the abstract but concretely, countless points of view are revealed which, for example, help to reduce the time to be expended on any particular subject, and new ways of dealing with the various subjects are discovered. The moment any proposal is made for this reduction simply out of the ideas with which education works today, everything falls to the ground; the educational centres in question become mere institution s for training people who have no real connection with the world.

Now what are the intrinsic reasons, the deep lying reasons, for all this? Whereas in recent times thinking on the lines of natural science has made such wonderful progress, this fine method of thinking, which on the one hand has come to look upon man as purely a being of nature, has—to speak truly—cut off all knowledge of the real man. We have spoken quite recently of the tremendous importance of this knowledge of man's being for the right kind of teacher—the knowledge that recognises the real nature of the living human being, not in the formal way in which he is so often represented today, but in accordance with his inner being, particularly in accordance with the evolution of that being. There is a symptom, to which I have often referred here, showing how dreadfully foreign man's real being is to the modern educational movement. When a thing of this kind is said it may perhaps be considered paradoxical; it must be said today, however, for it is of the utmost importance. The loss of any real knowledge of man has produced that dreary, barren effort that is a branch of what is called experimental psychology against which, as such, I have no complaint. The so-called intelligence tests are a horrible travesty of what is really beneficial in the sphere of education. I have perhaps often described how, by certain physical contrivances, experiments are made with the avowed object of testing the memory, the understanding, of a human being, in order to register whether the particular person's memory and understanding are good or bad. In a purely mechanical manner, by giving part of a sentence and demanding its completion, or by some other device, it is sought to form an idea of the abilities of a growing human being. This is a symptom of how the direct relation between people—which alone is profitable—is a forgotten factor in our culture. It is a symptom of something cheerless which has been allowed to develop; but today it is admired as being remarkable progress—this testing of intelligence, this offspring of what are called in modern universities psychological laboratories. Until people see how necessary it is to return to a direct intuitive knowledge of man by studying the human being himself, particularly the growing human being, until we get rid of the unhappy gulf in this sphere between man and man, we shall never be able to understand how to lay the foundations for an education that is really alive and for a life of the spirit that is free. We shall have to purge all our educational establishments of this desire to experiment on the human being in order to satisfy the pedagogues. As groundwork for a reasonable psychology, I consider experimental psychology of value; in the form in which it has crept into education and even into the courts, however, it is a pervesion of the sound development of the evolving human being, between whom and his equally evolving fellow there is no yawning chasm. We have brought matters to such a pa ss that from what we strive after culturally we have excluded everything human; we must retrace our steps and once again unfold what belongs to man. We have also to find the courage to make an energetic stand against much of what in recent times has aroused growing admiration as a great achievement; otherwise we shall never make any advance. This explains how those today, who leave college with the intention of teaching, and proceed to educate human beings, have the most misguided conceptions about the real nature of man, and do not acquire the true conceptions because, in place of them, the kind of superficiality has arisen which we see in these intelligence tests. This will have to be recognised as a symptom of decline. We must seek within ourselves the capacity for judging the abilities of a human being, since he is a man and we ourselves are men. It must be understood that, because of this, every other method is unsound, for it destroys the fulness of what is immediately and vitally human—so necessary a factor in beneficial progress.

Now today these things are not seen at all. It is of primary importance that they should be seen if we are to progress. How often these things have been spoken of here; sometimes they have provoked a smile. But people have no notion that the reason for speaking of these things so frequently today is that they are an essential part of our life of spirit. There is nothing to be gained today by listening to what is said here as if it were a novelette; the important thing is to learn to distinguish between what is merely perceived, observed, and what may contain within it the seed to action. The culminating point of all the anthroposophical endeavors here is the building up of the idea of man, the passing on of the knowledge of man. It is this that we need. We need it because, from the very nature of the times, we have to overcome three forms of compulsion, the survivals of earlier days. First, the most ancient compulsion which masquerades today in various forms—the compulsion of the priesthood. We should make more progress in our study of the present situation were we today to recognise these disguises of certain obsolete facts and of the ideas and impulses unfortunately still living on in the thinking of the peoples of Europe, America and even in Asia—the modern disguises of the old priestly compulsion.

As our second compulsion we have something that develops later in man's historical evolution, also disguised in various ways today—the political compulsion.

And thirdly, coming comparatively late, there is the economic compulsion.

Out of these three compelling impulses men have to work their way; this is their task for the immediate present. They can get free today only if, to begin with, they clearly perceive the masks which in various ways disguise what is living in our midst, the masks which conceal the three compelling impulses among us.

Above all today the teacher must look to the level on which these things can be discussed, where, by means of the light gained from these things, we can illuminate contemporary evolution and thus become aware how one or other of these compulsions is lurking in some contemporary fact. Only when we find the courage to say: It is because teachers have isolated themselves, withdrawn into their schools, that such ill-judged ideas have been thought out as this testing of human efficiency by experiment—which is merely a symptom of much else... But everywhere today, where either general or special educational methods are spoken of, we see the result of this withdrawal behind the school walls where teachers have been banished by the State; we see this remoteness from real life. None of the principal branches of life, namely, the spiritual, the rights or political, and the economic, can develop fully at the present time—I say expressly at the present time, and particularly in this part of Europe—if these three branches do not stand each on its own ground. For the extreme west, America, and for the extreme east, it is rather different but, just because this is so, we ourselves must be aware of this. We shall have to think ultimately in concrete terms and not in abstract ones; otherwise, where space is concerned, we shall arrive at some theoretical Utopia for mankind throughout the entire earth, which is nonsense, or a kind of millennium in historical evolution—also nonsense. Thinking concretely in this sphere means thinking for a definite place and a definite time. We shall have something more to say about this today.

The attention of the teacher must be directed towards the great world phenomena; he must be able to survey what is there in our present spiritual life, and what changes have to be made in this present life by bringing out of the growing human being something different from what has been cultivated in him of late years. What has been cultivated of late years has, among those in educational circles who should have been active as teachers, led to terrible specialisation. On occasions such as speech-days, gatherings of scientists and other meetings of experts, we have often heard the praises of this specialisation vociferously sung. Naturally it would be foolish on my part were I unable to see the necessity for this specialisation in scientific spheres; but it needs to be balanced or we just create a gulf between man and man, no longer meeting our fellow men with understanding, but as a specialist confronting him helplessly as another kind of specialist. This gives us nothing on which to bare our belief in a specialist but the fact that he bears the stamp of some existing body of knowledge. We have been very near bringing this specialisation from the school into life. Whether the present vicissitudes will preserve us from the unhappy fate of having psychologists brought into the courts in addition to all the other experts, as many people wish, so that experiments can be made on criminals in the same way as they are made on our young people—this remains to be seen. I have less to say against the matter itself than against the way in which up to now it has been dealt with.

This is how things are under State control in the sphere of education, of school instruction.

Now after the short time in which people were talking of the inherent rights of manor, as they were then called, natural rights—no matter whether these were contestable or not—after this comparatively short time, came the age when people began to be shy of discussing these natural rights. It was taken for granted that whoever did so was a dilettante; in other words anyone was a dilettante who assumed the existence of something that established rights for man as an individual human being; the only professional way was to speak of historical rights, that is, of those rights which had developed in the course of history. People had not the courage to go into the question of the actual rights and on that account confined themselves to a study of the so-called historical ones. This especially is something that a teacher must know. Teachers must have their attention drawn, particularly during their conferences, to how in the course of the nineteenth century the concept of natural rights has been lost, or lives on in rights today in disguise, and how a certain wavering, a certain inner doubt, has persisted in face of what is merely historical. Whoever is acquainted with the conditions knows that the principal impulse today goes in the direction of historical rights, that people are at pains—to use Goethe's words—not to speak of inherent rights. In my lectures here I have frequently focus sed attention on how we must openly and honestly come to a final settlement in this matter. Hence we should not shrink from giving a true account of what has to be abolished, for nothing new can ever be set up unless there is a clear concept of what has impaired man's habits of thinking and perceiving.

It may well be said that our mid-European culture is a particularly forcible example of how a really positive idea of the State has broken down. There was an attempt to build it up again in the nineteenth century. It foundered, under the influence of the idea of purely historical rights, which made their impulses felt without this being noticed by those concerned. Whereas these people believed they were pursuing science in a way that was free from all prejudice, it really amounted to their pursuing it in the interest of the State or for some economic purpose. Not only into the carrying on of science but also into its content, and especially into all that has became practical science, there has flowed what has come from the influence of the State. Hence today we have practically no national economy because a free thinking, established on its own basis, has been unable to develop. Hence, too just where the most important laws of the economic life are concerned, there is today an utter lack of understanding given laws relating to genuine political economy are mentioned. We can see especially clearly into what confusion education has been thrown—education on a grand scale—for it has no connection with life, it has withdrawn from life into the schoolroom. A really living study of anything can never arise if we show merely what is to be experienced outwardly, without showing the way in which it should be experienced. The one thing cultivated today, namely, the worship of merely outward experience, leads simply to confusion, especially when it is a conscientious worship. We need the capacity to cultivate the inner impulses which lead us to the right experiences.

You will remember that last Friday I called your attention, in the necessarily brief way for lectures such as these, to how, by studying the conditions of European economy at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, we were able to gain a clear idea of the forming of associations in future from impulses arising out of production and consumption. But to this point of observation, which underlies the whole of European life and proceeds from what is so clearly to be learnt in the general change-over to our modern age at the end of the fourteenth century, we come with the right point of view only by studying anthroposophy in its deepest aspects. The essential facts are not falsified by this, but we are directed to that point in evolution where is revealed in clear symptoms what lies rather beneath the superficial stream of evolution, and what is to be looked upon as the actual driving element. For this reason, what is inherent in the scientific method has been hidden from modern pedagogy and scientific didactics; pedagogy and didactics were thrown back upon chance and chance dictated in what sphere they were to be found. What we need is inner guiding lines to direct us to important truths; the directing lines which can be found by studying Goethe's world conception, through which such an infinite amount may be learnt. This is not just to be built up nor looked for intellectually, it must be sought in an inter-weaving of man with the world. This is something lost to us, as may indeed be seen in our present wish to fathom the individual being of man in the superficial way this is done in the educational side-line we call experimental psychology.

What is pre-eminently necessary today is for a light to be kindled in those who are responsible for the education of children concerning the very root of our modern development. If we now stand at a point where the main direction of life has to be changed, it is absolutely necessary to see into what has happened in the course of evolution up to now. The first thing to go under was the elementary impulse towards a free economic life of the state; then in the last third of the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth,—particularly in Central Europe, we trampled on our life of spirit, made it into something of secondary importance. How much, for instance, of the great impulse of Goetheanism has flowed into the kind of life of spirit we want today? Nothing, or practically nothing! People talk in a superficial way of Goethe; of the immensities concealed in the very way Goethe perceived the world, nothing has sunk into the general consciousness. As I have frequently told you the Goethe Society at Weimar showed themselves lacking in all sense of responsibility by placing at their head not a man who had understanding of Goethe, but a superannuated Prussian Minister of Finance!

Thus have we let ourselves sink into utter forgetfulness of our spiritual past. Nowhere in present day consciousness do we find what, through Goethe, gave the German life of spirit its characteristic stamp. It is all effaced, reduced to the level of a parasite. Editions of Goethe have followed one upon another, but nowhere do we meet with Goethe's spirit. Whoever sees through all this must say: In the realm of economy this is bad, in that of politics it is bad, but it is worst of all in the spiritual realm. In this way we have begun by ruining our political consciousness; after that we have ruined all connection with our own life of spirit. I do not say this from pessimism, I say it because, out of insight into what has happened in the past, there must arise what is to happen in the future.

Then—well, then came what is called the world war. After the collapse of the political life, which in its collapsed condition was nevertheless kept going, after the collapse of the life of spirit comes the economic collapse, the magnitude and intensity of which is even today not realised, because it is believed that we are at the end or at any rate in the middle of it, whereas we are merely at the beginning. This economic collapse—it can be studied in everything that played a part in producing the world catastrophe. If we would go into the pertinent details of the question of the Baghdad railway before the world war, for example, you would see there the most unhappy consequences of linking the political with the economic life. If you follow the single stages of the Baghdad transactions, with which the unfortunate Helfferich is specially connected, you see economic capitalism on the one hand forming combination on combination, on the other hand the interference of the national-political machinations of chauvinists, machinations which differ according to whether they work in from the east or from the west. In Germany, my dear friends, we observe the loss of all sense of action as the lifo of the spirit has been lost; the sense of action has disappeared with the real life of the State, and what remains is merely the economic life. Everywhere from the West we see economical-political aspirations playing in, wearing the mask of chauvinism or nationalism, the mask of the economical-political; whereas from the East we have the spiritual-political masquerading in various forms. All this is united in a confusion of threads which then lose themselves in the absurdity, in the impossible situation, of the Baghdad question. This question of the Baghdad railway, this whole procedure shows clearly the impossibility of any further development of the old imperialism, of any further development of the old political system.

Now what in the will to build this railway we see here as a great political problem of world importance, is seen again in incidents during the war. Things, however, have never been observed so that, guided on the right lines, people have come to the point where outer events can betray their inner connections. So Kapp squealed, Bethmann Hollweg raised an outcry while there was silence on the part of the spiritual leaders of Germany. That was indeed the situation. Kapp who represented agriculture squealed, not knowing which way to turn between war economy and the problems of the land. Bethmann Hollweg, who had no head for politics, raised an outcry, no longer having anything reasonable to say on the matter; and those Germans who were at the head of the spiritual life were silent because they had withdrawn into the schoolrooms of Germany and were no longer in touch with real life, having no notion of how in real life things should be managed.

I don't know how many of you remember all this. What I am giving you is no highly painted version but the situation in its actual colors. Kapp did squeal, Bethmann Hollweg really raised an outcry against the terrible way in which he, poor man, was attacked in the Reichstag; and those who were supposed to know something of the matter in question said either nothing or what, because it had no connection with life, amounted to nothing. The lines on which economy was developing could be shown up in all their absurdity only by a great, conspicuous world affair. Indeed, many people have never noticed the pass to which we have come also in what concerns the State. They had their Hohenzollerns, their Hahsburgs, their Romanoff Czars. That because of their impracticability, already in a most decided form the elements of disintegration were present within the empires of Hohenzollems, Habsburgs and Romanoffs, could be ignored, for it was possible for these empires to be held together in an umatural frame, already in process of disintegration because, within the State, there was no longer any real impulse.—On the part of the socialists today we frequently hear it emphasised that the State must cease. No one has done more to prevent a judicious administration of the State than those who represented the European dynasties in the nineteenth century. By deluding ourselves, and refusing to be conscious in various ways, it is possible to ignore the fact that we have trodden the life of spirit underfoot, as far as its achievements in the nineteenth century are concerned. This cannot be done to the economic life. When the State is starved people are offered the consolation of public holiday and royalty is feted with paper flowers. For example, it is no fabrication but an ascertainable fact that on the Hamburg bridges well-dressed women, souvenir mad, violently precipitated themselves on the cigarette ends William II had thrown away. Neither is it an idle tale that this same William II was not averse to such flattery but that it tickled his vanity; he delighted in such displays.

Thus, in the sphere of the economic life we have ultimately experienced the remarkable phenomenon which can be characterised only by saying that agriculture squealed, that there was an outcry on the part of the political life, and industry preened itself with satisfaction, workers included—to the extent to which they formed part of industry—until they arrived at the front, where they learned another tune and spread abroad other views on returning to their homes. It is obviously untrue when today it is said that collapse started in the home. Collapse started at the front because the men there could no longer endure the conditions. Such things must be known, especially by those who want to educate others. Henceforward they dare not sit in a comer without any understanding of life; they have to know what must happen. Far more important than keeping to any school time-table today would it be for the instructors of youth to hear discussions about this cultural and historical phenomenon, and to have revealed to them what shows itself so clearly in the sphere of the economic life under capitalism.

You know the saying ascribed to a certain society—a saying approved on one side, disputed on the other—“The end justifies the means.” In the economic life under capitalism another impulse has shown itself during the world catastrophe, and that is: The end has desecrated the means. For everywhere among the declared ends and aims—this is revealed also in that very question of the Baghdad railway—the means were desecrated, or, again the means desecrated the ends.

These matters must be known today and must be studied unreservedly. My present observations have an educational purpose insofar as I believe that from the aspect from which I am speaking today—not perhaps in accordance with the way in which I speak—teachers must, above all, have each stage elucidated. We have to outgrow what previously has prevented teachers hearing of these great world events. Because of this we are experiencing today the comfortless fact of how entirely ignorant a great part of the population were politically. Today we meet people—in this instance I cannot politely say “present company excepted”, at least not in all cases—who do not know what has been going on for decades in the most external affairs, for instance in the workers' movement; these people have no notion what form the struggles of the proletariat have taken during these decades. Now an educational system that turns out into the world men who pass one another by, and know nothing of each other, must surely be a factor leading to collapse. Are there not in the middle class today those who scarcely know more about the workers than the fact that they wear different clothes, and details of that description; who know nothing of the struggles going on in trades unions, in associations, in political parties, and have never taken the trouble to look into what is taking place all around them? Now why is this? It is because people have never learnt to take lessons from life, because they always learn some particular thing. They think: Ah, I know that, I am a specialist in that sphere; you know something else and are a specialist in some other sphere.—People have become accustomed to this without ever getting beyond what they have absorbed as knowledge at school, considering this as an end in itself, whereas the important thing is learning to learn,—Learning to learn, so that, however old one is, one can remain, up to the very year of one's death, a student of life. Today even when people have taken their degree, as a rule they have exhausted their powers of learning by the time they are out of their twenties. They are unable to learn anything more from life; parrot­wise they reel off what they have absorbed up to then. At most they have, now and again, an inkling of what is going on. Those who are different are exceptional. It is important that we should discover an educational method where people learn to learn, and go on learning from life their whole life long. There is nothing in life from which we cannot learn. We should have different ground beneath our feet today if people had learnt how to learn. Why nowadays are we socially so helpless? It is because facts are confronting us on a level to which men have not grown. They are unable to learn from these facts because they have always to confine themselves to externals. In future there will be no education that bears fruit if people will not trouble to rise to the great points of view in human culture.

Now whoever views the world today out of a certain anthroposophical back ground frequently discussed here, knows how to think concretely about all that is in it. He looks to the West, he looks to the East, and out of this concrete observation he can set himself problems. He looks towards the West into the Anglo-American world in which for many decades, perhaps even longer, there have played the great political impulses so damaging at present to central Europeans. Nevertheless these impulses are on a grand scale; and all the great impulses in the political life of the present time have originated from the Anglo-American peoples, for they have always known how to reckon with the historical forces. When during the war I tried to bring this to the notice of certain people sayinq: The forces coming from there can be withstood only by forces arising in the same way from historical impulses,—I was ridiculed because there is no belief, among us here, in great historical impulses. Whoever knows how to study the West rightly, insofar as it is Anglo-American, finds there a number of human instincts and impulses coming from the historical life. All these are of a political-economic nature. There are important impulses in an elementary form within Anglo-Americanism, which all have a political economic coloring; ever one there thinks so politically that this political thinking is extended into economics. But in all this there is one peculiar feature. You know that when we talk of economy we are demanding that, in the economy of the future, fraternity should hold sway; it was driven out of the imperialist-political economic strivings of the West. Fraternity was left out, eliminated; hence what lived there assumed its strongly capitalist trend.

Fraternity was developed in the East. Whoever studies the East in accordance with its nature, so entirely of soul and spirit, knows that out of the people there really springs a sense of brotherliness. Whereas what was characteristic of the West was a boom of the economic life destitute of brotherliness and tending therefore to capitalism, in the East there was brotherliness without economy, these two being held apart by us in Central Europe. We have the task—a thing the teacher must know—the task of synthesising the brotherliness of the East with the non-brotherly but economic way of thinking belonging to the West. We shall be socialists in a world-embracing sense if we bring this about. Let us now bring the East into a right line of vision. You find there, from very ancient times, a highly spiritual life. That it should have died out can be maintained only by those who have no understanding for Rabindranath Tagore. Men there, in the East, live a spiritual political life; and what of the opposite pole? It is to be found in the West. For this spiritual-political life of the East lacks something—it lacks freedom. It is a subjection that leads to the renunciation of the human self in Brahma or Nirvana. It is the reverse of all freedom. On the other hand, the West has made a conquest of freedom. Standing between East and West it is we who have to unite these in a synthesis, which is possible only by keeping freedom and fraternity quite distinct in life, but at the same time preserving balance between them. We must not understand our task, however, in such a way that what is suitable for one is suitable for everyone; for abstract thinking of that kind is the ruin of all striving after reality. All thinking in accordance with reality comes to grief when people believe that one kind of abstract ideal can be set up over the whole earth, or that an ordering of society holding good today will do so to all eternity. This is not only nonsense, it is a sin against reality, for each part of space, each section of time, has its own task, and this must be realised. But then we must not refuse through laziness to gain knowledge of the true, concrete human relations; and we must recognise our task by learning to study facts in accordance with their meaning. The primary and secondary education of recent days has led us very far from this kind of study; it has no wish to know anything of this concrete approach to phenomena, for at this point the region begins where men today feel uncertain of themselves. Instead of describing they would rather define. They would like today to take up images of the facts instead of accepting images of the facts as mere symptoms of what is expressed in the deeper lying impulses.

I am speaking today in such a way that the content of all I say is meant to be drawn from the region out of which anything about education must issue. Those who can best enter into what is said from this region make the best educators and teachers; not those who are asked what they know of any particular subject—knowledge of that kind can be found in a textbook and read up before a lesson. The important thing in future examinations must be to discover what those who aspire to be teachers are as men. A life of spirit of this kind applied to education, out of its very nature, creates the necessity of not being trained for cultural life one-sidedly but as spiritual workers standing fully within the three branches of the nature of man. I am not saying that anyone who has never worked with his hands is unable to see the truth rightly and never ta ke s a right stand in the life of the spirit. The following should be the aim—for man to go in and out of the three spheres of the threefold social organism, that he should form real relations with all three, that he should work, actually work, in all three. We need have no fear that the possibilities for this will remain hidden. A feeling for this, however, must arise particularly in the heads of those who in future will be teachers of the young. Then another feeling will come to life, a tendency to go beyond specialisation to what we try here to bring about through anthroposophy. We must come to the point of never breaking the thread of our study of the universally human, of our insight into what man actually is; we must never be submerged in specialisation in spite of having our specialists. This, it is true, demands a much more active life than most people today find pleasant.

I have often experienced an extraordinarily discordant note at conferences of specialists or technical conferences. People foregather there with the express purpose of furthering their special subject. Now this frequently is done for hours, with great diligence and keenness. But I have repeatedly heard a very strange expression—the expression "talking shop". Time is requested when shop is no longer to be talked, when no one is to speak any longer on his special subject. Then, for the most part, the silliest rubbish is talked, the most boring rubbish, but no shop. There is a certain amount of malicious gossip; many subjects are discussed, sometimes very interesting subjects—though that is looked at askance—in short, everyone is relieved when the talking of shop is over. Doesn't it show how little connection people really have with what they actually do, and what they are supposed to do, for mankind, if they are so pleased to get away from it? Now, I ask you: Will leaders of men who want to esca pe their particular profession as soon as possible ever be able to face up to a population of manual workers who enjoy their work? When today in their complacent way, they talk about the wrongs existing among the manual workers, you must not question the manual workers, you must question the bourgeoisie who have created the wrongs—these are the real sinners. Those who as manual workers are tied to the desolation of capitalism cannot attain joy in their work, when above them stands a class who perpetually have the wish to escape from what should make for their happiness. These are the ethical by-products of recent educational methods. It is something which must above all be realised and above all undergo change. There is much here that will have to become different in the customary thinking of those who teach.

What am I wanting to tell you in these remarks? I want to make clear to you how thorough-going today we have to be in our indications of what is to come about; how thoroughly necessary it is to leave the realm of the trivial, the terribly trivial content to which we have confined our thinking, and not only our thinking but also our life of feeling and will. How should the will prosper—and we need our will for the future—if it has to remain in the light of this petty habit of thinking, this petty quality of our ordinary thinking and feeling?

How much is entirely lacking that we must have for the future? For one thing we must have a real people's psychology. We must know what there is in the growing human being. We have blotted out this knowledge and in its stead have acquired tests that experiment with human beings because of the inability to apprehend their characteristics intuitively. All kinds of apparatus are supposed to reveal what the human being has in the way of abilities. We do not trust in ourselves to discover these things. And why? Because we do not approach them with interest; because we go through the world with our soul asleep. Our soul must wake up and we must look into these things. Then we shall see that much of what today is looked upon as great progress is really absurd. This poor pedagogue of the primary and secondary school is sent out like a human tame rabbit unable to see what is really going on in the world. The rabbit then proceeds to educate human beings, who because of this very education pass by their fellow men without any feeling for what lives in their souls. Thus, it is today, irrespective of the fact that among many of the middle class there is obviously no will to enter into the great contemporary questions and impulses, and that those today who have any will are not of much use because they know absolutely nothing about what is necessary, having slept through the time during which the proletariat day by day, for decades, have been schooling themselves politically. It is indeed very seldom that, when it is a matter of discussing the great questions of the day, we find proletarians making the excuse of not being able to afford the time to look into them; they make the time. But if you inquire of any bourgeois group, they have so much to do that they cannot afford the time to study contemporary matters—they all have far too much to do. That, however, is not the real reason; as a matter of fact they have no notion at all what it is they are supposed to study. They do not know how to go to work beca use this was never included in their education.

Now these are not just so many pessimistic remarks, nor are they intended as a sermon; they are a pure statement of fact. What is more, we have experienced that, when men have been forced to it by life, they have educated themselves in this matter. In cases where people should have been able to educate themselves out of their own impulse, it has all come to nothing, nothing at all has happened. It is on this account that we find ourselves in our present wretched condition, on this account that we hear about anything tried-out today not only expressions of ill-will, which are frequent enough, but all the unintelligent nonsense arising from ignorance of life, because no school has ever thought of teaching its pupils how to learn. Knowledge in individual cases always trickles to people through the protecting walls of comfort, but this does not have the same result as when the human being has free access to the phenomena of life with unimpeded senses.

The sad events of the present time might show us an infinite amount in that very sphere where people go on talking in the old way, and where it appears as if the clockwork of the brain had been wound up and was obliged to go on ticking. Conferences on external matters proceed today still in the same way as they proceeded before the war catastrophe. A great proportion of the people have learnt practically nothing from these terrible events, because they have never learnt how to learn. Now they will have to learn from dire necessity what fear has not taught them. In the past I have referred here to an utterance, quoted in what I wrote on the social question, of a most unassuming but cultured observer of life, Herman Grimm. “In the nineties of last century this man said: When we contemplate the life around us today and consider whither it is heading, whither it is rushing headlong, particularly in these ceaseless preparations for war, it is as if the chief desire was to fix the day for general suicide—so utterly hopeless does this life appear.” People are wanting, rather, to live in dreams, in illusion, those above all who think themselves practical. But today necessity is calling us to wake up; and those who do not wake will not be able to take part in what is essential, essential for every single man. Many do not even know how to put their hand to the plough in this matter.

This is what I wanted to say as a kind of exposition of what should be discussed today at teachers' meetings. It is what should be developed particularly by those who have the task of educating youth, those who should be looking towards what the future is to bring. When we continue these studies we shall go more into the details of education, details of primary and secondary education.

Today's meeting provides a further opportunity for me to speak to you who are friends of the anthroposophical movement before I leave. I wish to do something which in a way is particularly close to my heart, to discuss some of the things that really need to be discussed. It is possible that most of what I have to say today is a repetition of things that have been discussed on a number of occasions from all kinds of different aspects, things now also taken into consideration in public lectures. There are reasons, however, why it is necessary for us to consider some of them once again today.

I have often stressed that it is necessary for a sufficient number of people to fully understand the following. To prevent the decline into which we have got ourselves in the civilized world from continuing into utter ruin, certain impulses must be brought into modern civilization that can only arise if spiritual science reveals the nature of the world to its fullest extent.

Materialism has come to Europe over the last three or four centuries, coming to a crest in the 19th and then tumbling over in the 20th century. It has a peculiarity that seems paradoxical, particularly if one fails to realize the true causes. The peculiar thing about materialism is that it has no possibility of recognizing the material world as it really is. I think I have already given you an example of this. The materialistic way of thinking has in more recent times given rise to an idea that is believed by a great many people, namely that the heart is a kind of pump in the human organism that pumps the blood through the organism. This idea of the human heart being a pump comes up in all kinds of variations nowadays. The facts are rather different, however, and should be seen like this: The whole of our rhythmical circulatory system is something alive. It cannot be compared with a system of channels or the like with water flowing through them, water kept circulating with the aid of a pump. Our rhythmical circulatory system, our blood system, is something alive. It is kept alive by a number of factors, the major factors being breathing, hunger, thirst and so on. These clearly function at the level of soul and spirit. Our blood system is set in motion by entirely primary causes, and the movement of the heart arises when this spiritual principle enters into the rhythm of the blood. The rhythm of the blood is the primary, living principle, and the heart is caught up in this rhythm. The facts are therefore entirely the opposite of what every professor of physiology is teaching today, with the result that it is dinned into people's heads at school and indeed from their earliest childhood.

It therefore has to be said that materialism has not even managed to get a real understanding of the physical processes relating to the heart in the human organism. The material aspect in particular is completely misunderstood. This is just one of many examples. Material things in particular have found no explanation whatsoever under the influence of materialism. The heart is not a pump. It it something we might regard more as a sense organ incorporated within the human organism to give human individuals a kind of subconscious perception of their circulation, just as the eye perceives colour in the world outside. Basically the heart is a sense organ within the circulatory system, yet exactly the opposite is taught nowadays.

This would appear to be an example of limited relevance. I can imagine some philistine saying: ‘Well, it can't do much harm if people have entirely the wrong idea about the nature of the human heart. Of course, if doctors had the wrong idea about the nature of the human heart that would be cause for general alarm. After all, it does make quite a difference in human life if doctors have the right or the wrong idea about the heart.’ But this also holds true for other things. Everything is connected with everything else in life, and because of this humankind is absolutely full of wrong ideas, completely upside-down ideas. One might well think, if one was serious about it, that being hung up on wrong ideas would cause real havoc in our thinking processes. It certainly does. Our thinking is utterly ruined because it has been dinned into us and we have become used to thinking that things are the opposite of what they really are. That is why we never acquire the habit of steady, purposeful thinking. How can our thinking grow purposeful in social life, for example, if in areas where truth should be sought above all else we are in fact going in the opposite direction?

You see, some things that are important to know are a closed book for People today. When the human organism is investigated in conventional institutes nowadays, in physiological and biological laboratories, in hospitals and similar institutions, the brain for instance is examined by analyzing it bit by bit as it presents itself to the eye. The liver is examined by the same kind of analysis. In doing so, people never consider one thing that is absolutely essential if one wishes to understand the human being: The whole of the head organization as We have it today and everything it governs is entirely different from the rest of the human organism.

Let me show you what lies behind this. You can draw it like this. I intend to lead up gradually to what I really want to say. You can say that the human being has two organs of perception, and the direction in which they perceive is approximately like this [see (a) in the diagram]. Two other directions in which we perceive show a certain relationship to these. In diagrammatic form I would draw them like this (b):

I deliberately did not tell you where these organs are to be found in the human organism. If I draw nothing but two arrows to indicate direction (a) here, where one stretches out, as it were, to perceive, and two others here, (b), where we perceive sideways, it makes no difference at all if these are the directions in which feeling and sensation pass through my legs and these where they pass through my arms. Here we have something that is in accord. I perceive my own gravity, as it were, I stand with my two feet on the ground. I really perceive something. And I also perceive something when I stretch out my hand, stretch out my arm, even if I do not actually touch anything. I can draw it like this (a). The same drawing can also stand for something different. Imagine this is the horizontal plane. The two arrows could represent the two visual axes; I could draw the two visual axes like this. And these arrows (b) could indicate the directions of my ears. The same diagram would serve to indicate perception by the eyes and ears. On the one occasion I have the whole organism within the head, though the plane has turned through a 90° angle, on the other within the rest of the organism. There is a higher point of view where both are the same. Our two legs are merely directions in which we perceive that have become flesh. The same directions exist in a less physical form where they extend from the brain through the eyes to perceive colour. Elsewhere we perceive gravity and everything connected with it. We see our weight and we step on colour, we could say, if we were to change the two things over, entirely in organic terms, of course. I hear the blackboard chalk, I touch a C or C sharp that is sounding. The difference is merely one of degree. In the head everything has gone through a 90° angle and is less physical; the other is in the vertical plane, and is physical. In the final instance both are the same. It is only that I am aware of the way my eyes step on colours, my ears touch sounds; I know about it, it is part of my ordinary conscious life. Everything my legs see with regard to gravity and all kinds of other things that my arms hear—all these are in the subconscious sphere. Conditions belonging to the cosmic sphere are present in the subconscious. With the whole of my subconscious I have knowledge of the cosmic sphere, knowledge of the way the earth relates to other bodies in the universe, knowledge of the universal background to gravity. I hear the music of the spheres with my arms and not with my ears.

Thus we may say that we have a lower organism, as it is called, with subconscious cosmic awareness, and we have a head with early awareness; this however is a ‘conscious’ awareness. The whole of the human being is organized on the basis of these differences. Our outer form and configuration depends entirely on these differences. You know that the head we carry today is the transformed body of our previous incarnation, our previous earth life, and that the rest of our present organism will be the head in our next life. The head, then, is the rest of the organism which has undergone a transformation. It is more perfect, more finished in a way. As a result the legs have become fine visual threads extending beyond the eye and stepping on the colours in a very lively way. The arms of our former life have become so ethereal that they now extend from our ears and touch the sounds we hear.

These are concrete facts about the human being. It does not get People anywhere to know about repeated earth lives and so on. Those after all are dogmas and it makes no difference if you have the dogmas of the Catholic or Protestant church or the dogma of repeated earth lives. Real thinking only starts when you enter into concrete events, when you come to realize that looking at the human head you are looking at the transformed body of your previous earth life, and that the head you had then was the transformed body of the preceding life—you must imagine it without the head, of course. The head you see now is the transformed organism of the last life lived on earth. The rest of the organism as you see it now will be the head in the next life. Then the arms will have metamorphosed and become ears, and the legs will have become eyes. We must look at the physical world and understand it in its transformed non-physical form, our intellect must illumine the material world in this way. Then at last we shall have what humankind is much in need of today. Once the human mind has been organized so that it no longer produces the kind of folly that has been put forward as a potential social theory, particularly in the second half of the 19th century, human beings will indeed be ready to develop social ideas that can be put into effect in this world. It is necessary to gain a thorough understanding of this today. It is a serious matter when people say today: Something else will have to take the place of the science which has evolved and is so highly respected, of all the things that are generally disseminated. There can be no other way.

It is nonsense, and I also said so recently in a public lecture,³⁰ to talk about setting up adult education thinking that the same kind of work can be done there as at ordinary universities. It is the work done at the universities that has brought us to these disastrous situations, because it has become the materialistic view of a few leading personalities. This is now to be presented to the masses; that is, millions are to head for the disasters that so far have come about because the wrong lead was given by a few. Something that proved useless for a few is now to be spread among many. It is not as easy as that, however. Popular education cannot be introduced simply by teaching outside the universities what until now has been alive inside them. It would mean teaching something that is altogether unsuitable for human beings. This may sound radical, but it is absolutely essential that it is fully understood if there is to be even the least hope of the decline being halted and something new and positive developing. These are the things one wishes one could speak of in words that truly go to the heart. These concrete truths must reach as many hearts as possible. It was therefore important to me to point out in my public lectures that something has been achieved in the Waldorf School, that anthroposophy has positively influenced the history lessons in some places. I was also able to refer to the teaching of anthropology in class 5. There, too, anthroposophy was effective. Not that one would teach anthroposophy to the children—we would never think of doing such a thing—but lessons come to life if anthroposophy is the foundation, if the inspiration of anthroposophy is there in what we teach. This brings the souls of the children to life; they are quite different when this influence is there. It would be taking the easy way simply to teach anthroposophy in our schools. No, that is not what we are about, but rather to use anthroposophy to enliven the subject matter. It will of course be necessary for anthroposophy to come alive in oneself first of all, and that is something that really comes hard, to let anthroposophy come alive in human beings. Otherwise the potential is there today for all kinds of disciplines, not only in science but all kinds of disciplines in life, to have the full benefit of what life in anthroposophy is able to give.

That is a general way of looking at it. Let me go on to something specific, so that you can see the things we are considering in their proper context.

Marxist philosophy, Marxist views are widespread today. They have their most radical expression in Leninism and Trotskyism, which are destroying the world. A view of history known as ‘historical materialism’ plays a great role in Marxist philosophy, particularly the dogma of the fundamental importance of the modes and relations of production. Millions of proletarians have accepted this dogma according to which tradition, law, science, religion and so on are like smoke, like an ideology rising from the modes and relations of Production—you will find further details in my book Towards Social Renewal³¹—and that the modes and relations of production are the Only reality on which to base one's view of history.

It was very important to me on past occasions—this has to do with the feeling I have that I was really able to achieve something and create a potential basis at the Worker's Education Institute in Berlin³²—to speak in proletarian circles about the view that the modes and relations of production are the only effective element, and to present a clear picture. My aim therefore was not to teach historical materialism but the truth. That was of course also the reason why I was thrown °in, for it offended those in charge at the time just as much as the idea of a threefold social order offends people today. Authoritarian thinking and belief in authority were and still are as great in the socialist movement as in the Catholic church.

What really matters is to gain a clear understanding of social relations in this world. Real understanding of the natural threefold order of the human organism, of the way the human organism is an organism of nerves and senses, rhythmical organism and a metabolic organism, as shown in my book Von Seelenrätseln,³³ leads to a way of thinking that can also apply to social life. People of little understanding will say: ‘You are using analogy in applying the threefold order of the human body to the social organism’. This is nonsense of course. Analogy is not the method used in Towards Social Renewal. All I said was that if people succeeded in letting their thinking escape from the strait jacket put on it by modern scholarship and particularly public opinion, they would free their thinking to the extent that it will be possible to think sensible thoughts concerning social issues. The kind of thinking that puts the human brain side by side with the liver, examining everything as though it were of the same substance, will never come to sensible conclusions.

Using external analogies we might say: The social organism is threefold by nature and so is the human organism. The head is the organ of mind and intellect; it should therefore be compared with the cultural and intellectual life in the threefold organism. The rhythmical system establishes harmony between different functions in the action of the heart, in respiration—that would be the rights sphere in the social organism. Metabolism, the most physical, material aspect—something mystics tend to look down on to some extent, though they say they also have to eat and drink--would be compared to the sphere of economics.

This is definitely not the case, however. I have repeatedly pointed out on other occasions that in reality things are very different than mere analogy would make them to be. It cannot be said, for instance, that summer is comparable to the waking state for the earth and winter to a state of sleep. The reality is different. In summer the earth is asleep, in winter it is awake. I have gone into this in detail.

The same applies if we consider the real situation in comparing the social and the human organism. The economic sphere of the social organism actually compares to the activities of the human head. As to the sphere of rights, the legal sphere, people were quite rightly comparing this, the middle realm, with rhythmical activities in the human organism. The life of mind and intellect however has to be compared with the metabolism. This means that economic life has to be compared with the organs that serve the mind and intellect, and the cultural and intellectual sphere of the social organism with the metabolic organs. There is no way round this. Economic life is the head of the social organism; cultural life is the stomach, liver and spleen of the social organism but not of the individual human being. It is of course too much of an effort for anyone whose thinking is in a strait-jacket to make distinction between social life and the life of an individual person.

Again the essential point is that spiritual science prepares us to see things as they really are and not to produce analogies and elaborate symbolism. We will then arrive at important conclusions. We shall find, for example, that we can say: But in that case economic life, if it really is the head in the social organism, will have to live on the rest of the organism, just as the head does in the human organism. In that case we cannot say morality, religious life and the search for knowledge are ideological elements arising from economic life. Quite the contrary, in fact. Economic life is dependent on cultural life, on the metabolism of the social organism, just as the human head depends on respiration, on stomach, liver and spleen. We then come to see that economic life arises out of cultural and religious life. If we did not have a stomach we could not have a head. Of course we also could not have a stomach if we did not have a head, but it is the head after all that is fed by the stomach, and in the same way economic life is fed by cultural life and not the other way round. The socialist theories that now threaten to spread through the whole of the civilized world are therefore quite erroneous, a dreadful superstition. No one has thought to look for the truth in recent centuries; on a purely emotional basis everyone has been promulgating the kind of truth their class and point of view suggested to them. Now at last it is realized that it is a total delusion to see historical evolution as the product of the modes and relations of production. The idea is now to compare the actual facts and not to talk in analogies. Now a realistic view is taken and it is realized that if the stomach is undermined in the human organism, the head will suffer. In the same way there can be no sound metabolism in the social organism and economic life must fall into decline if morality, religious life and intelligent thought are undermined in the social organism. Nothing in fact depends on economic life; primarily everything depends on the views, the ideas, the cultural life of humankind.

The head is always dying—I have spoken of this in other lectures—and we only maintain the head organism because it is constantly dying and the rest of the organism rebels against this. The same applies in the sphere of economics. Economic life is constantly bringing death and decay into the progress of history; rather than generating everything else it brings about the death of everything. This element of death constantly has to be counterbalanced by what the cultural organism is able to produce. The situation is therefore exactly the other way round. Anyone speaking in materialistic terms and saying economic life is the basis for progress is not speaking the truth. The truth is that economic life is the basis of something that is always dying in stages, and the mind and spirit have to make up for this dying process. To proceed the way people are now proceeding in Russia is to help the world to its death. The only possible outcome of proceeding in this way is to help the world to its death, for the simple reason that the laws of death are inherent in the things that are being done there.

You can see the eminent social importance of these things. We have now been working in anthroposophy for twenty years, and all the time I have tried to make it utterly clear and apparent in all kinds of lectures that what matters to us is not the cultivation of a philosophy full of inner self-gratification, a kind of spiritual snobbery, but to develop the most important impulse that is needed in the present age.

I wanted to present this to you again today in a slightly different form in connection with a number of things that can help us understand the essential nature of the human being. It is important that those who call themselves friends of the anthroposophical movement clearly perceive the connection between this anthroposophical movement and other events as we know them.

The ideas put forward by myself and other friends are often seriously distorted. It is therefore difficult to speak freely to such a large audience, even if it is anthroposophical. As there is no immediate opportunity, however, to discuss these things at a more intimate level and yet it is necessary to speak of them, let me draw your attention to a few things. We must be aware, particularly here in Stuttgart, that the anthroposophical movement we have now had for twenty Years has indeed reached a new stage. If we are serious about the movement this means we have accepted the obligation to follow this change, to adapt to this change. You must properly understand that because our friends Molt, Kühn, Unger, Leinhas³⁴ and others have attempted to take the anthroposophical approach to its practical conclusion something has happened that concerns us all. It concerns us all and we must take account of it in everything we say and do. The fact is—and let us be very clear about this—that until then the anthroposophical movement was a current in the life of the mind and spirit. Such things continue on their way, cliques and closed groups, however objectionable, that go by personal and heaven knows what other interests, may form; a spiritual movement may even proceed by the agency of privy councillors like Max Seiling.³⁵ One does of course have to approach it properly in view of what is called for, but for as long as it is a purely spiritual or cultural movement it can be ignored. Now, however, three things have grown out of this spiritual movement.

The first followed the appeal I made last year.³⁶ It now forms part of the struggling threefold movement, the Association for a Threefold Social Organism. This has not yet been able to get anywhere near the real objectives. What the appeal had to say has in a sense met with rejection, and it would be a good thing to be fully aware that there has been this rejection, that only very little of what was intended has come to fruition.

This does of course mean that I have many requests made to me. The idea has come up in Dornach, for example, of issuing a further appeal that would make it known internationally what Dornach means to the world. I had to explain to our friends that in the ordinary life outside that is now heading for a breakdown, appeal usually follows appeal, programme on programme. We cannot do this if we work out of anthroposophy. It is important to realize that, in a way, it is not at all healthy if something is undertaken that does not come off. It is important to make a careful assessment of the chances of success, and not just do what comes to mind but only the things that have a chance of success. This is why I then said—it is important and I must ask you to consider it carefully—that I would not dream of making a similar appeal again, for what has happened to the first appeal should not happen a second time. It was possible to let the appeal for a Cultural Council³⁷ go out, for that was not my work, but we must be very clear that things are getting a great deal more serious than people are inclined to think if something like the anthroposophical movement stands behind them.

Three things have now evolved out of the anthroposophical movement, in a way, each of them quite distinct. A threefold order following that appeal—we will have to work at it, for it partly meets with rejection; secondly the Waldorf School;³⁸ thirdly the financial, commercial and industrial enterprise called Der Kommende Tag (Dawn of Tomorrow).³⁹

Coming to Stuttgart in the past, when we only had the anthroPosophical movement—I am referring only to Stuttgart—I would spend three or four days here and you know how many personal interviews I managed. These things have had some effect, as is now becoming apparent. It was not without significance that whatever had happened in the meantime—people will understand what I mean if they want to—could be put to rights again in those personal interviews. Events could then proceed until the next time. Now the position is such that following those outer developments one has to attend meetings from morning till night, and indeed well into the night, and there is no question of continuing in the ways we got used to when we were only an anthroposophical movement. Now there are many people who feel that it is a nuisance that things are no longer the way they were. It is necessary, however, to look at all the changes and really say to oneself: Things have changed since the spring of last year and this will have to be taken into account.

The situation cannot remain as it is, but a united effort must be made to see that it does not remain this way. It cannot remain as it is because everything that is done—be it for the Waldorf School or the Kommende Tag—has its basis in spiritual work. Without the spiritual work that has been done and must continue to be done there is no point to it all. The spiritual work must give form, vigour and content to the whole. To continue the way we are going would mean that the institutions which have now been established would swallow up the original spiritual movement. We would be taking away the original basis. Nothing growing out of the anthroposophical movement should be allowed to swallow up the movement as such.

You see, these are serious matters we have to discuss today, and I think at least some of you will understand what I mean. Things will not be different unless we accept it as a reality that anthroposophical work has been done for many years, for decades. This work must be seen as something real.

I would ask you also to consider the following. There is much conflict in the world, but where is most of this conflict to be found? It takes a certain form and people fail to notice, but most of it takes place in the sphere of spiritual endeavour. There is no end to the conflict within the body we call the anthroposophical movement, for example. When our movement evolved out of older practices—it was necessary to start from these, you know the reasons—that is, when many people familiar with the old theosophical practices joined our movement, I had the feeling that a gentleman, who at the time was particularly vehement in his defense of the line we were following, would very soon be in conflict with various other people. Conflict is likely to be particularly bad in this sphere. In fact I always made it quite clear that the gentleman in question, a theosophist of the purest Water, would not only come in conflict with others, but that his right side and his left would be involved in a desperate struggle. People Will find that the left side of this individual will have the most dreadful quarrel with his right side.

It will of course be necessary to develop the other extreme, where the conflicts that constantly arise are overcome. Such conflicts are due to the very nature of spiritual movements, because they all aim to develop the human individuality. The other pole, the other extreme, of human understanding, must be there as well; it is the pole of human understanding where it is possible to enter into a human individual, to go deeply into the life impulses of another person, and so on. It must be possible for the Kommende Tag and the Waldorf School we are now running to be given a sound moral basis by the anthroposophical movement here in Stuttgart, the moral basis that is the work of decades, or at least should have been such. That has to be the foundation, for it is the only way in which we can go ahead and restore the balance between a life consisting of meetings and the necessary spiritual work which after all should be the basis. We cannot achieve this, of course, if things go on all the time where one is told, for instance, that dreadful things have been going on again, with someone causing trouble all the time, someone upsetting all the rest. Well, that may be so. To date—and on this visit such things have come up again countless times—I have not been able, however, to pursue such an affair to the point where the second person, when approached, told the same story as the first. When it came to the fifth or sixth person, I would hear the absolute opposite of what the first had told me. I do not want to criticize, to apportion praise or blame, really, not even the latter, but that is how it is. What is needed, particularly among anthroposophists, and I have said this on many occasions, is an absolute and unerring feeling for the truth. It is very difficult to continue working in all these areas unless there is a basis of truth, of genuine, immediate truth. If there is this basis of genuine truth, surely it must happen that when something comes up and one pursues the matter further a fifth or sixth person would still present the same facts. Yet it happens that I am told about something ‘dreadful’ and everybody I ask tells me something different. I cannot, of course, apply the things I have from other sources to external life; I have said this many times. It is not a question of whether I know about it, know who is right and who is wrong. The question is whether the first says the same as the sixth or seventh. What I know has nothing to do with it. As a rule I do not allow people to pull the wool over my eyes, and that is not why I ask people. The reasons are quite different. As a rule it does not interest me very much what people tell me. The point is that I hear what the first person says and then the seventh, only to find on many occasions that one person says one thing and the seventh says the opposite. It evidently follows that one of the two things cannot be true. It seems to me that this does follow.

In outer physical life which for this very reason is going into a decline people have always wanted to shut their eyes to the function, the crucial significance, of untruths. Even unintentional untruths are destructive in their effects. In spiritual science working towards anthroposophy it is absolutely essential to realize that an untruth in the life of mind and spirit is the same as a devastating bomb in physical life. It is a devastating force, an instrument of destruction, and this in very real terms. It would certainly be possible to do important and fruitful work in the spiritual sphere again, in spite of the many new developments, providing these things are given some attention—objective attention, however, not subjective attention.

You know I do not normally go in for tirades; it is not my habit to moralize. Just for once, however, I really must discuss the facts that have become very obvious at this time, because the situation is serious. We are looking at undertakings that must not fail, that will have to succeed, and there can be no question of any kind of failure; we have to say today that they shall succeed. They must not however swallow up the original anthroposophical movement, and this means that everybody must do his share to ensure that the moral foundation established in the work of many years really exists. Everybody must do his part. It is really necessary for everybody to to their part.

It saddens my heart that I am unable to respond to almost all the many requests that are made to me. I had to keep refusing to help my friends because time cannot be used twice, and meetings go on not only from morning till night, but even well into the night. Quite obviously I cannot use the same time to talk to individuals. The membership in the widest sense must come to its senses and get rid of the things that play a role in all aspects of life here, the kind of thing I have just been mentioning. Every single member must reflect and see that here in this very place these things have to be done away With Unless this is done—and these things are connected—it will not be possible to find the time to do real fundamental spiritual work. Everything arising out of anthroposophy will succeed. Yet unless some things change the original spiritual movement will be swallowed up. The will impulses of those who consider themselves the bearers of this spiritual movement would then lead to a new materialism, as the original spiritual movement will have been aborted. The spirit needs to be nurtured or it will die. Materialism does not arise of its own accord; you cannot create materialism, just as you cannot create a corpse. A corpse is produced when the soul leaves the organism. In the same way everything created here on a spiritual basis, out of something that has soul, will become entirely material unless there is a genuine desire to nurture the spirit. It means that above all the moral and ethical basis which we have been able to establish is given careful attention. It is necessary above all to ensure that we do not become subject to illusion, that we do not think it is enough to accept Certain views just because they are easy to accept. We must look at life without flinching.

It is really very bad for people to say things like: ‘The threefold order is a good thing; we must take it up.’ Feeling rather good about it they will say: ‘I am getting something organized and it is very much in accord with the threefold order; aren't I good! It makes me really feel good getting something organized that is a nucleus of threefoldness’. Licking your lips morally speaking, full of inner self gratification—you may feel like this when you are doing such things, but it does not mean that you have a sense of reality. The threefold idea is true to reality because it requires genuine effort to bring it to realization. Many people's ideas are however so unrealistic that the idea of threefoldness goes against the grain with them. The first and most essential thing is for this idea to be taken up by a sufficiently large number of people. We must have the necessary sense of reality and practical common sense.

Eight days ago I had to speak here in Stuttgart about the consequences the threefold order has for the management of landed property.⁴⁰ I said that the threefold order obviously aims to achieve a situation where social exchange, social conditions relating to landed property, are such that land cannot be bought and sold like other goods That is entirely based on reality; to say the opposite would be unrealistic. I had to discuss the subject on a day when I actually got here late because we had been going round the countryside all day trying to buy land. If we have a sense of reality we cannot base ourselves on the threefold order and say: ‘I must be good; I am forming a nucleus for the threefold order.’ No, it has to be accepted, and there can be no illusions, that in a certain respect the only possible way in which we can work for a threefold order is by working on the most important aspect, not basing our work on the immediate present.

It is not a question of morally licking our lips as we say that we follow a particular idea. This would make it unfruitful and abstract. It is a question of really seeing the reality, seeing what is necessary. This is the difference between people whose approach is utopian and dogmatic and those who take a practical view. The latter will take an idea as far as it can go, but they are not unworldly people living for some private pleasure; they take hold of the reality. We really only give ourselves up to illusion for our own private pleasure. This must be realized. It is also necessary to realize that many other things go in the same direction. I am sorry, it could not be helped. There were quite a number of things that I could have talked about on this last occasion before my departure. I might have drawn your attention to many things that were put to me more or less in passing, things that do have an effect on the fruitful activities. One of the main problems with those fruitful activities is that there is a constant need to have endless discussions on matters that should be dealt with in half an hour, because things are thrown into the pool that really should not be there. If you have sound thinking habits—and those are the habits we must acquire if spiritual science as it is presented here is to come about—and then find yourself—I am not speaking theoretically—right in the middle of what is nowadays called business practice, the best way of defining what goes on is that people kill as much time as possible, that time is wasted. There are practical people today who boast of being busy all day long. If they did not waste so much time, their work, which let us say takes ten hours, could be easily done in one hour. Time is killed particularly in what is called active life today. This killing of time causes thoughts to be drawn out. Entering into practical life as it goes on today one really gets the feeling that one is in a noodle factory where thoughts that ought to be concentrated are drawn out, pulled apart like strudel or noodle dough; everything is pulled well apart. It is dreadful to come across those spread-apart thoughts that are cultivated in practical life. If you wanted to use thoughts like these to get a clear understanding of the world, of the things I have spoken of today by way of an introduction, you would not get anywhere. All this ‘strudel-dough thinking’ has arisen in the process of killing time. Thoughts that ought to be concentrated, for that is the only way for them to be effective, simply come to nothing by being drawn out. Something which functions properly at a certain density will of course be useless once it has become thin and worn. Many of the things that play a large role in modern economics are quite useless when it comes to making world affairs progress. Our particular task would thus be to grow concise in our thinking also with regard to practical things, and not to kill time. However, time still has to be killed these days, unless the anthroposophical movement, which after all supports our enterprises, becomes what it ought to be: A movement based on truth in every respect, a movement where all untruth eliminates itself because we have no use for it and because it would immediately show itself to be what it is.

This is what I wanted to say to you today. It is not addressed to anyone in particular. Please do not continue to go around saying that I was aiming at one thing or another in particular. I wanted to give you a clear picture of the facts as they are in general. The world situation is serious today and the things that have been going on among us here in Stuttgart really reflect the serious situation that exists for the whole of civilization. The things that haunt us in our community here can teach us a lot about the things that haunt the world as a whole.

I do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings. Nor do I want to moralize, to preach at you. The intention has been to discuss the things that have been obvious to the eye and to the soul on so many occasions over the last two weeks.

• 30. ‘Die Erziehung und der Unterricht gegenüber der Weltlage der Gegenwart’ (Education and teaching in the light of the present world situation), Stuttgart 10 June 1920. Published in Geisteswissenschaft und die Lebensforderungen der Gegenwart 6, Dornach 1950. To be published in GA 335. No record of translation into English.
• 31. Die Kernpunkte der Sozialen Frage in den Lebensnotwendigkeiten der Gegenwart und Zukunft (1919) GA 23. English translation: Towards Social Renewal. F.T. Smith tr. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1977.
• 32. See Rudolf Steiner's Mein Lebensgang (1923–25) GA. 28. English translation: Rudolf Steiner: An Autobiography. R. Stebbing tr. New York: Rudolf Steiner Publications 1977.
• 33. Von Seelenrätseln (Riddles of the soul) (1917) GA. 21. Parts translated into English in The Case for Anthroposophy. Owen Barfield tr. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1970.
• 34. Molt, Emil, see ref. 37.
  
  Kühn, Hans, writer and publisher.
  
  Unger, Carl, grad. engineer, owner of machine tool works, member of Council of the German Anthroposophical Society from 1905, lecturer and writer. Shot by a mentally sick individual in Nuremberg in 1929.
  
  Leinhas, Emil, businessman, managing director of Der Kommende Tag AG (see ref. 39), writer.
• 35. Seiling, Max, first a follower then an opponent of Rudolf Steiner. Bore the title Privy Councillor.
  
  TN. Rudolf Steiner used word-play here, calling Hofrat (Privy Councillor) Seiling an Un-Rat. The word Unrat means garbage, refuse, ordure.
• 36. An das deutsche Volk und an die Kultunvelt! (Appeal to the German nation and the civilized world), pamphlet, 1919, reprinted a.o. in Towards Social Renewal (ref. 31).
• 37. Appeal to establish a Council for Culture. Whitsun 1919, signed by many well-known figures in cultural life.
• 38. Waldorf School: intergrated primary and secondary school established by Emil Molt in 1919 for the children of workers in the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Factory and the general public. This was done under the guidance of Rudolf Steiner who also appointed the teachers and himself gave the preparatory teachers' seminars.
• 39. Der Konunende Tag, Aktiengesellschaft zur F6rderung wirtschaftlicher and geistiger Werte (join-stock company for the promotion of economic and cultural values), established in Stuttgart in March 1920. Rudolf Steiner was Chairman of the Board until 1923. The company became a victim of post-war inflation in Germany and had to be dissolved in 1925.
• 40. Stuttgart 16 June 1920; published in Landwirtschafi und Industrie/Neuordnung des Bodenrechtes als soziale Forderung der Gegenwart (Agriculture and industry/New proposals for land ownership as a social requirement for the present age); quoted from the writings and lectures of Rudolf Steiner, Roman Boos ed., Stuttgart 1957, S. 84 ff. (to be published in GA 335). No record of translation into English.

We have been speaking of what hinders modern man from coming to recognition of the spiritual world, as it must be understood through the spiritual knowledge of Anthroposophy, and two things have been indicated as having been the cause of this hindrance. These two things are leak of courage, lack of strength where recognition of the spirit is concerned, and lack of interest about the actual form of the spiritual life. Now today I should like to go into these things from a point of view from which I have touched on them still more lightly. When such things are spoken of it must always be borne in mind that man's ordinary sound intelligence, as I have often said, suffices for understanding and receiving open-mindedly all things concerning Spiritual Science. If I may say so, through the fact that sound human intelligence; when rightly directed, is sufficient for the understanding of the things of the spiritual world today, in a certain sense through merely understanding, through open-minded acceptance, everyone may have all that the investigating Anthroposophist receives from the spiritual world. And with the courage and interest to receive these things with sound human intelligence, man has himself the possibility of rising slowly and gradually, in accordance with what his own karma permits, into the spiritual world. Already today it is necessary, and will become increasingly so for all men, to learn to understand the spiritual world, to learn to understand it with sound human intelligence in the way the spiritual world is spoken of in Spiritual Science. How far man can become ripe to look into the spiritual world himself is quite another question, a question that can be settled only by each individual in his own inmost soul, a question to which each one will settle in the right way in his inmost soul when he seeks to understand the things of the spiritual world simply through his sound human intelligence, and not through intelligence prejudiced by natural science or any thing else.

Now the next question that arises above all about this is why so many people today avoid making their sound human intelligence active so that it may understand, or be prepared to accept, what is derived from Spiritual Science? And something can be learnt about this question by hearing what the things and beings of the spiritual world actually look like when this world is entered by the spiritual investigator. In former times the Initiates were allowed to speak of a great deal about the spiritual world that was different from what has to be given out today. But naturally in those olden days much also could be said of a similar nature to what can still be said now. Thus, for example, it was always given out in a way that today is still right, what actually happens when a man seeks to enter the spiritual world before his soul is ripe to do so. Today this can indeed so happen that the man says to himself: What! Sound human Intelligence?—that is the last thing to bother about if one wants to understand the spiritual world! People are not fond of the effort entailed; they would much rather accept some particular thing through belief in authority. There is really far less liking today for sound human understanding than people imagine, and they would like to get round this need for sound human understanding by penetrating directly to the spiritual world in a way that they imagine to be easier, even though this is an unconscious opinion, namely, through all manner of brooding and things of that kind, which they call meditation. This preference for actually penetrating into the spiritual world without the help of sound human intelligence is indeed very common. Those initiated into such things however were already saying what is right concerning this in past times, and it continues to be repeated by Initiates today. When an attempt is made to penetrate into the spiritual world by anyone who is insufficiently mature in his whole attitude of soul, it happens all too easily that after some time he ruins his whole endeavour, brings it so near complete disaster, that he is left with a feeling like someone who, grasping a red hot piece of coal, is undecided whether to burn himself or let the coal drop. This is an experience arising very often in those who meditate. They do not seek to let their sound human intelligence prevail in the same measure as their zeal for the so-called exercises, which indeed in themselves naturally have their justification. It is always emphasised, however, that sound human understanding may not be excluded, it must be actively, diligently, applied. If for sometime it is sought to make a practice of excluding sound human intelligence and also of excluding the accompanying moral self-discipline that up until then has actually not been acquired, this characteristic feature will appear—that all this will be experienced as if someone were to touch a piece of glowing coal with his fingers, not only touched it but jumped back, thus men would jump away from the spiritual world. As I have said this is always emphasised. It is emphasised because it is an experience made in earlier ages by countless teachers of Spiritual Science in the form this took in atavistic times; it is an experience that can also be very prevalent today. This is emphasised; but today we must find out the reason why there should arise this sensation of touching and recoiling as if from glowing coals.

Now if we seek to understand this fact, we may be able to recall a basic truth of our Spiritual Science perfectly well known to us, namely, how we as men behave when we bear in mind our entire life in its alternating states of sleeping and waking. With the help of the old mode of expression, we might say that while we sleep we leave the physical body and the etheric body lying in the bed whereas with the Ego and the astral body we fly out, if I can put it thus, into the world that otherwise surrounds us; we do not inhabit our body when asleep, we are poured out into the surrounding cosmos. In this way when we are sleeping our consciousness as a man is slight. When the sleeping condition is unbroken by dreams which implies a certain increase in the intensity of consciousness, but when we keep in mind dreamless sleep, then our consciousness is so inconsiderable that we do not become aware of the infinite and important number of experiences gone through in the state between going to sleep and re-awakening. This is just that we really should keep in mind, and not the abstract words: In sleep, with our ego and astral body we are outside the physical body—no, we should bear in mind that our body is tremendously rich between going to sleep and waking up again: (Compare Z-233) we do not know it, however, because our consciousness is then weakened, because our sleep-consciousness is not yet as strong as the consciousness that is able to be united with the instrument of the physical body. In actual fact a tremendously intense experience takes place in ego and astral body within the world where we also are the rest of the time—an intense experience. Man, however, during his ordinary state on earth is protected from the immediate perception of this life, this life developed when we as ego and astral body force ourselves—if I may express it thus—through the same things to begin with in which we are when making use of our physical body and its organs. The life during the state of sleep is one of tremendous richness. But this life does not cease when we wake and plunge down into our physical body and etheric body. We are still connected through our ego and astral body with the world surrounding us in a way that the ordinary consciousness has no inkling of; only this remains quite unnoticed. We can now look at this precise relation more closely. It may be asked what actually comes to expression in this relation of our soul and spirit to our physical and etheric?

You see, for our present state of experience it would be a very bad thing were we henceforth always to have to perceive what in sleep we experience with the things outside in space and in time. We do not indeed do this, but were we to do it we should always have to go on doing it and could not do otherwise. Our body, that is to say, has a certain characteristic where these experiences are concerned. It may be said to weaken these experiences. Our body weakens all that in actual truth we experience with the surrounding world; we perceive only what has been weakened by our body and not our real experiences. Our real experiences are related to what we perceive of our environment through our body—and this is a very pertinent picture indeed because not only is it actually a picture but it corresponds to an occult reality—our body or the experiences of our body are related to our real experiences in the same way as the sunlight, that shines on a stone and is reflected back so that we can see the stone, is related to the actual sunlight streaming towards us from the sun overhead. Look at the stone the sunlight falls upon; you are able to look at the stone, your eyes can bear the reflected, thrown back light. When you turn from the stone to the sun and gaze straight into the sun you are blinded. It is approximately the same with the relation between our real experiences in connection with the world around us, and What we experience through the organs of our body. What we experience in reality with our environment has the strength of the sunlight, and what we experience through the organs of our body has of this strength only the weakened form which the weakened light of an object reflected back to us has of the strength of the real sunlight. In our innermost man we are sun beings, but so far we cannot endure what it entails to be sun beings. Therefore as with our external physical eyes we have to look at the softened down light of the sun because direct sunlight blinds us, we must also perceive our environment through what results in a softened down form from our body and its organs, because we should be unable directly to face what in reality we experience of our environment. As men we are actually as if we were blinded by a sunbeam and what we know of the world and of ourselves has not our real being in it, not as things would be experienced in streaming sunlight but in light thrown back from objects, light that no longer blinds the eyes. You can gather from this that when you wake up in the world that ordinary consciousness cannot endure, you have the feeling you are in sunlight as if you really would live with the sunlight. And in the actual experience, in the actual practical experience there is indeed a very concentrated sunlight.

There you have the facts about what is often said—that people throw away the experience of Spiritual Science as if it were a red hot coal. You come to a region of experience where you have experiences like that of the soul when your finger is burnt. You jump back and do not want to burn it. Naturally you need not twist round what I say. Nobody can come to spiritual experience by having his finger burnt. On that account I say like the soul experience when one burns a finger, for in Spiritual Science things must always be expressed with exactitude.

The real state of affairs is that entrance into the spiritual world is certainly not at first anything providing man with an empty kind of happiness; entrance into the spiritual world is such that it has to be bought with that inner, one might say, unhappiness, experienced when one is burnt by fire. (Naturally there are many other experiences of the same kind). To begin with man experiences spiritually with the things, beings and events of the spiritual world, exactly the same as, for example, when he burns himself. The real experiences of the spiritual world have to be acquired through these painful experiences. What gives happiness from these experiences of the spiritual world, what gives satisfaction to life, is the afterglow in thought. Those who have these experiences imparted to them and grasp them through their sound human intelligence, can have this just as well as anyone who enters the spiritual world. Certain individuals, however, must naturally enter the spiritual world, otherwise it would not be possible for anything at all to be experienced of the spiritual world.

These feats to which I have referred must be borne in mind. Fundamentally it is not very difficult just from the external facts to gather what I have been speaking of. You will find everywhere the spiritual world is spoken of seriously—not in the way of charlatanism but seriously—that the passing over is spoken of not as being made through pleasant but through painful experiences. And you know how often I have said that whoever in life has acquired a little real knowledge of the spiritual world looks back, but not resentfully, on the sorrow, on the suffering of his life. For he says to himself: The joys, the exhilarating moments of life I accept thankfully as a divine gift and I rejoice over the destiny that has brought me these exhilarating moments of joy. But all that I know comes from my pain, my knowledge comes from my suffering. Everyone who has gained actual knowledge of the spiritual world will see this. Only in this way are we allowed to acquire knowledge of the spiritual world while here on the physical earth.

And now you will be able to realise why people Shrink from understanding the spiritual world in spite of the fact that this understanding is to be acquired simply with sound human intelligence. Usually the only thing they do not recoil from in their understanding is what they would not recoil from in external life. Now you would naturally be most stupid and unreasonable if you wilfully burnt your finger just to find out what it was like. Added to which, if you burn your finger you pay so little heed to what your soul is experiencing that you do not gain any real experience of what it is like to burn your finger. Us, there is indeed a psychological fact rightly grasped only when seen in the light flowing from this knowledge. Now in that I am going to say I am not speaking here to you individually, for naturally I am not expecting each of you to do this, I only believe, of Course, that each of you will have heard of such things, you will have heard of them from others and remarked them in others. You will perhaps have remarked that people cry out when they burn their fingers. Now, my dear friends, why do many people cry out on burning their fingers? They cry out for the simple reason that by thus crying out the soul experience may be drowned. People cry out and make a noise at any kind of pain to make things easier for themselves. Ay crying out you will not be able to experience in full consciousness the whole extent of the pain; it is really drowning the suffering, sending it outside. In short, in ordinary life man has not much experience of the things that will be experienced in the spiritual world; nevertheless it is clear that these things can be understood with sound human intelligence because everywhere in the external physical world they have analogies through which we gather our experiences. It is certainly not the case that things of the spiritual world are incomprehensible; we must, however, make up our minds to strengthen certain qualities of our soul, for example, courage. We must have the courage not usually possessed when we do something and then recoil because it is painful. We must have this courage, for penetrating to the spiritual world always means pain. Therefore we have to strengthen certain forces of the soul, this is necessary. But many people today do not,want to strengthen their qualities of soul in the systematic way that is recommended, for example, in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. They have no wish to do this; they have no wish to enhance certain attributes of their soul. Were they to enhance them then in their capacity for forming concepts , in their sound human intelligence, there would easily prevail what is needful for understanding through this human intelligence he experience of the fingers in the spiritual world that, in the sense in which I have described it, is a painful experience. We are actually living in an age in which this strengthening of the human attitude of soul is a necessity, for otherwise mankind cannot reach their goal, and because catastrophe on catastrophe will have to arise bringing us finally to chaos.

Now, however, while discussing these things just at a time when it is particularly necessary, I have placed strong emphasis on something else. This is, that with the weakening of the attitude of soul existing among men today, there can be excellent scientists in the modern sense of the word. For even with the intelligence, that is not sound human intelligence but human intelligence carried to a high pitch through the authority of science, the external part of our physical environment can be particularly well understood. It cannot be understood inwardly, spiritually, but directly understood in its external aspect. What is not possible for people with the concepts given by science, with just what people today are accustomed to when applying their thought, is however to bring order into the social structure of man's cooperative life which is gradually becoming chaotic. To put it differently: Present social demands, and social demands for the near future, will never find their solution through what may be referred to as the thinking about nature and natural phenomena. It is on this very point that our contemporaries have terribly much to learn; in this very point again our contemporaries do not fall in with what must be told them by Spiritual Science out of its most intimate understanding of the being of our universe. Indeed, in spite of all the opposition which today will be forthcoming more and more, Spiritual Science must say just on this point that even with any amount of bungling around and doctoring up in the sphere of social questions no bungling around or doctoring up will lead to anything better; it will lead on the contrary to still greater social confusion than is already present in individual spheres of world existence unless it is recognised that insight into social questions can come only from the spiritual understanding of world existence. Social questions must be solved with knowledge of Anthroposophy—anything else in this sphere is dilettantism.

Thus we must turn to something else if we are to speak about things from a certain point of view. What largely holds men back from pressing forward to Spiritual Science is lack of interest in the spiritual life. This lack of interest in spiritual life is prevalent among modern scientists. They are indifferent about the spiritual life. They deny it or give laws to everything they can observe through the physical senses, everything that allows of investigation by means of microscope or telescope; but they take no interest in what is revealed every time there is real deep observation of nature, namely. that the spiritual holds sway behind all-phenomena of nature, all facts of nature. This lack of interest in the spirit is particularly noticeable today in those who would meddle in social affairs. And again there is a particular reason for this.

Now, my dear friends, from all kinds of things that I have spoken about lately, you will have gathered that when confronting each other as man to man we are in a very special inner life of soul. I have gone quite deeply into what kind of mood of soul we are in when as man we are face to face with another man. I told you that actually standing face to face with another man always has a soporific effect on us. Where the innermost qualities of our human nature are concerned we actually go to sleep in the presence of another man. It is not to be wondered at that outward behaviour deceives us as to this falling asleep. For we certainly see the other man with our eyes, offer him indeed our hand and touch him, do all kinds of things; but still this does not alter the fact that the other man causes us to fall asleep in the depths of our human being. Just as we are asleep to nature at night, something is sent to sleep in us by the presence of another man. When this goes to sleep, however, it does not cease to be active. Thus in social life there are always taking place between men activities about which, just because they are together with their fellows, people are unable to have any clear consciousness. People fail to notice in ordinary consciousness exactly what is of most importance in the social life, because their actual capacity for conceiving the most important things in social life has fallen asleep and they act out of instinct. It is no wonder that as in the forming of conceptions the intellect is most easily lulled to sleep, the most chaotic instincts should be taken as perfectly justified in modern social life because clear thinking about these things is sent to sleep simply by men being together. The moment a man enters the spiritual world, however, what was sent to sleep wakes up, and it becomes clear what is holding sway between man and man. For this reason the solutions can also be found of the so-called social questions and social demands. Thus, as I have already said here, it is possible to find these solutions only beyond the threshold of physical consciousness.

And what mankind will want to have in future through the so-called solving of social problems, if it is to be a real solution, can be found only on the path of Spiritual Science, that is to say, the science of the superphysical, since all the most intimate foundations of human life in co-operation are of a superphysical nature. (cf. Z-234)

But then, if we wish to experience spiritually the things that have to do with man, mankind, and also with the human social structure, into our whole capacity for conception, into everything we experience, we must bring something which you will realise at once is hardly present today in ordinary consciousness. There is just one thing here in the physical world in the way of sensations, of feelings, that each of us must have if he does not want to investigate the social laws, the social impulses, in an unreal but in a fundamental way. This is only found in a limited form here in the physical world, only indeed when an absolutely healthy, absolutely right, relation exists between a father, mother and child, in the interest between father, mother and child. It is not to be found in anything that can be experienced between men anywhere else in the whole round world, Certainly not in ordinary consciousness.

Now while you are getting clear in your mind about, let us say, the mother's love (you can do it too in this fundamental way) about the love developed in the mother immediately she bears a child—this love of the mother for her child which obviously springs from the very sources of nature—try to become clear about this mother love, and then ask whether this mother love is dominant in any scientific investigations ordinarily carried out by the well-informed, even by those who are doing research work in social science. This mother love must be there in the thoughts developed about the social structure if these thoughts are to have reality in them and not unreality. The only form of thought in human life that could be right socially is what is thought out socially and with mother love.

And now take the various social reformers and social thinkers. Try for once to let work upon you such writings, for example, as those of Carl Marx, or people of his ilk, Schmoller or Reacher or anyone else you like, and ask yourself whether these, while thinking out their so-called social and political laws, in this devising of social and political laws, let themselves be influenced by what is there in the mother's love for her child when this love takes a healthy course. This must have attention drawn to it, my dear friends! A sound solution of the so-called social problem is possible only if this solution is forthcoming from thinkers able to develop mother love in solving their problems; you will understand what I mean by this. The solving of present-day social demands depends on this very human matter. It is not a matter of sagacity nor ordinary cleverness nor of belief in what is learned; it is a question of enhancing the capacity for love to the degree to which mother love can be developed, or we might also say the direct, intimate love in the common life of father, mother and child.

Here you will be right in making an objection. You will say: Yes, on earth matters are so arranged that the social structure has in a certain sense the family as its unit, and on earth the family as such is undoubtedly fully justified, yet the whole of mankind cannot be one family! This is an objection that naturally will be forthcoming at once. If we are to think out social laws with mother love, however, the consequence would actually have to be the whole of mankind becoming one family. Naturally that cannot be, Whoever knows what a real thought is, a real thought with nothing of the charlatan or abstract about it, will have to admit that of course nobody is immediately capable of behaving to every child as though it were his own, that every child cannot behave to all other women, all other men, as it would to its mother or father. Thus all mankind cannot become one family. That is perfectly right, my dear friends, but just because that is right another necessity arises for us. As we live here as physical men on the physical earth we should by no means be able to succeed in making all mankind into one family; whoever wanted this would naturally be wanting an absurdity. But we could arrive at it another way and in another way indeed it must happen. As physical men we should not be able to stand in the relation of father, mother and child. But when there takes root in mankind the knowledge that spirit and soul live in every human being, that a divine spiritual being shines forth from the eyes of everyone, and the message of a divine spiritual being rings in his words, when in other words man's immortal soul is no longer recognised simply in the abstract, then, my dear friends, the moment will have arrived, not indeed where physical man is concerned but with regard to what man hides intimately within him as his baling of soul and spirit, when we shall be able to behave to one another as if all mankind were one big family. But this will not happen until people meet each other with immediate feeling and it is recognised: When I look people in the eye the infinite shines towards me; when I hear them speak it is not only physical sound speaking but the divine spiritual being of their soul—if this becomes direct experience, just as we experience any blue or red surface, then we shall feel that man when expressing himself is of a divine spiritual nature, and shall learn not to recognise simply with blind faith that a man has an immortal soul, but we shall directly perceive this immortal soul in what he utters. For in this way we shall be able to enter into connection with the soul and spirit of each human being. This is something that will alone make the solution of the so-called social question possible, the one and only thing. Therefore we find this solution of the social question in the recognition of man's divine spiritual nature, in the recognition that what goes around on the earth as the human physical body, is only the outward expression of what lights up in every man out of the eternal. We can have the same relation to what lights up in every man out of the eternal, as we can have in the right relation of the smallest family unit. This is possible, possible in every sense. When recognising this we can capture that love for all men which is as great as the love of family.

There is naturally no point in the objection, which would be superficial too, if we remarked about things in the following way: Yes, but there are also bad people. There are also bad children, my dear friends, whom we even have to punish, but there is love in our punishment. The moment we see the divine spiritual light up in human beings, when we see it is necessary we shall punish, but punish lovingly; above all we shall learn one thing which might be said to be practised only instinctively, that is, to meet other men as if we both belonged to the same family. When we meet another man in this way we punish but we do not hate the man; even when we punish him we do not hate the human being who is our son, but we hate his wrong doing. We love the man, we hate his misdeeds and his faulty training, and we know how to distinguish in him between the man and what has overcome him. When people have once understood the great, the infinite, difference existing between human love, and hatred of the misdeeds that assail mankind, a right relationship can be established among men. When we fellow our inmost human nature there is never any possibility for our hating anyone. Naturally we have much cause to hate human crimes, misdeeds, human weakness of character, human lack of character. Where we largely go wrong in our social behaviour is as a rule in bringing against the man what should be brought against the misdeed, the crime. We do this today instinctively, but must become conscious that the development of mankind today lies in the direction of distinguishing between hatred for the misdoing and the love that all the some can be felt for the man.

Oh, my dear friends, more would be done to solve the burning social demands of today by recognising truths of this kind than by much else going around the world as social quackery or social theory. In face of the materialism that everywhere employs what is grossly material, it is difficult to make any impression when speaking of such things as these, for the simple reason that people today are largely materialistic in their instincts, which is a more harmful matter than their holding materialist theories. Crime, lack of character, cannot be seen and do not exist materially. But because people want to hate what is material, they associate the material man with their hate and there arise countless misunderstandings.

What arises from this as a bad misunderstanding is that sometimes from some kind of misunderstood sensations and feelings, man is confused with what he does in another direction also. There is carelessness in judging what a man does when it is said: Oh, we do not want to hurt the man, now and then one has to overlook things for sheer love of one's fellows. If a verdict is given in the matter by turning ones's eyes towards the wrong doing and not confounding the man in his inmost life of soul with his misdeed, then indeed the right judgment will be arrived at. It is less trouble on the one hand, if you dislike someone, to mete out so-called justice to him; it is also easy because it suits us to excuse failings which may cause harm in the external world. In the common life of mankind a very great deal hangs on the way we are able to separate what ought to arouse our antipathy from the immediate being of man as man.

My dear friends, I have often emphasised that what is spoken here about these connections is not meant as a criticism of the culture and conditions of the times; it is simply a description of them. Therefore you will also understand when I say that mankind of so-called western civilisation, the people of Europe with their American cousins, for a time must go through the stage not only of taking things materialistically in accordance with science, but also of taking life itself materialistically confounding men with their deeds in the way referred to. This has to do with the education; for the right development of other qualities to be possible, men, must in this sphere, too, pass through the stage of materialism. Men, however, who have remained behind at earlier stages of culture have preserved a great deal of these former cultural stages in which there was still atavistic clairvoyance. And atavistic clairvoyance has since resulted in quite definite trends of feeling and attitudes of soul. We people of Europe can only be a match for what assails us from certain directions, if we reflect upon the arguments put forward today. For let us not forget this—that thinkers looked upon as very enlightened as, for example, Emmanuel Kant, speak—not indeed out of a certain basis of Christianity but of the church—a thinker of this ilk speaks of human nature being fundamentally evil. And how widespread is this error—for it may indeed be called so—that human nature in its actual depths is evil: In the civilised world of Europe and its American sister country it is said that if human nature is not under control it is evil. This is actually a European opinion, an opinion of the European Church.

There is a race of men who do not hold this view, who have preserved another view from former times, for example the Chinese people. In the Chinese world-conception, as such, there rules the proposition, there rules the principle, that man is by nature good. Here is a mighty difference which would play a much greater part than is thought in the conflict that will develop between men. To be sure, speaking of these things today, people believe one as little as they would have done had the war we are now engaged in been spoken of in 1900. Yet it is true all the same that a struggle is also being prepared between the Asiatic and European peoples. And then quite other things will play a part than have been played, are played even now or will be played later, in the catastrophic struggle we are in the midst of today.

There is really a great difference in the whole way of experiencing whether the Chinese have the conviction that man is by nature good, or the European holds that human nature is fundamentally weighed down by evil—from the standpoint of the world-conception of the people there is a great difference in which way a man thinks. How a man thinks is expressed in the whole of life's temperament, in the entire attitude of the life of soul. For the most part men have their attention riveted on the outer features of life's conflict and they generally pay little heed to what is lying in the depths of the inner nature.

There is just one thing I should like to mention. You see, the fact that the European, although he may not generally admit it, is always at heart convinced that man is actually bad and has to be made good only through education and restraint, restraint by the State or any other kind, this outlook, from historic necessity, is closely connected with something else. It is connected with—not with the fact itself but with the qualities of feeling underlying the fact—connected with European people having developed through this a certain life of soul in the form we call logic and science. From this you will find it comprehensible that those who really know the Chinese—I don't mean Europeans who know them but those who, Chinese themselves, (cf. The Karma of Vocation) have got to know Europe too, as for example, Ku Hung Ming, often mentioned by me here—that these Chinamen lay stress on there being no equivalent in the Chinese language for logic and science. Thus for what we Europeans call science, for what we call logic, the Chinese have no word at all, since they do not have the thing, because, what Europeans believe to be Chinese Science is something quite different from what we call science and what we call logic, something entirely different from what we Europeans think to be logic in the Chinese soul. So different are men on earth! Attention must be paid to this unless attention is focused on this no discussion of the social problem can bear any fruit. But when heed is paid to such a matter the spiritual horizon becomes wider. And this widening of the spiritual horizon is particularly necessary for the sound understanding of Spiritual Science.

And when many different questions are asked concerning all these things—we have already touched on two today and could still touch on a third—when it is asked why today people in accordance with custom still keep their distance from the truths of Spiritual Science this reason is found among others, that the horizon, the spiritual horizon, of modern man is a very narrow one. However much man may boast of his spiritual horizon today, however greatly, the fact remains that this spiritual horizon is very narrow. Its narrowness is shown in particular by the extraordinary difficulty modern man generally has in getting out of himself where certain things are concerned. And this not only has an effect on his understanding, it influences also his whole life of sympathy and antipathy.

I should like to refer to a fact, a fact well known to quite a number of you, that is to say, the effect of this fact is well known to a number of you; this fact I have already mentioned to you once and should like to mention it again. Now you know that a certain relation existed some years ago between the so-called Theosophical Society and those who today form the Anthroposophical Society. I experienced something remarkable in connection with just those members of the Theosophical Society who were prominent. Already by the beginning of this century, as you know, I had published communications from the so-called Akashic Record, information which I venture to say rested upon personal experience, as does all the rest of what I impart out of the spiritual world. (see Atlantis and Lemuria) When these communications were read by a prominent member of the Theosophical Society people could hardly understand how it arose. I was asked how these communications were received? And it was really impossible to come to any kind of understanding, for the actual methods of anthroposophical research suitable for the present age were totally unknown in that circle. There, more mediumistic methods were used for investigation. Really what was wanted was the name of the medium or medium-like person responsible for these Akashic Record communications. That they were actually the result of the direct observation of a certain human attitude of soul projected into the supersensible, was considered an impossibility! The narrowness of man's horizon speaks in things of this kind. Even in so momentous a sphere, people consider possible only what they are accustomed to, only what is easily understood.

Now I have quoted this instance just because if one is narrow-minded it is really quite im possible to press on to Spiritual Science. In everyday life, however, this narrow-mindedness is the common thing today, always to relate everything back to just the personal, accustomed standpoint. This is what must above all be considered by those very people who are attached to our Movement for Spiritual Science. My dear Friends, I am now going to say something that perhaps there would be no need to say in this way were the things to be said intimately, systematically, but which it is necessary to say when it comes to the external conditions of life. You see, those who take a more particular, active interest in our Movement know indeed how many attacks are made on the sources of this Movement, how bitterly it is persecuted, how many come to hate it who were formerly keen adherents, and so on. Last time indeed I spoke about these things from various points of view. Now it will not be superfluous, from certain aspects, to make clear the reasons for such hostility, such antagonism. I talked to you about the reasons for the antagonism seen here and there last time. Such hostility very frequently becomes particularly strong, however, when appearing among people who also belong, let us say, to some occult society. The hatred that develops in many adherents of one or another society against what is seen here as Spiritual Science, sometimes is really strikingly conspicuous, at times even taking grotesque forms. And it is not superfluous, my deer friends, to pay attention to these things, for we should pay attention to everything that makes us take our membership of this Movement very seriously. It is very true that nowhere is there more charlatanism in the world than where spiritual matters are represented in all kinds of societies. It is easy, therefore, because of so much charlatanism in the world to be suspicious of what arises as a Movement for Spiritual Science. Then those who want to, can easily find support if they say: Yes, once a Society appeared which maintained that it spread abroad all the wisdom of the world—then it was shown up as mere charlatanism! And now another has arisen, again it has proved to be charlatanism'! This must be admitted; there is infinitely much of this charlatanism in the world. Here the capacity for discrimination must come in to distinguish the true from the false.

But another case can arise; something, for example, in the nature of uncertainty may enter the soul. This uncertainty can consist in the following. A man of this kind may come to know what goes on here. Now if he has not an open mind, if he pursues what is personal, he may arrive at the following divided mood of soul. It is possible for him to foresee all manner of danger and to say: Dear me, how is this? I have so often heard of these societies, occult or whatever else they may be; I have never come across in them any knowledge, any real knowledge. It is true, every possible thing is talked of, it is in their books and given out in their ritual, but there is no stream of living knowledge. Now is this Anthroposophy of the same kind or is it something different? And he can find himself in a divided mood of soul. You see, in common parlance, when it is not possible for anyone to go deeply into what is actually living here, it may be said: Is this the kind of swindle that I really find more pleasant since it does not ask so much of one?

My dear friends, the things I give out here are not so unreal as that! Above all they are spoken because I want to point to the necessity for earnestness, dignity, and the capacity for discrimination. I have said this repeatedly, so that the unpleasantness should not arise which very often arises, namely, that the real life of spirit is all around, whereas because it is less trouble people actually prefer to hear it talked about. What calls forth so much antagonism is just the fact of what I have emphasised in my book Theosophy being true here—that only spiritual experiences are spoken of. The antagonism of the Theosophical Society also actually first arose when they noticed our claim to speak of real spiritual experiences. That could not be borne. People are preferred who repeat what has been given in their lectures and repeat it with a certain zeal, but independent spiritual investigation was, fundamentally, the great sin against the Holy Ghost of the Theosophical Society. And this independent spiritual investigation is not as yet to be so easily found in the world today. Once again I have wanted to intimate this at the end of what we have been considering. And it will indeed be necessary for you, my dear friends, really to my heed to these things with a sound mind but also with all earnestness. The times are grave and the remedy for the times that we wish to receive from the spiritual world must also be grave.

We should like to go on speaking of these things tomorrow.

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond and Owen Barfield

In the lecture here a week ago I dealt with a theme of vital importance in view of the events that are breaking with such tragic consequences into the life of mankind. This theme may be indicated, briefly, by saying: “It is urgently necessary for mankind once again to know and realise that the physical world is connected with spiritual realities, to become conscious of the fact that a spiritual world is working into the actual details of physical existence.”

Our age, above all, must be alive to the necessity for the spreading of this consciousness among mankind. The human being of the present time does not differ so very markedly in outward, physical appearance from human beings living in those past ages with which ordinary history deals. History, after all, goes no farther back than the Third Post-Atlantean period. What lies before that is a very vague chapter in the only kind of historical scholarship that is recognised by modern man. Although in the intervening period, man's life of soul has undergone very great changes indeed, it cannot be said that equal changes have taken place so far as the external, physical organism is concerned. Therefore people neither notice, nor try to notice, what is really happening as the outcome of impulses from the spiritual world. We are living in very momentous times. This has nothing to do with the trivial remark, so often heard, that this age is an age of transition. Naturally, every age is one of transition. The point is to know what is in transition in any particular age.

We become particularly conscious of what is thus in transition in our time—that is to say, of what is assuming new forms and undergoing great change—when we are able to observe not only the life of beings moving about the Earth in physical bodies, but also the beings who do not belong to the physical world—among them, the Dead. In the world in which the human being lives between death and a new birth—there, the changes, especially the transformation that is proceeding during this present age, are to be observed in all their deep significance. But modern man is loath to take in earnest matters concerning the spiritual world. The fact that this is so gives rise to many reflections in regard to the growth and existence of Anthroposophy. It really is the case that one need not be particularly biased in favour of the ideas represented in the Anthroposophical Movement before being willing to advocate them. In other Movements—and countless numbers of leagues, unions and the like are founded today, all of them convinced that they represent the most urgent needs of the world—in all such Movements people have the subjective fanaticism of their particular cause. They are infatuated with their own programme, maintaining that it will bring universal happiness, that it is an absolute necessity. In the case of the Anthroposophical Movement, such infatuation is simply not necessary, for the urge to advocate such ideas may come from something quite different. Briefly—and I must be brief because we can only be together for such short intervals—let me say the following: When a man has become convinced of the truth of the idea of Anthroposophy, he is impelled to do everything he can to spread them by the feeling of compassion for those who need these ideas at the present time—in other words, practically every human being with whom one comes into contact—compassion for men who need these ideas and without them will fall upon evil times.

In the last lecture here I tried to give you a conception of how a great deal that is unintelligible on the physical plane only begins to be intelligible when it can be viewed in its connection with the spiritual world. Today I want to put before you certain other points of view, which to begin with will appear to relate to quite different matters. We will start from a very common experience. Many people who consider themselves qualified to pass judgment on such matters, regard it as sign of religious enlightenment to repudiate ideas presented in Anthroposophy, for example, that on the other side of the threshold of the spiritual world, many Spiritual Beings, whole Hierarchies of Spiritual Beings are to be found ... Angeloi, Archangeloi, and still higher Hierarchies. It is considered to be a sign of enlightenment to dwell upon the One God and aspire to establish an intimate and direct relationship with Him. This is regarded as the only possible form of Monotheism and many people evince something like horror at a teaching that speaks of many Spiritual Beings.

Let us be quite clear about what this really implies. When a man's attitude to the spiritual world is merely that of the “enlightened” Church today, his relationship to the spiritual world—even if it is only in his feeling—is of a definite kind; it is simply a relationship with his Guardian Angel, the Angelos with whom he is, in fact, connected. And this Angelos—the only Being with whom he is able to feel related—he calls his God; if he is a Christian he calls him Christ; he confuses his Angelos with Christ. This may be difficult to understand, but it is so. Protestant theologians who claim to be enlightened and inveigh against Polytheism, urging men to establish direct relationship with the one Being, Christ—whatever they may preach concerning Christ, the truth is that what they say has only to do with the relationship of the human being to his Angelos. Monotheism in our time is in danger of becoming a worship of the Angelos of each individual human being.

Men are still unwilling to admit many things that are nevertheless there. Even the crudest circumstances, however, prove to an objective observer that such illusions set men well on the path to calamitous ideas. This worship of man's own Angelos is the reason why each individual has his own God, merely imagining that he shares with others a Godhead who is common to them all. The truth is that the monotheist of today has only his own individual Angelos and because there is such uniformity in the words with which each human being describes his own egotistical relation to the Angelos, people imagine that they are speaking of the Divinity who is the one God of them all. If this state of things were to continue, individuals would develop, still more strongly, the tendency that is taking such a terrible form among the nations today. Although the nations still theorise about the one universal Godhead, they do not—and this holds good above all at the present time—really acknowledge this one Godhead, because each of them prefers to have its own special God.

This, however, is merely what comes to light in crude, external form. In reality, every human being today wants to have his own God and he gives the name of “Monotheism” to the relationship between himself and his own Angelos. And because conditions are so clouded in an age when men's only desire is for perception of the Material, the truth of what I have just said does not occur to them.

Today there is evidence on all hands that when one speaks of man's concrete relationship with the spiritual world to those who as yet know nothing about Anthroposophy, they are unwilling to go into such matters; they are afraid of it all. They will not summon up courage to think about impulses that are said to come from the spiritual world. The same tendency has always existed in times of crisis and we are living in one such time nowadays. It is grievous to see how utterly inattentive men are to the momentous and tragic events of the present time, how disinclined to pay the necessary heed, except when driven to it by material considerations. The individual has to be trained, so to speak, before his attention is aroused to the fact that in the events of our time, deep and trenchant impulses in the life of mankind are placed before the soul.

That, after all, is why people simply did not listen when it was said that momentous, incisive thoughts and undertakings are called for by men if the world is to be lifted out of its present pitiable state—and that such thoughts and undertakings must be born from spiritual knowledge, real spiritual knowledge. Constant references to the universal Spirit, all the talk about inner, spiritual deepening and the like—none of it leads anywhere. What is essential is that men of the present time shall establish real and concrete relations with the spiritual world. It is not difficult for us to realise that even in earlier times when men were in closer contact with the spiritual world, their attention was directed to those concrete relationships which are no longer understood today. In earlier times men did not speak vaguely of swarms of human beings on the Earth below with some kind of Godhead up above, but they spoke in terms of concrete realities.

The most beautiful and significant fruits of these concrete relationships with the spiritual world are prophetic utterances like those of Daniel, of the Apocalypse, where men are not merely bidden to trust in a God, to believe in a God, but where they are told of the first heavenly kingdom, the second, the third ... told in all concrete reality of the connection of the spiritual world with the physical, material world. Humanity has lost all aptitude for speaking thus concretely of the relation of the Spiritual to the Physical, would prefer that everything should be painted the same colour, if I may put it so. Men like best of all to devise theories according to which human beings the Earth over can find equal material happiness. The socialist of today insists that certain ideas are right and proper for the life of man—right for England, for America, for Russia, for Asia; he thinks that if one and all arranged their national affairs according to socialist principles, the happiness which is the dream of modern man would come to the Earth of itself. All these ideas are abstract, unreal. Ignorance of the fact that something quite specific arises in one region of the Earth out of a particular people, something quite different in another region out of another people, the inability to understand the great difference between the West and the East—this is what causes endless confusion and chaos. For only when a man is able to build a bridge from his soul to the objective realities, can he co-operate fruitfully in shaping earthly existence.

People are unwilling to build such a bridge. Inner reasons have lately caused me to speak to friends in very many places of an event—momentous in its effect upon evolution—which took place in the last third of the nineteenth century; it is an event known to all occult schools although they are not always able to give accurate details of its actual course. I will speak of it briefly, again today. From the year 1841 onwards, a battle was waged in regions of the spiritual world, between certain Beings of the higher Hierarchies and other superior Beings. The Beings who rebelled and waged war from 1841 to 1879 had been used, before that time, in the service of the wise guidance of worlds. Even those Beings who rebel and become evil Beings of Darkness may, at certain other times, serve good and useful purposes. I am speaking, therefore, of Beings who up to the year 1841 had been used by higher Spirits in the service of the wise guidance of worlds but whose aims, from then onwards, ran counter to the aims of the Beings superior to them. These Beings of lower rank fought a great battle in the spiritual world—one of those battles that often take place—but at different levels—and are portrayed in legend and symbolism as the battle of Michael with the Dragon. In the autumn of 1879 this battle ended by certain Spirits of Darkness being cast down from the spiritual world to the Earth. Since then they have been working among men, creeping into their impulses of will, into their motives, into their ideas, indeed into all human affairs. And so, since the autumn of 1879, certain Spirits of Darkness have been among humanity and if men wish to understand earthly happenings, they must be alive to the presence of these Beings.

It is absolutely correct to say that in the year 1879 these Beings were cast down to the Earth. This made the heavens free but the Earth full of them. From that time onwards their habitation is no longer to be found in the heavens—they are on Earth.

If I am to describe the aim pursued by these Beings in their war of rebellion from 1841 to 1879, I must say the following:—They wanted to be able to prevent the spiritual wisdom, which will be revealed from the twentieth century onwards, from flowing into the souls of men. Only by the removal of the hindering Spirits of Darkness from the spiritual realm could the minds and hearts of men be opened to receive, from the twentieth century onwards, the spiritual knowledge destined for them; only so was the flow of this spiritual knowledge possible. Wandering as they now do among men, these Spirits of Darkness make it their business to spread confusion; from their arena here, on Earth, they want to prevent the establishment of the right attitude vis-à-vis the spiritual truths, they want to withhold from men the blessings which it is the purpose of the spiritual truths to bring.

Intimate and penetrating knowledge of these things is the only means whereby the aims of the Spirits of Darkness may be counteracted. Certain occult brotherhoods, however, make it their business to work in exactly the opposite sense; they want to retain the wisdom exclusively within their own narrow circles, in order to exploit it in connection with their lusts for power. We are living in the midst of this struggle. On the one side there is the necessity for men to be led along the right paths by the assimilation of the spiritual truths; on the other side there are enclosed occult brotherhoods of an evil kind, desiring to prevent these truths from finding their way to men, with the result that they remain dull and stupid as regards the spiritual world, and thus make it possible for those within narrowly enclosed brotherhoods to carry on their intrigues from there.

Events of the present time bristle with such intrigues and machinations, and calamity looms ahead if men will not realise that these machinations are in full swing. You will feel at once that light is shed upon the real background of these things when I tell you of certain truths which have matured in our time—truths which must fall as it were like ripened fruit from the spiritual world into the kingdom of men but are prevented from spreading—against which, moreover, men are instinctively prejudiced because they are afraid of them.

In this connection I want to speak as concretely as possible. The fact that in 1879 a number of Spirits of Darkness were cast into the kingdom of men, has weighty and significant consequences—one of which is that since that time, clear thinking has assumed a far, far greater importance than it ever had before. At no other period could it have been said, having regard to the inner necessities of evolution, that clarity of thinking is as essential as eating and drinking are to the maintenance of physical life. For if man's thinking lacks clarity in the age in which we are actually living and in the times to come, he will not be able to see in their right light the ripened truths which are to fall from the spiritual world. Above all, he will fail to realise the vast and profound significance of the Mystery of Golgotha, of the Coming of Christ, for the whole evolution of humanity. Many there are who speak of Christ Jesus. Modern theology, however, would actually like to prevent anyone from speaking of the deep purpose imparted to the earthly evolution of mankind by the Mystery of Golgotha. In the nature of things, fulfilment of what was to come to pass through the Mystery of Golgotha has been, and is, both slow and gradual. And in our present century, for the first time, this becomes intensely evident.

Previous epochs still enjoyed a heritage from the days when spirituality pervaded the atavistic inner life of man. Now, for the first time, man must strive for spirituality—if he desires it. And so, in our day, and actually only from the year 1879 onwards, very definite phenomena appear. Because external observation has become so crude, they are really only clearly to be perceived when the eyes of the soul are directed to that realm which the human being enters on passing through the Gate of Death. For souls born before the year 1879 and those born afterwards pass into the spiritual world in different ways. Truly, it is a momentous event of which we are here speaking.

One consequence of this event is that in their souls, human beings more and more come to resemble the thought, to resemble that which they regard as knowledge. This will seem a strange truth to the modern mind, but it is so, nevertheless. To see certain things in their proper light, with clarity of thought, with thoughts saturated with reality—that is vitally important. It is good to see Darwinism in the proper light—as I tried to present it in the public lecture yesterday. [1] To regard Darwinism as the one and only valid conception of the world, believing the only possible truth to be that man descends from the animals—and reiterating the thought: I descend from the animals, I descend entirely from forces which also produce the animals ... such thoughts, in our age, tend to make the soul resembles its own conceptions of itself. This is really an important matter! When the body is discarded, the soul is then confronted with the sorry fate of having to perceive its resemblance with its own thought! A man who lives in the physical body believing that animal forces alone were at work in his evolution, fashions for himself a kind of consciousness in which he will perceive his own likeness to animal nature. For since the event of 1879, the character of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch has been such that the souls of men are transformed into the ideas they form of themselves. That is why I said: It is not necessary to be particularly biased in favour of anthroposophical Spiritual Science before being willing to advocate it; all that is necessary is compassion for men who need these thoughts and ideas because they are creative powers in the life of soul, because it is ordained that in times to come, what the human being considers himself to be, that he will become. This development is part of the wise guidance of worlds, in order that the human being may attain full and free consciousness of the Self. On the one side the Gods were bound to make it possible for man to become what he makes of himself; and in order that he might imbue this self-created being with super-sensible meaning, that he might be able to find in this self-created being, something that gives him an eternal aim—in order that this might be, Christ Jesus fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. And when man understands Christ Jesus in the light of Spiritual Science, in the light of true thought, he finds the way to Him: the way which leads out from the animal into the Divine.

There is one truth that stands out strongly when the eyes of the soul are able to look into the world entered by the human being after death. Those who were born before 1879 always carry with them a certain heritage which protects them from becoming purely that which, here on Earth, they have pictured themselves to be. And for a long time still—these things are only gradually approaching—for a long time still this protection will be possible, but only through pain, only when men can suffer, when, to speak paradoxically, they can take on themselves the pain of knowing and feeling in themselves the shortcomings of their conception of man. Harmony with the Self, together with a knowledge which lets man after death be truly man,—this will arise for future times only if human beings become aware, here, in the physical body, of their true connection with the spiritual world. Those who are afraid of concrete facts of spiritual knowledge because of their materialistic ideas will, of course, for a long time yet be unwilling to acknowledge that any such change took place in the year 1879; nevertheless it will have to be acknowledged sooner or later. It is clear from this that one thing, above all, is essential and will become increasingly so in the future, namely, that all available spiritual knowledge shall spread over the Earth. Therefore in order to further their aims, the Spirits of Darkness will attach particular value to the breeding of confusion among men so that they will not succeed in forming the right thoughts and ideas into which, after death, they are transformed. What man thinks himself to be, that he is obliged to become.

This is a truth that was destined, after the great changes in the nineteenth century and from then onwards, to find its way to men. The human being must be voluntarily anything that he can be really; he must be able to think about his own being if he is to be truly himself in his life of soul. For even now the Dead could announce as a ripened truth: The soul is what it thinks itself to be. At the time when it was necessary, from the stage of the Earth to spread the truth: The soul is what it thinks itself to be, at that time Spirits of Darkness inspired human beings to announce the following: “Man is what he eats.” And although this is not, in theory, widely acknowledged, the practical conduct of life amounts very nearly to being an acknowledgment of the principle that man is what he eats—that and nothing else. Indeed this principle is more and more being applied and developed in external life. To a far greater extent than people believe, the grievous and tragic events of the present time are an outcome of the tenet: Man is what he eats. In a much deeper sense than is supposed by the superficial modern mind, a terrible amount of the blood that is shed today, is shed over unseemly issues. Humanity is already infiltrated by the principle that “man is what he eats.” And it gives rise, indirectly, to much contention.

That is why the spread of thoughts and ideas corresponding to the realities of the times is so very necessary. Thought will gradually have to be known as a concretely real power of the soul, not merely as the miserable abstraction produced so proudly by the modern age. Men living in earlier times were still linked, by an ancient heritage, with the spiritual world. Although for many centuries now, atavistic clairvoyance has almost entirely ebbed away, this heritage still lives in the feeling and in the will. But the time has come when everything that is conscious must become a real power—hence the Spirits of Darkness strive to counter really effective thoughts by abstract thoughts in the form of all kinds of programmes for the world. This connection must be realised and understood. Thoughts must be imbued with greater and greater reality.

There are still many people who say: “Oh, well, in all good time we shall discover what transpires after death; why trouble about it now? Let us attend to the requirements of life and when we reach yonder world we shall soon discover what it is.” Well and good, but if it is true that in yonder world a man becomes what he has pictured himself to be, then something else is also true. Take the idea that is not at all uncommon nowadays. Somebody dies, leaving relatives behind him. Although thought may not be entirely lacking in these people, they may be materialistically minded, and then, quite inevitably, they will think either that the dead man is decaying in the grave or that what still exists of him is preserved in the urn. Only if thought is entirely absent can men be materialists and not hold this view. If materialism were to triumph, the conviction would still further increase that all that remains of the Dead is disintegrating in the urn or in the grave. This thought is, however, a real power; it is an untruth. When those left behind think that the Dead no longer lives, is no longer there, this is a false thought—but it is real and actual in the souls of those who form it. The Dead is aware of this thought-reality, is aware of its significance for him. And it is by no means a matter of no consequence but, on the contrary, of fundamental importance, whether those left behind cherish in their souls the thought of the Dead living on in the spiritual world, or whether they succumb to the woeful idea that the Dead, well, he is dead, he lies there decaying in the grave. Far from being a matter of no importance, there is a very great and essential difference.

Coming to Zurich nowadays one can hardly fail to be attentive to what is known here—and also elsewhere, but here it is pursued very actively—as Analytical Psychology, Psychoanalysis. It is of course the case that the psycho-analysts have become alive to many things pertaining to the realm of soul-and-spirit; they are indeed beginning to think of the soul-and-spirit simply because it confronts them so insistently. Let me here say a word or two about one characteristic feature in this Psychoanalysis.

A patient suffers from symptoms of hysteria. The forms taken by these manifestations of hysteria are very typical at the present time and for this reason attract attention. Illnesses particularly common at any given period are always a matter of concern, and efforts are made to discover where the causes lie. Psychoanalysis has actually reached the point of stating that the causes of these frequent manifestations of hysteria lie in the life of soul. As it is quite impossible to look for them in the material domain, or in the field of physiological or biological processes as such, they must lie in the Psyche—in the life of soul. The tendency of the times is to seek in the subconscious life of soul for causes of the various forms of hysteria. The psychoanalysts say: “Such and such a man shows signs of hysteria; the cause is that something is working in him below the threshold of his consciousness and is constantly surging upwards like waves from subterranean, sub-psychic depths—and that is what we must look for.”

This is where the dangerous game begins. The psychoanalysts try to find all kinds of happenings which constitute an isolated, subterranean, hidden province of the Psyche, as they put it; in an hysterical subject of the age of 30, they look for “perversions” at the age, perhaps, of 7, which were not fully lived through or satisfied then and of which he must be made conscious again, because this will cure him and so forth. It is a game with extremely dangerous weapons, my dear friends! Out yonder on the physical battlefields, war is being waged with very dangerous weapons. Here, in many domains, with weapons of knowledge no less dangerous, a game is being played because people are not willing to deepen their thought in the sense of Spiritual Science and so to acquire a true understanding of these phenomena. The problem is approached with inadequate means of knowledge and it is a very dangerous game. It is, of course, perfectly true that the Subconscious works in many people today, without ever rising into consciousness. But what the psychoanalysts believe they have unearthed is usually of the least significance of all and, for this reason successes so far as cures are concerned are in most cases highly dubious. When hysteria in a lady of 30 is put down to some sexual perversion which occurred, say, at the age of 14 and has gone on simmering in the Subconscious—this is probably the most unimportant factor of all. In some few cases it may actually be correct and then, if its importance has been wrongly estimated, it will be all the more misleading. But it is absolutely true that countless factors lurk within human beings today, trouble them and give rise to the diseases of modern civilisation.

Think of what I said before. The thought of the absent Dead dwells in some way in the soul although little attention is paid to it; the thought dwells there because the soul today is still heedless—and is rather susceptible to these heedless thoughts. According to an eternal law, the Dead is then forced to dwell with these thoughts; the Dead haunts the soul of the one who is still living. True contact with the Dead can only be established by knowing: “the Dead lives!” And human beings on the physical plane will be more and more prone to psychological illnesses as a consequence of the prevailing disbelief in the existence of the Dead. The causes of these hysterical manifestations are not, as a rule, early sexual troubles but unbelieving thoughts. For thoughts in our age are destined to become powers—in more senses than one. They work as powers of thought per se, in that after death the soul takes on a stronger and stronger likeness to what, in the body, it pictures itself to be; but in a higher sense still, thoughts become real powers in that they fetter beings—the Dead in this case—in a wrongful way to the living. Only by sustaining the thought that the Dead lives on, can man guard himself, as well as others, against the link with the Dead becoming a source of danger to those who have been left behind—and in a certain sense the same applies to the Dead himself, who under an eternal, wisdom-filled law is compelled to lurk in the survivor in such a way that this influence remains in the Subconscious and manifests, ultimately, as illness.

Ask yourselves now: What will be the real remedy for many of the phenomena confronting the psychoanalysts today? The universal remedy, the universal therapy will be the spread of knowledge of the spiritual world—not these individual treatments.

Life demands of us that we shall abstain from the thought: here one has to devote oneself to physical existence only and the world of post-mortem existence will reveal itself all in good time. For this also is true: just as our life here is important for the existence into which we pass between death and a new birth, so too the life of souls living between death and a new birth is important for the soul living here on Earth.

What I have now said refers to one thought—namely, the thought of disbelief in the existence of the Dead. But the Dead are and should be connected by many links with the living. The link of which I have just spoken is improper, but there are many true links which must be there and which constitute the right connection with the spiritual world. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science strives to establish the true connection, for the life of men together on the Earth will only take its rightful course in the future, if this true relationship is established with the spiritual world. Failing this, it will become increasingly possible for certain individuals to embark upon intrigues and machinations of the kind of which I spoke last Tuesday, in order to usurp for themselves power over others.

Of one thing let us be quite clear. It is only possible to understand the deeply symptomatic events now proceeding in the East (of Europe) when we have a clear, inner conception of the nature of those lands and peoples. Think of what we have been saying for many years about the qualities of the peoples there as a basis for the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch. Only then can light be shed on all the difficult events and confusing influences that quite inevitably come from those Eastern lands. For, in effect, from what is happening there, something altogether different must in the course of time evolve. This, which is destined to evolve, is not so easy for the people of our time with their comfortable ways of thought to understand; no wonder they are taken aback by what happens there from day to day. But the important point is: to find the right way into all the streams and currents that are arising at the present time and will arise in the future. And little by little the right way is found when Spiritual Science is our guide to knowledge and understanding of the spiritual world. Thereby, too, the right relationship with the spiritual world is established.

In the last lecture here I told you of an improper relationship to the spiritual world that it is the aim of certain quarters to establish. I said that certain individuals are deprived of life here and sent into the spiritual world as the outcome of deliberate machinations; they have not, therefore, wholly lived out their life here and are still able to turn certain forces to account in the world where they live between death and a new birth. And then certain brotherhoods working with dishonourable motives, desiring only to satisfy their own lust for power, can use mediums for the purposes of receiving from the Dead the knowledge which the Dead have thus been enabled to acquire.

Occult brotherhoods of this kind are also, as a rule, those that lead men astray in regard to the events of greatest importance in the spiritual world. When I tell you that in 1879, in November, a momentous event took place, a battle of the Powers of Darkness against the Powers of Light, which ended in the sense of the picture of Michael overcoming the Dragon ... then the point is not, simply to tell you: such and such an event took place. For you can read in many books—it is not an esoteric truth at all—that such an event is appointed in world-evolution. What I really want to bring home is the significance of the event and the attitude that you should adopt towards it. Eliphas Levi, Baader, Saint-Martin, all knew and spoke of such an event—there is nothing really esoteric in the fact itself. But in our time, endeavours are on foot to spread confusion about such events—wherever possible, a confusion that makes men regard them as mere superstition, although they have already been proclaimed by ancient learning. Here, again, is a reason why correct and true ideas about these things are so important.

There exists today a right and proper path of approach to the spiritual truths, which since 1879 have been filtering down from the spiritual to the physical world. It is the path indicated by Spiritual Science. And if in the stream of Spiritual Science there is no deviation from sincerity and purity of intention, Spiritual Science will lead to the establishment of the right relationship between the physical and the spiritual worlds. But what is attained thereby, and must arise among men, involves and demands strenuous effort. Laziness in all its many forms must be put away. Strenuous effort is essential. When mention is made of impulses which, coming from the spiritual world, also work in the shaping of the future ... well, then people come and say: “I want to know this or that specific detail.” What they like best of all, nowadays, for example, is that one should give them a detailed description of what will happen in 1920 as the result of the present war. They do not understand that knowledge of the future ought not to be burdened with such detailed delineations, although this knowledge of the future can be absolutely reliable and effective. That is so terribly difficult to understand.

Let me make myself clear by means of a comparison. You will say: “Really that is unintelligible: he states on the one hand that details damage knowledge concerning the future, and on the other hand that one ought to pay attention to this knowledge because it speaks correctly about the future.” I want to make this point clear by means of a simple and trivial analogy. There are bad chess players and good chess players. Set a bad player down in front of a board and he will make bad moves and lose the game. A good player will get more opportunities and will win the game. The bad chess player simply makes the wrong move and the good player the right move, at the given moment. But does the good player apply his mind to detailed deliberation of the actual moves that the other player will make later on? Is it necessary for him, if he is a good player, to know now what moves the other player will make in two hours time? No, it is not! But that does not mean that his skill—the skill of a really good chess player—is ineffective. He will do what is the right thing for the future, because he knows the right moves and, if he has no such insight, he will make the wrong moves; but he is inevitably exposed to the free will of the other player. One cannot, therefore, ask: What is the good of being able to play chess really well, if the other player is always there? It is a very great help indeed to be able to play chess well! If you will ponder over this comparison, I am sure you will see what I mean.

The analogy will serve at the same time to point the truth of what everyone versed in occult matters of this kind will tell you, namely, that the moment a man draws his impulses for action in the physical world, from the spiritual world, he must be prepared to encounter other spiritual Powers; there are the “other players” to be reckoned with; there is no open field before him where he can just do what he has planned. That is the inconvenient fact! Suppose you have some knowledge of occult impulses, of impulses deriving from the spiritual world and then try—in the world of politics, let us say—to turn them to real account. If you are typical men of the present day, you will prefer everything to run smoothly and automatically so that you can have it all under control. But if you want to turn spiritual impulses, occult impulses to account in the physical world, you will have to reckon everywhere with the free will not only of men here on Earth, but also of higher Beings. In other words, with conditions as they are at present, you must not reckon upon having a free field before you; you must realise that the field is already crowded.

And so it is a matter of acquiring through genuine Spiritual Science, correct knowledge, for example of the character of the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch which is preparing in the East, and of putting the right occult impulse into action at the right moment, just as the chess player must make his move according to that of the other player. What is really necessary is that a man shall deepen his understanding of the spiritual world and learn to do the right thing in each individual case. A recovery of spiritual vitality, unbroken effort and exertion—that is what is necessary, not all these overlapping, abstract programmes. Humanity today likes to have abstract programmes, likes best of all to condense into four or five paragraphs what should be done all over the world, so that delegates appointed by all the nations may vote in a kind of World Court of Arbitration on what has to come about on Earth in accordance with a rule accepted once and for all. But what is really necessary is that men shall seek for knowledge of the spiritual world, shall seek lasting union with the spiritual powers.

But this is connected also with something else, namely, that you must reckon with the other powers in the field. You cannot merely rely on your own power; you must reckon with the others. The quest of power as such is, of course, ruled out. Impulses truly derived from the occult world will assuredly be right and will produce the right effects, but they will never be at the disposal of mere impulses of power. That would be out of the question.

What will one do on the other hand if one does want to serve mere impulses of power? Then one will act quite differently, trying to gain knowledge of the future by such improper means as I described last time, where mediumistic revelations about the future were elicited from souls who had first been precipitated through the Gate of Death in such a way that they might still make use of earthly forces. In this way, certain occult brotherhoods acquired knowledge concerning the relation of West and East, and on the basis of this knowledge all sorts of machinations were set on foot, the effects of which go on to this day. Knowledge of this kind, placed at the disposal of the lust for power, always has some particular object in view. If you acquire knowledge of occult forces in a right and honest way, all you will do in human life will at the same time be reckoning with the Angel-Beings, with every single Angelos of every one of the human beings concerned. You know the human beings in regard to whom you apply occult truths are in relation to the spiritual world. Every one of them, a living soul, has his connection with the spiritual world. You look on them as living beings. So should the West be dealing with the East—open always to what may arise, reckoning with the “other players” as with living beings—reckoning in effect with the Angels who guard the individuals concerned. This is found inconvenient. This kind of influence the Ahrimanic Powers want to do away with; they want mere power to prevail. And they can only achieve their end by such illicit means as I described last time, whereby they seek to gain possession of the forces leading on into the future. Our time is suffering great harm, in that the forces that were acquired in this way play their part in events. Hence the first task of the honest seeker after truth today is to convince himself of the existence of these evil forces and moreover that a right working into the future can be achieved only by finding access to these true impulses, which can be sought for in the sincere, straightforward ways of Spiritual Science.

Truly, the service to be rendered by Spiritual Science is by no means one-sided—for it is rendered both by the Living and the Dead. This is a solemn, serious matter. And as friends in Zurich are proposing to take steps to introduce spiritual Science in certain chosen circles, I have felt it necessary, in our Society here, to speak of these very serious aspects of spiritual knowledge in our time. That opposing powers are at work in manifold ways is to be observed even within our own Society. Think, too, of all that has been going on, really ever since this war began, in the way of calumny, of suspicion as to my own intentions and those of a few others! Here, too, of course, inimical powers are playing a part.

The very way in which we have spoken in these lectures will show you that our age sorely needs a renewal of spiritual life, needs to be wakened from a certain condition of sleep. There are so many who think that peace will come after the war and then it will all be over and done with. By no means! The events of the present time are portentous signs. To those who will not deepen their knowledge of Spiritual Science these signs will remain unintelligible. And because the times are so grave, because it will become more and more difficult to fight even such a battle as friends here have to fight before work can be done, I want to express my special, personal gratitude—it is a gratitude which comes, too, from Spiritual Science—that friends in Zurich have taken up the struggle so warmly and so effectively against unfavourable conditions and have been undaunted in their efforts to find opportunities for lectures. Thus it has actually been possible for the aim of friends in Zurich to be fulfilled at this time, when on account of the ever-increasing obstacles, such opportunities are hard to come by. I want to stress the fact that these difficulties will grow. And as in the immediate future we shall certainly have to think about making good use of the time still remaining open to us for the arrangement of meetings, I do not want to leave unexpressed my thanks for the great efforts made in connection with the public lectures and these two lectures to the Members here. Later on, when we look back over events, it will assuredly seem significant that now, at a time of such tragic world events, we could be together and speak together as we have done.

And so, with the impulses of Spiritual Science, we will continue to work, trying to make the best of what can be wrested from the difficult conditions of the times, in the conviction which arises from a true understanding of Spiritual Science, that, insignificant as it may appear within the great stream of tragic, devastating happenings today, we are doing something of great and incisive importance for the times. The things we do in this way flow into the stream of events. Although this may still not be very apparent today, it has significance, nevertheless. If we are filled with this thought it will give us the strength to go further and it will contain in itself the power to ray out into the times. Our age must assimilate such thoughts. Let us live in this conviction as in a spiritual atmosphere! It can arise in us in very truth if we understand Spiritual Science aright.

In this sense, my dear friends, we will remain together.

[1] “Anthroposophy and Natural Science.” 12^th November, 1917.

In these days I have tried to show you the conditions of human life from an individual aspect, and also from a wider aspect. You will have noticed that even during the public lectures which I held recently, I was anxious to point out the problems of spiritual science needed for an understanding of mankind. For we must abandon certain vicious circles of thought that are now to be found throughout the world, and are, really, one of the causes which led to the catastrophic events of the present.

Above all, people must understand where the boundary line between the so-called physical world and the spiritual really lies. This boundary-line really lies in the very center of man. In order to understand the world, it is very important to know that this boundary-line between the physical world and the spiritual world can be found in man himself. I have often pointed out, from the aspect of spiritual science, the great importance of scientific methods of thinking, both for the present and for the future, and have shown that scientific thought really stands more or less where it has always stood from its beginnings. One might well say that it is qualified to spread darkness over some of the most important truths of life.

Let us be quite clear that the evolution of the times only begins today to introduce scientific thinking gradually into the conceptions of the universe and of life. Today a few monistic societies, and others too, are engaged in introducing scientific conceptions into the consciousness of the general public—often in a shockingly amateurish way. This is only one of the channels through which scientific thinking will flow gradually into the human soul. A far more effective and incisive way is the one of publicity.

Not by chance, but in accordance with an inner reality, the new scientific way of thinking entered the evolution of mankind at the same time as the invention of printing. All new things that mankind has learnt so far through printed books (with the exception of books containing old things that existed already) came from the scientific consciousness. I mean that the new element came from the scientific consciousness. Above all, the way in which thoughts have been captured came from a scientific way of thinking.

Theologians will of course raise this objection: Have we not printed theological wisdom and all kinds of religious things during the last years, decades and centuries? Yes, this is true, but to what has it led us? The way in which human souls have become conversant with spiritual life under the auspices of printing has brought about this result, that the spiritual element has gradually left the sphere of religious consciousness altogether. Under the influence of scientific thought, even Christ-Jesus has become the “simple man of Nazareth” (you know this already) and although he has been characterized in many ways, he has nevertheless been placed on the same level as other great personalities of history—but for the present at least he still stands above the others. The real spiritual element connected with the Mystery of Golgotha gradually disappeared—at least for those who think that they have advanced in the civilization of our times.

I have already explained that the scientific way of thinking was obliged at first to cooperate in producing a certain darkening of the spirit, in support of what the Spirits of Darkness bring into human thinking, ever since 1879. In the scientific sphere this assumes a very subtle aspect. The scientifically trained thinker, or better, the scientific expert who cooperates in the general education of our age and in the formation of a world-conception, cannot help diverting man from casting a glance at the boundary-line between the physical world and the spiritual world, which exists in him. He cannot help this because science is as it is, and he does his very best (excuse this banal expression) to work in this direction by popularizing the scientific methods of thought. A future age will dawn for human thinking (it is terrible that such things are mentioned today – terrible for those who follow a particular line of thought), an age in which certain ideas will be looked upon as comical—ideas now ruling in science, which have not entered the consciousness of the masses, but influence them, because scientists (forgive me) are considered to be authorities.

I have often pointed out the following thought—even publicly in my book Riddles of the Soul: It is a current scientific idea that in the nervous system (we will limit ourselves to man, for the moment, although this can also be applied to animals) we can distinguish sensory, or sense-nerves or perceptive nerves, and motor nerves. It can be drawn schematically, by showing, for instance, that any nerve, say a nerve of touch, carries the sensation of touch to the central organ—let us suppose, to the spinal cord. The sensations from the periphery of the body reach the spinal cord. Then, from another point of the spinal cord goes out the so-called motor nerve. From there, the impulse of the will is sent on (see drawing).

In the brain this is shown in a more complicated way, as if the nerves were like telegraphic wires. The sense-impression, the impression on the skin, is led as far as the central organ: from there, an order goes out, as it were, that a movement must be carried out. A fly settles somewhere on the body—this causes a sensation; the sensation is led on to the central organ; there, the order is given to lift the hand as far as the forehead to chase away the fly. From a diagrammatic aspect, this is an idea that is generally accepted. A future age will look on this as something very comical indeed, for it is comical only for him who can detect this. But it is an idea that is accepted by the majority of professional scientists. Open the nearest book on the elements of science dealing with these things and you will find that today we must distinguish between sensory and motor nerves. You will find that they mention particularly the very comical picture of the telegraphic wire—that the sensation is conducted to the central organ and that the order is given out from there for the production of a movement. This picture is still very much diffused in popularized science.

It is far more difficult to see through reality than through the thoughts that set up comparisons with telegraphic wires, reminding us of the most primitive kinds of ideas. Spiritual Science alone enables us to see through reality. An impulse of the will has nothing in common physical matter. Nerves—both sensory and motor nerves—obey a uniform function, and this can be seen no matter whether the nerve-cord is interrupted in the spine or in the brain; in the brain it is merely interrupted in a more complicated way.

This interruption or break exists not only in order that something from the external world may be conducted through the one half to the central organ and then, in the form of will, from the central organ through the second half to the periphery—this interruption exists for an entirely different reason. Our nervous system is interrupted in this regular way because at the very point of the interruption, reflected in an image in man, there lies the boundary line between physical and spiritual experience; it is the bodily reflection of a complicated spiritual reality. This boundary exists in man in a very remarkable way. Man enters into a relationship with the world immediately around him, and this process is connected with that part of the nerve-cord that goes as far as the interruption. But man must also have a link with his own physical body as a soul-being. This connection with his own physical body is transmitted through the other nerve-cord. When an external impression causes me to move my hand, the impulse to move the hand already lies here (shown in the diagram), already united with the soul, with the sense-impression. And that which is conducted along the whole sensitive nerves, along the so-called motor nerve, from a to b, is not “conducted as a sense-impression as far as c, where an order is given that gives rise to b”– no, the soul-element is already fructified when an impulse of the will takes place at a, and passes through the entire nerve-path indicated in the diagram.

It is quite out of the question that such infantile ideas should correspond to any form of reality—ideas which presuppose that the soul is to be found somewhere between the sensory and the motor nerves, where it receives an impression from the exterior world and transmits an order from there, like a telegraphic operator. This childish idea, which is met with again and again, is very strange when found in conjunction with the demand that science must at all costs avoid being anthropomorphic! Anthropomorphic lines of thought must be avoided, yet people do not realize how anthropomorphic they themselves are, when they say that an impression is received, an order sent out, etc., etc. They talk and talk and have not the slightest idea what mythological beings they conjure into their dreams about the human organism! They would realize it if they would take things seriously.

Now the question arises: Why then is the nerve-cord interrupted? It is interrupted because, if this were not so, we should not be included in the whole process. Only because at the point of interruption the impulse springs over the gap, as it were (the same impulse, let us say, an impulse of the will, starts from a), because of this fact, we ourselves are in the world and are at one with this impulse. If the entire process were uninterrupted, with no break at this point, it would be entirely a process of Nature, in which we would not participate.

Imagine this process in a so-called reflex movement: A fly settles somewhere on your body, you chase away the fly, and the whole process never enters your consciousness fully. The entire process has its analogy, an entirely justified analogy, in the sphere of physics. Inasmuch as this process demands an explanation by means of physics, the explanation will be only a little more complicated than that of another physical process. Take a rubber ball, for instance: you press it here, and deform it. But the ball fills out again and reassumes its former shape. You press in and the ball presses out again. This is the plain physical process, a reflex movement, except that there is no organ of perception, there is nothing spiritual in the process. But if you interpolate something spiritual at this point by interrupting the process, the rubber ball will feel itself an individual being. However, in this case the rubber ball must have a nervous system, so that it can feel both the world and itself. A nervous system always exists in order that we may feel the world in ourselves: it never exists in order to pass on a sensation along one side of the wire, and a motor impulse along the other side.

I am pointing this out because the pursuance of this subject leads us into one of the many points where natural science must be corrected before it can supply ideas that correspond approximately to the real facts. The ideas ruling today are instruments of the impulses coming from the Spirits of Darkness. The boundary line between physical and spiritual experience lies in man himself.

You see, this piece of nerve that I indicated in red really serves to place us into the physical world, so that we may have sensations in the physical world. The other piece of nerve, indicated in blue, really serves to make us feel ourselves as body. There is no essential difference whether we experience a color consciously from outside, through the nerve-cord a c, or whether we experience an organ, or the position of an organ, etc., from inside, through the cord d b; in essence, this is the same. In the one case we experience something physical is in us, i.e., enclosed within our skin. Not only that which is outside, but also what is within us, places us in the process that can be experienced as a will-process. The strength of the perception varies according to the nerve-cords that transmit it—the cord a c, or the cord d b. Indeed, a definite weakening of the intensity takes place. When an idea is linked up with a will-impulse in a, the impulse is passed on from a; when it jumps from c to d, the whole process weakens to such an extent in our consciousness or experience that we experience its continuation—for instance, the lifting of our hand—only with that slight intensity of consciousness which we possess during sleep. When we lift our hand we are again aware of the will, but in the form of a new sensation from another side. Sleep extends continually in an anatomical and physiological sense into our waking life. We are connected with the exterior physical world, but we are completely awake only with that part of our being that goes as far as the interruption of the nerves. What lies in us beyond this interruption in the nerves is wrapped in sleep, even by day. In the present stage of the evolution of the Earth this process is not yet physical; it takes place on a certain spiritual level, although it is connected to a great extent with the lower qualities of human nature. However, I have often expounded the secret that just man's “lower nature” is connected with the higher manifestations of certain spiritual beings. If we note all the places in the human being where the nerves are interrupted, and jot them down in a diagram, we obtain the boundary-line between the experiencing in the physical world and the experience that comes from a higher world. Hence I can use the following diagram: Suppose that I indicate here all the nerve-interruptions—here is the head and here is a leg. Now suppose that a so-called impression goes out from here and that the interruption of the nerve is in this place. “Walking” will be the result, and the real process consists in this—that everything that we experience through the nerve here, is experienced by day in a waking way. But what we experience here as unconscious will is experienced in a sleeping way, even when we are awake. The spiritual world forms and creates directly everything that lies below the point of interruption in the nerves.

You may find these things difficult if you hear them for the first time, but they should make you aware that you cannot enter into the more intimate questions of knowledge without some difficulty.

When it becomes clear to you that everything above the boundary line connects man with the physical world, and everything below the boundary with a spiritual world, of which he possesses only an inferior kind of physical image, you will be able to reach the following conception:—Think of the plant-world; the plants grow out of the earth, but they would not do so unless they received from the universe forces which are intimately connected with the life of the Sun, and which receive everything that the earth generates in the form of forces. All these cosmic forces, everything that pours in from the universe out of the Sun's life, with all that emanates from the earth, belongs to the life of the plants.

This joint action of cosmic and telluric, or earthly, forces is part of the life and existence in the physical world, as we must understand it. The forces working on the plants below this line, from the earth, together with the plant's germinating force (the seed is put into the earth) are of the same kind as those that we must seek here, where the red lines are indicated [original article notes “This diagram cannot be given.”] You must look for the forces that the plant receives from the earth through its roots, above the boundary-line indicated in the diagram. Man takes from the earth in a more delicate way, through his eyes and ears, and above all through his skin, what the plant assimilates from the soil through its roots. Man is an earthly being through his nerves, and through what he receives in the form of telluric or earthly forces in the air he breathes, and in the food that the earth gives him. What the plant receives from the earth (except that the plant sends its roots into the earth), man receives through organs that he unfolds after death, from the earth; but he receives it in a more delicate way, and the plant in a coarser way through its roots.

The plant receives other forces as well; it receives forces that stream in from the Sun's sphere, from the heavenly sphere—the sphere of the cosmic spaces, or the universe. In my diagram, this sphere is indicated in blue; it represents the forces that the plant receives from the universe. They are of the same kind as those indicated in blue, beyond the boundary line. Man draws out of his body what the plant draws out of the universe. From the earth, man receives in a more refined state the forces and substances which the plant assimilates more coarsely from the soil through its roots. From this body, man receives more coarsely the same forces and substances that the plant draws from the universe in a more refined state. These forces do not exist in the universe in the form in which man draws them out of his own body; they existed as such during the old Moon period. Man has preserved them from that period. Through what lies beyond this limit (shown in the blue part of the diagram) man does not receive his perceptions immediately from the present, but from what he brought over as an inheritance from the old Moon period. He has carried the cosmic conditions of a past age into the present. Man has preserved the Moon-conditions in his body.

You can see, therefore, that we are cosmic to a certain extent and are even connected with the universe in such a way that we bear within us an image of what has already been conquered by the universe outside.

This is again an example of what I mentioned last time, that it will not be of much use if we say, from a general, vague and nebulous standpoint, that man must take up again a cosmic way of feeling and cosmic ideas. These things are only of value if we approach them quite concretely, and if we really know how matters stand, how they are connected. This will place the experimental attempts of the present day on a sound basis, on a really sound basis. If we know that everything in the human body lying beyond the nerve-interruptions is connected with the Moon nature, we shall find in the universe and in the life on earth the forces that make us ill or that heal us. We shall find them through these relationships, and when we know how that which lies on this side of the boundary-line is connected with the conditions of the earth (in a finer way than the plant's connection with the soil through its roots), we shall find, in a really conscious way, the connection between illness and health and the qualities of certain plants.

These things are still in the experimental stage. Man's thinking must first be placed on a sound basis, and then there will also be a sound foundation of knowledge for the conceptions and ideas which he develops, in order that his thinking may regulate, permeate, and give a certain structure to the social, ethical, pedagogic and political aspects of life.

In many realms of knowledge, we perceive that just those people, who in their scientific thought are broad-minded, able experts, begin to romance, to talk absolute nonsense, when they transfer their habitual ideas to the sphere of social life. But the sphere of social life is not an entirely independent sphere. The human being, with his physical soul and spiritual nature, takes his place in social life, and it is not possible to separate these things from one another. We must not content ourselves with the fact that men are made scientifically stupid in the social sphere in order that they may only be able to talk nonsense where the social sphere is concerned!

Today it is quite easy to prove that experienced scientists begin to talk nonsense when they cross the boundary between science and spiritual life. Medical men, especially, are very prone to all kinds of absurdities when they enter the spiritual sphere with the ideas that are gained today in the realm of science. We need not search far afield: any example taken from human life will serve, for wherever we look we shall find confusion in this respect.

For instance, here is a pamphlet by a very good doctor, entitled: “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life.” In order not to arouse your prejudice, I will not even say what a good doctor he is. This excellent medical man, however, observed the nervous system, concerning which science has not even a glimmer of a correct idea (this can be realized from the few examples I have given today); he observed to what extent the nervous system has been injured by the present war conditions. We need only consider the most primitive examples, in order to show how really sound thinking ceases when scientific conceptions are transferred to that which is connected, to some extent, with the spiritual sphere—I will not even say, the spiritual sphere itself! The discussion of such a subject as “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life” implies the necessity of expressing what is supposed to take place in the nerves, as a result of all kinds of things pertaining to the spiritual (mental) life—naturally, that spiritual life which takes its course on the physical plane—through all kinds of ideas which are taken from this spiritual life.

This man, for instance, brings forward an idea that is supposed to be justified under certain conditions of abnormal life of the nerves, the idea of “over-estimated thoughts.” They are a symptom of diseased nerves. “Over-estimated thoughts”—what does this mean? You see, anyone who brings forward such a conception must make sure that it is really effective in life. What is an over-estimated thought? This doctor says it arises when the feeling, or the sensation, in the thought is emphasized too strongly, when it is a one-sided thought; in fact, he brings forward all kinds of vague ideas. Of course, I cannot give you a precise idea of this, but do not ascribe this lack of a clear definition to spiritual science, for now I am quoting. An over-estimated thought arises, for instance, if one hates a foreign country excessively, owing to the war. A “valued thought” would be real patriotism. But this real patriotism becomes “over-valued” when the nervous system is irritated. One does not only love one's country, but hates the other countries: then the thought has become “over-valued.” The “valued” thought is sound, and from the valued thought one must conclude that the nerves also are sound. But if the thought is over-valued, the nerves are injured. Do we meet reality anywhere, if we characterize, on the one hand a nerve process, and on the other hand a thought which is supposed to have a certain quality? As a thought, it is supposed to be “over-valued”; the nerve process is on one side and the idea “over-valued” on the other. People would do well to think out such things always to the very end, for a thought reveals itself as correct or incorrect, i.e., as real or unreal, only if it is thought to the end. For instance, it would be an over-valued thought if I were to think that I am the King of Spain; undoubtedly this would be an over-valued thought. But it need not be “over-valued” if I really happened to be the King of Spain. In this case my nervous system would be quite sound, although the thought is the same. It has the same content. Hence the thought itself is not over-valued; otherwise we must believe the King of Spain to be afflicted with nerve troubles because he thinks that he is the King of Spain! This is so, is it not? Consequently, this connection is not important, nevertheless there is a great deal of talk about this. There is not only talk: conceptions, definitions, etc., are formed. The results are very strange and not worth more than idle chatter.

You see, now, that this man has formed the idea of over-valued thoughts. The over-valuation of thoughts is a symptom for disturbances in the life of the nerves. Very well. But his sub-consciousness does not feel very much at ease, for sub-consciously he feels that while he is explaining to people all these matters concerning the over-valuation of thoughts, they, too, have all kinds of sub-conscious thoughts, they think there is a flaw in the argument; but this remains, of course, in the sub-consciousness of people, for this person is an “authority”! Hence their impressions must not rise into consciousness , for, with the designation “over-valuation” is expressed not only the vivid and high valuation of the ideas in question, but also their “over-valuation” in connection with the real facts which lie at their foundation. The over-valued thought rules consciousness to such an extent that there is no room beside it for other objective thoughts, which are also justified. The latter are pushed aside and lose their efficacy in consciousness and their influence in bridling and limiting the over-valued thoughts. Thus a one-sided exaggeration arises when judgments are formed, a one-sided tendency in the strivings of the will, and a turning away from all other spheres of thought which are not immediately connected with the center of the over-valued thoughts.

(It is more or less the same thing as arguing that poverty comes from “pauvreté”!)

Certainly, two people may have the same thought substance, but in one case this is Lucifer, in the other case Ahriman, and in a third case it may be in keeping with the normal evolution of humanity. Instead of coining the empty expression “over-valued thoughts,” we must accept the idea of spirituality, such as the luciferic or the ahrimanic spirituality; then we shall know that the important point is to recognize whether a human being wills something out of himself, or whether something else in him wills it. But of course, so-called science still shrinks from such views.

And if we expect real, concrete results from science, things become very amusing! Listen to this:

“First of all, I will define” (he tries to explain himself, because he wishes to show the symptoms of certain nervous disturbances), “first of all, I will define the thoughts that often play the chief role in the nervous disturbances of individuals” (he means also in the modern nationality-mania), “the ideas of despondency, care, fear, lack of courage and of self- confidence.” Very well, these are the things that characterize the nervous system in the life of the nerves that is determined by over-valued thoughts.

Despondency, care, fear, lack of courage and of self-confidence—well, such a lecture is meant to be of help somehow, for this authority does not speak merely to cause vibrations in the air, but because he wishes it to be of use. Hence one would expect this gentleman to tell us how humanity can overcome these handicaps, because he finds, not only in individuals, but also in humanity, lack of courage, care, despondency, lack of self-confidence as symptoms of nervous disturbances; now we should expect him to tell us how to get rid of these things, how to get beyond this lack of courage, care, despondency, lack of self-confidence. One would take this for granted. Indeed he takes it for granted, for he says:

“Thus for a time at least, that discontented, discouraged mood can spread among the great masses of the people, which is to be feared more than anything else. For it leads to the abandonment of strong sound impulses of the will, it loosens the firm, united striving after a goal, and it weakens energy and endurance.”

Now we expect something, and he continues: “Not to be nervous, therefore, means above all courage, confidence, trust in one's own strength, and not swerving from what has been recognized as the right course of action.”

So now we have the conclusion. People are nervous when they are oppressed by care, lack of courage, despondency, lack of self-confidence. How do they get rid of their nervousness? When they are not oppressed by all this! This is quite clear, is it not? When they are not oppressed by all these things!

The worthlessness of thought is carried over into substantiality also in science. Certain authorities have at their disposal all the material, have taken possession of it. It is already confiscated when any attempt is made to work upon it with reason. But when they work upon it themselves, they do so with worthless thoughts. All anatomical, physiological and physical subject matter is consequently lost. Nothing is created, for at the very table where something useful for humanity should be produced, people stand with these worthless thoughts. Certainly nothing can come of the dissection of a corpse, when—forgive the hard expression—an “empty head” dissects. Here already the matter becomes social. Things must be considered from this point of view. And a very promising treatise ends in the manner I have just shown.

I have given you one example. Not be become nervous means above all not to lose courage, confidence and trust. But when today the average reader takes up such a treatise and reads: “The Injurious Effects of the War upon the Nervous System and Mental Life”—and thinks, “here I shall be enlightened, for this is by Professor So-and-so, director of the Medical Hospital in So-and-so.”—well, now he is clear about it, now naturally he is enlightened.

But on page 27, where national hatred is discussed, we read:—“Certainly similar impulses flared up within us, and we found it almost a relief and satisfaction to oppose our greatest enemies with a similar attitude on our side. And yet, only a little quiet consideration is needed to realize that this general national hatred is only the outcome of a diseased, overstimulated attitude of soul, into which the various peoples have fallen through mutually inflaming, inciting and imitating one another.”

How then has the history of national hatred arisen, according to this statement? Here are various peoples: a, b, and c, but neither a, b, nor c is in any way capable of hating, of itself, for the whole history has not arisen thus,—this general national hatred has developed through a diseased, over-stimulated attitude of soul into which the various peoples have fallen through mutually inflaming, inciting and imitating one another. Thus, a cannot bring it about, b also cannot, nor can c; but what each is unable to do, they achieve by mutually provoking one another. Consider how ingenious the thought is. I explain something and have before me a, b, and c. All this is unable to provide an adequate explanation, but does so just the same. I explain something therefore out of nothing at all in the most beautiful manner

People pick up such things and read them without observing that they are simply nonsense.

It is necessary to point out such things for they show how disjointed and worthless the thought is which today assumes authority. Naturally in science, which pertains to what already exists, this does not come to light so strongly and cannot be controlled. But just as people think here in the realm of science, so they also think in social, pedagogical and political life and this has been prepared during the last four centuries. This is the present situation.

So it has come about that gradually out of the disjointed, worthless thought, just such impulses as those which meet us in the present catastrophic events have arisen. Here we must penetrate thoroughly to the roots of the matter. And only when people then come to the surface of things, where the matter becomes actual for the single individual, and may also become so for the social structure of whole peoples, there the matter becomes especially terrible and tragic. It is our task on the one hand to grasp these things, is it not? We must learn to know them within their mutual limits, if we are to understand them. If we wish to understand such an event as the present war, which is so complicated and which unquestionably cannot be grasped in its details from the physical plane, we must—as people say—trace it back to its sources. But everyone believes, when he has traced a matter back to its source, when he has understood it in this manner, that it was a necessity, that it had to happen just as it now is. Today for instance, one does not in the least notice that the one has nothing whatever to do with the other. Because we understand something in its interrelationships, this does not also establish the fact that the event had to take place, that it could not have been omitted. He who tries to make clear to himself, in a more or less intelligent way, why the present war had to come, why it is not something determined by a few people, but something connected with deeper causes in the evolution of humanity—often goes away satisfied and says: Now I understand that nothing else was possible except that this war should come. It is obviously a necessity—in the sense that when we know its causes it develops with absolute necessity out of them, out of these concrete conditions. But this does not mean that we may draw the conclusion that things had to happen just as they have happened. No event arising in world history is necessary in this latter sense. Although in the former sense it is necessary, no event is necessary in this latter sense. Each event might have been different, and each might not have happened at all.

He who speaks of absolute necessity might reflect with the same right: I should like to know when I shall die. Now if I go to a life insurance company, they reckon out—determining the amount of the insurance policies accordingly—how many people out of a certain number have died in a given length of time and how many still live. The insurance money is paid accordingly. I go to a life insurance company for information and it must appear from their calculations whether I shall be dead or not in 1922.

This is naturally complete nonsense. But it is exactly the same nonsense when we try to derive the necessity of one event from another, from the realization of the cause that must lead to it. Here I touch upon a theme which indeed is not easy, for the reason that just in this sphere the most disjointed ideas are prevalent, because very little will to become clear about things exists in this realm today.

If we really wish to be clear on this point, we must recognize that when something takes place, it does so under the influence of certain conditions. In the sequence of circumstances we always come to a certain point where there are beginnings—real beginnings. If today we see a sapling that is still small, later on it will become larger; the largeness of the tree develops of necessity from its smallness. After a short time we may say: It is a necessity that this tree has developed thus. I could see how it developed according to necessity when it was still very small, perhaps while it was unfolding its very first germinating forces out of the earth. If I am a botanist I can see that in time a large tree must of necessity arise. But if the seed had not fallen into the earth at this particular spot—perhaps someone planted it there, but if he had not done so—then here would be a point where necessity would not have been introduced. For necessity must begin here. We have before us a mighty oak, let us say—it is not here in reality—we look at it and admire it; it was once naturally a sapling and has grown from this sapling, according to necessity. But now imagine that a good-for-nothing boy (or girl!) had come along while it was still very small and pulled it up. Because it is pulled up, the whole necessity does not result. In a negative sense also the necessity may be done away with. Starting points, where necessities begin, these reveal themselves to the thought that conforms to reality. This is the essential point.

But we do not reach these starting points when we observe merely the outer course of events. We reach them only when we can at least feel the spiritual foundations. For just as you have here a bunch of roses, and when you form a concept of it, if you are an abstract person, an idea will result which is a copy of the reality (for the bunch of roses is real and the idea of it is a copy of reality)—so for the occultist the bunch of roses is not a reality at all when he conceives it, because the bunch of roses does not exist; the roses can only exist when with their roots they are connected with the earth. The real concept does not result when we form an image of something that is from the outset external, but only when we have formed out of the reality this fully experienced concept. But this fully experienced concept yields itself only to spiritual-scientific contemplation—even in the case of outer sense reality.

A valid concept of a world-historical event is only reached when we can view this event according to the methods of spiritual science. Here we find that it may indeed be traced in regard to its necessity; we find its ramifications, its roots within reality. But something is accomplished only by actually tracing the roots, not by the general statement of an abstract necessity.

Had, for instance, certain events during the eighties of the nineteenth century been different, the events in 1914 would also have been different. But this is just the important point, not to proceed as the historian does, who says: What now takes place is the effect of preceding events, these are in turn the effect of preceding events, which are the effect of still other events, etc. We come thus not only to the beginning of the world, but still farther, into cornplete nothingness. One such idea rolls along behind the other. This, however, is not the important point, but we must follow the matter concretely to where it first took root. Just as the root of a plant begins somewhere, so also do events. Seeds are sown in the course of time. If the seeds are not sown, then the events do not arise. I have touched upon a theme here that I naturally cannot exhaust today. We will have more to say later on this subject that I will describe essentially thus: “In spite of all considerations of necessity, there is not a single event which is absolutely necessary.”

It is really essential that men of the present day should, in their whole attitude of mind, emerge from this frightful dogmatism that permeates modern science, and that matters should be [taken] seriously.

I will give you a good example. At Zurich and Basle I endeavored to explain what nonsense it is to consider a sequence of historical events in such a way that one event must necessarily arise from another. This is the same as if I said: Here is a light that illumines first an object a, then an object b, then an object c. I do not notice the light itself, but merely the fact that first a, then b, then c in turn becomes illumined. I should be mistaken if, on seeing a and then b illumined, I were to say that b is lighted from a, and when I see that c is illumined, I were then to say: c is lighted from b. This would be quite incorrect, for the illumination of b and c have nothing to do with a; they all receive light from a common source. I gave this example in my lectures in order to explain historical events.

Now suppose that somebody found this idea quite a nice one. This is possible, is it not, that an idea which has sprung up on anthroposophical soil should be found quite good? Indeed, here and there even our opponents have taken such ideas to use for themselves. Many indeed have become opponents because such things had to be censured. Thus it is quite possible that an analogy brought forward from an anthroposophical quarter should not be absolutely foolish. Suppose some person took it and used it in a connection differing from that in which I had used it. Suppose that he used it dogmatically, not symptomatically as I did. Suppose that he used it from quite a different attitude of mind, and that I heard a lecture in which he said: “The sequence of cause and effect is quite wrongly explained by saying that effect b is the result of cause a, effect c of cause b, for this would be the same as saying: ‘When three objects, a, b, and c, are illumined, then b is illumined by a, c by b’.”

Suppose I am listening to all this, and that the explanation is not given in the same connection in which I spoke at Basle and Zurich, then I should perhaps object to the lecturer's conclusions, arising from his connection. I should perhaps say: “Supposing that a, b and c are luminescent substances—there are such substances; when exposed to light they become luminous and can give light even when the source of light is removed—suppose that a, being luminescent, actually illumines b, and that b, being luminescent, illumines c, then b would in truth be lighted by a, and c by b. In this way the whole analogy can become very brittle, when it is used by someone who, in the course of his lecture, has not explained that concepts for the realities in the spiritual life are like photographs, which differ when taken from different points of view. If this is not said at the outset, if the lecturer does not lead up to ideas that conform to reality, so that these ideas are always ideas from a certain point of view, then what has been said quite rightly from a certain perspective may become nonsense when used in an absolute sense.

The difference lies in this: Does the speaker start from reality or ideas? If from the latter, he will always be one-sided. If he takes as his starting point reality—since he can only bring forward ideas and nothing else, and every idea is one-sided—he may and must produce one-sided ideas, for that is quite obvious. You will now understand that a complete, a fundamental alteration of the soul-life is essential. For this reason it is easy for people to criticize many ideas of which I am the author. I do not know if anyone has hit upon this particular criticism. I have myself already made all the criticisms that are necessary.

Men must now realize in what way the idea is related to the reality. Only then shall we be able to penetrate into reality. Otherwise we shall always quarrel about ideas. Today the whole world is fighting about ideas in the social sphere, even when this fight has been transformed into external deeds. The fight about ideas changes very frequently into external deeds. These things lead into the intimacies of the spiritual life. Those who would understand existence must reflect on such things.

I have called your attention to these matters today in a more theoretical way. Next time I will speak of contemporary history from this standpoint and will show how far certain events have been necessary, and how far they were quite unnecessary, how quite different events might have happened, and how the catastrophes under which we all suffer need not have happened at all. We shall speak of these important questions in the next lecture.

I spoke yesterday of the great Polish drama “The Undivine Comedy” by Krasinski and of its very special significance. One can truly say that it was consciously brought into the world as the outcome of a dialogue with the Spirits working in the evolution of humanity, who in the middle of the 19th century spoke to those who were willing to listen to them.

Let us for a moment hold in our minds the thoughts that came to us from the realisation that what was astir in the inmost depths of the evolutionary process made its way into the external literary culture of the time. From Gutzkow's novel “The Mahaguru” as well as from “The Undivine Comedy”—I chose only two particularly striking examples from many that might be quoted—we see that as it were behind the scenes of external happenings, significant impulses are at work in the cultural life of mankind. From many sources we have gained knowledge that directs our minds and hearts to the great moment of world-evolution in which we are living, the moment when it is essential to be mindful of the new element that must be received into the evolution of humanity—but with the co-operation of human souls who are able to understand it. There are different ways of characterising the importance of the present time, but perhaps one thing only need be said and this will be sufficient to bring home the significance of the point of time at which we are standing.

In ages of antiquity men received a heritage consisting of wisdom yielded by atavistic clairvoyance and of knowledge gained atavistically. But this heritage petered away and the tide of materialism arose—particularly since the last three or four centuries and reaching a peak in the 19th century. This tide of materialism veiled all possibilities of vision into the spiritual world—and a new path, a new method, is now appearing in spiritual science. As I have often said, this development ultimately becomes a natural process in the souls of men. The situation today still is that the vast majority of souls have yet to learn that there are many earthly lives. But when the souls now living are re-incarnated, for the most part they will know, not merely as a theory, that there are many earthly lives; they will live on into an age when it will be known quite as a natural matter of course: there are many earthly lives. Just as human souls now remember back to a certain point in childhood, and thoughts from childhood constantly arise, so it will be natural one day for the living impression to well up from within: “We have been here many times.” Human souls will evolve to this stage just as they have evolved from primitive stages of life. This development will come about of itself but the following is inevitable.—

The souls who have learnt nothing from spiritual science today will die and return in new incarnations. Then, having learnt nothing from spiritual science, they will not know what to make of the impression that will rise up from within them of the truth of repeated earthly lives, and they may well be driven to despair. For this inner impression that will arise quite naturally in the soul must be grasped through thoughts, and the thoughts that are necessary before it can be understood are those yielded by spiritual science. These thoughts should make the whole history of the Ego and the fact of its existence in man intelligible to us; and he alone who has within him the force of these thoughts will be able to understand the impression that will come of itself, as a kind of remembrance.

But the foundation for understanding this remembrance will from now onwards have to be laid through spiritual science; knowledge of the continued existence of the Ego will have to be acquired. And those who have not acquired it will have to admit, when these remembrances well up in them: “I do not understand my own self.” This will be a terrible cry of despair in future times. It must be realised that only through knowledge and understanding of what will inevitably come in the future can human souls be kept from falling into despair. When the Ego which passes from incarnation to incarnation asserts itself in the future—and this means in our future incarnations—men must be able to understand this Ego. And they will do so if they have worked on their souls through the thoughts of spiritual science.

The Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled in order that the Ego might be fully understood, and this can never happen if—as in the case of the Polish Count described yesterday—men preserve in their souls nothing but feelings of the Past—sacred though these feelings may be and connected with the events centred in the Mystery of Golgotha. Such feelings will enable these events to be grasped as matters of history, but that cannot lead to any true understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. True understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha depends upon the fulfilment of the words; “Not I but Christ in me.” It will then be possible for Christ in His living activity within earth-evolution not to remain inaudible to men. He must be made audible through that which, under his inspiration, spiritual science has to say, no sentiments or feelings tied to remembrances, can lead mankind to future well-being. But neither can the interests of the future be furthered by one who lives only in and for the Present—the tyrant described in the lecture yesterday. The tyrant does indeed, assert the Ego, but not Christ within the Ego. A deep riddle is presented to us in this Polish drama: two personalities stand in contrast to one another, one of whom has the Christ of tradition, of history, but runs the risk of falling away from Him. And what comes to expression in the wife and in the child of the Count relapses into a purely atavistic connection with the spiritual world.

A great danger for our time is indicated here. It is that those who are not willing to assimilate in a new way the knowledge of mankind's connection with the spiritual worlds, although they feel that such connection exists, will cause part of their being to lose the requisite link with the spiritual world. Mankind would fall asunder into those who—like the old Count—must necessarily despair and die because they cling exclusively to the Past, and those who rise into the spiritual worlds in an atavistic way—like the Count's wife and child. Because they have not received the Christ into their inmost being in full reality, they pass into the spiritual world without finding in themselves a point of anchorage.

What is it that the members of the Count's family have not fully developed? They have not fully developed the Ego: they are remains from the age which in the regular course of the evolution of humanity has been at an end since the Mystery of Golgotha, but markedly so since the last few centuries. They are remains from an age of antiquity when the Ego had not yet completely taken root in man; they are Ego-less human beings who, because they cannot take the Christ into the Ego which has not developed into the necessary intensity, lose the Christ. And standing in contrast to them is the tyrant, who has developed the Ego and bears it in himself with all strength; without taking the Christ into the Ego, he desires to bring happiness to the world but is incapable of doing so. At the point of death—out of the vision which the tyrant understands as little as he understands how to resign himself to death—there breaks from his lips the cry: “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!”—This is an indication of the fact that for those human beings who have, it is true, acquired the Ego but have not taken Christ into this Ego, there is one moment only when it is possible for them to come into relationship with Christ: it is the moment when they pass from this world into the other world. But because Christ came from that other world into this world in order there to find the way to human hearts, men must inevitably lose Him when, after the moment of death, they arrive in that other world. All the deeper impulses at work in our time belong to a sphere where momentous issues are at stake—I can say no more than that they “are at stake.”

But now we must go rather more deeply into things that are already known to us but must be studied in a certain setting if we are to understand them in the light of the conditions prevailing in our time. We know that, properly speaking, the evolution of the earth must be divided into an epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha and an epoch following the Mystery of Golgotha. We know, too, that in the epoch before the Mystery of Golgotha, Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits also worked into the souls of men. Particularly in considering the ages before the Mystery of Golgotha it must be realised that foolish chatter about avoiding Ahriman and Lucifer at all costs will get us nowhere. For Ahriman and Lucifer were allowed by the normal, progressive spiritual Beings to work in the earthly evolution of men.

Now we know that there are spiritual Beings actually ranking higher than men but who during the Old Moon period of evolution did not reach the height that would have been possible for them; they did not reach it, but for all that they rank higher than men. So that bearing in mind the intervention of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic beings, we can now understand better what is called the ancient, primeval wisdom in earth-evolution. For example, the ancient wisdom that was misused in the Lemurian epoch and perished with the Lemurians; the wisdom that was then misused in the Atlantean epoch and brought about the destruction of Atlantis. What was it that was then among men? What was it, in reality? To say that the great wisdom then existing was misused, applied in practices of black magic and so forth, is a very abstract way of speaking and leads to no very definite idea. Let us think, for example, of the character of this wisdom in the last periods of the Lemurian epoch. Whence had it come? Spiritual Beings who had not completed their full development during the Old Moon epoch but who were nevertheless at a higher level than men, had mingled with the earthly evolution of humanity. Man was already there—but, as you can well imagine, in his most primitive state. What was subsequently developed by human beings during the Atlantean and Post-Atlantean epochs did not yet exist. In those Lemurian times, man was a being wholly devoid of intelligence, for intelligence was to develop only gradually during the course of earth-evolution. Man was primitive in his will, in his actions, in his soul-development—altogether like a child. Now had there existed only bodies of men with the higher members of those bodies that had been developed for them by the progressive spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies, men would not have been capable at that time of evolving any outstanding wisdom. But in that Lemurian age a very lofty altogether extraordinary wisdom existed. For example, among those primitive men there was widespread knowledge of how to handle a child during the period between birth and the seventh year so that as the result of a certain transformation of his etheric body which then worked back upon the brain, he could be made extremely clever. Radical educational methods have to be applied today if this result is desired—and everyone is aware how very often these efforts are unsuccessful. But in any case the art of affecting the brain itself by exercising a certain influence on the etheric body of the brain, so that the child in question becomes extremely clever, is entirely lost today. Furthermore—and I hasten to emphasise it—this art is in no circumstances whatever legitimate in our time, for if it became at all general, even in its most elementary form, it would lead to terrible abuses.

How is the existence of such an art in Lemurian times to be explained? It is explained by the fact that Beings who had not completed their development on the Old Moon, but had evolved only the first six of their seven members, incorporated in men who otherwise would have been utterly primitive. The spiritual Beings who on the Old Moon were at a higher level than men but had not attained the apex of their development, took on these primitive human bodies and went to work with arts which far transcended all earthly knowledge. You can imagine what such Beings in human bodies were capable of accomplishing,—Beings who at a level higher than the human had developed the sixth member—the Life-Spirit—entered into these primitive, flexible, pliant bodies. And they became terrible magicians, dread magicians!

And again, what kind of arts were general in the Atlantean epoch? First and foremost there was the wisdom which must be applied in order to cause talents in ancestors to be transmitted, purely through heredity, to their descendants and actually to be enhanced in these descendants. The Beings whose development had not been completed on the Moon but who for all that were of a higher rank than earthly man, were deeply versed in this art—with most significant effect. Let me put it like this: it was as if by methods connected with star-constellations and the like, one were to lead over the qualities of a genius to his descendants, but in such a way that these spiritual qualities were not merely inherited, but intensified, enhanced. These higher Beings working in human bodies were capable of mighty achievements. All this was swept out of existence. Very many things were connected with these particular arts. For example, it was possible by their means to observe the course of spiritual evolution and to guide the spiritual forces into the stream of heredity.

And so even superficial observation will show that there is a very great deal in world-evolution which in an earlier age had its justification but which in the form it now bears is no more than a relic that has been preserved. Both in unimportant and important domains it is so. In his novel “The Mahaguru” Gutzkow wanted to indicate something of the kind in an important domain. He wanted to give emphasis to the question: In what form does something that had great significance in ancient times—in the Atlantean epoch, when it was still possible for men to regulate the stream of heredity—in what form does it appear when it is carried over into an age and into a community where the traditions of it had indeed been preserved but where nothing more was known of the earlier art than an inferior form of it called in occultism “Occult Chemistry?” Gutzkow showed that something of the kind existed in Tibet. Naturally, the priesthood in Tibet had no knowledge of how through forces of heredity they could produce a body for the individuality whom they believed should pass from one body into another—but they preserved the old customs. So there we have an example of the external reality presenting an aspect utterly different from what it had been in conditions once prevailing in the evolution of humanity. Reading “The Mahaguru” makes one want to cry out: Oh, how reality itself can become a maya in face of the prevailing conditions!

And now think of something else.—You can well imagine that the men of Lemurian and Atlantean times did not resemble the men of today, for what developed, inwardly in the soul at that time also gave configuration to the outer form; the whole outer form of man was different—it was pliant and flexible. The human form in the times of Lemuria and Atlantis was not ape-like; the bodies of the actual ancestors of men were not ape-like.—It would seem, therefore, that world-evolution must have made an exception in the case of certain people who have written of themselves that they can remember having descended from apes!¹—But we will not go into that now.—Men did not resemble apes, but if you picture our children presenting a much, much more infantile appearance, with an elemental quality of being extending over the whole body, you may be able to get an idea of the character of the human body in those times. As you can read in the book “From the Akasha Chronicle,” because Beings surviving from the Old Moon evolution had incarnated in these pliant, flexible bodies, these bodies became animal-like rather than human. Distorted forms arose, with strangely contorted limbs.—And there you have the origin of the figures of gods to be found among certain peoples. These curious figures with non-human faces and huge limbs, originate from the knowledge that the incarnating Moon-Beings were united with human bodies.

If in the Atlantean epoch there had been painters and sculptors, they would have been able to portray or model these figures of Moon-Beings incarnated in human bodies. But in Tibet this was no longer possible. Hence the canon must be strictly obeyed, for the artists would otherwise have made figures with whatever terms they liked. If a man did not obey the canon but created something out of his own play of fancy, he incurred the death-penalty. Naturally, one may ask: Is there any justification for condemning to death someone who makes only one tiny change in the figure of a god? Is there really any justification for it? In Tibet, of course, there is no longer any justification, but once upon a time there was, for as you have heard, these Beings were actually present in bodies, and if they were not faithfully portrayed, any deviation amounted to a lie. In those ancient times a lie had infinitely greater power than it has nowadays. If at the present time everyone who tells a lie were to suffocate as the result—well, I prefer to leave it at that, for I think that the fear of suffocation would be too great to allow people to risk telling lies! I assume that nowadays people will not suffocate—but at that time a lie would have caused actual suffocation. For the thought expressed in the word contained a power to give form to the air in the larynx, and then suffocated the man—and anyone who had incorrectly portrayed on earth a Being who had not fully completed his development on the Old Moon would have suffocated, in other words, a process of nature would have caused his death.

The evolution of humanity is an exceedingly complicated matter and to understand it one must go deeply into spiritual science. To find the right approach to world-evolution it is essential to study what it is the mission of spiritual science to make known from spiritual worlds. For spiritual science is, as it were, a first impulse to which other impulses must increasingly be added, in order that humanity in the future may advance along the right path. You will have realised from what I have been saying recently² that a course must be steered between a Scylla and a Charybdis, that a very definite path must be laid down in spiritual science.—This must be taken with the deepest earnestness. Our modern natural science is developed by materialistic methods. During these last weeks I have tried to describe its characteristics to you. I have said that a materialistic method in natural science is fully justified. It can be characterized by saying that it is adapted to cloak the spiritual reality lying behind. Why, then, must this materialistic method be there in our present time?

In our present time an earlier knowledge of nature must be superseded by a new knowledge of nature. I have told you something about this earlier knowledge of nature. Just think what kind of knowledge it was! To be able to mould a human head into an instrument editable for genius, through specific measures applied scientifically in the old sense of the word—this signified colossal knowledge!—or again, so to regulate heredity that qualities of genius were transmitted to descendants—the knowledge required for this was even more penetrating and comprehensive, far, far surpassing all the theories of evolution, the physics, chemistry and so on, of today. But that ancient knowledge was to be veiled and obscured by the materialistic method employed in natural science today—which is fully justified in the purely physical domain. It must be remembered that at the time when that lofty knowledge of nature existed, man was not a free being; he was only at the beginning of the gradual evolution of freedom. He was led and guided and what came to pass in the process of his guidance was for the most part brought about by the higher Hierarchies. And it was single individuals who deviated from the regular course, who advanced too far along the path to freedom, who were responsible for the fall into the abyss and the inevitable destruction of Atlantis. But with the constantly increasing freedom of will, man would have been unfit for knowledge of this kind. To possess knowledge such as once existed on the earth is unthinkable today because man's will has attained freedom to an extent that would enable him still to misuse this knowledge. How, then, is this free will guided into the right channel?

From indications I have given recently you will have gathered that by adopting the method employed in natural science, with all its scrupulous exactitude, the free will is directed into the right channel; moreover, this method is a wonderfully effective pedagogical means for the development of the free will. We have therefore no cause whatever to quarrel with the method employed in natural science, the justification of which for our present time we fully acknowledge. You will find that what is contained in our lecture-courses and books completely refutes the allegations of individual opponents—to the effect, for example, that we repudiate natural science. It is sometimes necessary to take exception to the pretensions of certain investigators and so-called scientific authorities; but nothing derogatory to the achievements of natural science will ever be found in our literature. To say that anything in our literature is a repudiation of natural science would be sheer calumny, for among us there can be no question of such repudiation. But at the same time it must be realised that attacks upon us may well be made from the side of so-called natural science—and if necessary, we must then repel the attack. But true adherents of spiritual science must become more and more conscious of the necessity to understand the natural-scientific method and to protect this method from being tainted by all kinds of non-scientific concepts—for example concepts of the atom and movement of the atom, of which I have recently spoken. These are fantasies of natural science, and the difference must be clearly seen.

Efforts must be made to distinguish between genuine natural science and scientific fantasy. How often do we not hear it said today that one thing or another is scientifically established—whereas it is nothing of the kind, because words are simply accepted as facts. Never was blind belief in authority greater than it is at the present time in the domain of science, for everyone allows things to be determined entirely by those in whom they happen to believe. The purpose of the Mystery of Golgotha was that what came into the world through Lucifer might gradually be corrected in a certain way—it is indicated symbolically in the Bible: “Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall know good and evil”—that is to say, ye shall know good and evil from outside. But when in the sphere of perceptions one perceives from outside, it is impossible to receive from that world anything other than perceptions. As soon as one begins to reflect about the perceptions, to speculate about them and derive all kinds of ideas from them, one is on the way to finding what has been imbued into them by Ahriman and Lucifer. The ideas must come out of the spiritual world and be united with the perceptions: then these ideas are in the real sense divine! In human life there must be a marriage between the ideas which are given to men from out of the Spiritual and what he perceives in the outer world through his senses. But this union must first be achieved. How this principle applies in the scientific domain you can gather from my essay “Truth and Science.” The belief that in the scientific sense, ideas, thoughts, could also be found from outside, from the perceptions, is based on illusion, on illusion caused by Ahriman and Lucifer. But as long as the Powers associated with the words “Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall know good and evil” (which means to search for the ideas in the outer world) were sanctioned, that is to say, until the Mystery of Golgotha—as long as Lucifer and Ahriman were allowed to work in this sphere, there was no objection to be made. But that state of things is now over. Now, in the matter of the permeation of perceptions from outside, they are all the more unjustified.

This too was brought into evidence in the middle of the 19th century through a crisis of a particular kind. This crisis announced itself in great and outstanding achievements: spectral-analysis, for example, came on the scene, swept away the conception that when one looks upwards to the stars one has to do with spiritual Beings—and showed that substances to be found everywhere in the universe also exist on the earth. The old union between ideas and perceptions is no longer possible, for such discoveries make it essential that the ideas shall again find the spiritual path into our souls. The same applies to Darwinism. To reason entirely on the basis of what is found by outer perception—that is to say, to seek for the ideas in the outer world—can only lead to a purely materialistic conception and interpretation of the world. In short, the crisis is in evidence everywhere and there is also widespread rebellion against the fact that the ideas must flow out of the spirit-realm into the souls of men if humanity is to make progress. In other words: we must understand the nature of Ahriman and Lucifer and be on the alert when they try to make us continue the principle indicated in the words; “Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall know good and evil.” We must learn to observe both Ahriman and Lucifer. And we shall be able to do this if we permeate the Ego, as it has now unfolded, with Christ.

But something else too resounded through the world in primeval times, resounded from a different side, after man had acquired the power to distinguish good and evil, to direct his gaze outwards, that is to say, to use his senses and through them to acquire ideas based on sense-perceptions. The decree went forth: Man must be driven out of the spirit-realm in which he has hitherto been living, in order that he may not also eat “of the Tree of Life.” But Christ will forever give men to eat of the Tree of Life, and the ideas which stream directly out of the spirit-realm into human souls must be inwardly experienced. But they can be experienced in the real sense only when the human soul takes Christ into itself. Then we have something quite different from the concept of Knowledge; then we have the concept of Life. Just as a strict eye must be kept on Lucifer and Ahriman in order that when they allow knowledge derived from the outer world to penetrate into us we may perceive that this knowledge is coming from them, so we must realise that through the impulse given by the Mystery of Golgotha, ideas were to flow into men to be the substance of life—the substance not of knowledge alone, but of life. And when from this standpoint of life we study the different religions of the world, it will be far, far from our minds to investigate these religions with the object of discovering whether they are or are not in keeping with our own view of the world. To apply only the concept of knowledge to these religions is not our task; we must apply the concept of life.

There are definite forms of religion in the world. We should not set out to discover whether we can consider these forms to be true, but whether through their ritual and ceremonies they are able to give nourishment and life to the souls of men, and—as the souls of men differ—it follows that their life can be sustained by different forms of nourishment. If we grasp this truth we shall realise that we can never lend ourselves to quarreling with any form of religion but that we must endeavour to understand it in so far as it is life-nourishment for human souls to whom it is given as life not as knowledge only, but as very life. Then we shall see that the standpoint from which a religion begins to quarrel with some branch of science is entirely misplaced. We shall also realise that religion will inevitably adopt a hostile attitude towards progress in natural science and spiritual science alike. For the religions are still unwilling to get away from the old Tempter, they still want to invoke only that God Who said to man that He will give them life, that they themselves are not to eat of the Tree of Life. The representatives of religions do not want to invoke God alone but also the Luciferic Spirit and the Ahrimanic Spirit; they want the eyes for distinguishing good and evil to be opened through religion. Religion wants to be “knowledge.” But it cannot be “knowledge” because it is life-substance. And under the sway of this temptation which still whispers in their ears, the representatives of the different religions believe they possess facts of knowledge in their religions, whereas the question of knowledge cannot, in reality, come into consideration between religion and science. We have no cause whatever to combat religious bodies, because we ask them about the sustenance they provide for life, not about what knowledge they possess. Religious communities will always be tempted to ask whether science as it advances is in keeping with what they regard as knowledge. But because life is in process of constant evolution, advancing science can never be in keeping with religions which invariably tend towards conservatism.

And now you can picture the whole conflict which in the nature of things will ever and again be urged. I should like you to think rightly about this conflict and to realize that as a matter of course the representatives of religious bodies, because they are under the sway of temptation, will always, from their standpoint, combat spiritual science, just as they combat natural science. But you must also realise that these opponents fight because they lack understanding. This does not excuse them at all, but it must none the less be realised that they fight because of lack of understanding; they cannot take the right standpoint. As a sign and symptom, let me bring to your notice words written by a man who perceived the inevitable approach of the natural-scientific age and the natural-scientific way of thinking, and who was told by a friend that one should not be concerned with knowledge that is not contained in the Bible or preserved in the traditions of the Church. Since the 14th century, of course, things have changed in this connection.—Dante's “Divine Comedy” is a great, world-embracing poem. But Dante lived at the time when the epoch during which men confined themselves to purely historical Christianity was passing away. For Dante, Virgil was simply the exile banished to hell. Dante did not know much about anything that differed from the Christianity confronting him as a great system and régime. But in the case of Petrarch it was different, 1 century later, in the 14th century, Petrarch read Virgil with far greater credence. He turned not only to Greek but also to Roman spiritual culture. When one of his friends wrote to Petrarch saying that there had appeared to him in a dream a spiritual Being who exhorted him to avoid all non-Christian literature, he (Petrarch) gave a very significant answer. I stress the importance of this incident because it shows how the friend—and through him, Petrarch—was enjoined from the spiritual world to concern himself only with what the Christianity of that time regarded as truly Christian. Petrarch wrote the following beautiful words which held good at that time for the approaching epoch and still hold good today. Petrarch replied to his friend Boccaccio in momentous words, affirming his standpoint, why he read this non-Christian literature, and what it meant to him (Petrarch: Letter to Boccaccio (“Epistolae seniles” I. 5):

“Why then should we shun the pagan poets and writers who do not use the name of Christ simply because they have never heard it? Surely there is greater danger in the books of sceptics who speak of Christ and at the same time dispute Him—but those who claim to be the defenders of the true faith read these writings with the greatest eagerness. Believe me: much that is simply the product of sloth and timidity is attributed to thoughtful deliberation. Men often cast scorn on what is out of their reach; it is characteristic of ignorance to condemn what it cannot comprehend and nobody will concede to it strivings of which it is incapable.

“Here lies the root of the misguided judgments of what is unknown; it is not so much the blindness of those who pass judgment as their laziness that is in evidence. We, however, should not allow ourselves to be frightened away from the sciences by any pious admonitions, or by indications of the near approach to death. If the sciences are imbibed with inner sincerity they quicken the love of morality and take from us, or at least diminish, the fear of death; if we abandon them, this will excite the suspicion that disbelief lays claim to be knowledge. The sciences are not a hindrance to one who has the right mastery of them, but they are a help to him; they level his path of life and do not thwart him.

“For a diseased or weak stomach, many a food may be unwholesome which a healthy, hungry man digests at once; so too, that which would ruin a feebler nature may be rich in blessing for a sound and vigorous mind. ...

“I know well that many have achieved great sanctity without culture, but I know too that nobody has been kept from sanctity by culture. ... If I am to tell you my own opinion, it is this: The path to holiness via ignorance may possibly be smooth, but it is faint-hearted. All good things have a single goal but many paths lead thither and fellow-travelers along these paths differ greatly; the one moves more slowly, the other more quickly, the one in obscurity, the other visibly, the one bowed with humility, the other buoyant with exultation. All journeying is blessed; but the noblest is that which proceeds freely and openly before the world. The knowledge that has wrestled through to belief is far superior to naive simplicity, be it never so pious; and not one of the fools who have ever entered the kingdom of heaven has as high a place as a man of knowledge who has won the crown of blessedness.”

The same could be said about our spiritual science! And not only to X³ but to all the others who fight against us, one could rejoin with the words written by Petrarch to his friend; “For a diseased or weak stomach, many a food may be unwholesome which a healthy, hungry man digests at once; so too, that which would ruin a feebler nature may be rich in blessing for a sound and vigorous mind.”

And when people harp on the “contradiction in the first and third Gospels” and refuse to admit that the contradiction disappears as soon as the existence of two Jesus boys is taken into account; when they insist upon “simplicity” and say that the fantastic statements of “the one up there” (on the Goetheanum hill) can well be ignored; when they will not admit that all the forms of life are incorporated in our Building, but talk about “distorted, fantastic forms,” one must quote the words of Petrarch: “The knowledge that has wrestled through to belief is far superior to naive simplicity; be it never so pious, and not one of the fools who have ever entered the kingdom of heaven has as high a place as a man of knowledge who has won the crown of blessedness.”

Such thoughts make us realise that it can never be our principle to combat any religious body and that it is sheer calumny when anyone accuses us of being an enemy of religious Movements. The very fact of such an accusation proves that there is no willingness even to try to understand us. This at least we must know; and we must resist every tendency to adopt an aggressive attitude to any religious community just as we must keep ourselves free from the same kind of attitude to natural science because that will soon disclose its attitude to spiritual science! There is no reason whatever for us to combat any religious body. Combat cannot be begun by us because it does not lie in our nature to attack. And it must be taken as an axiom that if peace is denied us, it is because the hostile neighbour is not inclined for peace. Let the principle of leaving us in peace be put to the test and then see whether peace is maintained! Let it be put to the test! But naturally, we ourselves must be permeated with the right feeling and attitude. For example, much wrong is also done when from our side, too, dogmas or rites of one kind or another are attacked, often without having been understood; but if we rightly understand them, the principle referred to holds good. I would therefore enjoin you to understand the principle of peace. Just as I was obliged to enjoin you to have forbearance with conditions prevailing at the present time, so must I enjoin you to be alert and watchful, in order that we may do what is necessary to guard the holy treasure entrusted to us. For more and more we shall have to wend our way through the world with an unwavering inner strength if we are to stand firmly on the ground where spiritual science would have us stand.

The Mystery of Golgotha and the Christ Principle are intimately connected with the need to see spiritual reality in the world. Mere looking will never suffice even to understand the Mystery of Golgotha purely as an historical event. The Mystery of Golgotha must be comprehended spiritually; and those who devote themselves to knowledge where everything is derived from outside and will not open their eyes to the new revelations of the Mystery of Golgotha which can ever and again flow to us, will not grasp the import of a poem sung by yet another voice in the middle of the 19th century concerning that which—ever changing yet ever present—holds good in earthly humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha. Let me read you a section of this poem which describes how one who cannot grasp the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha confronts this Mystery:⁴

Here is another example of how a human soul feels impelled to give expression to what has come to pass. And now that we have let these pictures pass through our souls, let me remind you of something that I have already said here: that we must change our mode of perception if we are to look with true vision into the spiritual world. We must not believe that the spiritual world can be seen as we see the material world of sense. We must even accustom ourselves to different modes of expression,—In the physical world we see trees, rivers, mountains. But of spiritual being we must say: they see us, they perceive us. To understand the Mystery of Golgotha truly, it is necessary to know this, because the Mystery of Golgotha can be understood only in the Spiritual. But that is how we aspire to understand it.

The time must come when through a true understanding of the words “Not I, but Christ in me,” it will be possible to rise into the spiritual worlds with the right knowledge. This epic poem “Ahasver” by Julius Mosen was published in the year 1838, and the fact that he was able to put the legend into such a form also indicates that the tragic destiny by which Mosen was overtaken profoundly affected him. He was bedridden nearly all his life, for his physical body was almost totally paralysed; this was precisely what enabled him to grasp such lofty ideas. We are reminded of the sinner in the novel “The Mahaguru” who, when he was already out of his mind, discovered the true nature of his art; and we are reminded, too, of the Count's wife in the Polish drama, who had to fall into a pathological state in order to find the connection with the spiritual world. It is the task of spiritual science today to help human beings to rise into the spiritual world in the healthy, normal state of consciousness.—All these things are signs of the task and of the value to be attached to the task of the spiritual-scientific Movement. Compressed into a few brief words, this is the truth that can inspire us as a source of strength: “The Mystery of Golgotha itself reveals that it must be understood spiritually, that we must seek for Christ as Spirit.” And then we must also say: “Christ is seeing us, Christ is perceiving us.”

We will inscribe this deeply in our hearts, keep it constantly in our minds, and our conscience must be satisfied when, in presenting our spiritual-scientific knowledge, we are saying with inner sincerity: May Christ be a witness of what we promulgate as Spiritual Science. We believe that this may indeed be so—and it can inspire us as men were once inspired by the cry of Bernard of Clairvaux: “It is God's Will!” These words became deeds. May it be the same among us—for we may believe that we understand Christ truly when we live under the inspiration of the words: Christ knows us.—And if you understand it aright, to a soul that sees our spiritual science in the true light, to a heart that feels it in its true light, I can impart no more esoteric saying than this: Christ is seeing us.

May these words live in our souls: “Christ is seeing us”—for so we may believe if we rightly understand spiritual science.—Christ is seeing us.

• 1. Statements to this effect are made in the book “Man: How, Whence and Whither” by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater. (Theosophical Publishing Company)
• 2. See “The Occult Movement In the 19th Century”—notably Lectures IX and X.
• 3. A newspaper article had been written by a priest living in the vicinity of the Goetheanum.
• 4. Dr. Steiner now read part of the epic poem on Ahasver, or Ahasueris, the Wandering Jew, by Julius Mosen. The Wandering Jew is the legendary figure of a Jerusalem shoemaker who, taunting Christ on the way to the Crucifixion, was told by Him to “go on forever till I return.”—Note by Translator.
  
  In a lecture entitled. “Elemental Beings” (Berlin, 16th May, 1908), Dr. Steiner speaks as follows of the legend of Ahasueris, the Wandering Jew: “An important legend sets before us what a man must experience who descends too deeply into the temporary, transitory nature of the one incarnation. If we think of an extreme case, we can imagine it like this: ‘What is it to me that I should carry over something to later incarnations? I live in this incarnation, I like it, it suits me very well. I am not concerned with what I am supposed to make of it.’ Where does this thought lead? It leads to a man who sits at the wayside when a great Leader of humanity passes by. He, however, rejects the ideas of the Leader of humanity; he repulses him and thinks: ‘I will know nothing of thee, who wouldst guide the kernel of my being into future incarnations where mankind will be outwardly more perfect. I wish to remain united with my present form.’—A man who thrusts from him such a Leader of mankind will appear again in the same form. And if this attitude hardens, then he shall also thrust from him the Leader in the next incarnation. He will appear again and again as the same figure. ... Those who listen to the great Leader of humanity will preserve the soul with its eternal life-kernel. Mankind will have gone forward but they too will appear in an ever-progressive form. He, however, who thrusts the Leader of humanity from him must reappear again and again in the same form. This is the legend of Ahasueris who has thrust from himself the Christ, the Leader of humanity. ...”

Considering on this occasion the lectures which I am having to give just now in Zürich,¹ I am freshly reminded that one can hardly come into touch with the spiritual life of that city in any broad sense at present without giving some attention to what is now called analytical psychology, or psychoanalysis. And various considerations connected with this realization have decided me to introduce what I have to say today with a short enumeration of certain points in analytical psychology, in psychoanalysis. We shall link it then with further remarks.

We have often noted how important it is for the researcher in the field of anthroposophical spiritual science, to connect his considerations with what is offered by the moving forces of our own age. It may be said that all sorts of people who feel drawn to psychoanalysis today are earnestly searching for the spiritual foundations of existence, for the inner realities of the soul of man. And it may be called a curious characteristic of our own time that so many of our contemporaries are becoming aware of quite definite, and most peculiar forces in the human soul. The psychoanalysts belong to those who, simply through the impulses of the age, are forced to hit upon certain phenomena of soul life.

It is especially important also not to remain entirely oblivious of this movement, because the phenomena of which it takes cognizance are really present, and because in our own time they intrude themselves for various reasons upon the attention of human beings. Today they must become aware of such phenomena.

On the other hand it is a fact that the people who concern themselves with these things today lack the means of knowledge required for the discussion and, above all, for the understanding of them. So that we may say: psychoanalysis is a phenomenon of our time, which compels men to take account of certain soul processes, and yet causes them to undertake their consideration by inadequate methods of knowledge. This is particularly important because this investigation, by inadequate methods of knowledge, of a matter that quite obviously exists and challenges our present human cognition leads to a variety of serious errors, inimical to social life, to the further development of knowledge, and to the influence of this development of knowledge upon social life.

It may be said that even less than half-truths are, under certain circumstances, more harmful than complete errors. And what the psychoanalysts bring to light today can be regarded only as an assortment of quarter-truths.

Let us consider a few excerpts from the research magazine of the psychoanalysts. What is called psychoanalysis today had its origin in a medical case observed by a Vienna interne, a Dr. Breuer, in the eighteen-eighties. Dr. Breuer, with whom I was acquainted, was a man of extraordinarily delicate spirituality besides what he was as a physician. He was interested to a high degree in all sorts of aesthetic, and general human problems. With his intimate manner of handling disease, it was natural that one case, which came under his observation in the eighties, was particularly interesting to him.

He had to treat a woman who seemed to be suffering from a severe form of hysteria. Her hysterical symptoms consisted of an occasional paralysis of one arm, dreamy conditions of various kinds, reduction of consciousness, a deep degree of sleepiness, and besides all this, forgetfulness of the usual language of her every day life. She had always been able to speak German; it was her native language, but under the influence of her hysteria could no longer do so; she could speak and understand only English.

Breuer noticed that when this woman was in her dreamy condition she could be persuaded, by a more intimate medical treatment, to speak of a certain scene, a very trying past experience. Now I will make clear to you from the description of the case given by the Breuer school, how the woman in her half-conscious condition, sometimes artificially induced, gave the impression that her hysteria was connected with a severe illness of her father, through which he had passed a long time before. Breuer could easily hypnotize a patient, and when he had placed her under hypnosis and encouraged her to speak of it, she told of an experience she had had during her father's illness. She had helped with the nursing, and always came back to this definite experience. I will quote from the report: [The following quotations are translations of passages from C. G. Jung's Die Psychologie der unbewussten Prozesse. Ein Ueberblick über die moderne Theorie und Methode der analytischen Psychologie, Zürich, 1917.]

“On one occasion she was watching at night in great anxiety and tension, for the sick man had a high fever, and a surgeon was expected from Vienna to perform an operation. Her mother had left her for a time, and Anna (the patient) sat by the sickbed, her right arm across the back of the chair. She fell into a kind of waking dream, and saw, as if issuing from the wall, a black snake approaching, to bite her father. ...”

Men of the present day are always stricken by materialism, so we find in the report at this point the following suggestion, which is of no value whatever:

(“It is very probable that in the meadow behind the house there were a few snakes which had frightened the girl previously, and which now furnished material for the hallucination.”)

That is only an interpolated remark, to which you may attach importance, or not—it does not matter. The point is that the snake seemed to her to come out of the wall to bite her father.

“She wanted to fight off the creature, but was as if paralyzed; the right arm hanging over the back of the chair had gone to sleep and became anaesthetized and paralyzed and, as she looked at it, the fingers changed into little snakes tipped with skulls.”

All this was beside her father's sick bed.

“She probably tried to chase away the snake with the lamed right hand, and so associated the anaesthesia and lameness with the snake hallucination. When this had disappeared she wished, in her fright, to pray, but every language failed her. At last she remembered an English nursery rhyme, and could continue to think and pray in this language.”

The whole illness originated from this experience. From it there had remained the paralysis of one hand, reduction of consciousness in varying degrees, and inability to express herself in any language but English. Dr. Breuer then noticed that the condition was ameliorated whenever he had her tell this story, and he based his treatment upon this fact. By means of hypnosis he drew from her little by little all the details, and really succeeded in bringing about a marked improvement in her condition. The patient got rid of the matter, as it were, by uttering and communicating it to another.

Breuer and his collaborator Freud, in Vienna, who were both influenced, as was natural at this period, by the school of Charcot [Jean Martin Charcot, French M.D. (1825-1893).] in Paris, diagnosed this case as a psychic trauma, a psychic wound, what is called in England a “nervous shock.” The psychic shock was supposed to consist of this experience at her father's bedside, and to have had an effect upon the soul similar to that of a physical wound upon the body.

It must be noted that from the beginning Breuer conceived the whole affair as a soul illness, as a matter of the inner life. He was convinced from the beginning that no anatomical or physiological changes could have been shown, no causes, for example, such as changes in the nerves leading from the arm to the brain. He was convinced from the start that he was dealing with a fact within the soul.

They were inclined in these early days to regard these cases as induced by wounds of the soul, shocks, etc. Very soon, however, because of Dr. Freud's active interest, theories took on a different character. With Freud's further development of the subject Dr. Breuer was never fully in accord. Freud felt that the theory of soul wounds would not do, did not cover these cases, and thus far Breuer agreed with him. I will remark in parenthesis that Dr. Breuer was a very busy practicing physician, thoroughly grounded in science, an excellent pupil of Nothnagel [Hermann Nothnagel, M.D. (1841-1905).] and because of external circumstances alone never became a professor. We may well believe that if Breuer, instead of remaining one of the busiest physicians in Vienna, with little time for scientific research, had obtained a professorship and so been able to follow up this problem, it might have assumed a very different form!

But from then on Dr. Freud took especial interest in the matter. He said to himself: the theory of trauma does not explain these cases. We need to determine under what conditions such a soul wound develops. For it might be said with justice that many girls had sat beside a father's sickbed with equally deep feelings, but without producing the same results. The unscientific layman deals with such problems promptly by the extraordinarily profound explanation that one is predisposed to such symptoms while another is not. Although very “profound,” this is the most absurd solution that can be arrived at, is it not? For if you explain things that occur on the basis of predisposition, you can easily explain everything in the world. You need only say: the predisposition for a certain thing exists.

Of course serious thinkers did not concern themselves with such ideas, but sought the real conditions. And Freud believed that he had discovered them in cases like the following. You will find innumerable similar cases in the literature of the psychoanalysts today, and it may be admitted that an immense amount of material has been collected in order to decide this or that point within this field. I will describe this one case, making it as comprehensible as possible. Its absolute historical accuracy is not important to us.

There was a woman with other guests at an evening party, a gathering of friends to bid good-bye to the mistress of the house, who had become nervous and was about to leave for a health resort abroad. She was to leave on that evening, and after the party had broken up, and the hostess departed, the woman whose case we are describing was going with other supper guests along the street when a cab came around the corner behind them (not an automobile—a cab with horses), driven at a great pace. In the smaller cities people returning home at night often walk in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk. (I do not know if you have noticed this). As the cab rushed towards them the supper guests scattered to right and left on to the sidewalks, with the exception of this one woman whom we are considering. She ran along the street in front of the horses, and all the driver's cursing and swearing and the cracking of his whip could not deflect her. She ran until she came to a bridge where she tried to throw herself into the water in order to avoid being run over. She was rescued by passersby, and returned to her party, being thus preserved from a serious accident.

This performance was of course connected with the woman's general condition. It is due, undoubtedly, to hysteria if a person runs along the middle of the street in front of horses, and the cause of such an action had to be discovered. Freud, in this and similar cases, examined the previous life back to childhood. If, even at an early age, something happened that was not assimilated by the soul, it could create a tendency which might be released later by any sort of shock.

And in fact such an experience was found in the childhood of the woman in question. She was taken driving as a child, and the horses became frightened and ran away. The coachman could not control them, and when they reached the river bank he sprang off, ordering the child to jump too, which it did, just before the horses plunged into the river. Thus the shocking incident was there, and a certain association of horse with horse. At the moment when she realized her danger from the horses she lost control of herself, and ran frantically in front of them instead of turning aside—all this as an after-effect of the childhood experience. You see that the psychoanalysts have a scientific method, according to present-day scientific ideas. But are there not many who have some such experience in childhood without such a reaction, even with the association of horse with horse? To this single circumstance something must be added to produce a “predisposition” to run in front of horses, instead of avoiding them.

Freud continued his search, and actually found an interesting connection in this case. The woman was engaged to be married, but was in love with two men at the same time. One was the man to whom she was engaged, and she was sure that she loved him best; but she was not quite clear about that, only halfway so; she loved the other also, this other being the husband of her best friend, whose farewell supper had taken place that evening. The hostess, who was somewhat nervous, took her departure, and this woman left with the other guests, ran in front of the horses, was rescued, and brought back quite naturally into the house she had just left. Further inquiry elicited the fact that in the past there had existed a significant association between the lady and this other man, the husband of her best friend. The love affair had already taken on “certain dimensions,” let us say, which accounted for the nervousness of her friend, as you may easily imagine. The physician brought her to this point in the story, but had difficulty in persuading her to continue. She admitted at last that when she came to herself in her friend's house, and was again normal, the husband declared his love to her. Quite a “remarkable case,” as you see!

Dr. Freud went after similar cases, and his researches convinced him that the hysterical symptoms, which had been attributed to a psychic “trauma” or wound, were due instead to love, conscious or unconscious. His examination of life experiences showed that circumstances might greatly differ, indeed in the most characteristic cases, that these love stories might never have risen into the consciousness of the patient at any time.

So Freud completed what he called his neurosis theory or sexual theory. He considered that sexuality entered into all such cases. But such things are extraordinarily deceptive. To begin with, there is everywhere at the present time an inclination to call sex to your aid, for the solution of any human problem. Therefore we need not wonder that a doctor who found it to be a factor in a certain number of cases of hysteria set up such a theory.

But on the other hand, since analytical psychology is carrying on a research with inadequate tools, this is the point at which the greatest danger begins. The matter is dangerous first, because this longing for knowledge is so extremely tempting, tempting because of present circumstances, and because it may always be proved that the sex connection is more or less present. Yet the psychoanalyst Jung, who wrote Die Psychologie der unbewussten Prozesse (see the above quotations that are translations of passages from C. G. Jung's Die Psychologie der unbewussten Prozesse. Ein Ueberblick über die moderne Theorie und Methode der analytischen Psychologie, Zürich, 1917.), Professor Jung of Zürich does not share the opinion that Freud's sexual “neurosis theory” covers these cases. He has instead another theory.

Jung noted that Freud has his opponents. Among them is a certain Adler. This Adler takes a quite different viewpoint. Just as Freud tested large numbers of cases, and settled upon sex as the original cause (you can read it all in Jung's book), so Adler approached the problem from another side, and decided that this side is more important than the one that Freud has placed in the foreground.

Adler—I will only generalize—found that there was another urge that played quite as important a role in the human being as the sexual impulse emphasized by Freud. This was the desire for power, power over one's environment, the desire for power in general. The “will to power” is even regarded by Nietzsche as a philosophical principle, and as many cases may be found to support the power-impulse theory as Freud found for his sexual theory.

One need only begin “analyzing” hysterical women to find that such cases are not at all rare. Assume for example that a woman is hysterical and has spasms—heart spasms are a favorite in such cases—as well as all sorts of other conditions. The home is stirred up, the whole environment, everything possible is done, doctors are summoned, the patient greatly pitied. In short, she exercises a tyrannical power over her environment. A reasonable person knows that in such a case there is really nothing the matter, even though such patients are aware of their condition and suffered from it. They are in reality perfectly healthy—but ill when they wish to be. You may diagnose them as well and ill at the same time. They do of course fall down when they faint in a heart spasm, but they fall as a rule on the rug, not on the bare floor! These things may be observed.

Now this subconscious lust for power leads very easily to hysterical conditions. Adler investigated the cases at his disposal from this particular standpoint, and found everywhere when hysterical symptoms appeared that somehow the lust for power had been aroused and driven into unhealthy extremes. Jung said to himself: “Oh well, one cannot say that Freud is wrong; what he observed is there, and one cannot say that Adler is wrong; what he observed is also there. So it is probably sometimes one way, and sometimes the other!”

That is quite reasonable; it is sometimes one way and sometimes another. But Jung built upon this a special theory. This theory is not uninteresting if you do not take it abstractly, simply as a theory, but see in it instead the action of our present-day impulses, especially the feebleness of our present knowledge and its inadequacy. Jung says: there are two types of people. In one type feeling is more developed, in the other thinking.

Thus an “epoch-making” discovery was made by a great scholar. It was something that any reasonable man could make for himself within his own immediate environment, for the fact that men are divided into thinking men and feeling men is sufficiently obvious. But scholarship has a different task: it must not regard anything as a layman would, and simply say: in our environment there are two types of people, feeling people and intellectuals—it must add something to that. Scholarship says in such a case: the one who feels his way into things sends out his own force into objectivity; the other draws back from an object, or halts before it and considers. The first is called the extroverted type, the other the introverted. The first would be the feeling man, the second the intellectual one. This is a learned division, is it not? ingenious, brilliant, really descriptive up to a point—that is not to be denied!

Then Jung goes on to say; In the case of the extraverted type (that of the man who lives preferably in his feelings), there exist very frequently in the subconscious mind intellectual concepts, and he finds himself in a collision between what is in his consciousness and the intellectual concepts that float about subconsciously within him. And from this collision all sorts of conditions may arise, conditions mainly characteristic of the feeling type.

In the case of those who occupy themselves more with the mind, the men of reason, the feelings remain down below, swarm in the subconscious, and come into collision with the conscious life. The conscious life cannot understand what is surging up. It is the force of the subconscious feelings, and because man is never complete, but belongs to one of these two types, circumstances may arise that cause the subconscious mind to revolt against the conscious, and may frequently lead to hysterical conditions.

Now we must say that Jung's theory is simply a paraphrase of the trivial idea of the feeling and the reasoning man, and adds nothing to the facts. But from all this you needs must realize that men of the present are at least beginning to notice all sorts of psychic peculiarities, and so concern themselves that they ask what goes on within a man who shows such symptoms. And they are at least so far along that they say to themselves: These are not due to physiological or anatomical changes. They have already outgrown bare materialism, in that they speak of psychic phenomena. So this is certainly one way in which people try to emerge from materialism, and to reach some knowledge of the soul.

It is, however, very peculiar, when you look at the subject more closely, to see into what strange paths people are led by the general inadequacy of their means of cognition. But I must emphatically point out that men do not realize into what they are being driven, and neither do their supporters, readers, and contemporaries. Thus, rightly regarded, the matter has actually a very dangerous side, because so much is not taken into consideration. In the subconscious mind itself there is a commotion, it is the theories which agitate in the subconscious. It is really strange. People set up a theory in regard to the subconscious, but their own subconsciousness is agitated by it. Jung pursues the matter as a physician, and it is important that psychological questions should be handled from that standpoint, therapeutically, and that many should be striving to carry over the matter into pedagogy. We are no longer confronted by a limited theory, but by the effort to make it into a cultural fact.

It is interesting to see how someone like Jung, who handles this matter as a physician, and has observed, treated, and apparently even cured all sorts of cases, is driven further and further. He says to himself: when such abnormal psychological symptoms are found, a search must be made in order to discover any incidents of childhood which may have made such an impression on the human soul life as to produce after-effects. That is something especially sought for in this field: after-effects of something that happened in childhood. I have cited an example which plays quite a role in the literature of psychoanalysis: the association of horse and horse.

Later, however, Jung came upon the fact that in many of the cases of genuine illness it cannot be proved, even if you go back to his earliest childhood, that the patient as an individual is suffering from any such after-effects. If you take into consideration everything with which he has come in contact, you find the conflict within the individual, but no explanation of it. So Jung was led to distinguish two subconsciousnesses: first the individual subconsciousness, concealed within the human being. If in her childhood the young woman jumped out of a carriage and received a shock, the incident has long since vanished from her consciousness, but works subconsciously. If you consider this subconscious element (made up of innumerable details), you get the personal or individual subconsciousness. This is the first of Jung's differentiations.

But the second is the superpersonal subconsciousness. He says: There are things affecting the soul life which are neither in the personality nor in the matter of the outside world, and which must be assumed therefore as present in a soul world.

The aim of psychoanalysis is to bring such soul contents into consciousness. That is supposed to be the healing method: to bring everything into consciousness. Thus the physician must undertake to extract from the patient, not only what he has experienced individually from his birth on, but also something that was not in the outside world and is of a soul nature. This has driven the psychoanalysts to say that a man experiences, not only what he goes through after his physical birth, but also all sorts of things that preceded his birth—and that all this creates disorder within him. A man who is born today experiences thus subconsciously the Oedipus Saga. He not only learns it in school; he experiences it. He experiences the Greek gods, the whole past of mankind. The evil of this consists in the fact that he experiences it subconsciously. The psychoanalyst must therefore say—and he does go so far—that the Greek child also experienced this but, since he was told about it, he experienced it consciously. Man experiences it today, but it only stirs within him—in the thoughts of the extraverted man, in the subconscious feelings of the introverted type. It growls like demons.

Now consider the necessity that confronts the psychoanalyst if he is true to his theory. He would have to take these things seriously and say simply that when a man grows up and may be made ill by his relation to that which stirs within him—a relation of which he knows nothing—that this connection must become conscious, and it must be explained to him that there is a spiritual world inhabited by different gods. For the psychoanalyst goes so far as to say that the human soul has a connection with the gods, but it is a cause of illness in that the soul knows nothing of it.

The psychoanalyst seeks all sorts of expedients, sometimes quite grotesque. Let us assume that a patient comes and displays this or that hysterical symptom, because he is afraid of a demon—let us say—a fire demon. Men of earlier periods believed in fire demons, had visions of them, knew about them. Present-day people still have connections with them (the psychoanalyst admits that), but these connections are not conscious; no one explains that there are fire demons, so they become a cause of illness.

Jung however goes so far as to assert that the gods, to whom man is unconsciously related, become angry and revenge themselves, this revenge showing itself as hysteria. Very well, it amounts then to this: such a present-day man who is mistreated by a demon in his subconscious mind, does not know that there are demons, and cannot achieve any conscious relation with them because—that is superstition! What does the poor modern man do then, if he becomes ill from this cause? He projects it outwardly, that is to say he looks up some friend whom he had liked quite well, and says: This is the one who is persecuting and abusing me! He feels this to be true, which means that he has a demon which torments him, and so projects it into another man.

Often psychoanalysts, in treating such a case, deflect this projection upon themselves. Thus it often happens that patients, in a good or evil sense, make the doctor into a god or a devil.

So you see the physician of the present day is forced to say to himself: Men are tormented by spirits, and because they are taught nothing about them, cannot take possession of them in consciousness, they become therefore tormenting spirits among themselves, project their demons outwardly, persuade one another of all sorts of demoniacal nonsense, etc. And how disastrous this is assumed to be by the psychoanalysts is shown by the following case which Jung describes. He says: “Certain of my colleagues claim that the soul energies that spring from such torment, must be deflected into another channel.” Let us turn back then to one of the elementary cases of psychoanalysis. A patient comes, whose illness was caused, according to her psychoanalytical confession, by her having been in love, many years before, with a man whom she did not get. This had remained with her. Of course she might be annoyed by a demon, but in most cases observed by the doctors it turns out that something has happened in the individual subconsciousness, which they classify separately from the super-personal subconscious. The doctors try to divert this immature fantasy or to transform it. If a love-thirsty soul can be persuaded to make use of her accumulated affections in humanitarian services, perhaps as head of a charitable institution, it may turn out well. But Jung himself says: “It is not always possible thus to divert this energy. Energies so implanted in the soul have often a certain definite potential which cannot be directed.” Very well, I have no objection to this expression, but wish only to point out that it is a translation of what the layman often discusses, and the way in which he often expresses himself. But Jung describes a case which is interesting, and a good example of the fact that these potentials cannot always be directed.

An American, a typical man of today, a self-made man, the efficient head of a business that he had built up, having devoted himself to his work and achieved a great success, thought then: I shall soon be forty-five, and have done my bit! Now I will give myself a rest. So he decided to retire, bought himself an estate with autos and tennis courts, and everything else that belonged to it, intending to live in the country, and simply to draw his dividends from the business. But when he had been for a time on his estate he ceased to play tennis or to drive his car, or to go to the theater. He took no pleasure in the gardens that were laid out, but sat in his room alone, and brooded. It hurt him there, and there, everything hurt him. Actually his head hurt, then his chest, and then his legs. He could not endure himself, ceased from laughter, was tired, strung up, had continual headache—it was horrible. There was no illness that a doctor could diagnose! It is often that way with men of the present, is it not? They are perfectly healthy, and yet ill. The doctor said: "This trouble is psychic. You have adapted yourself to business conditions, and your energies will not readily take another course. Go back to business. That is the only suggestion that I can make.” The man in question grasped this, but found that he was no longer any good at business! He was just as ill there as at home.

From this Jung rightly concludes that you cannot easily deflect energy from one potential to another, nor even turn it back again when you have failed. This man came to him for treatment. (You know many people come to Switzerland bringing such illnesses and non-illnesses!) But he could not help this American. The trouble had taken too strong a hold; it should have been handled earlier.

You see from this that the therapy of deflection has also its difficulties, and Jung himself offers this example. Important facts are met everywhere which—I now may say—will be successfully dealt with only by spiritual science or Anthroposophy, in accordance with exact knowledge. But there they are, and people notice them. The questions are there. It will be discovered that the human being is complicated, and not the simple creature presented to us by the science of the 19th century. The psychoanalyst is confronted by a remarkable fact which is quite inexplicable by the science of today. In Anthroposophy, together with the information given in my lectures, you will easily find an explanation, but I can come back to the point in case you do not find it. It may happen, for example, that someone becomes hysterically blind, that is, his blindness is an hysterical symptom. This is possible. There are hysterically blind people, who could see, yet do not—who are psychically blind. Now such people are sometimes partially cured—partially; they begin to see again, but do not see everything. Sometimes such an hysterically blind man recovers sufficient sight to see people, all but their heads! Such a half-cured person goes along the streets, and sees everyone without a head. That really occurs, and there are even stranger symptoms.

All this may be dealt with by spiritual science—anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—and in a lecture that I gave here last year you may find an explanation of the inability to see the heads of people. [Lecture given at Dörnach, August 5, 1916.] But the present psychoanalyst is faced by all these phenomena. And so much confronts him that he says to himself: It may be quite disastrous for a man to be connected with the superpersonal unconscious; but for God's sake (the psychoanalyst does not say ‘for God's sake,’ but perhaps ‘for science's sake’) do not let us take the spiritual world seriously! It does not enter their minds to consider the spiritual world seriously. Thus something very peculiar happens. Very few notice what strange phenomena appear under the influence of these things. I will call to your attention something in Jung's book Die Psychologie der unbewussten Prozesse, [see the above quotations that are translations of passages from C. G. Jung's Die Psychologie der unbewussten Prozesse. Ein Ueberblick über die moderne Theorie und Methode der analytischen Psychologie, Zürich, 1917.] recently published, which will show you where the psychoanalyst lands today. I shall have to read you a passage.

“According to this example” (these are examples showing that a man has within him, not only the contents of his present personal life, but far-back connections with all sorts of demonic, divine, or spiritual forces, etc.)—“According to this example of the genesis of new ideas from the store of the primeval pictures”—(here he does not call them ‘gods’ but ‘primeval pictures’)—“we will take up the further description of the transference processes. We saw that the libido, in those apparently preposterous and curious fantasies, had seized upon its new object, namely the contents of the absolute unconscious.” (The absolute unconscious is the superpersonal unconscious, not the personal.) “As I have already said, the uncomprehended projection of the primeval pictures upon the physician involves a danger for the further treatment that must not be under-estimated.” (The patient transfers his demons to the doctor. That is one danger.) “The pictures contain not only the best and greatest of all that mankind has thought and felt, but also every infamous and devilish deed of which men have been capable.”

Just think! Jung has come so far as to perceive that a man has subconsciously within him all the most fiendish crimes, as well as the most beautiful of all that mankind has been able to think and feel. These people cannot be persuaded to speak of Lucifer and Ahriman, [Compare Rudolf Steiner, The Luciferic and Ahrimanic Influences in their Relation to Man, 1918, reprinted in Anthroposophie, Vol. 17, Book 2, p. 159.] but they agree upon the preceding statement, which I shall read to you once more:

“The pictures contain not only the best and greatest of all that mankind has thought and felt, but also every infamous and devilish deed of which men have been capable. If the patient cannot distinguish the personality of the physician from these projections, then every possibility of mutual understanding is lost, and the human relationship becomes hopeless. If, however, the patient avoids this Charybdis he falls into the Scylla of the introjection of these pictures, that is to say that he attributes their qualities not to the physician but to himself.” (Then he himself is the devil.) “This danger is equally serious. In projection he staggers between an extravagant and morbid adulation and a hateful contempt for his physician. In introjection he falls into a ridiculous self-deification, or a moral self-laceration. The mistake that he makes each time is in attributing to himself the contents of the absolute unconscious. So he makes himself into a god or a devil. Here lies the psychological reason why men have always needed demons, and were never able to live without gods—except a few particularly clever Western specimens of yesterday and the day before, supermen whose god being dead, have made gods of themselves, rationalistic pocket size gods with thick skulls and cold hearts.”

Thus you see, the psychoanalyst is driven to say: The human soul is so made that it needs gods, that gods are necessary to it, for it becomes ill without them. Therefore it has always had them. Men need gods. The psychoanalyst ridicules men, saying that when they lack other gods they make gods of themselves, but “rationalistic pocket size gods with thick skulls and cold hearts. The idea of God” (he says further), “is simply a necessary psychological function of an irrational nature. ...”

To describe the necessity of the God-concept in these terms is as far as one can go by the methods of natural science! Man must have a God; he needs him. The psychoanalyst knows that. But let us read to the end of the sentence:

“The idea of God is simply a necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing to do with the question of the actual existence of God.”

When you read the complete sentence you run upon the great dilemma of the present day. The psychoanalyst proves to you that man becomes ill and useless without his God, but says that this need has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of God. And he continues:

“For this latter question” (namely, of the existence of God,) “belongs to the most stupid questions that can be framed. Man knows well enough that he cannot conceive a God, much less imagine that he really exists, or that there can be any occurrence not conditioned by natural causes.”

Now I beg of you, here you find—here you are standing at the point where you may catch at things. The things are there, knocking upon the doors of knowledge. Seekers are also there. They admit an absolute necessity, but when that necessity is stated as a serious question they consider it one of the stupidest that can be suggested.

You see, you have there one of the points in the cultural life of today from which you may note exactly what is always avoided. I can assure you that, in their examination and knowledge of the soul, these psychoanalysts are far ahead of what is offered in current psychiatry by the universities. They are not only far beyond ordinary university psychiatry and psychology, but in a certain sense they are right to look down upon this dreadful so-called science. But one may catch them in any such passage, showing as it does what mankind is actually facing in the attitude of contemporary science.

Many do not recognize this. They do not realize the force of belief in authority. There has never been such faith in authority, nor has it ever reigned so absolutely as in the subconscious mind today. One asks again and again: Just what do you do as physicians when you handle hysterical cases? You seek something in the subconscious mind that is not solved within consciousness. Yes, but you find repeatedly just such a subconscious content in the case of the theorists. If you lift it into full consciousness it turns out to be exactly what has been murmuring in the subconsciousness of the modern doctors and their patients. And all our literature is so saturated with it that you are in daily and hourly danger of imbibing it. And since it is only through spiritual science that men may become aware of these things, many take them up unknowingly, draw them into their subconsciousness, where they remain.

This psychoanalysis has at least pointed out that the reality of the soul is to be accepted as such. They do that. But the devil is everywhere at their heels; I mean that they are neither able nor willing to approach spiritual reality. Therefore you find in all sorts of places the most incredible statements. But present humanity has not the degree of attention necessary to perceive them. We should naturally expect any reader of Jung's book to fall off his chair under the table at certain sentences, but men of the present do not do that; so only think how much of it must lie in the subconsciousness of modern humanity. Yet for this very reason, because these psychoanalysts see how much there is in the subconscious—and they do see it—they look upon many things differently from other people. In his Preface Jung says something, for example, part of which is not bad.

“The psychological processes which accompany the present war, above all the incredible depravity of public opinion, the mutual calumnies, the undreamed of fury of destruction, the flood of lies, and men's inability to halt the bloody demon, are all adapted to set before the eyes of thinking humanity the problem of the restlessly slumbering, chaotic realm of the subconscious. This war has shown pitilessly to the cultured man that he is still a barbarian, and at the same time what an iron rod of correction awaits him should it again occur to him to hold his neighbor responsible for his own bad character. The psychology of the single individual corresponds to the psychology of the nations.”

And now comes a sentence which makes you wonder what to do with it.

“What the nations do is done by each individual, and so long as the individual does it the nation will do it too. Only a change in the attitude of the individual can bring about a change in the psychology of the nation.”

These sentences, placed side by side, show how destructively this thinking works. I ask you if it is sensible to say: “What the nations do is done by each individual?” It would be equally reasonable to ask: Could an individual do it without nations doing it too? It is nonsense, is it not, to say things like that. The unfortunate thing is that even prominent thinkers are impressed by it. And this sort of thinking is not only to become therapy, but take the lead in pedagogy. This again is founded upon the justifiable longing to introduce into pedagogy a new soul and spiritual element. Are conclusions to be accepted which were reached by entirely inadequate methods of cognition? These are nowadays the important questions.

We shall return to the matter from the standpoint of anthroposophical orientation, and throw light upon it from a broader horizon. Then we shall see that one must set about it in a much bigger way, in order to succeed with these things at all. But they must be handled concretely. The problems which as yet have been investigated only by the old, inadequate methods, must be placed in the light of anthroposophical knowledge.

Take, for example, the problem of Nietzsche. Today I will only suggest it; tomorrow we shall consider such problems more thoroughly. We know already from former lectures: [Lectures given at Dörnach, October 14, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28; November 2, 3, 4, 1917.] from 1841 to 1879 battle of spirits above; from 1879 on, the fallen spirits in the human realm. In future such and similar things must of necessity play a role whenever a human life is studied. For Nietzsche was born in 1844. For three years before he descended to earth his soul was in the spiritual realm in the midst of the spirit battle. During his boyhood Schopenhauer was still living, but died in 1860, and only after his death did Nietzsche devote himself to the study of Schopenhauer's writings. The soul of Schopenhauer cooperated from above in the spiritual world. That was the real relationship. Nietzsche was reading Schopenhauer, and while he was absorbing his writings Schopenhauer was working upon his thoughts.

But how was Schopenhauer situated in the spiritual realm? From 1860 through the years when Nietzsche was reading his books, Schopenhauer was in the midst of the spiritual battle that was still being fought out on that plane. Therefore Schopenhauer's inspiration of Nietzsche was colored by what he himself gathered from the battle of spirits in which he was involved. In 1879 these spirits were cast down from heaven upon the earth. Up to 1879 Nietzsche's spiritual development had followed very curious paths. They will be explained in the future as due to the influence of Schopenhauer and of Wagner. In my book Friedrich Nietzsche, a Fighter against his Time, you may find many supporting details. Wagner had up to that time no particular influence except that he was active on earth. For Wagner was born in 1813; the battle of spirits only began in 1841. But Wagner died in 1883, and Nietzsche's spiritual development took its peculiar direction when Wagner's influence began. Wagner entered the spiritual world in 1883, when the battle of spirits was over, and the defeated spirits had been cast to earth. Nietzsche was in the midst of things when the spirits began to roam around here on earth. Wagner's post mortem influence upon Nietzsche had an entirely different object from that of Schopenhauer.

Here begin the super-personal but definite influences, not those abstract demonic ones, of which the psychoanalyst speaks. Humanity must resolve to enter this concrete spiritual world, in order to comprehend things which are obvious if only the facts are tested. In the future Nietzsche's biography will state that he was stimulated by that Richard Wagner who was born in 1813, and took part up to 1879 everything that led to the brilliant being whom I described in my book; that he had the influence of Schopenhauer from his sixteenth year, but that Schopenhauer was involved in the spiritual battle that was fought upon the super-physical plane before 1879; that he was exposed to Wagner's influence after Wagner had died and entered the spiritual world, while Nietzsche was still here below, where the spirits of darkness were ruling.

Jung considers this a fact: that Nietzsche found a demon, and projected it without upon Wagner. Oh well—projections, potentials, introverted or extraverted human types—all words for abstractions, but nothing about realities! These things are truly important. This is not agitation for an anthroposophical world-conception for which we are prejudiced. On the contrary, everything outside of anthroposophy shows how necessary this conception is for present-day humanity!

• 1. Anthroposophy and the Science of the Soul (Nov. 5), Anthroposophy and Spiritual Science (Nov. 7), Anthroposophy and Natural Science (Nov. 12), Anthroposophy and Social Science (Nov. 14).

I felt the need to speak to you about an anthroposophical topic this evening, despite the fact that my stay in Stuttgart should be devoted to other things. Today I would like to share with you something about the relationship between the human being and the world around that person, insofar as this world environment plays a role in the nature of the human being. I would like to shape this theme in such a way that its content can be particularly relevant to many things that need to be considered in the face of the decline of civilization in our time.

If we take together what we have learned over the years from anthroposophical spiritual science about the human being, then much can be summarized for us in that threefold nature of the human being, which has indeed already often appeared before our souls, in the threefold nature of spirit, soul and body. If we look at our present education from the spiritual-scientific point of view, at that which is penetrating more and more into our education today, then we must say that the development of humanity has gradually come to subject only the physical part of the human being to observation. In relation to this consideration of the bodily, we certainly have comprehensive knowledge today and even more endeavor to get to know the bodily in its relationship to the other phenomena of the world. But we live at a time when more and more attention must be paid to the soul and the spirit. Precisely when one looks at the physical so carefully, as is the case with today's usual knowledge, one must actually be led by this consideration of the physical to the consideration of the soul and the spiritual.

I would like to start from phenomena that cannot really be understood today because only the physical is considered, and which nevertheless, I would like to say, are there as great questions before man. When we consider the human body, it fits into the whole order of nature, and knowledge has gradually endeavored to piece this order of nature together from necessarily interrelated causes and effects. The human body is also thought of as being integrated into this chain of causes and effects and is explained from it. This is the materialistic character of our present-day knowledge in the broader and actual sense, that one only looks at natural causes and effects and the way in which the human body is derived from these causes and effects with a kind of mechanical necessity.

But then certain phenomena immediately present themselves to man, which are indeed abnormal phenomena in a certain sense, but which stand there like great riddles, like question marks, if one merely stops at the purely natural explanation according to cause and effect. We see how human corporeality unfolds. The natural scientist comes and seeks the same laws in the human body that he seeks in the rest of nature. He may say that they are only more complicated in the human body, but they are the same laws that are also found in nature. And lo and behold, we see individual laws from which certain phenomena arise, albeit in an abnormal way, which cannot possibly be incorporated into the course of natural events. The materialistic thinker endeavors – he has not yet achieved it, but he regards it as an ideal – to explain ordinary human volition, ordinary human feeling, human thinking or imagining as effects of bodily processes, in the same way that we explain a flame through the combustion of fuel. And it can certainly be said, even if, of course, such explanations have not yet been achieved today, that in a certain way the natural scientist may say that the time will come when thinking, feeling and willing will also be explained from the human body, just as the flame is explained from the burning of fuel. But how should we relate to human imagination, for example, if this view were completely correct? We distinguish between ideas in life that we accept because we can describe them as correct and ideas that we reject because we describe them as incorrect, because we say they are an error. But in the natural order, everything can only follow from the causes and be the proper effect of the causes. Thus, in accordance with the natural order, we can say that error and deception arise from necessary causes in the same way as the correct and justified conception. But here we are confronted with a riddle: why do the phenomena of nature, which are supposed to be all necessary, give rise in man to the true in one instance and the false in another?

But we are even more mystified when we see what we call deceptive visions and false hallucinations arising in individual human beings, which we know to be something that vividly suggests reality without being rooted in it. How can we possibly claim that something is an unjustified hallucination when everything that takes place in a human being necessarily arises from the natural order that is also in him? We would have to ascribe just as much justification to hallucinations as to what we call true impressions and true perceptions. And yet, we are – and we can feel and sense this – justifiably convinced that hallucinations must be rejected as such. Why must they be rejected? Why may they not be recognized as legitimate content of human consciousness? And how can we recognize them as hallucinations at all?

We will only be able to shed light on these mysteries if we look at something else that may initially remind us of hallucinations, but which, according to our perception, cannot be recognized by us in the same sense as hallucinations, and that is the products of human imagination. These products of human imagination arise first from the unfathomable depths of the human soul; they express themselves in images that magically present themselves to the human soul, and they are the source of many things that beautify and uplift life. All art would be inconceivable without the products of the imagination. Nevertheless, we are aware that these products of the imagination are not rooted in a solid reality, that we have to look at them as something that deceives us if we ascribe reality to them in the usual sense of the word. But then we come to something else.

We know the first stage of supersensible knowledge from our spiritual science. There we speak of imagination, there we speak of imaginative knowledge, there we describe how the soul, through certain exercises, comes to have a pictorial content in its contemplation, but which, although it appears as a pictorial content, is not seen by the spiritual researcher as a dream, but is seen as something that refers to a reality, that depicts a reality.

We have, so to speak, three stages of the soul's life before us: the hallucination, which we recognize as a complete deception; the fantasy, which we know that we have somehow brought out of reality, but which nevertheless does not, as it arises in us as a figment of the imagination, have anything directly to do with reality. Thirdly, we have the imagination, which also arises in our soul life as an image or as a collection of images and which we relate to a reality. The spiritual researcher knows how to relate this imagination to a reality through life, just as he relates the secure perception of color or sound to a reality. And to those who say that imagination, real imagination, cannot be proved in its reality, that it could also be an illusion, one must reply: He who has immersed himself in the things of the soul says: You also cannot know whether a hot piece of steel is a real hot piece of steel or merely a thought, a mere mental image. You cannot prove it through thoughts, but you can through life. Everyone knows how to distinguish in life, through the way he comes into contact with external physical reality, the merely imagined hot iron that does not burn you from the real hot iron. And so, in life, the spiritual researcher knows how to distinguish between what is merely imagined in this spiritual world and what points to a reality of this spiritual world through imagination, precisely because of the contact he comes into with the spiritual world through imagination.

Now, one does not understand the relationship of this threefold system, hallucination, fantasy, imagination, if one is not able to penetrate the essence of man in relation to his entire world environment in a spiritual scientific way. The human being is, after all, a being that is divided into spirit, soul and body. If we first consider the human being as he presents himself to us between birth, or let's say conception, and death, then, in terms of our immediate experiences, we have him before us in his corporeality. This corporeality of the human being is only understood to a very small extent, even by today's science. This corporeality is a very, very complicated one. The more one is able to follow it down to its details, the more it becomes a wonderful structure. But the answer to the question: How do we understand this corporeality? - it must come from another side and it only comes to us from the side that spiritual science offers us when it points to the spirit.

But if you take many of the things that have been said in the various lectures of the past years together, you will actually be able to say to yourself: Just as we have the human being's corporeality before us between birth and death, so we have his spirituality, his spirit, before us in the life that the human being accomplishes between death and a new birth. And if we consider the life of a human being between death and a new birth, as I did in the lecture series I gave in Vienna in the spring of 1914, we observe the growth and development of the human spirit in the same way as we observe the growth and development of the human body when we follow the human being from birth to death. It is really so: when we look at the newly born child and then follow the development of the human being, how he develops out of childhood, how he becomes more and more mature, how then decay comes, how then death occurs: we follow the human body in its becoming with our outer senses and combine our outer sense impressions with the intellect. In the same way, we can follow the human spirit in its development if we observe the growth and maturing of the spirit, if we arrive at what I have called in Occult Science the midnight hour of existence between death and a new birth, when we then see its approach to physical life; we then contemplate the spirit, and we must then look at the relationship of this spirit, which actually appears to us in its original form between death and a new birth, to what appears to us here in the physical world as its body in its becoming.

Now, through spiritual research, we are confronted with the significant and important fact that what we experience here as the body, what reveals itself to us as the body, is in a certain respect an image, an external image, a true image of what we observe as spirit between death and a new birth, and what we see as spirit in the way just now indicated is the model for what we see here in the physical life as a body. This is how we must imagine the relationship between the spiritual and the physical. Someone who knows nothing of the life between death and a new birth knows basically nothing of the human spirit.

But when we stand before a human being, as he presents himself to us in the corporeality that reveals itself to us between birth and death, and we then equip ourselves with the awareness that this is an image of the prenatal spiritual, then we ask ourselves: What mediates between the model and the image? What makes the model, which of course precedes the image in time, what makes this model develop in the image? We could perhaps do without such mediation if the human being were to appear completely perfect, if he were to be born in such a way that his spiritual model would immediately transform into the perfect human being and he would no longer have to grow and develop, but would stand before us in perfection. Then we could say: In a spiritual world beyond lies the spirit of man, here in the physical world is the physical image. We relate the physical image to the spiritual model. But it is not like that, as we know, but through birth, the human being first enters into sensual existence as an imperfect being and only gradually, slowly does the human being become similar to his model. Since the spirit only has an effect up to the moment of conception or even a little further into the embryonic life, that is, up to birth, and since the spirit then, so to speak, releases the human being, there must be a mediator, something must be there that, for example, in the twentieth year, takes what had not yet fully corresponded to its spiritual model and shapes it so that it corresponds more and more to its spiritual model. And that which reproduces the spiritual model in the physical is the soul.

And so we find man placed in his entire world environment. We then follow his spiritual existence between death and a new birth, his physical existence between birth and death, and we look at his soul existence as that which the model gradually develops in the physical body, in the bodily image. Then, so to speak, the midpoint of a person's development on earth comes around the age of thirty-five. Then decline sets in. Then, so to speak, the person becomes more and more hardened in terms of his physicality. But that which develops in him is already preparing itself to be absorbed again in its spiritual, purely spiritual, form at death, so that the human being can then live out again in the spiritual form between death and the next birth. What is it, again, that prepares the physical more and more so that it can become spiritual again in death? It is again the soul. This soul-life thus prepares us to be an image of our spirit in the first half of our life. It prepares us to become spirit again in the second half of our life. And so we get the human trinity of spirit, soul and body. This gives us a concrete idea of the relationship between spirit, soul and body. But we also get an idea of the physical, which is clear in itself, which is without contradiction in the sense that it must be. Because if the physical is a true reflection of the spiritual, then all spiritual activities must also be reflected in the physical; then what is spiritual must be traceable in the body in material form. And we need not be surprised that materialism has emerged in the newer knowledge and said that the bodily is the origin of the spiritual. If one takes only that which develops in man between birth and death, namely as imagination, then one finds everything that lives in the life of imagination in the images of the human body. One can follow the human being in the body up to his thinking, and one can come to the delusion of the materialistic view, because one must indeed find those fine ramifications of the bodily organization that come to light in thinking, in imagining.

So one can become a materialist in this way. One can become a materialist because the physical is a true reflection of the spiritual. And when one knows nothing of the spiritual, then one can be satisfied with the bodily, limit oneself to the bodily, then one can believe that the whole human being is contained in the bodily. But this bodily comes into being with the life of the embryo, dissolves after death. This bodily is transient, and all that we also develop as the life of imagination, bound to this bodily, is transient. And yet, it is a true reflection of the spiritual. This corporeality is a particularly true reflection of the spiritual when we look at the activity of this corporeality. We carry out an activity in the fine organizations of our nervous and sensory systems, and this fine activity is absolutely a reflection of a spiritual activity that has taken place between death and a new birth.

And when we now look at this physical activity, when we realize how it is - as I have indicated - mediated by the soul, we have to say: This physicality is an image, a reflection, and we only find the spiritual in the associated spiritual world. Here in this physical world, man, insofar as he is in this physical world, is quite a material being, and in the organization of his materiality, the true image of the spiritual is expressed at the same time. The soul certainly lives in him, which imparts the spiritual, but what belongs to the whole human being is that which lives right up to the embryonic life, which then transforms into that into which the human being in turn transforms after death: the spiritual. The spiritual, the soul and the physical are thus connected.

But if we look at this correctly – just try to see clearly what I have put before you – you will say to yourself: what the human being develops as the power of thinking must, even if only in reverberation, mediate through the soul what has gone before, from the embryo life. In other words, when I have ideas now, a certain power lives in my imaginative life, but this power is not only developed from the body; in the body there is only its afterimage. This power resonates, so to speak, it is a resonance of the life that I spent between death and a new birth before my embryonic life. This life must play a part in my present life. When the ordinary man of today imagines, it is indeed the case that in his imagining lives the echo, the reverberation of his prenatal life.

And how does a person come to ascribe a being to himself? He comes to ascribe a being to himself through the fact that he unconsciously has a realization of it: By imagining, my prenatal being lives on in me, resonates in me, and my body is an afterimage of this prenatal being. If he now begins to develop such an activity himself, which should actually only be developed through the resonance of prenatal existence, what then? Then, in this physical existence, the body, because it is an afterimage, develops something out of itself that is similar to the imaginative activity, but is not justified to do so. And that can indeed occur. When we live and think and imagine in our normal lives, our prenatal life resonates within us. And because the human being is tripartite, the nerve-sense life can be eliminated and each of the other parts can begin to imitate the activity from the purely physical realm that should actually resonate from our prenatal existence. When the rhythmic person or the metabolic-limb person develops such an activity out of themselves without justification, which is similar to the justified imagination that resonates from prenatal life, then hallucination arises. And you can, with absolute precision, if you look at the matter spiritually, distinguish the justified perception, which at the same time, by recognizing it as a justified perception, is living proof of the pre-existent life. You can distinguish it from the hallucination, which, by virtue of the fact that it can be there, that it is the imitation is a living proof that the original it apes also exists, but that it is cooked up entirely by the body and therefore stands there as something unauthorized. For in physical life the body has no right to ape out of itself the way of thinking that should be born out of the spiritual life of prenatal man.

Such considerations must indeed be made if one wants to get beyond those foolish ideas that are now considered definitions of hallucinations and the like. One must look into the structure of the whole human being if one wants to distinguish the hallucinatory life from the real life of imagination. And when the real life of imagination is further developed, when it is consciously taken up and when this consciousness is added to it, so that one not only experiences the echo in the imagination of prenatal life, but when one now quite consciously makes this echo into an image and thereby looks back from the echo to reality, then one comes to imagination. Thus the true spiritual scientist differentiates between hallucination, which is a boiled-out of the physical body, and imagination, which points to the spiritual, which projects itself back into the spiritual, so that one can say: In the hallucinating person the body combines, in the imagining person, who transports himself back from the echo into the prenatal world, the spirit combines; he extends his life beyond the physical existence and lets the spirit combine. In him the spirit combines. Those people who out of prejudice or, as is already happening today, out of ill will, repeat over and over again that the imagination of spiritual science could also be hallucination, they deliberately overlook the fact that the spiritual researcher knows how to strictly differentiate between hallucination and imagination, that it is he who, in the strictest sense of the word, can firmly distinguish one from the other, whereas what is said today in conventional science about hallucinations is everywhere without foundation and ground, everywhere arbitrary definitions. And it is actually only proof that present-day science does not know what hallucinations are, that it cannot distinguish what it encounters as imagination from the hallucinatory life.

Given the character of the insinuations made in this field, one must today already speak of conscious slander. It is only due to the fact that our scientists are lazy about what spiritual-scientific research is that they even bring such things into the world. If they would not be too lazy to go into spiritual science, they would see how strict distinctions are made between hallucinatory and imaginative life in spiritual science.

But one must take this into one's consciousness if one honestly wants to profess our movement, that in our contemporaneity there is the malevolence that comes from laziness, and one must pursue the laziness, which then leads to mendacity, in our contemporary culture to its hiding places; there is no other way for spiritual science today. So that we can say: In the hallucinatory life the body combines, in the imaginative life the spirit combines, and the human being feels completely removed from the world between birth and death when they feel fully immersed in the imaginative life.

The soul stands between the two. The soul is the mediator, so to speak, the spiritual fluid that mediates from the spirit, the model, to the body, the afterimage. This must not be sharply contoured on either side, it must have fluid contours, blurred contours; in contrast to this, one cannot say in a definite way that it is rooted in reality or that it is not rooted in reality. In the case of hallucinations, because they are only cooked up by the body, which however cannot cook up anything real unless it is living in the echoes of prenatal life, in the case of the body and its hallucinations one can say that they are not rooted in reality. In the case of the imaginations and their abstract images, the thoughts, one can say that they are rooted in reality.

With the images that arise from the combination of the soul, with the fantasy images, we now have something blurry; they are real-unreal. They are taken from reality, the sharp contours of reality are toned down, made to fade, made to blur. We feel ourselves to be lifted out of reality, but at the same time we feel that it is something that means something for our inner life, for our whole life in the world. We feel the intermediate state between hallucination, between deceptive hallucination and real imagination in the mediating fantasy, and we may say: in hallucination the body combines, in fantasies in the case of imagination, of which abstract thoughts are the ordinary-life reflection, the soul combines, in the case of inspiration, the mind combines. Here we have the threefold nature of man in his activity and in his relation to his environment. We may say: When we are in the spirit, whether in the shadowy image of thoughts or in imagination, through which we then rise to the higher levels of knowledge, we combine reality;

When we are within the soul and its figments of the imagination, we combine something that floats back and forth between reality and unreality; when the body combines, the hallucinations suggest to us something that may actually correspond to an unreality.

If you take what I have developed now, then you will say to yourself: Yes, an unbiased consideration of the human being provides us with this trinity of spirit, soul and body. And even with regard to what is activated by the human being, we can distinguish in three ways: hallucination, fantasy and imagination, and we are referred to body, soul and spirit. You see, with Anthroposophy you have to penetrate deeper and deeper into its essence to see how it covers the details from its wholeness.

We see how one must first present the division of the human being into body, soul and spirit in a more abstract way, and then how it is filled more and more with concrete content. If you look for the relationships between something that you have presented in this way and the other, you get more and more evidence. But that is necessary in anthroposophical life, that you keep pushing forward and forward. But that is what today's man, who feels so terribly clever, does not love. Modern man does not like to say to himself: I have now read an anthroposophical essay, I have heard an anthroposophical lecture, yes, it is not yet clear to me, but I will wait, I will see what else comes. If he would wait, he would see that progress is constantly being made on other things, and that in the end everything is certain to be true, that one thing will become proof of the other. And to the one who says: If one thing proves the other, then the whole universe is without reason and ground, then one thing always holds the other – to the one who makes this objection, you just say that he cannot accept the description that astronomy gives him of the earth. He is also told that one part of the earth supports the whole and that the whole stands without ground or base. The one who wants other proofs than this support of the one by the other does not take into account that in the case where one comes to totalities, this is precisely the characteristic, that one part supports the other.

What is necessary in order to present anything like what we have developed today before our soul is that people not only talk about the spirit – of course, one can easily talk about the spirit and actually mean blue smoke), but that one speaks spiritually of the spirit, that one is actually grasped by the spirit and that one arranges the one in the world in such a way that the work of the spirit comes to the fore. Someone who only thinks materially cannot distinguish hallucination from imagination and from figments of the imagination when he juxtaposes them. But the one who sees the living spirit in the mediation of the three pulls the threads from one to the other, is filled with living soul content in his way of looking at things, and speaks in such a way that the spirit lives in his words. One should not only speak of the spirit in science, one should let the spirit speak in spiritual science. Please reflect on this sentence, which is indeed very important if the essence of spiritual science is to be understood: One should not only speak about the spirit or of the spirit, one should let the spirit speak in a spiritual way. In this way one becomes free, for the spirit receives one freely and one expresses the nature of the spirit through one's own spirit. One must speak about the spirit in a spiritual way, that is, with fluid thinking, not with hardened thoughts, which correspond to a materialistically thinking science.

But if we take this, then it is, I would say, the very point that leads to the innermost task of our time, and which alone can save us from the decay that is such a strong impulse in our entire present-day civilization. We can say: If we feel completely at ease today with genuine, real devotion to knowing in the world within, then we are led, as if by a world grace pouring over us, to think in such a way that we think spiritually about the world. This is the one that, as a property of world evolution, only came about at the end of the 19th century. Anyone who follows the development of humanity with an open mind will see that the evolution of the world was different before the last third of the 19th century, but that, one might say, the gates of the spiritual have opened and that today, after the materialistic view of nature has celebrated great triumphs, we are faced with the task of looking at the world spiritually again. For rhythmic movement is also the human becoming, through which the individual human being passes in the rhythm of repeated earthly lives. This life is rhythmic. In rhythmic recurrence, man goes through that which once lived out in such spiritual striving of mankind, as it had its peak, for example, in the middle of the 19th century, when man only directed his mind to the material and wanted to explain everything materially , and our present time, when we must return to spiritual contemplation, because if we allow the world to fill our souls without reservation, that soul will be filled with the urge for spiritual contemplation of the world.

That is the secret of our time, I would say. Those who live with the spirit today must realize that the gates between the supersensible and the sensory world are open for earthly existence. Just as the things of the material external world speak to us through colors and sounds, so today a spiritual world speaks clearly to people. But people are still accustomed to letting the old, merely representative material world speak to them, and so they have opened the battle in all forms against the influx of the spiritual way of looking at things. This conflict manifests itself in the materialistic scientific point of view; it manifests itself in the terrible materialistic struggles that convulsed the beginning of the twentieth century. But just as in an earlier period of human development people once aspired too strongly to the spiritual and therefore fell into illusions and enthusiasms that wanted to express the spiritual in their bodies , so he who fights against the spiritual, as basically the majority of civilized people still do, falls into the clutches of the power that today resists the descent of the spiritual into the physical world. And so we have seen looming that which must come to those souls who resist the influx of the spiritual: we come to that which is the appearance of falsehood, which we have seen streaming in so terribly during the time of the world war. It was, however, already prepared beforehand, and we live today in a time when not only does the world resist knowledge, but the world is developing an inclination to tell untruths in a truly dreadful way. And basically, most of what is being said today by opponents of anthroposophy and everything associated with it is untrue. What profound dishonesty is evident in those who today virtually present themselves as the bearers of truth, who call themselves the proclaimers of truth!

Let me give you an example – I always have to use examples that are close at hand, I'm sorry to say: A paper called Stuttgarter Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt (Stuttgart Protestant Sunday Paper) is published in Stuttgart. In issue 19, page 149, the Stuttgarter Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt published a few sentences that included the following, among other things. Someone, a retired pastor named Jehle, had presented something about the anti-church currents of the present day. Much valuable information had been said about monism and freethinking, and then the retired pastor Jehle explained the deeper reasons for the bitterly fought battle against the historicity of Jesus, as waged by A. Drews. He then shed light on Christian Science, which, in the sharpest contrast to the materialistic world view, declares everything material to be unreal, and further: “Steiner's Theosophy, which, in gratitude for his allegiance to the returned Bernhard of Clairvaux, declares Pastor Rittelmeyer to be so.”

Now, my dear friends, a friend of ours has tried to get this matter rectified. The matter was also brought to Pastor Rittelmeyer, and Pastor Rittelmeyer then wrote the following letter to those who had made such a claim:

Well, you see, the Stuttgarter Evangelische Sonntagsblatt did not print the last words at all, about the low mentality and so on, but only the first words, and added:

So it is not admitted that one has spread a lie, but regrets that readers have understood it as if one had counted on the vanity. And now it continues: “As much as we regret, for factual reasons, the promotion of Rudolf Steiner's cause by a representative of the church, the thought of personal disparagement was far from our minds. We also have no doubt that Pastor Rittelmeyer was unpleasantly surprised by the thought of such an appointment by Rudolf Steiner.

So they create the impression that Pastor Rittelmeyer was unpleasantly surprised when he heard that I had appointed him, whereas he explicitly states that he was unpleasantly surprised that such a lie was spread by the Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt.

“Besides, I think our regular readers know us too well to suspect us of intending to personally disparage or even defame them. They also know that we have plenty to do with better and more beautiful work.” – I leave it to the readers of the Evangelisches Sonntagsblatt to judge this.

You see, this is how those who call themselves representatives, the official representatives of the truth, and those whom numerous people consider obliged to represent the truth, work today. One only has to point this out to draw attention to where the tendency towards untruthfulness is today. But there is not yet enough widespread revulsion, not enough widespread disgust for such immorality, for such an anti-religion, which calls itself Christian Sunday worship.

One need only point to a single such symptom, of which hundreds could be demonstrated today, to show where today - and this will get much worse, because we are living in our time - the starting points are that then accumulate into those rabble-rousing performances like the ones that took place at our last eurythmy performances in Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. The same eurythmy performance that was seen here with full sympathy last Sunday was jeered at and whistled at in Frankfurt and Baden-Baden with all kinds of keys and similar instruments, not, of course, out of objective judgment, but out of the coincidence of two things. Firstly, the battle that is being waged on a large scale for reasons that you have probably heard me speak of on many occasions. This battle is being waged against the assertion of the influx of spiritual life into our physical world and is being waged out of the tendency towards untruthfulness. People do not have much time for it, but it must be pursued to its very last hiding place. And the other is the inability that is in league with laziness, with discomfort. When a well-known local newspaper, as I have already mentioned here, wants to pass judgment for its readers, it turns to one of the current authorities, for example Professor Traub in Tübingen; and in one of these articles, as I have already mentioned here, one found very strange words. This university professor, who still has the right today to prepare as many young souls, as they say, for their profession, writes: In Rudolf Steiner's world view, spiritual things and spiritual beings move in the spiritual world like tables and chairs in the physical world! Well, has anyone ever seen tables and chairs moving in the physical world with a sober mind? Professor Traub in Tübingen has the style of writing now that I talk about in my writings that in the spiritual world the entities move like tables and chairs in the physical world. Since he probably does not admit to being a spiritualist, Professor Traub, I at least will not be so rude as to impute to him the other state while he wrote this article, in which one usually sees the tables and chairs moved.

But these are the authorities to whom one turns when one demands a judgment about what presents itself as spiritual science today. These things are just not always stated with sufficient sharpness, and above all they are not thought about and felt with sufficient sharpness by many of our friends either. And again and again we experience it happening that when someone says something against us and we describe him in his whole character, one does not take it badly that he is a liar, but one takes it badly that we say he is a liar. We have experienced this in the last few weeks, one might say, from day to day, here and elsewhere.

One may well speak of an inability when such nonsense is written, as Professor Traub wrote in Tübingen, who also wrote in the same essay: Secret science cannot be a science, simply because the terms “secret” and “science” are mutually exclusive; what is secret is not a science. Now I ask you, if someone writes a scientific book and someone else has the quirk of keeping it secret for a hundred years, is it any less scientific because it was kept secret? It is certainly not scientific because it is kept secret or public, but because of its scientific character! One must really be abandoned by all the spirits of healthy thinking if one can just write such a sentence.

And another thing: here, among ourselves, it is permissible to say that there are some things I must say because, unfortunately, they are not being said enough from other quarters. For many years now, we have been striving to develop an art of recitation and declamation in eurythmy, which in turn goes back to the old good principles of art, again reminding us of what poetry actually is, the art of rhythm, beat, sound, imagery, while in our unartistic time poetry is actually only recited in a prosaic way. They recite the prosaic, the literal, they do not go back to the rhythmic, the metrical basis; and because in our eurythmy we seek what Goethe meant when he rehearsed his iambic dramas with his actors with a baton like a conductor, pointing to the truly artistic in poetry, because we go back from an return from the unartistic to the artistic, that is why the protectors or the people themselves, who today, while pretending to recite poetry, croak and bleat all sorts of prosaic things, they rise croaking and bleating out of their inability and insult those who devote themselves to reciting, who in turn want to bring out the real art of reciting.

I regret that I have to say this myself, but what use is it; if things are not formulated by others, then they must be formulated by me. And I can't help but see in this struggle another form of the struggle of inability, as can be seen, for example, in Traub's thoughtlessness, a struggle of inability of the bleaters against what attempts to be a real recitation. It is understandable that what works out of inability bleats itself or makes its protectors bleat, but we have the obligation to protect spiritual knowledge, and we must, even if it is resented, point out in strong words what is the fundamental damage of our time. Today I have spoken to you about a topic that corresponds to spiritual science, and I had to – well, it was already past our hour, so it was an encore – let my reflections end with something that, in terms of contemporary history, is very much connected to the purely spiritual-scientific main topic. I regret that I have to let my reflections run into such arguments, but we do not live in a cloud-cuckoo-land, we live in the world within, and if we have the necessary enthusiasm, if we feel the sacred obligation to stand up today for the cause of anthroposophical knowledge and its effects, then we must see clearly where the opposition lies, and then, by communicating with each other about these things, we must develop within ourselves the strong will to shine a light into this opposition. For only in this way will we join that which, in the face of decline, leads to a new dawn, which are the impulses that, in the face of the struggle against spirit and soul, want to bring about the assertion of spirit and soul in earthly life. In order to be able to feel together in the right sense in the strong assertion of the power that wants to bring spirit and soul into play, can bring them into play, we must come to an understanding about everything that is against spirit and soul.

I did not want to complain or grumble about the opponents, but I wanted to speak to you to make clear what is necessary for our souls to resonate in the work for mind and soul. I will say more about this when we meet again.